Шарон Ли - Agent of Change

"And it breathed fire and everything?"

"It is possible," he admitted, "that we struck it down before it had completed its graduate work. Indisputably, however, a dragon. I believe it compensated for any handicap attendant to an inability to breathe flame by growing at least three times more teeth than were necessary, and growing them three times longer than I feel was strictly required. Quite terrifying."

She studied his face, sensing a joke of some kind; she caught the barest gleam of what might have been—mischief? "So you and Edger killed it between you," she guessed, "with just a crystal knife and a handful of pebbles."

"No, Edger had a lance. I had a pellet gun, of course, but the thing was so large that it was simply a waste of time to shoot it." He shook his head. "I was stupid with fear and reached for my belt, feeling for a bigger gun. The best thing I had was a flare gun, so I fired at its face. That distracted it long enough for Edger to make the kill. Luck."

"Some people got it all," she agreed, unconvinced. "You sure you're not leaving something out? Or making something up?"

"It happened exactly that way," he said, eyes wide. "Why should I invent it? Edger will tell you the same tale."

"Why do I doubt that?" she wondered and held up a hand. "Never mind. I'd hate for you to perjure yourself." She pointed. "You want that wine or don't you?"

"I would very much like to have the wine," he said, making no move to take it or, indeed, even looking at it. His face was completely sober now, and he kept his eyes on hers. "Miri. Why?"

Ah, hell, she thought. "Why which?"

Val Con pushed the hair off his forehead, brows up. "Shall I determine the order of the explanation, then?" He waited, but she waited longer, and his mouth twitched slightly.

"Very well. Why did you push, not to say entrap me?"

She hesitated, hearing his voice in memory: "It is my intention to tell you the truth . . . ." So many debts, she thought suddenly, all to be paid in kind.

She licked her lips, and tried to explain.

"I wanted to make the point—to make sure you understood—that it might be true that you ain't the person you used to be. But I don't think you're the person you think you are, either." She paused, fighting for clarity. "Everybody who does things, sometimes does things they ain't proud of. It's just that you gotta—gotta learn from it and get on with things and try not to make that mistake again." She took a breath and resisted the temptation to close her eyes.

"And it ain't— right —for you to take the whole blame for the things you did 'cause somebody else forced you. 'Specially not," she concluded in a rush, "when it's clear they've been walking inside your head with combat boots on and screwing around mightily with the wiring!"

His smile flickered. "Why take the burden of proving this point upon yourself? When, whether you choose to believe it or not, I am dangerous and unpredictable?"

"I don't—I don't want you to die ... Being made over to somebody else's specs—that's dying, ain't it?"

There was a small pause. "Perhaps. But why do you care?"

She moved her head, not quite a shake, not quite breaking eye contact. "You said you'd been a Scout— First-In Scout . . . ."

"Yes."

She felt herself tensing and tried to ignore it. "You remember what it was like—being a Scout?"

His brows pulled sharply together. "How could I not?"

"Just checkin'." She kept her voice matter-of-fact. "Scouts ain't the same as spies."

"True," he said calmly. "A Scout must complete quite a bit of training in order to become a spy." He paused, then continued gently, "I have completed all of that training. Miri."

"So you said. But you remember what it was like when you were a Scout and that's more'n I expected—" She cut herself off and began again, on what seemed a tangent.

"You know about friends—there's Edger—and about partners ... okay," she said, apparently now having it sorted to her satisfaction. "I care because you're trying to be my friend. Maybe you don't even know why—that's okay, 'cause I'm your friend and I'm damned if I know why I should be. And we're partners—though it don't look like either one of us is very good at it.

"People," she continued, as one spelling out basic truths, "help their friends. That's what holds it all together. If people didn't help their friends, then everything would fall apart. I'm in favor of holding things together, so I help my friends." She looked at him closely, wondering at the unease she saw in his face. "You understand all that, Tough Guy?"

He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

"Do I lose?" she asked after what her stretched nerves insisted was a very long time.

His shoulders jerked and he looked up. "I hope not," he murmured. He straightened abruptly, smiling into her eyes.

"It is good to have a friend." Picking up the mug, he drank deeply and offered it to her.

She paused with her hand half-extended to take it, searching his face. His smile deepened, lighting the depths of his eyes, and he nodded slightly.

Stomach fluttering, she took the mug and drank what was left, returning his smile.

He grinned and snapped to his feet, bending to offer her his hand. She slid her hand into his.

"Do you think dinner is ready by now?" he asked as they went down the garden pathway toward the flower-shrouded doorway.

"I think dinner's ruined by now," she said. "I never was a very good cook."

* * *

THE DRIVE HAD kicked in half an hour before. Val Con paused as he reached for his mug, his attention captured by a movement behind Miri's shoulder.

The floor was beginning to ripple, shading from brown toward purple. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

"Starting up already? Didn't it take closer to an hour last time?"

His eyes flicked open. "You, too?"

"Think you're special? Though I'm not getting any—oh-oh, here we go." The wall directly behind his head flared orange. "Ugly. Orange never was one of my favorite colors." She sighed. "Damned silly way to make a space drive, anyway."

Val Con sipped wine. "It seems I should have paid more attention in school." He gestured with the mug, encompassing the room at her back. "This is an effect of the drive, you think?"

"Have it on the best authority," she assured him. "Space Drives for Dummies says that the Electron Substitution Drive works on a principle that involves the ability of an electron to arrive in a new orbit before it leaves the old one. So the ship and everything in it—that includes us—must be in two places at once all during the time we're in drive." She took a drink and ignored the fact that the table was beginning to pulse and shimmer.

Val Con was staring, a look of stark disbelief on his face. "Correct me if I'm in error. That means that every electron in the ship and everything in it—including, as I am reminded, us—is firing twice for each individual firing in normal space?"

"Sounds right to me, but I'm a soldier, not a physicist."

He looked over her shoulder at the control room. The floor was flashing wildly now, torn by dark lightnings, while the board oozed violet and magenta vapors, and the pilot's bench glowed blue with serpentine streaks.

Taking a deep breath, he expelled it and said something softly in a language that sounded like glass breaking around a steel maul.

"Come again?" Miri asked, interested.

"Never mind. It is not fitting that the youngest of Edger's siblings hear his brother speak of him so."

"I was thinking about that," she said, finishing off her wine setting the mug on the shimmering table with care. "How different is Edger from us in how he—thinks about—things? Maybe all this stuff happens too fast for him to notice. Or maybe he can't see it at all." She frowned slightly. "Do we see it?"