Sharon Lee - - Prologue

Twenty-One

Howsenda Hugglelans

Conglomeration of Portcalay

Eylot

The job fair's promise had been, "Real work for real pay!" and while that had sounded good in theory Theo was surprised at how good it felt in practice now that the term was over. Getting up in the morning seemed easier than at school—though how much of that had to do with having Kara as a roommate instead of Asu, she wasn't sure.

Still, getting paid for something besides good grades was a feeling easily as good as a to-the-second touchdown after a three-hour flight. Kara's consternation at discovering Theo's "secret" and her fervid promise to keep it close was still enough to make Theo smile in private.

"First job? You've never worked before? How can that be?"

There'd followed a near all-night discussion of how silly Delgado could be, what with the only real work being scholarly work, and how having a job that wasn't with the University was something you hid from your records.

Today, Theo's chores for the day were commonplace. The early morning schedule called for inspecting tie-downs and parking clearances on the civil aviation side, with Derryman opting to drive the cart and update the logs while she spotted the gear and attached tension meters to the ties. The craft in this section were a mixed bag of private and corporate with one thing in common: they all paid extra for the twice daily, premium status checks instead of depending on luck and inertia to keep their wings safe.

Derryman did this every workday, and he was a good teacher, in part because he'd been a teacher before he retired. He had not, as she'd first supposed, taught piloting or anything like it—instead he first sold and then taught insurance sales.

"Outside work is good for the soul," he told her, "and a lot better for health, too. With all the steps I get in a day here . . ."

She looked over her shoulder as he lounged back in the cart and flipped a quick walk walk walk when query in his direction before moving to the next tie-down. Derryman laughed.

"You can say that today, but I do this every day, and a lot of the year I don't have no hotshot apprentice pilots to mollycoddle."

She laughed outright this time. For the first five days of the break-shift, Derryman drove the dozen students assigned to him like he was trying to make day laborers out of them. They'd carried cable, rope, tie-twine, twists, pins, and disposable snap readers from one end of the field to the other. They replaced aged and shredded cable tying down display craft, they'd learned the value of gloves—and of choosing the right glove—and they learned to respect the gauge color of the temp strips laid in quiet mosaic on the live strips and launch zones.

Her blisters had healed quickly, but by then two of the students had recalled urgent necessity elsewhere, forfeiting the free meals, camaraderie, and income to return to the academy or to make sudden trips home. The afternoon they left, Derryman had turned up with a bowli ball and a round of flavored ice-gel and declared the rest of the day free and clear.

Once the first week's mollycoddling was done the crews had been given split-shift days, with the mornings given over to outside duties and the afternoons to tasks that varied by the day for everyone—except for Kara, who kept getting assigned to the machine shop, doing what she liked to call "belowdecks stuff."

For all that she enjoyed keeping busy and learning new things, Theo was starting to miss the forward motion of school: here every day was clearly the same for most of the staff and workers.

Derryman, who liked being around pilots and flying things, didn't mind the sameness—in fact denying it, claiming each day brought new wonders and different challenges.

Other than having different fingers jabbed by cable fringe, not much seemed to change, but Theo guessed that being out on the tarmac with a breeze in the face and the smell of the water coming off the nearby lake might have something appealing to it year-round, something like watching the sun come up over the bushes and trees at Father's house on Leafydale Place . . . maybe there was something idyllic in it, after all. It was surprising how, among all the noise and motion of the port, one could stand out in a corner of it and feel basically alone and free, even with craft overhead and taxiing nearby.

She bent under the nose of one of the three Indigo Speedsters on the route, admiring it at the same time the voice in the back of her head told her that it was a toy. Derryman had it right: he'd told her the very first time she checked one that, "The thing only has room for a pilot and her lunch, so it's a good thing it can't fly all that long!"

She knew there was a problem with the tie-strap even before the meter's complaining yeep yeep yeep broke the relative quiet. The strap looked soft , yielded easily to her push . . . and it shouldn't. The meteorologists were calling for more of the seasonal lake-effect storms late in the day and it wouldn't do for something this light to lift and flip in a downpour, or worse, go sliding out into a taxiway to endanger traffic.

Derryman sighed noisily, calling out, "Do the right wing gear and I'll do the left. That's Batzer's Bat and I guarantee they'll all be forty percent light and using last year's recycled cable!"

"Should I call it in?"

"Call it when we have the double check in place."

Right. There'd been some classroom time on these things—always do a double check before disturbing one of the Howsenda's regulars.

Derryman ducked under his wing, a little slowly, heard the expected yeep and then a chuckle.

"Guess I was wrong. This one here, it's only thirty-nine-point-nine-seven-seven percent low on the tension! And look out there—we gotta get someone out soon!"

From Theo's vantage the tarmac and flight lines led to the bright line of the horizon, where blue sky glinted behind boiling clouds going from white to grey.

"That'll be a gozwalla of a front when it gets here, Theo. Call this in—then catch me downline."

* * *

It was a gozwalla of a front, and it arrived far earlier than the usual evening rains, from a vector slightly off from them as well. Wind and precocious raindrops buffeted Theo and Derryman as they finished the run—luckily only the one tie-down had needed attention—and Derryman rushed off, one of his rare pilot signs indicating open windows fragile things home .

The day locker room was crowded with regular staff and the break crew; ordinary activity of the port slowed as local traffic backed up with the storm's approach, and a call came from the Howsenda offering choice chow seating to crew members since several tour craft were rerouting, despite meal prep in progress.

Kara, Theo, and a crowd of regulars, all wearing staff ID of one sort or another, took the underways beneath tarmac and buildings to arrive at the staff lift to the Howsenda, one wag counting the packed crowd and announcing, "We're one shy of the load limit on this ship—should we wait for someone?"

Theo and Kara managed to duck in, Kara hauling Theo to a supposed spot on the left corner, a spot made by the willing shift of other bodies, and the question was answered by someone close to the door.

She didn't know everyone in the lift, though she recognized most of them by sight and placed a few more from the colors or shapes of their badges. The "outside crew," like her and Kara, wore the blue-rimmed large image badges of maintenance staff; others wore the striped orange of mid-level admin, or the brown of back-house restaurant crew.

"Food before limit tests, Jermy!"