Sharon Lee - - Prologue

Theo waved her hand— incomplete information here query.

"And similar on Grundig," Bova went on. "And on Grundig, once you make an offer, it stands until the next house-blessing. Got to be careful what you offer to whom there , I tell you!"

More laughter ensued and some maybe not-quite-true stories about friends who had problems with such things, and by the time the stories had worn out, it was late and Theo was surprised at how relaxed she felt.

The second time she'd visited, the ongoing argument in hand-talk was about ships, and about companies you didn't work for, and worlds that were too much trouble to visit so the pilots going there just stayed on ship for the duration. She'd been pleased and surprised to find Kara there—and then just pleased.

She'd gone again, gotten more of the names down. She missed Kara by a few moments that time, but found others to talk to.

It was at DCCT that she found the Book of Clans, supposedly a list of all the Liaden clans and their member Lines. A search on "Korval" had brought her the information that it was composed of two ascendant Lines—yos'Phelium and yos'Galan—and a subordinate Line—bel'Tarda. Clan business interests were given as shipbuilding, trade, piloting, and general commerce. The clan sigil, there at the top of the screen, was a dragon poised on half-furled wings above a tree in full leaf.

"Tree-and-Dragon," she muttered, and brought up the search box. She typed in Moon-and-Rabbit without much hope, but the database obligingly loaded a page for Clan Ixin, ascendent Line ven'Deelin. Clan business interests were trade, manufacturing, and general commerce.

Theo sat back. yos'Senchul had been testing her, then. She supposed it shouldn't surprise her—he was a teacher, after all. Theo, the child of two teachers, knew what that meant.

"There you are!" Kara called, her footsteps brisk across the floor. "We're trying to get up a round of bowli ball. Are you in?"

"Sure," Theo said, slowly.

"What's that you have—the Book of Clans? Research?"

"In a way." Theo turned in her chair and looked up into Kara's face. "I'm trying to figure out why my father would have wanted me to go to—the delm of a trade clan, if I was ever in really big trouble, and why there was a book about—"

"Trade clan?" Kara peered past her to the screen. "Ixin is High House, you know. They'd—"

"Not Ixin," Theo interrupted. "Korval."

Kara blinked.

"Korval?" she repeated. "Are you— of Korval?"

Theo shook her head. "I'm a Waitley of Delgado, from a long line of scholars," she said. "My father, though, said that I should go to the Delm of Korval for really big problems—but only for really big problems. I thought it was a joke for—for a lot of reasons, but apparently, he meant it."

"Well." Kara frowned slightly and hitched a hip up on the table holding the screen. "Korval is—beyond High House. It concerns itself with pilots and with ships, so its interests are . . . broader than the interests of, say, my clan. Most delms solve for the members of their clan. Korval is said to solve for pilotkind. Delm Korval—of course, you wouldn't want to take anything other than life or death to Delm Korval." She paused. "Your father was a scholar, you had said."

"He is. But before that, he was a pilot."

Kara's face cleared. "That explains it, then. He was passing pilotlore. Perfectly reasonable—and good advice, too, though of the kind you hope never to use."

"Oh." Theo thought about it, then shook her head. "There was a book—a book for littlies, Sam Tim's Ugly Day —and it was all about how you didn't take problems you could solve yourself to Delm Korval."

"And very good advice that is, as well!" Kara had said warmly. "There are all sorts of books written about Korval, Theo. Are you in on the bowli ball game, or not?"

The academy shuttle usually landed in a long, relatively flat trajectory from the north-northeast, with a one-hundred-sixty to one-hundred-eighty degree turn to do a final lineup for touchdown. Theo stared off in that direction while Kara, shoulder comfortably against hers, was on comm with someone who was observing from the control room.

Rather than being right down strip-side for the landing they stood on the slight bluff overlooking the field, not wanting to crowd the operations crew and knowing that the ship coming in would take a few minutes to cool down once landed, anyway. Of ordinary traffic—a couple of Sky Kings circled to the west among scattered clouds, and a soarplane was well to the east, bright amidst a clearing sky.

There was movement close by, and Kara leaned into her shoulder.

"Ops says we're all looking the wrong way. The ship is coming straight on in—it isn't orbiting first."

Theo turned, hands slinging straight run, power pilot double double. Kara grinned, sharing the news with the rest of the crew.

"Freck says we gotta watch toward south. Expect a—"

Karroom BOOM ! The field shook, and Bova brought his long-glasses up to search the sky.

Kara laughed, and finished, ". . . sonic boom."

"Got em!" Bova yelled, pointing.

Theo shaded her eyes, staring upward—and there it was, a hard, glittering point with a pulsating beacon that looked larger than the craft itself. It palpably dropped, occasional contrails wisping behind it.

"This is a courier class ship, Team," said Bova. "Ought to be flashy, ought to be about the size of the shuttle or a smidge smaller, they say, closer to a packet boat for those of you from outworlds."

Theo heard chatter from the other team members—"Dropping quick; pilot's got an iron stomach" and "Not a sign of drift and we've got a hefty breeze here!"

Kara read more info from the comm. "Often run solo, the Torvin can carry a crew of three plus three passengers on need, built thirty-seven Standards ago at the Korval-Mugston Yards on the Yolanna platform . . ."

Now the ship was taking shape as a gleaming golden stripe angling rapidly above them, a stripe with shiny wing-tip stabilizers on each end and now the stripe showed a bulge above and behind the central nose, all gleaming gold, the beacon under its nose still bright but now echoed by underwing green and red.

"Still zooming!" Vin said, and Theo felt the landing tension in her arms and shoulder, the thing was too low, too fast, too short of the runway and—

"Ah!"

The relief was vocal across a dozen mouths as the glitter caught the light, the ship flaring out and riding the airwave in front of itself, touching down discreetly after passing over the blast pad and the threshold and somewhat ahead of the persistent dark marks occasioned by generations of student pilots.

Theo still had her mouth open as the sound of touchdown reached her, a barely distinguishable barrup as the ship actually settled, as the golden thing gleamed by at twice the rate a Star King landed at . . .

A sudden hissing reached them as a brief cloud obscured the bright beacons well down the airstrip . . .

"Retros," came knowledgeably from behind her. "Look at that thing slow down!"

The sound of the rocket hiss almost obscured another comment.

"Scouts!" said Bova, lowering his glasses and shaking his head. "You like 'em or you hate 'em, whichever, they sure can pilot!"

Theo stared at the ship, still slowing on the runway.

"Scouts?" she said to Kara quietly.

"Come on, Theo, let's go down!"

The Commander strode by the group, headed toward the Ops room, and so did yos'Senchul, who flashed excellent progress plans move forward to the lot of them before heading in.

"Ops must be crushed," Theo said to Kara. They and the rest of the team were waiting while the distant Torvin was attached to a small fleet of tractors and towed toward the shuttle's usual spot.