Sharon Lee - - Prologue

"No, but she don't think ," Chelly answered, which she couldn't say wasn't so. "Next thing I gotta tell you—that lace-making thing you're doing. The star map?"

Theo felt her face heat. "It helps me think to—"

"No, no. Hear me say it first, Theo, then argue—right?" He didn't wait for her to nod, just kept on going. "You need to talk to somebody—one of the advisors up—"

"I have an advisor," Theo interrupted.

"Sure you do. And if you'll stop arguing for a second and let me tell it, you'll find out where I'm going with this."

She bit her lip. "Right," she muttered.

"Yeah, that won't last," Chelly said cryptically, pulling a pen and a card out of his pocket. He frowned at the card, flipped it over and wrote something on it. "I'm giving you her name and office number. You go tomorrow, and you ask to get an intro hearing—seven minutes. What you want to tell her is just what you told me, about space not being stable, and what the revisions to the ven'Turas did, got that? Take your lace thing there with you and show it. Promise me. You're not going to say or explain anything else. Just that. Then you wait and you listen to what she's got to tell you, Theo, right? I'll send her an intro tonight when I get back, so she's expecting you—and you're not gonna make me sorry I did this."

"No," Theo said softly, feeling a lump in her chest. "No, I won't, Chelly. Thanks."

"Sheesh," he said, shaking his head ruefully. "I think I like it better when you're showing attitude." He held out the card. "Tomorrow, Theo. Skip lunch if you gotta."

"Right," she said, and slipped the card out of his fingers. "But—"

The door clicked and there was Asu, nimbly avoiding Chelly's bags, her dark face glowing and a violet-and-green lei around her neck.

"We won!" she caroled. "And Chelly is returned to us! The day is perfectly attuned!"

Chelly snorted.

"Close the door," he said, though Asu had already turned to do so. "I was just telling Theo that I'm temp-posted to daily ops. My official berth is here, but most times it'll just be the two of you. Theo's in charge, and she reports to me. We got it all set up, and I cleared it with my mentor and the dean of students."

"Of course Theo is in charge," Asu said, with the false sincerity that made Theo's teeth ache. "Theo is very responsible."

"Theo's First Bunk," Chelly said dampeningly. "Duty of privilege."

"While Second Bunk is a social butterfly," Asu answered, looking down at Theo's lap as she walked by. She shook her head. "Still you sit with the needles? Theo, you must study if you—"

"We been over that," Chelly interrupted forcefully. "Now—" He looked up at the clock, which displayed official school time, and said something under his breath.

"Look, you two, I gotta jet. Theo, you move those bags into my room, then lock it down."

"Why must you leave so soon?" Asu asked. "Duty?"

"As a matter of fact. I'm on the Student Review Board. Vanz Mancha is challenging tonight and it's my watch."

"Challenging?" Asu frowned. "Why?"

"What's 'challenging'?" Theo said at the same time.

Chelly shook his head at both of them. "There's trouble at home, and she's wild to get back there and help out. That's what she told me. And she's gotta go as a pilot, 'cause her folks haven't sent any money for fare. So, she's going to challenge—that's when you call the school's bluff, Theo. You bet you're good enough to walk out of the challenge set a pilot, even if you haven't finished your classwork. It's in the school charter, which I guess you didn't bother to read. Vanz—she's good. She'll be fine." Despite saying so, he didn't look all that certain, thought Theo.

"She'll be fine," he repeated, and shook himself, moving with quick grace toward the door. "Theo, you remember what I told you. Asu, stay outta trouble for a change. I'm gone."

The door opened, and snapped firmly shut.

"I'll make some tea," Theo offered to the closed door, and when it didn't answer she offered the same to Asu, who stood leaning against the wall, her face showing some of the exasperation that Theo felt.

Eleven

Counseling Center

Anlingtin Piloting Academy

"I see your work, Theo Waitley, and I see thought. That is good in a student and in a pilot. The opportunity in this proposition that flight space is unstatic, that I am not clear on."

Theo sat even straighter, looking up at the apparition, as who could not when faced with someone so straight-backed and firm, so immaculately balanced despite the near-aching spareness of her frame, and skin so pale it bordered on a translucent blue. Theo doubted she had ever met a woman so old.

This was Veradantha, who had found seven minutes in her schedule. The counselor had pointedly started the timer on her desk when Theo arrived, and now, it counted down relentlessly.

"These are not so novel, these ideas you have here; the Tables tell the tale, pilots of experience are familiar with these facts. Even these demonstrations you have—true, I have not seen it illustrated thus for the school standard cluster!—even these are used by some teachers and programs elsewhere."

Theo fought a grimace, and then a sigh. It hadn't been her idea that this was all original, just that it was important to her—but Chelly'd put his name on the line with sending her here, so she hoped it wasn't all going to go to dust.

The counselor stepped deliberately from one end of her office to the other—thinking, it seemed to Theo. She paused as she sipped from the coffee cup she held in one hand; bit into the pastry she held in the other. The pastry moved rhythmically up and down for a moment, then caught the cadence of the words, as if it were the pastry making the point and not the woman.

"Understand me, you have insight, and this is good, and it is good that your Senior brought this . . . energy you have . . . to my attention."

The pastry indicated Theo's handiwork, still clutched in her lap.

"I took time, Theo Waitley, to review your visit to the mountaintop."

Veradantha spoke very low, and Theo thought she made "Theo Waitley" into one word, to mirror her own single name.

Theo sighed—would she never stop hearing about that?

But if Veradantha had already reviewed that flight, she must be out of time or nearly so already! It was difficult to drag her attention from the woman, to glance at the chronometer, counting down. Except it was not counting down from seven to zero any longer, but blinking its way up from 4:45, in half-second increments.

"Nothing to say, Theo Waitley? You frowned when I mentioned your feat."

The timer flipped over from four minutes to five. Theo looked up into the lined, quizzical face and nodded once, for emphasis.

"Everyone mentions it, ma'am," she said, as calmly as she could. "All I did was what Ground told me was needed. But I survived and it makes some people think I was showing off. I didn't do it to show off. I don't like people to say so. I guess I'm still surprised that so many people think about it at all."

The pastry, much diminished, moved back and forth for several precious seconds. Veradantha's thin lips compressed into what might have been a hard smile.

"Yes, I can see that. I also can see why the Senior thought the landing worth my attention. So, Theo Waitley, do you enjoy your flying in the Slippers? I will admit that I do, though I cannot find time and energy together to take as many flights as I might."

"Yes." Theo nodded, feeling wistful. "I do like the Slippers. But now they've moved me into power group training so I can't get time."

"The universe is like that, Theo Waitley. When you are good at something, often you must give it up for something you are not so good at yet. This is inconvenient, but true."