Sharon Lee - - Prologue

After her last class, she went past the armorer's, though by then she could barely keep her eyes open. Her gun with its new grip was ready. She tried it, and Tiffy pronounced her "good to go."

Back at the dorm, it was her turn to fix the midweek, in-dorm meal she shared with Asu, the last vestige of their first year together. She laid down, figuring to take a short nap, and woke up, refreshed, and behind time for starting the meal.

Annoyed, she rushed the batch of maize buttons, and almost burned them while she was getting the rest of the meal together. A taste test showed they were a touch on the dry side so she made up a nice moist icing, using the last of her prized bethberry jam, at which point Asu swung in, only a little late, ate a third of the icing before it could get on the maize buttons, and rushed off to her personal comm unit, leaving behind a cryptic, "Theo, you've got to be seen in public to stop all these rumors!"

"Dinner's almost ready!" Theo called at the blank faux wood; whatever Asu was saying, which went on for some time, was muffled beyond recognition. Maybe she was on voice comm.

Now on task, Theo set the table, brewed tea for herself and Asu's special blend of coffee for her.

Asu reappeared, dressed to go partying. Theo stepped between her and the maize buttons, coffee in hand.

"Sit. I serve. You talk about rumors. Clear?"

Asu took the proffered cup, sipped, and sat as Theo brought the meal to the table.

"You know there's been some disquiet among the local Terran population; they have some grievances that they feel aren't being addressed, and they're starting to take action. I tried to introduce you, remember, and bring you along to some of their events, so you could meet people and they could get used to you, see that you weren't a threat?"

Theo sipped. Since they'd moved out of Erkes, it was true that Asu was always trying to drag her off to parties where she promised Theo would meet "interesting people," but—

"You're always too busy . And now look! Things are going to happen—everybody says so. Even some of the instructors are dropping hints that the school's changing direction, soon—and your name keeps coming up when students talk. The local kids think I'm local since I'm not into DCCT. They want to know why I'm still rooming with you when I had a chance to change things when we moved out and got the double together."

"But," Theo began as her hands said stay course, Pilot, "there wasn't any reason to change, I mean . . ."

"See, even there! Theo, you want to go to hand-talk all the time. You double-talk, hands and words at the same time. You started off bad in math and now you're doing special labs and teaching special labs. You get extra flight time—look at yos'Senchul having you haul him up to the little port! So what happens is that with all the political things and the social stuff where you aren't hanging around with your class, but always bucking for more work and more time and . . ." Asu shook her hands—not finger-talk, but simple frustration.

"I don't think you're deliberately trying to upstage the locals, Theo. I think you're just plain not paying attention to life and to society . It shows up all the time. You miss parties because you have work to do. You don't socialize nearly as much as most of us. You miss DCCT stuff, too, I guess, because your Kara is half the time calling here to see if I can roust you from your studies."

Theo took a deep breath, and put her teacup on the table.

"Asu, I'm not here to party. I'm here to be a pilot. And the DCCT people, some of them come from ships, or they've lived their life in trade families. Look at you ; you have a tradeship named after you!"

Asu sat back, blushing.

"I didn't know you knew."

Theo suppressed the hand gesture read the ship lists and said with exasperation, "Why wouldn't I know? I've been reading job postings the last two semesters, for practice. You're going to have a spot to go to when you get out. But my family doesn't have ten tradeships to rub together in one port, and I can't make a living scraping my way up the teaching wall. As a pilot, I am what I am. I can do the math or I can't. I can handle the docking or I can't. When I get out of here, I'm going to be the best pilot I can be!

"This other stuff, the rumors here—I'm only going to worry about them if they get in my way. I don't have the energy for this superiority game. If the locals want to be better than I am, or better than DCCT, then all they have to do is the work!"

Asu squinched her eyes together, hard. When she opened them they looked watery.

"Theo, I'm in a spot. I keep telling people you're really not a bad person. I tell them that . I tell them that you're just really busy. I tell them that . What am I going to tell them now—that all the rumors about my roomie being a spy and a provocateur are wrong? I tried telling them that. "

Asu thunked her cup down hard.

"And they say that nobody's as good as you are. That you have to have help—outworld help. They say that you're part of a Liaden plot to take over Eylot and take over the rights of the local Terrans. And that—is crack-brained, frankly. I mean, if you're too busy to go to a class tea, when would you find the time to be an agent provocateur?" Asu shook her head. "They don't know that, though. They don't know you , and that's what makes it easy to set you up as a target."

Theo stared. "Asu—"

"I think you need to talk to the health people about your stress levels. I really do. And if you won't, you'll be looking for a new roomie for next year, because I have to live here too, and I am not superior to everyone else, and I do not live only for space, and I won't be lumped in with somebody that everybody else thinks is a threat."

Theo pushed her empty cup away.

Theo let her hands say always have a backup plan . "I see," she said quietly. "Thank you. I'll put in for space at DCCT next year."

Twenty-Nine

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

Eylot

Asu was gone.

Always have a backup plan .

Staring at the table, at the uneaten meal, Theo realized that she'd never really had a backup plan when it came to next session, or even to what she'd do over the break. She'd one plan: to graduate, and graduate as soon as she could, with the highest-graded license she could earn. She'd known that she would have a spot at Hugglelans, since she was already on their lists; she'd known she'd have Asu in the other bunk; she knew—well, but it turned out she didn't know.

Theo sat looking at the remains of the maize buttons, then rose and swept them and the rest into recycling and headed for her own room.

Plans. Choices. Somehow that reminded her of Father and the time he'd pointed out the folly of her trying to stay with him instead of moving to the Wall with Kamele.

"To what extent are you willing to fund this choice? How much sorrow are you willing to cause?"

And now, someone seemed to be asking the same kind of question again, but this time she was able to "fund" the choice.

Funding. When she was a kid she'd thought Father had simply meant how would she pay for her school supplies. But that wasn't all he meant, after all, and she knew that now. She had funded her choice through hard work. She'd come here, she'd fought her way through math courses, through red tape and through her own misconceptions. She'd fought with some people and made friends with others. She had, she thought, some allies. People who wished her well, who would help her, and whom she would help, in turn.

She was prepared to live with her decision, and if Asu couldn't live with Theo, then Asu was making a decision. Her decision. Theo hadn't come to the academy to be Asu: she'd come to be Theo.