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

Kamele finished decanting the cheesecake. She handed Theo a fork and took the other for herself.

"Eat," she said. "It seems to me you've earned this."

Theo needed no more encouragement to enjoy cheesecake. Kamele, though, wasn't eating.

Theo put her fork down and looked at Kamele, seeing her fingers twitch, almost as if there were something she needed to say in hand-talk, or as if, as if her fingers wanted shout out in song...

Kamele closed her eyes.

"Theo, I haven't been able to tell you... there hasn't really been enough time..."

Watching the hands again, hearing the nondirection in the voice, Theo realized what she did see: Kamele was nervous!

"Theo," Kamele started once more, moving both hands forward with a flick, like she was passing a ball so someone else could score...

"I want to tell you how proud I am of you," and now her voice was strong, her hands calm. "This trip has been so busy, and I've been too much involved in the things I need to do. Necessity. I was concerned – many times – that you were in over your head, and that I was."

She paused for a sip of her coffee. Theo waited, wondering what this had to do with failing math.

"This trip, you haven't acted like the – the person Marjene claimed you were, full of accidents and immaturity. You haven't been avoiding social situations. You've made friends. You've studied, you've grown so much. And I need to tell you, that I'm so very proud. I'm so pleased that Jen Sar suggested you come with me. You..."

Theo sat up straight, cheesecake forgotten.

"Father what?"

Theo felt her hands demanding explain, even as the words tumbled out of her mouth.

"Are you telling me that Father wanted me to come with you? It was his idea?"

Kamele nodded; for some reason she seemed amused.

"I was going to leave you with him, since Ella was... overcommitted. And asking anyone else: with the complications of Marjene, and the hearing – I needed someone secure. And, well..."

Here Kamele paused, hands showing a touch of that hesitation again.

"He was right, Theo. I couldn't leave you on Delgado – it was too dangerous. He told me that what you needed was to spread your wings."

"He told me local custom demanded that I go with my mother!"

They stared at each other. Both began to laugh at the same moment.

"Theo, you know Jen Sar always plays both sides against the middle!"

Theo nodded, recalling times that he'd made her think something was her idea when surely it was his...

She felt her fingers flicker, and looked down, catching a repeated refrain: good plan, good plan, good plan.

Kamele moved, visibly relaxing, her hands moving briskly, as if she swept crumbs off a table, or finished with an idea. She glanced at the room's chronometer, and stretched.

"Maybe you'd better check with Phobai Murchinson about the times for bowli ball," she said. "You're pushing too hard, Theo. Relax. Tomorrow, the next day, too – take some lectures. Pick a couple, and I'll join you. Take a few days off from math."

Theo looked hard into Kamele's face.

"But the scores..."

Kamele looked back, hard, and held up her hand, first finger extended.

"One," she said sternly. "As a teacher and a scholar I have noticed that, sometimes, the best one can do is to not think about a knotty problem. Brains need rest and diversion. More often than not, when the scholar returns to her vexing problem, the solution is obvious. Two."

She tipped her head to one side, like Coyster considering the merits of a new toy.

"This is the last time I expect to do this," she said slowly. "I am invoking Parental Override. You're on holiday. Go – do something else! Dance, turn somersaults in the hallway, but no more math, not today and not tomorrow. You're on holiday!"

* * * *

Jen Sar leapt sideways, rolling, meaning to get under the furniture and stay there until –

"Wait!" Kylin shouted, grabbing the outworlder's arm. "What are you – we can't kill Kiladi!"

"Certainly we can, and must," the woman snapped, wrenching herself free. "And if the Chapelia have withdrawn their support – "

"Why should they?" Skilings demanded. "The new order will be advantageous to them."

"The new order?" Ella ben Suzan asked loudly. "The new order where the university is in tatters and knowledge is suspect?"

They strode into the room, Ella, Monit Appletorn, Emeritus Professor Beltaire, Technician Singh and five Safeties, restraints adorning their belts.

"What is the meaning of this?" Skilings demanded. "Since when can colleagues not enjoy the company – "

"Matter of public safety," Appletorn interrupted. "Suspicion of intent to harm scholarship."

"And that," Professor Beltaire said in her voice that sounded like a breeze moving over yellowed paper, "is a weapon, Safeties. Please act according to your training."

"And Jen Sar," Ella added. "You can come out from beneath the couch, now."

Chapter Forty-One

Delgado

Theo stepped forward to grab Kamele's case off the conveyor belt, which she managed without bumping into the woman with the inefficient, jabbing gestures, and no sense of balance. That woman grabbed too soon, knocking her bag off the belt and dragging it against the direction of its rollers, missing running over Theo's feet by no effort of her own. Theo shook her head, scanning up the belt for her bag, wincing when the ambient sound system cycled from music to the "Welcome to Delgado" message. She'd hardly been in the terminal half an hour and she'd already had that announcement by heart. If she heard it much more – and it was, she thought glumly, certain that she would – maybe it would just fade into background noise.

Maybe.

Somebody was too close to her left shoulder. Theo shifted and turned her head, finding one of the numerous terminal "helpers" practically in her pocket. This one was not quite as old as Professor Crowley, and portly, the lavender smock with "helper" blazoned across the front stretched too tight over his paunch.

"Confused, dear?" he asked with a smile. He pointed at the exit ramp, off to the left. "Now that you have your baggage, you need to clear the area so that others can find theirs. Would you like me to help you?"

She spotted her case, far up still, riding down the almost exact center of the belt. Theo settled herself like she would for a menfri'at lunge.

"No, thank you," she said, keeping one eye on the target. "My mother asked me to get her case while I was getting mine." Because, she added grumpily, Kamele had to say "one last word" to Professor Crowley, like she was never going to see him again, or something.

"Your mother sent you to get two heavy cases all by yourself?" The helper, whose name, stitched in red on the left shoulder of his shirt, was "Hieri," demanded, sounding absolutely horrified. Theo blinked.

"They're not heavy," she said, mildly, as her bag crept closer down the crowded belt.

"But you're alone," he insisted.

Her case was almost within snatching distance. Theo rose slowly to the balls of her feet, leaned over and snagged the handle, safely clearing the shoulder of a man so intent on rescuing his own luggage that she doubted he even noticed she was there.

"Be careful!" Hieri yelled, but by that time Theo had put the bag down and had hit the button to telescope the handle. She hooked the two bags together with the magtether, turned –

And found her way blocked by the still-indignant Hieri. She stopped, her body dropping into the first, centering, menfri'at form before she had a chance to think.

Wait! she told herself, deliberately relaxing. He's only a busybody.