Sharon Lee - - Prologue

"We have commit," Theo said.

"Repeat, Pilot."

"We have commit."

There was sound in the cabin, the noise of feet, of a rolling bag, and Theo said "Tranza, strap in, Pilot."

There followed an unexpected melodious laugh, and another, and Theo's eyes left the board long enough to take in the sight of a woman with long fine black hair throwing her hat to the third seat, tying her bags there and flinging herself to the fourth, and Tranza, aglow, dropping into second seat.

"Ninety-two."

The woman leaned in Theo's direction, "Pilot, thank you for waiting. I am, in case you have not been informed, Master Pilot Mayko Ikari, Second Son of House Hugglelans."

Ground demanded attention then, and so did the ship as she did a fine rebalance for the new mass, and she glared at Tranza, to the amusement of their passenger.

"He's like this all the time, isn't he?" said Mayko Ikari from behind her. "But it will be fine, for I have discovered a master trove of music, and he will be singing in strange tongues for the next year, too busy to notice that you are rightly peeved!"

Theo formed a quick hand-sign of welcome , and another, aimed toward Tranza that translated roughly into goat-furred ground-hugge r.

"Glad to meet you, Second Son. I am acquainted with Aito, and—"

"Yes, I know, and that's why I hope to rescue you from Tranza's care. But we can speak later, Pilot. I'd not want to distract your liftoff."

The autocount went on, and Tranza's voice, low, asked—

"What do you have? Dances? Choir? Quartets or trios? I could use some—"

"Belt please, Tranza!" Theo demanded as his seat light was still orange.

The master pilot giggled, Tranza snapped his webbing, and Primadonna lifted.

Thirty-Four

Primadonna

Out from Alanzia

" 'Pilot,' please, Pilot, or even 'Mayko,' if you may be Theo."

The master pilot sat second board while Tranza was off coaxing what he called a "quick picnic" from the small galley. The sounds—especially Tranza's complaints of the limitations of Primadonna 's oven and breadmaker—made it sound like he expected a dozen guests arriving to stay for a week of major merrymaking.

Theo, in the midst of calculating the newest suggestion from the woman because of what Theo considered avoidable congestion in the primary orbit, fluttered a good plan and then wrinkled her nose.

"I can't see why those ships are all over the place . . ." The chatter from those ships was live on all the hailing bands and seemed not to make much sense; lots of ships announcing they had pods and partial pods free, offering to broker, offering to subcontract, and Alanzia control all but throwing up their hands at making the flow of noise and ships work, other than multiple requests to tone down shields and please be sure weapons were offline.

"Many ships are arriving here, which is why we depart posthaste," Mayko said. "We will be much better positioned than they!"

"Positioned where?" Theo wondered aloud, "Is this the point you were suggesting?" she added, shuttling some figures over to the second screen. "I mean, if we need to be out soonest we can just request a release and cut away from the ecliptic; we can avoid the incoming rush and the ship's got the power to make that Jump as soon as we're out of range of anyone else." She sent a second set of figures: "Like this. It's expensive in power, but if time is of the essence . . ."

"Very good idea, Theo; that would work, too, and—well, what we would like is to be in someplace where we can get an advantage on the upwelling of new routes. You're the pilot, after all, so we should be clear what our goals are."

"New routes?"

"Yes, I suppose you are some behind on the news. What we have here are politics going on . . . extensively. The Yxtrang, some time ago they were beaten back from Lytaxin; it was a sudden attack and they were surprised by forces on-world. A mercenary unit was there, and of course Lytaxin is an ally of Korval. It was ill-advised of the Yxtrang, surely, to take on such. Dutiful Passage herself was called from shipping duty to become a battleship, and this . . . unbalanced other routes and schedules. Korval has recalled many ships from their usual routes. No one is quite sure where this is going, but everyone wishes to realize what profit they may!"

"Hah," Theo said softly, almost turning it into a sigh. "So the allies on Lytaxin took their problem to the Delm of Korval!"

"Well, yes," the pilot admitted after a pause, "or to the First Speaker; I gather there is much confusion in the ether about the situation with Delm Korval, but allies are allies, after all. Surely if Korval is arming ships and Liad is in turmoil because of it, there is money to be made in shipping!"

Armed ships were something they'd avoided talking about at the academy, and though she'd twice effectively fired the short range beams Primadonna carried, the pair of victims had been unsuspecting space junk in an asteroid belt, the better to demonstrate Primadonna 's meteor shields as well as its weapons.

Very early in her introduction to the ship Tranza had been really clear that Primadonna was built for agility and speed. "Run, right? Run is the advice I mostly have for you if you get in a spot where people are shooting at you in space. And if someone's running shields, there's no harm in having what shields you have on as well. See here, though, Primadonna 's not a warhorse, and we're not training for combat. We're just checking out the equipment, so you're up on it. No good reason to go shooting asteroids, too; some of them are pocked with gas and dust and can whump up a hell of a geyser on you if you aren't lucky. Best bet is to leave the weapons switches set to off/off/disarmed unless things are dicey."

Tranza ducked his head into view from the galley, waving what might have been a ball of dough.

"If pilots on the board would be so kind, I'd like to have an idea of likely meal schedules this shift. We have a lot to catch up on and I'd like the cooking to be done on time."

Tranza's schedule matched Theo's perfectly; they put the ship on auto, with a master pilot, a first class pilot, and a second class pilot all within quick reach of the boards and nothing but a half-shift's worth of just under one g acceleration on the agenda. The ship was full of the smell of bread, and the picnic was introduced with, "Right, we have two breads and dessert, and since we're just away from the gardens of Alanzia, we're full of fresh salad! I have to say this is a lot better lunch than I got my last shift with Mayko."

His hands were busy with hand-talk between handing over the vittles; Theo picked up something about silly packing errors and always check invoice against items.

Mayko laughed, which she did a lot, though she put her hand in front of her face when she did as if she was hiding.

"Rig put up with a lot with me, you know," she said, waving the roll he'd handed her at Theo as if it were evidence. "He had my training, as he has had yours, and toward the end I was doing all of the ship's ordering. I'm afraid I let my experience at the Howsenda overtake my mind and I ordered by number, from memory . . . we ended up with a five-day of young children's meals for the end of the run."

"Strained fruits and strained imitation meats with imitation sauce and imitation . . ."

She laughed again.

"No, Rig, say true. They were Howsenda meals, so they were all real. And for what they were, they were good."

"Right. They were real good and strained. And not much of them, either."

They bantered their way through two courses, with a remove of coffee for Rig and the master pilot, and tea for Theo. During the meal, Theo several times rose to manually check the instruments and did the same before dessert. It was with dessert that Mayko went from sudden passenger to official business, a flash of hand-talk becoming mission Information follows.