Changeling (4 page)

Well, and that was generous enough, Ren Zel
thought. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the better the
scheme appeared. They were, as she said, both pilots. Perhaps they
might win through to friendship, if they sat board together. Only
look at what had lain between himself and Lai Tor--and see what
comrades they had become, after shared flight had made their minds
known to each other.

So--"You are generous," he told Elsu
Meriandra. "It would be pleasant to stretch one's wings."

"Good. Let me get my jacket. I will meet you
in the front hall."

"Well enough," he said. "I will inform the
House."

* * *

ELSU'S SHIP WAS A small middle-aged
packetspacer, built for intra-system work, not for hyperspace. It
would also, Ren Zel thought, eyeing its lines as he followed his
contract-wife toward the ramp, do well in atmospheric flight. The
back-swept wings and needle-nose gave it an eerie resemblance to
the raptors that lived in the eaves of the Port Tower, preying on
lesser birds and mice.

"There," Elsu used her key and the ship's
door slid open. She stepped inside and turned to make him an
exaggerated bow, her blue eyes shining.

"Pilot, be welcome on my ship."

He bowed honor to the owner and stepped into
the ship. The hatch slid shut behind him.

Elsu led the way down the companionway to the
piloting chamber. She fair flung herself into the chair, her hands
flying across the board, rousing systems, initiating checks. From
the edge of the chamber, Ren Zel watched as she woke her ship, her
motions nearer frenzy than the smooth control his teachers had bade
him strive to achieve.

She turned in the pilot's chair, her face
flushed, eyes brilliantly blue, and raised a hand to beckon him
forward.

"Come, come! Second board awaits you, as we
agreed! Sit and make yourself known to the ship!" Her high voice
carried a note that seemed to echo the frenzy of her board-run and
Ren Zel hesitated a moment longer, not quite trusting--

"So an intra-system is not to your liking?"
she inquired, her voice sharp with ridicule. "Perhaps the legendary
Ren Zel dea'Judan flies only Jumpships."

That stung, and he very nearly answered in
kind. Then he recalled her as she had been the night before,
inflicting her hurts, tempting him, or so it seemed, to hurt her in
return--and he made his answer mild.

"Indeed, I took my second class on just such
a ship as this," he said and walked forward at last to sit in the
co-pilot's chair.

She glanced at him out of the edge of her
eyes. "Forgive me, Pilot. I am not usually so sharp. The lift will
improve my temper."

He could think of nothing
to say to that and covered this lapse by sliding his license into
the slot. There was a moment's considering pause from the ship's
computer, then his board came live with a
beep
. Ren Zel initiated systems
check.

Elsu Meriandra was already on line to the
Tower, requesting clearance. "On business of Clan Jabun," Ren Zel
heard and spun in his chair to stare at her. To characterize a mere
pleasure-lift as--

His wife cut the connection to the Tower,
looked over to him and laughed. "Oh, wonderful! And say you have
never told Tower that a certain lift was just a little more urgent
than the facts supported!"

"And yet we are not on the business of Clan
Jabun," Ren Zel pointed out, remembering to speak mildly.

"Pah!" she returned, her fingers dancing
across the board, waking the gyros and the navcomp. "It is
certainly in the best interest of Jabun that one of its children
not deteriorate into a jittercase, for cause of being worldbound."
She leaned back in the pilot's chair and sighed. "Ah, but it will
be fine to lift, will it not, Pilot?"

"Yes," Ren Zel said truthfully. "Whither
bound, Pilot?"

"Just into orbit, I think, and a long skim
down. Do you fancy a late-night dinner at Head o'Port when we are
through?"

Ren Zel's entire quartershare was
insufficient to purchase a dinner at Head o'Port, which he rather
thought she knew.

"Why not a glass and a dinner at Findoir's?
There are bound to be some few of our comrades there."

She moved her shoulders. The comm beeped and
she flipped the toggle.

"
Dancer
."

While she listened to Tower's instruction,
Ren Zel finished his board checks and, seeing that she was feeding
coords into her side, reached 'round to engage the shock
webbing.

"Pilot?" he inquired, when she made no move
to do the same.

"Eh?" She blinked at him, then smiled. "Oh, I
often fly unwebbed! It enhances the pleasure immeasurably."

Perhaps it did, but it was also against every
regulation he could think of. He opened his mouth to say so, but
she waved a slim hand at him.

"No, do not say it! Regulation is all very
well when one is flying contract, but this is pleasure, and I
intend to be pleased!" She turned back to her board. The seconds to
lift were counting down on the center board. Ren Zel ran another
quick, unobtrusive check, then Elsu hit the engage and they were
rising.

It was a fine, blood-warming thing, that
lift. Elsu flew at the very edge of her craft's limits and Ren Zel
found plenty to do as second board. He found her rhythm at last and
matched it, the two of them putting the packet through its paces.
They circled Casia twice, hand-flying, rather than let the
automatics have it. Ren Zel was utterly absorbed by the task,
caught up entirely in the other pilot's necessity, enwrapped in
that state of vivid concentration that comes when one is flying
well, in tune with one's flight-partner, and--

His board went dead.

Automatically, his hand flashed out, slapping
the toggle for the back-up board.

Nothing happened.

"Be at ease, Pilot!" Elsu Meriandra murmured,
next to him. "I have your board safe. And now we shall have us a
marvelous skim!"

She'd overridden him. Ren Zel felt panic boil
in his belly, forced himself to breathe deeply, to impose calm. He
was second board on a ship owned by the pilot sitting first. As
first, she had overridden his board. It was her right to do so, for
any reason, or for none--regulations and custom backed her on
this.

So, he breathed deeply, as he had been
taught, and leaned back in his chair, the shock web snug around
him, watching the descent on the screens.

Elsu's path of re-entry was steep--Ren Zel
had once seen a tape of a Scout descent that was remarkably like
the course she had chosen. She sat close over the board, unwebbed,
her face intent, a fever-glitter in her eyes, her hands hurtling
across her board, fingers flickering, frenzy just barely
contained.

Ren Zel recruited his
patience, watching the screens, the descent entirely out of his
hands. Gods, how long since he had sat
passenger
, wholly dependent on
another pilot's skill?

The ship hit atmosphere and turbulence in the
same instant. There was a bump, and a twitch. Ren Zel flicked
forward, hands on his useless board--and sat back as Elsu made the
recover and threw him an unreadable look from over-brilliant blue
eyes.

"Enjoy the skim, Pilot," she said. "Unless
you doubt my skill?"

Well, no. She flew like a madwoman, true
enough, but she had caught that boggle just a moment ago very
smoothly, indeed.

The skim continued, and steeper still, until
Ren Zel was certain that it was the old Scout tape she had
fashioned her course upon.

He looked to the board, read hull-heat and
external pressure, and did not say to the woman beside him that an
old packet was never the equal of a Scout ship. She would have to
level out soon, and take the rest of the skim at a shallow glide,
until they had bled sufficient momentum to safely land.

She had not yet leveled out when they hit a
second bit of turbulence, this more demanding than the first. The
ship bucked, twisted--again Ren Zel snapped to his dead board, and
again the pilot on first corrected the boggle and flew on.

Moments passed, and still Elsu did not level
their course.

Ren Zel leaned forward, checking gauges and
tell-tales, feeling his stomach tighten.

"Pilot," he said moderately, "we must adjust
course."

She threw him a glance. "Must we?" she asked,
dulcet. "But I am flying this ship, Ren Zel dea'Judan."

"Indeed you are. However, if we do not level
soon, even a pilot as skilled as yourself will find
it--difficult--to pull out. This ship was not built for such
entries."

"This ship," she stated, "will do what I wish
it to do." Incredibly, she kept her course.

Ren Zel looked to the screens. They were
passing over the ocean, near enough that he could see the v-wakes
of the sea-ships, and, then, creeping into the edge of screen four,
towering thunderheads where the water met the land.

"Pilot," he said, but Elsu had seen them.

"Aha! Now you shall see flying!"

They pierced the storm in a suicide rush;
winds cycled, slapping them into a spin, Elsu corrected, and
lightning flared, leaving screen three dead.

"Give me my board!" Ren Zel cried. "Pilot, as
you love your life--"

She threw him a look in which he had no
trouble reading hatred, and the wind struck again, slamming them
near into a somersault in the instant her hand slapped the toggle.
The cabin lights flickered as Ren Zel's board came live, and there
was a short, snapped-off scream.

Poised over the board, he fought--fought the
ship, fought the wind, fought his own velocity. The wind tossed the
ship like so many flower petals, and they tumbled again. Ren Zel
fought, steadied his craft and passed out of the storm, into a
dazzle of sunlight and the realization that the ground was much too
close.

He slapped toggles, got the nose up, rose,
rose--

His board snapped and fizzed--desperately, he
slapped the toggle for the secondary back-up.

There was none.

The ship screamed like a live thing when it
slammed into the ground.

* * *

ON THE MORNING OF his third day out of the
healing unit and his second day at home, his sister Eba brought him
fresh clothes, all neatly folded and smelling of sunshine. Her face
was strained, her eyes red with weeping.

"You are called to the meeting between Obrelt
and Jabun next hour, brother," she said, her voice husky and low.
"Aunt Chane will come for you."

Ren Zel went forward a step, hand
outstretched to the first of his kin he had seen or spoken to since
the accident. "Eba?"

But she would not take his hand, she turned
her face from him and all but ran from the room. The door closed
behind her with the wearisome, too-familiar sound of the lock
snapping to.

Next hour. In a very short
time, he would know the outcome of Jabun's pursuit of Balance,
though what Balance they might reasonably take remained, after
three full days of thought on the matter, a mystery to him. The
Guild would surely have recovered the flight box. They would have
run the tape, built a sim,
proven
that it had been an accident, with no malice
attached. A tragedy, surely, for Jabun to lose a daughter. A double
tragedy, that she should die while in Obrelt's keeping. There would
be the life-price to pay, but--Balance?

He considered the computer in its alcove near
the window. Perhaps today he would be allowed to access the nets,
to find what the world knew of this?

But no, he was a pilot and a pilot's
understanding was quicker than that. He knew well enough the
conditions of his tenure here. All praise to Terran poetry, he even
knew the proper name for it.

House
arrest
.

Escorted by med techs, he'd arrived home from
the Medical Center, and brought not to his own rooms, but to the
Quiet Suite, where those who mourned, who were desperately ill--or
dying--were housed. There was a med tech on-call. It was he who
showed Ren Zel the computer, the call button, the bed; he who
locked the door behind him when he left.

There was entertainment available if one
wished to sit and watch, but the communit reached only the med tech
and the computer accessed only neutral information--no news, no
pilot-net; the standard piloting drills did not open to his code,
nor had anyone brought his books, or asked if he wished to have
them. This was not how kin cared for kin.

Slowly, Ren Zel went over to the pile of
clean clothes. He slipped off the silver-and-indigo robe, and
slowly, carefully, put on the modest white shirt and dark trousers.
He sat down to pull his boots on and sat a little longer, listening
to the blood singing in his ears. He was yet low of energy. It
would take some time, so the med tech told him--perhaps as long as
a relumma--to fully regain his strength. He had been advised to
take frequent naps, and not to overtire himself.

Yes, very good.

He pushed himself to his feet and went back
to the table. His jacket was there. Wonderingly, he shook it out,
fingering the places where the leather had been mended, pieced
together by the hand of a master. As he had been.

The touch and smell of the leather was a
reassuring and personal commonplace among the bland and antiseptic
ambiance of the quiet suite. He swung the jacket up and on,
settling it on his shoulders, and looked at the remaining items on
the table.

His piloting license went into its secret
pocket. For a moment, he simply stared at the two cantra pieces,
unable to understand why there should be so much money to his hand.
In the end, still wondering, he slipped them into the pocket of his
jacket.

Behind him, he heard the lock snap, and
turned, with a bare fraction of his accustomed speed, staggering a
little on the leg that had been crushed.