Sharon Lee - - Prologue

He hugged her again, which she accepted, just as she accepted their slow spin which brought them to the counter where the glasses were set and the bottle properly breathing.

"Ella is lucky to have you," he murmured, "and so is the Wall. Next year should see honest education out of all of you, with only a double dose of meetings instead of triple. Soon, all will return to normal!"

Kamele laughed softly. "Yes, a double dose of meetings does sound wonderful. It is really hard to remember sometimes that these people are all on our side!"

Soon they touched glasses and sipped, with Jen Sar all admiration of Kamele's attention to the glass.

Good , Aelliana observed, she'll sleep well tonight.

Distraction being the plan, Jen Sar tipped his head in Kamele's direction.

"Shall you read to me now, or shall we wait until after salad?"

"Let's see first if it is something to read or something to watch! Oh, and remind me to send on that clip we have from Bek; I'm sure she'll enjoy it!"

Kamele returned to her bags to retrieve the letter, while Jen Sar watched her.

"Well," he commented, "she's long put soarplanes behind her, so I think we don't need to worry on that score." After a pause, he added, "And really, as pretty a couple as they may have made for her gigneri , I doubt we can expect them to be much of a pair now, with him flying off stages and being an important artist, while she's going to settle on being a mere space pilot."

Kamele looked up from her rummaging to wrinkle her nose at him, and he smiled.

They had, he admitted made a pretty couple, and the gigneri pairing had confirmed both Theo's independence, and her willingness to fly off on her own in pursuit of her own choices.

The letter discovered, Kamele settled on to a stool to peel the plastiskin cover open.

Aelliana's eyesight was no better than his these days, but she dealt with far less distractions; she caught the return routing address as Kamele set the envelope aside.

I haven't thought about that place in years, copilot—Staederport!

"A letter only," Kamele said, squeezing carefully to be sure there were no flatpics or mediachips enclosed. "We can trade reading paragraphs!"

Not quite idly, Jen Sar insisted, "No, no, please go ahead as you will. I'll just see where the letter's been—"

He snagged the envelope, a frisson of concern raising the hair on the back of his neck.

The envelope was franked at the Guild Hall on Staederport, for Pilot 2 Theo Waitley, c/o Hugglelans Galactica/Light Courier Primadonna.

Do you suppose it is still the same storefront, Pilot?

"Dear Kamele," she began, the thin page rustling between her fingers. "I'm sorry to have to tell you that there has been a riot at school, and I've been declared—"

Aelliana had been a courier pilot, as well, and they both read the words and the visible codes with no problem, she computing ahead of him to inform—

Second seat on a working courier, with a box on Staederport! She's—

". . . a nexus of violence!"

Jen Sar was already at Kamele's side, who sat, white-faced, letter crumpled in hand.

"By the mothers, they've destroyed her!"

"Surely not," he said, easing her hand open to rescue the precious paper.

He wasn't certain how long it took, or whether it was his gentle insistence or Aelliana's firmer explanations that finally brought the rage to anger, the anger to acceptance. The wine sat forgotten for a while, and when recalled, was aimed at relaxing a mother's unrequited fury.

"Kamele," Jen Sar said, finally, "I swear to you this is true. The barbarians have not won . Theo may lack her degree, but she holds what she wants. She has her wings."

Thirty-Three

Primadonna

Alanzia Port

Tranza was off on another binge, Theo realized darkly; she'd be lucky if she saw more than a passing wave of the hand acknowledging her dinner arrangements or that he'd be prepared any time soon to "study on" her proposed course and timelines. This time, besides laying out the course and schedule, she'd already had to balance the official delivery loads in their outboard minipods and fine-tune the more sensitive high-value stuff in the pressure pallets. Was that enough? No, then came the rebalance because the local office was shipping "internal matter" set to arrive after they were moved to hotpad, which meant it would have to find space in the tiny passenger cabin.

The last time they'd had "cabin goods," as Tranza would have them, it had been a load of fron , a spice so rare and potent that an amount matching Theo's own mass was sufficient to sustain the Howsenda's needs—the final destination—for a period of years. Whatever it was, it was probably the one thing that had gotten her outdoors—

That was another thing. When the trip came across the board originally it was a straight orbital pick-up from the outermost of the four transfer stations. So, she'd calculated for that on the Jump, getting nothing but an "I can get by with this, I guess" from Tranza. Then, he'd told her to push Jump and she brought them through a day later, within hailing distance and all he had to say while they normalized the orbit was, "Hey, if we can get down there's usually some good play"—and he'd gone off to make a crew-rest request.

Crew rest was a joke; that meant Tranza got to visit friends and influence people while she tended the ship. If she was lucky, he'd bring back a new language module, and they could practice against each other.

If she wasn't lucky, he'd haul in a new set of silhouette training vids, not that she couldn't already identify forty-seven major ship styles and thirty-six uniques, including the top ten trade ships. Diamon Lines Chanticleer City ? No problem. Korval's Dutiful Passage ? She knew it from six directions, even though she'd never really seen it , either. Scout ships? She had them down by the dozen. Fah! That's what came of telling Tranza she'd caught a ghost ship in the screens when he was off-board and asleep. He wasn't going to let up until they found it all legal and ID'd in a sanctioned pack, since he'd taken polite leave to doubt the lacework sketch she'd provided.

Well, at least she hadn't had any repeat sightings in—well, in a good long while.

Once they'd dropped off their initial minipods they got that rest order, so on short notice she'd managed to cut to an inner orbit, and from there to the ground, with Theo getting a grand total of a walk to the local crew store and cafeteria and a visit to the pet library where she got to talk to a norbear for a few minutes between crowds of littlies on a field trip. That'd made her wonder why she'd never seen a norbear on Delgado but it was probably rules made up by the Safties.

The other good thing was that, after she visited the norbear, she'd gotten to see the birds, flying free, something that made her startlingly happy. Birds were oddities on Delgado, and the ones on Eylot were all tiny and stupid, but here on . . . wherever they were—Alanzia it must be. Here on Alanzia birds were protected as treasures, with even ship landings following paths strictly set to avoid nesting areas. Many of them had amazing wingspans and soaring habits that made them look like undergrown sailwings. Only good hearing had prevented her from being run down on the pathways, since she so often just stopped to take in the sight.

And then it was back to the ship, and now she could name Alanzia as planet number twenty-two that she'd set foot on, and likely number fourteen that she'd sat board for liftoff. Somewhere in her personal log she had a complete list of the ports, orbiting or not, and her time at the board and all that—but mostly she was keeping busy.