Sharon Lee - - Prologue

"Ball!" yelled the third player—a lanky, loose-jointed kid Theo recognized from her General Aviation class. She twisted, getting around the ball just in time, and sweating a little, too. She'd let her attention wander, and that was fatal.

"Out!" The lanky player stepped back, hands down at his side. "Duty."

"Find me later," the stocky boy called, while the girl in the coveralls dove for the ball.

"I can't play!" Theo protested. "I've got too much work to do!"

"A pox on work!" the girl answered, sliding into the grass to grab the ball before it touched the ground. It came out of her hands with a tipsy spin on it, and the boy hooted as he ran forward, one up and to the right.

"Forfeit, Kara!" he yelled.

"Frell if I will!" the girl yelled back. "That ball is in play, sir!"

"Didn't touch!" Theo called, feeling like the boy was trying to get off easy—and suddenly there was the ball again, high over her head. She jumped, and almost lost her balance when the pack shifted on her back. Twisting, she released the ball, skinned the straps down, dropped the pack in the grass—and danced sideways, catching the ball on a dip and sending it whirling back.

"That was fun!" Kara panted cheerfully to Theo. Their third had called duty, grounded the ball and taken it with him as he ran toward the landing field. "A shame we were playing with Vin's ball, eh? If I had one of my own we could have continued."

"Not too much longer," Theo said, scraping wet hair back off of her face. "I've got class." She gave the other girl a grin. "It was fun, though. Thanks for calling me in."

"No, that was Ristof," Kara said, naming the lanky boy. "He had been telling us that you were much better than you walked, and then here you came, stomping across the grass like a dirt-hugger, and the idea just bloomed." Kara pulled the clip out of her hair and shook her head, loosing a perfectly straight cascade of reddish-gold hair down past her shoulders.

"Be careful of Ristof in the clutch of an idea," she said, stuffing the clip into one of the coverall's numerous pockets. "A warning, because you do not play like a dirt-hugger."

Theo frowned, and looked around for her bag.

"What do I play like?" she asked, spotting the abandoned item a surprising distance away. "If you don't mind saying."

"Ah, have I insulted you?" Kara sounded more curious than contrite, walking with Theo toward the bag. "You play, Theo Waitley, like a pilot. More, you play like a pilot who has already flown the stars—I say this as one who has lived her whole life in a House full of such. Indeed . . ." She paused, blue eyes narrowed in her round, gold-toned face.

Theo bent and picked up her pack, shrugging into it.

"Indeed?" she asked.

"It is a thought, only, but it may serve you. I have heard that you have what my so-excellent Terran friends term 'attitude.' That you 'spoil' for want of a fight."

"I've heard that, too," Theo said, remembering Chelly's advice that she lose her "attitude." She turned uphill, surprised but not displeased to find Kara walking with her.

"Such judgments upon your good nature must be lowering. But what can you expect when you broadcast across two bands?"

Theo turned her head to get a good look at the other girl's face, but she seemed serious. "I don't understand," she said.

Kara nodded. "Yes, yes! It is apparent! When you are at rest, you walk—not like a dirt-hugger, but like a Terran . Your eye is bold, your stance is square, and you look—Theo Waitley, you look at everything!"

"If I didn't look, I'd wind up walking into a tree," Theo pointed out.

"Accompany me but a step further," Kara said excitedly. "When it comes to action—to bring a Slipper down on emergency landing, or to join into a sudden game of bowli ball— then , Theo Waitley, you act as a Liaden! You are quick, you are subtle, you grasp nuance—the difference is quite remarkable."

Theo chewed her lip. The sound of an air breather taking off came to them on the wind. Some body was having fun in the sky today.

"My mother's Terran," Theo said eventually. "My father's Liaden."

"That would explain much," Kara said, solemnly. "You speak to one who stands in a comparable situation. My family is Liaden, but most of our associates are Terran. I would advise you in your present state to give Liad itself wide berth."

"Stuck-up?" asked Theo, amused by her new acquaintance's busyness.

"One might say. Not long since, I visited my uncle at Chonselta City—allow me to say that I was compelled! Still, kin counts, and it was thought that my uncle might see me established in a piloting school upon Liad, where the politics are—somewhat less effervescent than we have here at home. It was no use, however; I am tainted from my contact with Terrans, and the distressful fact that my House is situated upon an outworld. It was worth my life to bow—and I have, I assure you, been taught the forms!"

"So you came back and took your scholarship here."

"My uncle could not buy me a passage quickly enough!" Kara laughed, shook her head—and laughed again. "There! You see? A properly brought up Liaden woman does not shake her head. Alas, the habit is altogether too easy to pick up and far too difficult to put down!"

"Your family are all pilots?" Theo asked, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house full of Win Tons and Captain Chos.

"Pilots for hire, the lot of us! Which is what I shall be in my turn, though perhaps," she said, suddenly sounding wistful, "I can convince my mother to allow me to 'prentice at Hugglelans repair yard when I am done here."

"I used to like helping my father work on his cars," Theo said, slowly. "It was fun, but I think I'd rather be a pilot than a techneer."

"Oh, I'll be a pilot, never fear it! But a mechanic who can also jockey ships—that is worth a premium fee! But stay—your father is a mechanic?"

Theo laughed. "My father's a scholar. He teaches cultural genetics. His—I guess you'd say his hobby is cars. He races. There aren't that many techs who know the engines on Delgado, so he fixes his own." She hesitated, then added. "My father's considered a little odd."

"What, because he does his own repairs?"

"No-o. Because he lives outside the Wall in his own house, with a garden, surrounded by things that are— distractions to true scholarship !" She grinned, remembering what Father's answer had been to that bit of high-nosed criticism.

"Pah! That has the feel of a quote! Of course, your father heeded this well-meaning advice to conform himself?"

"Not exactly," Theo told her.

Kara grinned. "Your father's classes are well attended, perhaps?"

"Oh, there's a waiting list!" Theo said, remembering. "Students travel to Delgado just to take his courses."

"I see. Thus, he has melant'i out his ears, and may safely do as he pleases."

"It does seem to work out that way," Theo agreed.

Kara sent her a sidelong glance. "Your father did not teach you to be a Liaden, did he?"

"Why would he?" Theo asked reasonably. "Delgado's Terran."

"True if you say so, Theo Waitley." Kara raised her hand. "I fear that our ways part here. Come find me the next time you want a game of bowli ball—Kara ven'Arith. I'm in Belgraid."

"I'll do that," Theo said, and meant it.

Ten

Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Theo's work screen was three deep in reference chapters, each detailing some aspect of the ven'Tura Tables. Her hands were busy with needle and thread.

The Tables—the original ven'Tura Tables—were just lists: numbered lists of numbers, lettered lists of numbers, cross-listed lists of numbers and dates, and more lists of numbers. They weren't nearly as interesting as their history, and for once Theo was glad she'd been more than a little attentive during some of her mother's informal get-togethers where the always-fluid topic of "the history of history" was under discussion. You could always count on someone saying that "you can't judge past actions by the standards of today; you have to look at things from the perspective of the times." "And," Father would add if he was there, "the culture."