Unknown: Sharon Lee And Steve Miller - Liaden Universe 10 - Fledgling-ARC

The pilot had one hand around the woman's arm, urging her on. He wasn't wearing a leather jacket, but a fringed one, like –

Theo blinked.

Clyburn isn't a pilot! she thought, and looked again.

Gone were the mincing steps and swaying hips, traded in for a pilot's smooth stride.

"What are they doing here?" Kamele exclaimed, and rushed forward, her voice sharp.

"Orkan Hafley, there's a review board waiting for you on Delgado!"

Clyburn dropped Professor Hafley's arm and spun, pilot fast, green tag shining through the fringe. The expression on his face reminded Theo of Fruma, right before he had thrown the bowli ball at her.

"Go away, Kamele," he said, his hand going inside his jacket.

Theo jumped.

She landed between Clyburn and Kamele, her hands out in defensive mode, her feet set firm.

"Don't!" she snapped.

Clyburn blinked, his hand moved –

"Theo!" Kamele cried, putting a hand on her shoulder. Theo twisted, but her balance was destroyed – and Clyburn was running, and Professor Hafley with him, as best she could, suitcase clattering after.

"Stop!" Kamele cried.

Theo grabbed her arm. "Let them go!" she shouted.

Her mother turned and stared. "Let them go? Theo, Chair Hafley has committed an ethics violation that endangers the entire university. She must come up before the review – "

"He was going to – to throw something at you!" Theo interrupted. "He was going to hurt you!"

Kamele blinked. "Surely not," she said, but her voice was uncertain.

Theo sighed.

"Let's get back to the main hall," she said. "You need to talk to your team."

* * * *

The child was admirably light of foot, and fleet, besides. Jen Sar followed at a distance, as an old man might, though he dared to pause only once, where the hall was straight for a length that gave him some hope of catching her again. He leaned lightly against the wall and reached into his pocket, bringing forth a silken handkerchief, which he touched to his temples and upper lip before letting it fall negligently to the floor in his haste to catch up his guide.

She kept scrupulously to the back halls and the service corridors. Possibly, the symbol-bearer had meant thereby to confuse him; possibly, it was the only route the child knew. In neither case did their direction elude him.

That their final destination must lie in the Administration Tower was certain; such a scheme as they had uncovered would need an administrator in it, and a librarian, too. He hardly thought it could be more than two, and then the secret would have to be sealed with fear as well as bribery.

His guide pushed the button to summon a lift, lenses glinting as she turned her head away.

Jen Sar sighed lightly. It would, of course, be most elegantly simple, to deliver him into the midst of the conspirators, and let them each make of the other what they might. The symbol-bearer being no fool, this was doubtless precisely her intention.

It would, he thought, be interesting to see how that played out.

Chapter Forty

Vashtara

Mauve Level

Stateroom

"Chaos driven nidjit," Theo muttered, bent over the datapad that hadn't gotten sent back to the Transit School, after all. She'd sent a message down to Pilot Arman via Melchiza Station's Public Comm, asking how she could return it.

The answer had arrived before she'd gotten back to the boarding lounge.

Consider it a gift, Pilot, with my compliments. Arman.

Which was great – or not, depending on the results of the most recent self-test.

"Why can't you figure this stuff out?" she asked herself, tapping the screen and glaring down at the latest troublesome set of equations.

Kamele, curled into the double-chair while she worked on the report about how the research team had managed to misplace Chair Hafley in transit, looked up, and murmured, "I'm sorry?"

Theo glanced up warily.

"Nothing, sorry. It's about this math."

"Math?" Kamele repeated. "You can't be doing math, again, can you?"

Theo pushed the datapad forward.

"Yes, I can. I'm behind."

Kamele rose.

"Let me see that. Why don't you go to the Atrium and ask them to give you one of those cheesecakes for us to share? The walk will sharpen you up!"

* * * *

"Here," his guide said abruptly. She pressed the plate and turned away before the door was wholly open, walking back the way they had come.

Jen Sar watched her round the corner of the hallway, then stepped through the door and into a foyer. Turning quickly, he tapped the manual override, and eased the door along its track until it was almost closed.

"That must be the Chapelia!" a woman's voice said sharply from the room beyond. "Come in, come in! You're late!"

Jen Sar took a breath, renewed his grip on his cane and walked forward.

Tandra Skilings – the other name he had recognized on the Serpent's list – saw him first; her reaction a mixture of anger and disbelief.

"Kiladi, what are you doing here? Leave at once!"

"Alas," he said softly, bowing as the others turned to stare at him. "I come in the place of the symbol-bearer, who I deduce has... decided on the part of simplicity."

"Who is that?" a woman he did not recognize demanded. She wore a Director's coat, but she held herself more like a fighter than an academic. Her right hand was in the pocket of her jacket, a fact he observed with sorrow.

"I am Jen Sar Kiladi, Professor of Cultural Linguistics," he said gently. "And you are, perhaps, the off-world agent responsible for alteration of certain library records? I hope that you may be; I had particularly wished to make your acquaintance."

The false director looked to Skilings, then to Sub-Chancellor Kylin, standing stiff with alarm at her right hand. "We've made significant progress; we cannot allow our efforts to be nullified by one elderly professor."

She pulled her hand out of her pocket. As he had suspected, she held a gun.

* * * *

"Theo, how did this happen?"

Kamele was standing when she returned, datapad in hand.

"I'm a nidj?" Theo asked, putting the dainty box with its pretty blue bow on the table.

Kamele shook her head. "I used my override for your school book," she said. "It reports that your math scores are higher than average for your learning group. So much higher, in fact, that it has placed you in an accelerated learning program. This – " She shook the datapad, "shows me a list of failed self-tests, multiple re-tests and produces a statement that the student requires remediation."

"I'm a nidj," Theo said.

"Theo..." Kamele said dangerously. "If you have any insight into why there's such a wide gap in the results reported by these two programs, I would very much like to hear it."

"I think it's because that – " she touched the datapad Kamele still held, "is piloting math. Pilot Arman said my scores were low – and tutor! She couldn't believe I'd never had any of this material. She said it was basic!" Theo smiled, mouth crooked. "At least I got to understand how Bek feels about math, in general. But, I had to catch up. It's just that it's being..." She frowned, looking down at the sculpted mauve carpeting. "...a challenge."

There was a small pause. "Your friend Win Ton told me that you relish a challenge."

"Well, I do. I guess. But I like to feel like I'm making some progress!"

"I see." Kamele put the datapad next to the school book and went over to the hospitality unit. Silently, she drew a cup of coffee and a cup of tea and brought them over to the table.

"Sit," she said, placing the cups.

Theo sat. Hospitality tea was pretty good. Not as good as fresh-made, but drinkable. She wondered, idly, if the university could afford to upgrade the kafs in the Wall to hospitality units...