Sharon Lee - - Prologue

Theo started moving, toward DCCT, the dance informing her steps and energy firming her plans.

Two burly students wearing air masks and strike fatigues blocked her path, yelling, "Outsider, outsider, outsider!"

She tried to to duck around them but the crowd behind was thick. The two burly guys lunged; she caught scent of vya as she dodged again. Then there were fists and feet and she responded as best she could.

"There were too many."

Theo was battered, bruised, and tired; she ached everywhere. Her eyes were closed and the touch of hands near her lashes made her eyelids flutter.

"Yes, there were," said a soft and familiar voice. "Far too many. In fact, they got in their own way. Thank you for not killing anyone."

"I was just out for a walk. I—"

"Yes, I know. I was medico for the interrogation. You were quite clear."

"I didn't really hurt anyone, then? I can't see how I could have . . ."

"You did. You hurt several people quite professionally. I salute you."

Theo closed her eyes, realized she'd actually had them open a moment, and recognized that she was talking to the med tech. Healer el'Kemin.

"This keeps happening," she said.

"Yes. It seems that it does."

She came back to that other point, the professional thing he'd mentioned.

"Hurt them bad?"

"You are among the most proficient undergraduates I have had the honor to meet here. Had they come at you in less than waves of six or eight I suspect you could have stood your ground. The security cams will tell part of the story, I'm sure. Certainly they will bear out the fact that you did not charge the crowd to start the riot."

"I can't tell. I'm not sure I remember entirely . . ."

"You will; if you are permitted to see me in the next seven days—and if you have comfort issues about sleeping, do you see me. For the moment the drugs they gave you for questioning have addled you a bit. Be still a moment. Do you feel this?"

"Questioning. Am I under arrest? Riot?"

"Please answer the question."

"Yes, I feel it. That's where my cut is. Or was. That's not cut, too?"

"It is not. I am calibrating your responses."

She tried to say pffft or something similar, but it came out more like a sigh.

"How are my responses, then? What about my riot? Am I under arrest, really?"

Somehow the idea of having her own riot, of being her own riot, was both energizing and ridiculous. She giggled. It must be the drugs. . . .

"Pilot Waitley, you are under security guard for your own benefit. There was a riot. You were at the center of it. I don't doubt the scorecard will make the rounds; three broken arms, several broken noses, multiple concussions. And that is just among those who admit to being there."

"I'm going to be thrown out as a danger to the school!"

"Pilot, please."

She looked up, saw his face serious rather than bland and medical.

"The school, indeed the planet, will take the wrong lesson," he said softly. "Yes, I fear you have it."

She closed here eyes again, realized she was carrying threads of thought at different levels. "Why were they wearing vya ? Will it take seven days for me to stop hurting?"

He laughed, which surprised her, and she opened her eyes.

"Permission, lady, to answer briefly."

She nodded.

" Vya is sometimes used medically, and sometimes as an overstimulant to create concentration or passion. Those of the broken noses were drunk on vya and other such stimulants and were therefore both unconquerable and heedless of danger. As for the seven days, the coming changes have become clear to me and I am among the first to have issued my resignation letter to the academy."

Thirty

Administrative Hearing Room One

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

"My ID is authentic!"

Theo schooled herself to calmness, thinking the dance moves rather than dancing them, remembering that she didn't need to always be ready to fight, feeling the aches that meant she'd just been in a fight.

The Anlingdin student ID wasn't the problem; that checked out. That she'd need to show any ID to get into her own hearing, accompanied by a well-known staff member, was on the far side of enough, already. But the demand had clearly been for "All academic and professional ID, please," and that had surely meant her Guild card, which she'd trumped with the Hugglelans Rotating Staff ID card. That card, too, had been accepted at face value, but the Guild card was another matter.

The guard in the unfamiliar uniform scanned the unmarred ID again, shaking his head.

"It does appear authentic. But it wasn't issued on Eylot, by the registry office here. It didn't go to the planet registry for approval. This one was processed elsewhere, so it didn't have local approval, and it's so recent that—"

"For approval ?" It had taken her a moment to catch that. Theo fought hard to keep her face and eyes turned away from Veradantha, still standing silent beside her. " Local approval? The Pilots Guild is galactic."

Theo saw the guard lose concentration as he looked elsewhere for guidance and finally found it in a man in a business suit who lounged nearby. He moved forward, speaking firmly, to Theo and Verandatha as much as the guard.

"Yes, that has been the process here; any pilot with credentials and training might go to the local Guild office and join. Of late, however, an additional step has been added for those not from Eylot—they must meet piloting standards, of course, but they also must first have a job offer or a job and to get that they must be—"

The guard pointed to Theo's left hand, where the card bearing the crest of Howsenda Hugglelans was clenched firmly against her Anlingdin Academy credentials.

"Guide, the pilot does carry other, appropriate, ID."

The man in the suit nodded.

"You were correct in scanning her credentials, and correct that they are somewhat—out of the ordinary—for a student here. We shall make a note of that. As we should not start proceedings without her, you will admit her." He glanced at Veradantha, not politely.

"You will not be needed, counselor. Please return to your area."

The hearing hadn't taken long. In fact, Theo wondered why it had been called a "hearing" at all, since nobody had listened to her .

She walked—no! She strode . An eager calm infused her, dance was her being. The world went on all around her, voices and sounds, and as in a half-watched but well-known play. The theme of this play was an old one: Theo Waitley, threat and menace.

This episode was perhaps better scripted than the play as seen in her early days, when it was her hapless clumsiness that was cited. Now it was her pure potency that mattered—Theo Waitley, trained in unarmed combat, Theo Waitley, with a history of at least four violent incidents since she'd arrived on campus . . .

Four? There was her riot, of course, and then the incident of the stolen flight hours. But . . .

Somehow, for the purposes of this exercise, her infamous sailplane flight was linked to the general unrest being brought under control throughout the continent by the new policy rectifying the disadvantage and self-disadvantage Eylot had been laboring under. Then there was the recent incident, also linked to general unrest, in which a senior faculty member had intervened.

And now, of course, it was well known that this person with a history of violence was carrying a gun. True, as a pilot she might be permitted a gun, and clearly, she'd had the gun with her during the riot. That she hadn't brought it out and wounded dozens was considered by the panel to be a matter of oversight.