Fledgling (3 page)

Like she didn't know that, Theo thought, but she slid off the stool without any other comment than, "Good-night, Kamele."

"Good-night, Daughter," her mother murmured, but she was looking down at the tabletop, her brows drawn together in a frown.

* * *

"Who knew that two people could make such a noise," Jen Sar Kiladi murmured, "that the house is so silent in their absence?"

He put his palm against the door to Theo's room, and paused on the threshold as the lights came up.

"Thorough," he noted. "We can hope that she spent most of her angst in turning off her room, and has none left over for her mother."

She is
, the voice that only he could hear commented,
right to be upset. And she will ask questions.

"Agreed," he murmured, crossing the room to pick up a fallen book. "Only they might, might they not, be
gentle
questions?"

He sighed down at the book:
Sam Tim's Ugly Day
. An unfortunate translation, but a useful conceit that had delighted a much-younger Theo. Though she appeared, he thought, stretching to put the book up with its fellows, to have outgrown the conceit, yet she might still recall the lesson.

"An awkward time for a separation," he said, perhaps to himself; "with the child dancing on the edge."

Yet Kamele's reasons are sound,
countered the voice inside his head.
You, yourself, encouraged her to do what was needful.

"Oh, indeed! Every bit of it—and more." He shook his head at the bare room, and turned to retrace his steps.

"Does it seem to you, Aelliana," he asked as he stepped out into the hallway, "that I may have become—just a thought!—meddlesome?"

His answer was a peal of laughter.

* * *

The 'fresher was at the end of the hall. Theo showered and returned to her room, closing the door and unfolding the bed. It didn't take up quite as much room as she had feared, which was a blessing in a space where centimeters mattered.

Having put the bed down, though, she didn't immediately retire. The glare off the floor and walls set her teeth on edge. She went over to the desk to check the ambiset. If she could get some pictures—or at least some color!—into the walls; put a mosaic into the floor, it would make the place seem more like home, cramped as it was.

Except—there was no ambiset to be found. Theo went out into the hall, but there was no ambiset there, either. She actually compressed the closet, thinking that she must have placed it in front of the control center—but the only thing behind was more featureless, white wall.

"I do
not
believe this," she said loudly, her voice sliding off the walls and tumbling into the glare. She ran her hands through her hair and stared around the tiny room, even casting a not-exactly-hopeful look at the ceiling.

No ambiset.

"And this is supposed to
focus
my mind?" Theo asked the air.

The air didn't bother to answer.

All right. She took a deep breath. At least she knew what to do to about the jitters. She needed some handwork, that was all. Her needles and thread were in the cube. She'd lay down a couple lines of lace. In fact, there was that idea she'd had about making a lace flower like the new ones Father had planted in their garden.

She knelt by the cube, unsnapped it and lifted the lid, looking down into a dark maw lined with numerous needle-sharp teeth.

"Hey!" She dropped the top, caught it before it hit the floor and laid it gently down. Inside the cube, Coyster yawned again.

Theo sat back on her heels and shook her head, feeling the grin pulling her mouth wide.

"You're going to get me in
so much
trouble," she said.

Coyster shook out a dainty white paw and began to wash his face.

Fourth Form Ready Room
Professor Stephen M. Richardson Secondary School
University of Delgado

"It's time to get up!" the clock announced in a cheery sing-song.

Theo snuggled tighter into her pillow, getting a face full of fur in the process.

"It's time to get
up
!" the clock sang again, slightly louder this time.

Theo sneezed and opened her eyes, coming nose-to-nose with Coyster, who was propped up on the pillow like a miniature—and very furry—human.

"It's
time
to get
up
!" The clock was beginning to sound a little testy.

Theo sneezed again. Coyster put a paw on her nose and looked disapproving.

"Theo Waitley," the clock said sternly. "If you do not get up within the next
thirty
seconds,
a note will be inserted into your file. Mark."

"Gah," Theo said comprehensively, and flipped the blanket back. The floor felt cold and creepy against her bare feet as she crossed to the desk and pressed her thumb against the clock's face.

"There," she muttered. "I'm up. Happy?"

The clock, duty done, didn't answer. Theo sighed hugely and wandered out to the 'fresher to wash her face.

A few minutes later, slightly more awake, she pulled out a pair of school coveralls. She dressed, hasty in the cool air, and touched the closet's interior mirror.

The dark surface flickered to life, and she sighed at what she saw. There were dark circles under her dark eyes, like she hadn't slept at all, and her face was even paler than usual. Her light yellow hair was wisping every-which-way, which was unfortunately just the same as always. When she was a littlie, she'd been convinced that she'd wake up one morning to find that her fluff had been shed, like duckling down, and she'd grown sleek, dark brown hair straight down to her shoulders.

She combed her fingers through the fly-away half-curls, trying to make them lie flat, which never worked, and didn't this morning. Grumbling, she tapped the mirror off and turned away.

Coyster was still lounging against the pillow, half-covered by the blanket, eyes slitted in satisfaction.

"Get up," Theo said. "I've gotta put the bed away."

He yawned, pink tongue lolling.

Theo hooked him under the belly and dropped him to the floor.

"If
I
can't sleep all day," she said, pulling the blanket straight, "
you
can't sleep all day."

Coyster stalked away, tail high, and jumped onto the desk. By the time the bed was put away, he was curled and sound asleep, like he'd been there for hours. Theo shook her head—then bit her lip.

Last night, she'd filled a disposable bowl with water and shredded some old hard copy from a school project she was done with into the cube's inverted top. Coyster had let her know that he would tolerate these primitive arrangements for a limited time only, so Theo had added proper cat bowls, a litter box, kibble, and a can of his favorite treats to her growing after-class shopping list. She felt bad about leaving him all day without anything to snack on, even though she knew he wouldn't take any harm from it. Father always left cat food and water out in bowls in the kitchen, for Coyster and Mandrin to graze at their leisure.

"If
I
have to get used to everything being new . . ." Theo let the sentence drift off, blinking a sudden blurriness away.

She was going to have to tell Kamele about Coyster, she thought, considering the slumbering furry form on her desk. She hoped her mother was in a less edgy mood this morning. A good night's sleep . . . Maybe Kamele had had a good night's sleep.

Yawning, she bent down to retrieve her school bag.

"I'm going to school," she told Coyster. An orange ear flickered and Theo grinned. Not so sound asleep, after all.

Bag over her shoulder, she slipped out of her room, closing the door firmly. She didn't want Kamele finding out about Coyster until she had a chance to explain the situation.

Chaos, she was tired! Which was, she acknowledged as she headed down the hallway toward the kitchen, entirely her own fault. She'd spent 'way too much time working out the pattern for the lace rose she wanted to make. By the time she'd given up and tucked her traveling kit away into her bag, it had been late. Not as late as general lights out—
that
was a note-in-your-file—but well beyond the Strongly Suggested bed time for juniors who hadn't yet had their
Gigneri
.

Yawning again, Theo dumped her bag on the meal bar and put her hand on the kitchen door. Tea, she thought, was definitely in order. Some of Father's strong black tea with the lemony after-note. She'd just put the kettle on and—

"What!" she stood, staring stupidly at the bland lines and blank screen of a standard kaf unit. There was nothing else in the alcove. No stove, no cabinets, no refrigerator, no tins of tea lined against the back of the counter . . . 

"Good morning, Daughter." Kamele sounded as tired, or tireder, as Theo felt, so it probably wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done to turn around and point at the poor kaf like it was disorderly or something, and demand, "Are we supposed to
eat
out of that?"

Kamele frowned.

"Don't roar at me, Theo."

She swallowed. "I'm sorry. I was just—expecting a kitchen."

Kamele's frown got deeper, and Theo felt her stomach clench.

"This is the kitchen that most people
eat out of,
" she said sternly. "It amused Professor Kiladi to bypass the kaf and cook meals from base ingredients, and I saw no harm in allowing him to teach you something of the art, since you were interested. If I had foreseen that you would scorn plain, honest food out of the kaf—"

"I'm not," Theo interrupted. "Kamele, I'm sorry. I'm not—scorning—the kaf. It was just . . . a shock. I was looking forward to making a cup of tea, and—"

"The kaf will give you a cup of tea," her mother said, interrupting in her turn. "All you need to do is ask."

Tea from a kaf unit was not, in Theo's estimation,
tea
. It was a tepid, watery, tasteless beverage that happened, via some weird and as-yet-uncorrected universal typo, to be
called
tea. Real tea had body, and taste, and—

Her mumu
thweeped
the eighth of the hour.

"I suggest that you choose your breakfast quickly," Kamele said, and stalked past her to confront the kaf.

Two sharp jabs at the keypad, a flicker of lights across the face screen, a hiss when the dispenser door slid up. Kamele slid the tray out and carried it to the bar. Acrid steam rose from the extra large disposable cup.

Theo wondered if kaf coffee tasted any better than kaf tea, but it didn't seem like the time to ask. Instead, she stepped up to the machine, punched one button for juice and another for hot cereal, and very soon thereafter was sitting across from her mother at the bar.

Kamele was drinking the coffee, though not like she was enjoying it, and staring down into her bowl so intently that Theo knew she couldn't actually be seeing it or her cereal. She sighed and dug into her own breakfast. Father and Kamele were both prone to sudden fits of intense abstraction, when they would simply . . . step away from whatever it was they were doing to pursue a certain fascinating thought. Theo guessed it came of being a scholar and having so many interesting things to think about, and she had early learned not to interrupt a fit of abstraction with small talk.

The cereal wasn't too bad, though it was sweeter than she liked; the juice was room temperature and astringent. Theo ate quickly, keeping an increasingly worried eye on her mother, who continued to drink coffee and stare a hole into her cereal.

Theo cleared her throat.

"Early class this morning, Kamele?" she asked, trying to sound bright and interested—and hoping to bring her mother to a realization that her cereal was getting cold.

Her mother glanced up, her eyes soft and not really focused.

"Yes," she murmured. "I do have the early class this morning, Theo. Thank you for reminding me. I'd best be on my way." She slid off the stool, carried her untouched bowl and the half-empty cup to the disposal.

Well,
Theo thought,
that didn't work, did it
?

Kamele bent to pick up her bag.

"Don't dawdle," she said, slinging it over her shoulder. "I'll be a little late this evening—there's a meeting. If it looks like it'll go long, I'll text you." She bent and brushed her lips against Theo's cheek.

"Learn well," she murmured, and was gone, moving quickly toward the receiving parlor, her footsteps sounding sticky against the slick floor. Theo heard the outer door chime and cycle.

This,
she thought, finishing her cereal hurriedly,
is not good
. She sat back, reaching for the leg pocket where her mumu rode. She'd just text a quick message to Father, and ask him to—

Or,
she thought, hand poised above the pocket,
maybe not
. For all she knew, Kamele wasn't speaking to Father, and would refuse anything he sent to her. She was certainly behaving like—Theo took a breath. Until somebody
told her
something, she couldn't dismiss the possibility that Kamele had—had released Father. There were signs, she thought carefully. Before last night, Kamele had always referred to Father as "Jen Sar." "Professor Kiladi," in all its stiff formalness—that was how a junior academic referred to a senior, not how a woman spoke of her
onagrata
.

Theo sighed. She
hated
not knowing what was going on. Maybe the best thing to do was wait for Oktavi's dinner with Father, and ask him again.

Maybe he'd even give her a better answer than "local custom."

Grumbling to herself, she stuffed the disposables into the receptacle, shut the door to the kitchen, and glanced at the readout set into the top of the table. Still plenty of time to meet Lesset before class, if the bus didn't run late.

"Bus!" she said out loud, and smacked fingertips against her forehead. She didn't have to catch the bus today. She lived inside the Wall now; school was just a belt ride away.

"Great," she muttered, and slung her pack over her shoulder. "So I'll be early."

She was at the Team's usual table in the Ready Room, working on the lace flower again, her tongue between her teeth as she tried to figure out how to make it 3D
and
all one piece, when Lesset wandered in—and stopped just inside the door, blinking.