Fledgling (18 page)

"This minor child must be returned to her mother."

"One Chapelia will escort her."

"One will not," Father returned sharply. "That would invite complexity. My feet are upon the Path."

"What do you know of the Path, who goes uncovered and unique?"

"The Path is the journey and the journey is the Teaching," Father said, with the air of a student reciting a received formula. "Those whose feet are upon the Path must neither be brought aside nor delayed." He tipped his head.

"And," he continued, in a more conversational voice, "if your colleague at my rear and to the right does not cease her approach, regrettable things may happen. I protect this innocent child with every means at my hand." He hefted his cane, and . . . smiled . . . at the Simple.

"He has studied," came the voice—the same voice, but from behind them. "Perhaps he is on the Path."

"Consult the Name-Keeper while you await my return," Father suggested cordially. "Again, I escort this innocent to her mother." Theo jumped as his hand came under her elbow again, urging her to walk with him.

"Come, child."

"Yes, sir," she said meekly, and concentrated on matching his pace exactly. The back of her neck prickled and she wondered what the Simples were doing.

"Do not," Father murmured, "look back."

"What—" she began—

"And do not speak until we are inside."

The doors opened. They passed beneath the Eyes and walked past the Safety Station. Father nodded casually to the woman on duty as they mounted the belt for Quad Eight.

"What're you going to do if they
are
waiting for you when you leave?" Theo demanded.

He looked down at her, one eyebrow raised. "Don't be silly, Theo. I'll go out by another door."

"But your car!"

"The car is locked, and its owner well-known. It will be quite safe."

She took a breath. "How will you get home?"

"The bus." He inclined his head gravely. "I will, of course, be in no danger."

Theo knew better than to take
that
bait. "Could I have my mumu back now?"

"Ah, yes. How careless of me." He pulled it out of his pocket and gave it to her. "You are aware that your mumu—I should say, that everyone's mumu—emits an ID?"

"I'm not a
kid
," she said impatiently. "And the Simple was just reading the IDs out of her 'book. What I can't figure out is why she didn't realize you were carrying two mumus."

"But, you see," Father murmured, "the ID emitter on my mumu is . . . turned off."

Theo blinked.

"They turn
off
?"

He sighed. "Mind you, I don't say it's easy. Is this our stop?"

"Yes," Theo said, as the belt slowed. She swung off, Father at her side. "Would you have . . . hurt . . . that Simple, really? If she hadn't stopped."

He looked down at her. "Yes," he said seriously. "I would have hurt her, really. Liad, I fear, is a barbarous place, where people defend their honor and those who fall within it by any means, including physical force. Even having been so long embraced by the enlightened customs of Delgado, I find that I cannot wholly put these violent tendencies behind me." He lifted an eyebrow.

"You have now been fairly warned. Do you wish to run away?"

"From you?" Theo shook her head. "Don't be a nidj, Father."

He cleared his throat. "I will," he said, so solemnly she knew that he was trying not to laugh. "Do my best not to be a nidj, Theo."

He turned to survey the row of almost-identical beige doors set in at identical intervals into the white wall.

"Now, here's a pleasing aspect. Which door is yours?"

"Right the—" Her mumu warmed in her hands, and she glanced down, touching the screen. "I've got a text from Kamele," she said, and felt the full weight of his attention fall on her.

"Do you, indeed? Does she wonder when I'll bestir myself to return you?"

"No-oo . . ." Theo read the text again. Short as it was, it seemed . . . much less calm than Kamele's usual messages. She looked up into Father's black eyes. "She says she has a very important meeting that can't be put off. I'm to stay in, lock the door and not answer, if someone should ring."

"Perhaps she has received news of the Chapelia's interest," he murmured.

"Looks like," Theo agreed, chewing her lip and glancing down to read the message a third time.
Would it be so bad,
she wondered irritably,
for Kamele to part with a little information now and then?

"Why?" she asked suddenly, looking up. "Why did the Chapelia have my name in their book?"

Both eyebrows rose. "Theo, you astonish me."

"No, I don't," she said shortly. "You and Kamele are always telling me to question things."

"Indeed, but the quality of the question must also count for something—and of late yours have become . . . most interesting. So. Shall you let me in and show me this rug Gorna Dail has sold you?"

She considered him warily. "I'd like that. It's pretty late, though, and if you're going to have to go all the way around to the East Door . . ."

"It's scarcely late at all," he interrupted, and of a sudden gave her a smile. "I see I am found out. If you must have it, I crave a moment of Coyster's attention."

"Oh!"
Of course he wants to visit with Coyster,
she thought, turning toward the door; he was used to having the younger cat underfoot. And her, too. And Kamele.

"Is it . . . very lonely . . . with just you and Mandrin?" she asked, putting her hand against the plate.

"It is . . . quiet," he allowed, following her into the apartment. He glanced around the little hall while Theo locked the door. When she turned back, he was looking down at Kamele's rug.

"I think she meant it to . . . cheer the room up," Theo said awkwardly, unable to read the expression on his face.

"I'm certain that she did," he answered, his eyes still downcast. "Well." He swept a hand out, inviting her to lead on, and followed her down the hall.

"This is very pleasant," he said a few moments later as they sat together on the blue-and-green rug. Coyster was on his back between them, paws waving in ecstasy as Father tickled his belly. "Ms. Dail has done well by you."

"I hope so," Theo said, running her hand over the nap and watching the fascinating, waterlike flow from green to blue. "Do you know how to—to
dicker
?"

Grinning, he gave Coyster a final chuck under the chin. "In fact, I do. However, I believe that your mother would not thank me for introducing you to the art at this point in your education. First, master consensus and teamwork, then apply to me again."

She grinned. "Done!"

He laughed. "I see that you came away not entirely unmarked." He sobered. "It is, as you mentioned, quite late. Perhaps even late enough for a young student who has had a remarkably adventurous few days to seek some well-deserved rest."

"I'm . . ." Theo hesitated. She was sleepy. A little. But—

"I think you ought to stay here," she said, "until that Simple forgets about you. They probably put somebody on the East Door, too, you know . . ."

Father tipped his head, his face serious, though she could see the smile in his eyes.

"Well, lacking appropriate encouragement, she's not likely to forget about me; nor are they likely to have forgotten the East Door. Which is to say that I agree with you. I should, indeed, stay here for a time. Thank you."

Theo considered him doubtfully. She could usually tell when Father was joking. "I—"

He raised a hand. "No, Theo. I am quite serious. Thank you for your care." He rolled to his feet and extended a hand to help her up.

"So," he said, smiling fully now. "Shall we say next Oktavi, same time?"

"Yes . . ." She blinked and cleared her throat. "Yes!"

"Good." He touched her cheek, his fingers warm, then ruffled her hair like she was a kid. "Sleep well, child."

History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

The coffee in the research room was fresh-brewed. Kamele sipped hers and sighed aloud.
Some
one on the forensic team had her priorities straight.

Unfortunately, the pleasure of real coffee was negated by the methodical unveiling of data in the Group Space at the center of the table.

"As you can see," Professor Crowley murmured, tapping the light keys, "we have located no further discrepancies between Professor Flandin's publications and the material she cites. Everything, in fact, checks perfectly, and the committee had all but achieved a consensus accepting that those two . . . erroneous citations which resulted in the professor's loss of tenure were the only two incidents in existence."

Kamele sighed quietly, sipped coffee and recruited herself to patience. To judge from the patient expressions of his two team members, Professor Crowley was one who must tell the thing in whole and in order. And who for all of that, she thought, would not have insisted on a meeting
right now
only to say that the committee had found that there was nothing to find.

"In fact," Crowley continued, "the committee was well on its way to declaring that there was nothing else to find. It was only . . ."

"It was only," Professor Emeritus Beltaire spoke up from her seat at the far end of the table, "my own vanity, colleagues, that led us to explore what at first appeared to be the most minor portion of Professor Flandin's work: an encyclopedia entry on the subject of Vazinty pelinTrayle."

"The Saint of Panvine?" Ella sounded startled, as well, Kamele thought, she should. The Saint had been . . . opposed to the diversity of thought which the University of Delgado—for instance—held to be the treasure of higher learning.

To put it mildly.

"The so-called Saint," Professor Beltaire said dryly. "As it happens, my family holds the dubious honor of having once been enclosed by the pelinTrayle phulon. When the Beltaire patriarch embraced schism as preferable to genocide, he wisely brought away such papers, documents, and primary sources as he could lay hand to—for protection, you understand, should he need to place his jenos under a patron strong enough to withstand what blandishments Vazinty might make." She smiled.

"As it happens, Vazinty shortly had many more problems to deal with than the repatriation of an errant jenos. Beltaire settled upon Melchiza and eventually the original papers passed into the House of Planetary Treasures there." She paused to sip coffee. "Before surrendering them, the patriarch of course made copies, which the jenos retained, as part of our private archives. Eventually, the patriarch's great-granddaughter, who naturally had access to the history of the jenos, became, more by accident than design, an expert on Vazinty pelinTrayle."

She raised her cup again. Professor Crowley folded his hands, his eyes dreaming on the cluttered Group Space.

"So," Kamele said to Professor Beltaire, "you were uniquely placed to recognize an error in the relevant citation."

The elder scholar nodded. "Indeed I was, and I flagged the passage. Imagine my . . . surprise . . . when Professor Able—" she nodded at the last member of the committee, who appeared to be napping with her eyes open—"told me that the cite matched . . . precisely."

Kamele put her cup on the table.

"An error of memory, perhaps?" Ella murmured. "Even an expert is sometimes mistaken."

"My precise thought was something less gentle regarding the memories of old women, but—yes," Professor Beltaire said. "Cursing my failing faculties, I checked my hard copies . . ."

"She
can't
have altered the source documents!" Kamele protested. "That would have required an archivist's key." Or an archivist, brought in on the plan, and if that were the case—Kamele shivered.

"But she did just that," Professor Able said, apparently not napping, after all. "I have no idea
how
she did it, but I went through those documents line by line, comparing every word, and—the library sources have been altered. Only a bit, mind! Nothing more than a few words; sometimes only a point of punctuation."

"Nothing
important,
" Professor Crowley said, leaning back in his chair, and looking 'round the table at them. "Taken in isolation."

"In sum, however," Professor Beltaire murmured, "these . . . corrections . . . draw a portrait of Delgado and Panvine standing . . . much closer together, philosophically, than we know to be the case, and, indeed, suggests that the current head of the Panvinian Administration is an adviser to the Delgado Board of Trustees."

"
What?
" Kamele looked at Ella, discovering an expression of bewildered outrage on her face that was probably, Kamele thought, a mirror of her own. She leaned forward, pressing her palms against the cool surface of the table as she ordered her thoughts.

"What I hear the committee say is that there is strong evidence that a . . . series? of source documents have been tampered with. Leaving aside for the moment the
how,
I would ask
why
."

Professor Able shook her head. "Flandin is the person to give the definitive answer to that. Unfortunately, we let her go."

"Though compelling,
why
does not fall within the scope of this committee's work," Professor Crowley added. "We were charged to survey the literature in order to ascertain if other . . . scholarly transgressions had been made which might damage the university. Evidence of such tampering has, alas, been discovered."

Professor Beltaire shook her head. "With all respect due to my honored colleague, I must disagree. What this committee has discovered is a discrepancy between the documents maintained by the research library and the documents held in private by an acknowledged expert. It is worth noting, colleagues, that
both
sets of documents are—copies."

"Certified copies!" Able corrected.

"As you say. But copies nonetheless. There is room for doubt. The copies are demonstrably not identical. What we cannot demonstrate from where we sit is—which set has been altered."