Шарон Ли - Agent of Change

"Because of?" he asked, though he knew what the answer would be.

"Because of you," she said, and he longed to touch her, so worn did she sound. "He made a mistake. Said the knife you gave me—back in Econsey..." She couldn't finish it.

Val Con took a breath and let it out, very gently. "Edger thought I had knife-wed you," he said, keeping his voice even. "A reasonable assumption, from his standpoint, though I had not spoken to him, as would have been proper in a young brother. The fault is mine. I did not think. And I am sorry to have caused you pain."

He balled his left hand into a fist to keep from touching her and continued. "Of this other thing: Edger would not have named you sister only to rescind the honor. He has accepted you into his Clan. Whether we are wed or no, you carry a blade given you by one of his kin and he considers you worthy of it." He sighed when she still did not uncover her face, and tried once more.

"I can attempt to explain all I know of the tradition and customs of the Clutch and of Edger's Clan, though it will take a bit longer than either of us might find comfortable sitting on the floor here. Will it suffice you at this moment to know that Edger does not allow unworthy persons into his family; and that being named kin is a great burden and a great joy?" He bit his lip and leaned back, wondering if she had heard him at all.

"What this means in practical terms, right now, is: Does the harmonica please you? If so, you must take it and strive to master it, to the betterment of the Clan. It is no less than your duty."

"Yaaah!" Her whisper carried the inflection of a scream. She looked up suddenly and shook her head. "Well, it just goes to show you that things're never as bad as they look. When I started this run, I didn't have anything—no unit, no money, no place to go. Now, when I think I got even less, it turns out that somewhere along the line I picked up a husband, a family and a—what? hundredth share?—in a space rock powered by the looniest drive going. Two families," she amended and snapped to her feet, harmonica gripped tightly in her hand.

"Maybe they oughta lock me up, 'cause I sure don't know what I'm doing." She looked down at him for a moment, then waved her hands helplessly and spun away, marching unsteadily out of the storeroom.

Val Con came to his feet slowly and bent to retrieve the box.

"Three families," he murmured.

* * *

THE BOUNCECOMM BEGAN to chatter, bringing Jefferson, cursing and on the run.

He scanned Hostro's incoming instructions and jabbed the button for a hardcopy. Cursing ever more fluently, he cleared the board and warped a message to Tanser. The machine chattered, went silent, and chattered again before spitting back the message he wanted to send. The ship was in drive.

Curses exhausted, he set the comm to resend the message every ten minutes until received by Tanser's ship, and then sat staring at the screen, stomach tight.

Abruptly, he thought of his son; and, shaking his head, he tried to assure himself that the message would reach Tanser before Tanser reached the prey.

* * *

THE STUFF EDGER used for soap was sand. Miri used it liberally, relishing the minor pain, then unbraided her hair and washed that, too.

Music filled the poolroom, though she hadn't thought a portable 'chora had that kind of range on it. There was, as far as she could tell, no order to the play list. Terran ballads mixed with Liaden chorales mixed with bawdy spacing songs mixed with other things the like of which she'd never heard mixed with scraps of see-sawing notes that sounded like the melodies of children's rhyming games.

On and on and on and on it went: Val Con playing every shard of music he'd ever heard. In some ways, it was worse than the drive effects.

The music broke and came back together, jagged-toothed and snarling, reminding her of the language he'd cursed in. She struck out for the edge of the pool as he added a new element to the sounds he was making—a high-pitched, whispery keening, twisting and twining through the hateful main line, sometimes louder, sometimes not, resembling, it seemed to her as she levered herself onto the lawn, one of the Liaden songs he'd played earlier.

And then it changed, shifting louder, intensifying until the breath caught in her throat: a wail that rattled the heart in her chest and the thoughts in her head.

She reached her piled belongings and crumpled them to her chest. Slowly, bent as if against the stormwinds of Surebleak's winter, Miri sought refuge in the bookroom.

* * *

THE SHIP HAD been at rest for perhaps fifteen minutes when she entered the control room, her hair still loose and damp from her bath.

"I give you good greeting, Star Captain," she told Val Con's back in what she hoped was much improved High Liaden.

"Entranzia volecta, cha'trez," he murmured absently, his attention divided between board and tank.

Miri wandered over to the map table. Avoiding the silent 'chora and the guitar, she set down the cheese.

"How," she wondered, pulling out her knife, "am I gonna learn High Liaden if you keep answering in Low?"

"Do I? I must be having trouble with the accent."

Her brows rose. "You got the makings of a nasty temper there, friend."

He leaned back, hands busy on the board and eyes on the tank. "I am usually considered patient," he said softly. "Of course, I've never been tested under such severe conditions before."

She laughed and sliced herself a sliver of cheese. "Very nasty temper. Sarcastic, too. It ain't my fault you don't remember your milk tongue."

He made two more adjustments to the board and stood, then came over to the table. She whacked off a slab of cheese and offered it to him on knife point. He took it and sat down on the bench near the 'chora, one foot braced on the seat.

"Thank you."

"No problem." She sliced a piece for herself and sat astride the second bench. "What did you say, just then?"

One eyebrow lifted. "Are the roots so different?"

"Oh, I got 'good greetings' okay, but there was another word—sha..."

"Cha'trez," he murmured, nibbling cheese.

"Right. What's that?"

He closed his eyes, frowning slightly. When he finally opened his eyes, he sighed a little. "Heartsong?" He shook his head briefly. "Not quite, though it has the right flavor."

She blinked and changed the subject. "How many languages you speak?"

He finished his cheese and dusted off his hands. "At the level at which I speak Terran—five. I know enough of nine more to ask for meat and bed. And Liaden. And Trade."

"All that?" She shook her head. "And you speak Terran better'n most born to it. Little weird, though, you not having an accent."

He shifted, reaching to take up the guitar and fidgeting with the knobs projecting from the top. "I had one once," he murmured, turning a knob and plucking a string, "but when I was put on—detached duty—it was not considered politic for me to speak Terran with a Liaden accent."

"Oh." She took a breath. "My friend, you ought to chuck that job."

"I am considering it."

"What's to consider?"

"How it might be done." He plucked another string. Twong!

She stared at him. 'Tell 'em you're all done now, detached duty is over and you'd like to go back and be a Scout, please."

Plonk! He shook his head, listening to the vibration of the string.

"It is not possible they would agree to that. I've lived too long, learned too much, guessed a great deal . . . ." Bong.

"They'll kill you?" Plainly, she did not believe it, and he cherished the effort she made to keep her voice matter-of-fact.

He ran his fingers in a sweep across the strings near the bridge and winced at the ensuing discord. Numbers were running behind his eyes: He should not be having this conversation; he should not have helped Miri in the first place; he should not have gone back for her—that was what the numbers seemed determined to say. And now his life was forfeit. He tried to ignore the numbers. CMS was at .08.