Liaden Universe [19] - Alliance of Equals - eARC (10 page)

There was some risk in accelerating Aelliana Caylon’s rebirth, but not, the Uncle thought, again considering what the status lights told him—perhaps not as much risk as holding Daav yos’Phelium long to life against his will.

The Uncle nodded once before turning from the birthing unit to replace the pod in its container, putting it back into the locker that also held all of the man’s clothes and those possessions that he had on him when he had been savagely attacked by his enemies.

Closing the locker, the Uncle quit the cubicle, bound for the place where Aelliana Caylon labored toward birth.

—•—

The door behind the desk opened.

“All stand for Magistrate Tinerest!” called the third guard.

All three guards fell back then, giving them room to stand. Padi slid off the chair to her feet, Dil Nem’s hand still tight ’round her wrist, as he came off of his chair.

“Step forward now,” the second guard said. “Stop on the red line.”

The three of them stood side by side on the red line, and looked up at the Magistrate sitting behind a dark metal desk on a slightly raised dais. She was an old woman, her face lined with experience and cunning. Her eyes were pale blue, and very sharp. She looked the three of them over slowly, as if she were committing their faces to memory, then glanced down at the screen on her desk.

“Trader Padi yos’Galan, Third Mate Dil Nem Tiazan, Communications Technician Sally Triloff,” she read, and looked at them again. “Which of you is Trader yos’Galan?”

Padi straightened and met the sharp gaze.

“I am, Magistrate.”

“I see.” She sighed, and again glanced down at her screen.

“I apologize for keeping you waiting; I was on comm with Captain Mendoza of
Dutiful Passage
. She provided documentation pertinent to the case, which I reviewed in preparation for our discussion here.”

The magistrate raised her head and met Padi’s eyes.

“Trader yos’Galan,” she said briskly, “the profits from your trade are forfeit. This is a matter of both law and pragmatics. Specifically, the law as it is now in force was properly applied; it is the policy of the magistrates to reward the proper application of the law, in order to promote an environment where the law is more often followed than circumvented.”

Padi bit the inside of her cheek to remind herself to keep silent.

The magistrate nodded.

“You would like to say that pragmatism favors the port—and so it does. However, pragmatism also favors your ship. If I were to order that your funds be released, in opposition to the law which is now in force, you and your ship would become
objects of interest
. I place before you the notion that your ship is already of interest to far too many people, no few of them, as I learn from Captain Mendoza, unsavory in the extreme.

“Now. As the information provided by Captain Mendoza casts reasonable doubt upon the contention that
Dutiful Passage
is an ongoing criminal enterprise, I will absolve you of one small, but very important, detail of law. You will
not
be required to sign the affidavit which implicates your ship in criminal activity. Do you understand everything I have said?”

“Ma’am.” Padi took a breath, and met the magistrate’s eyes straightly. “I don’t understand why
Dutiful Passage
still bears the burden of
possible dishonor
. In light of the information provided by the captain.”

The magistrate nodded again.

“That’s a reasonable question. The answer is that I am not the only magistrate on Chesselport, but one of a court of seven. I must convene a full meeting of my sisters so that we may review this new information together and come to a consensus. Obviously, we have not had time to meet, and I do not wish to inconvenience you further by insisting that you wait upon our deliberations, which might easily consume several days. What I am able to do, within my own court, is let the record show that, in light of evidence produced and verified as genuine, I—in this instance only—have set the matter of an ongoing criminal enterprise aside as irrelevant to the case.

“Having done this, I find that there is no case. There is no reason to fine you, or to incarcerate you. Therefore, you are free to go
directly
to your shuttle and lift to your ship, as the port allows. In order to ensure that you will, indeed, go by the most direct route possible, my own car will take you to the yard.”

She looked down to her screen, and said, “Dismissed.”

CHAPTER TEN

Dutiful Passage

Shan looked again at the incoming message queue at the bottom of his screen, which was simply absurd; the comm would chime if a message came in. Gods knew, he had work to do, but he couldn’t seem to…settle his mind.

In fact, the only useful thing he’d done in the last two hours was to send his regrets to the Chessel’s World portmaster, citing press of business. One ought, at least, to keep up appearances, even if one now suspected one’s prospective host of duplicity.

Or, perhaps, especially.

Deliberately, he flipped open the file on Langlast, their next likely port o’call, and began to read the precis.

Five minutes later, when he realized that he had read the same page four times without recalling a single word, he admitted that he might benefit from a quick session of self-healing, to reestablish focus and deliberation.

He stood and moved into the center of the room, setting his feet firmly, and deliberately relaxing his shoulder muscles.

Focus, he thought. Yes. Focus and cool deliberation.

He closed his eyes and took six deep breaths, relaxing more deeply with each, until he sensed the change of place, and opened his eyes to the soft fogs of Healspace.

He breathed in the fog. It had a mouthfeel like spun sugar, and tasted of citrus. Well, focus had been called for, after all. Best that the Healer and the one to be healed both had their wits about them.

Again, he filled his mouth with fog—this time, the taste was sharp and pungent—and relaxed into an aspect of calm objectivity as he waited for the who had called him here.

The fogs before him parted, and a man stood forth: tall and lean; his hair the silky white of a young child’s that had never darkened into gold; with silver eyes under thin, slanted white brows; a face that was long and sharp and brown. He wore a wine-colored shirt, and a purple ring flashed on his hand.

Shan the Healer extended a hand; Shan the Trader met it. Emotions flowed between them: worry, fear, and anger. Quite a lot of anger, which was…not usual. He was an even-tempered man, until he was not.

Still, it was a straightforward thing: merely a Sorting, a Soothing, and a Sharpening. The personality matrix was firm, informed by love, commitment, and clarity of purpose. There was no indication that the unusual levels of anger had eroded either his heart or his ethics.

Excellent.

Shan the Healer reached forth and commenced the work: Sorting the tangled, hot and cold emotions; Soothing the troubled soul; Sharpening the beleaguered intellect.

It went well, the work, and nothing out of the ordinary, nothing unexpected, until, abruptly, a weight fell upon his senses, and the edges of his Sight darkened.

He withdrew slightly from the work, and brought his attention to the man who was himself…

The man who
was not
himself.

Long and lean and hawk-faced, yes—so much remained the same. But this man’s hair was black, and lush, woven into a single thick braid; his clothing dark and shabby. His smile was sardonic, and there was a sense of both stillness and motion about him. Shan the Healer looked down, foreknowing what he would see.

A worn red gaming counter danced across the other’s brown knuckles, plunged off the edge of the hand—and vanished into the ether of Healspace.

Shan the Healer felt a thrill…perhaps of horror.

“Return me myself,” he said, his words swallowed by the fog.

The smile grew softer; perhaps there was sympathy in those space-black eyes.

“But I am yourself, as we discussed, and you will need all of me, soon or late. Your lady will also need Moonhawk, I fear, in every aspect possible.”

“You terrify me.”

“Not in this place, child. There is no terror here. Or none that is not soon soothed and straightened and made into joy.” He raised his hands, showing the marker between two fingers, and smiled. “But I did not come here merely to visit. I would ask a question regarding our heart, if you will grant the boon.”

It was honestly said; the fog would have shown him any falseness. And an honest request for Healing must be honored, in Healspace.

Even if it came from oneself.

Shan inclined his head.

“Ask.”

“It is a small thing, but I wonder, this shadow upon your heart. You have straightened it, and you have soothed it, but you have not transformed it into joy. These are the deaths at Solcintra, I think you still feel?”

Shan sighed. “Some things do not transmute into joy.” He raised a hand, seeing the amethyst throw lightning into the fog. “I am a Healer; my strengths are rooted in life. Though we did what was correct and necessary, yet I think that, if we use the methods of our enemy, are we not—our enemy?”

“Would you have healed them all, your enemies?”

“Some things,” said Shan, “cannot be healed. But perhaps we should first make the attempt.”

“Sweet child. But I am of a mind with you.” Lute smiled. “Astonishing, is it not?”

“Who, in fact, would have thought so?” Shan said, smiling himself. “Now that we have dealt with this matter upon our heart, will you return me to myself?”

“Of course I will!” said Lute. “Only meet me halfway.” He extended a hand that was innocent of rings.

Shan the Healer met it, felt his fingers strongly gripped.

A tide flowed between them; of what strange waters, he could not have said. He sensed no poison, nor anything inimical, though he tasted the essence of years stretching into a past far exceeding his own.

There was a moment when his senses faltered, the fogs of Healspace melting around him, until it seemed that he stood astride galaxies and looked out over the glittering lives of an entire universe. He stretched, godlike…

…and contracted into himself, senses reeling, Healspace cuddled about his shoulders like a blanket.

Shan the Healer blinked his Sight clear, and looked into the familiar face of Shan the Trader, who wore an expression of wry resignation, tinged with wary wonder.

“What cannot be mended must be worn rent,” the Trader offered.

The Healer sighed.

“That would go down easier, if I were not trained to mend. Let us have one more look at us.” He extended a hand on which the purple ring flashed a little more brightly than its wont in this place, and met a hand wearing a ring identical in all respects.

Emotions flowed between them, spritely, like the stream that had threaded Trealla Fantrol’s parklands, and into which he had merrily fallen as a child.

The personality grid sparkled, reminiscent of the ring; emotions were smooth, if no less complex; the energy that had informed the tangled coil of worry and distraction had been properly redirected to focusing the intellect; the soul was calmed, and there was about the whole a subtle aroma of joy.

The Healer met the Trader’s eyes.

“What is done, is done,” they said, together, and did not add,
for good or ill
.

Each opened their arms. Stepping forward, they embraced into oneness.

Shan opened his eyes to the comfortable sight of his office, and a priority message on his screen, informing him that the shuttle bearing Third Mate Tiazan, Comm Tech Triloff, and Trader yos’Galan had been cleared for lift from Chesselport.

—•—

Padi sat in the jump seat, but for once her attention was not on the screens or the pilot’s boards. Her eyes were turned inward, all of her attention on the necessity of containing the conflagration within her.

She was
angry
. Well, who
wouldn’t be
angry, to have their profit stolen, and their trade made into dust—less than dust! For an incompleted trade did not count toward the total of successful trades that would move her from ’prentice to trader.

But there was even worse.

Worse than the anger, somehow
feeding
it…was the fear.

The images the guard had given her of herself falling, the jerk, the snap as the rope halted the fall, and her feet moving in protest until they stopped and there was only the broken body, brown hair tangled over her downturned face, swinging, softly swinging, as if prompted by the gentlest breeze.

Her throat closed, and her stomach clenched; her heart pounded in her ears, her fingernails digging into her sweaty palms.

She had known herself for craven, a coward unworthy to stand in the ranks of Korval pilots. But, this…this was terrible beyond anything she had previously experienced…

She needed to dance, to dance the fear into the place she had built for it, deep inside herself, where it would never be found, or seen, even by Healer eyes. There was no room on the shuttle, and she feared—yes,
she feared
!—that the anger might consume her into ash, before they gained the
Passage
.

She clenched her muscles and tucked her head, teeth grit—and felt someone touch her arm.

Fiery anger coalesced; if she breathed out, she would breathe fire, and destroy whomever dared to—

“Padi?”

She recognized Sally Triloff’s voice and gasped, sucking living flame down her throat, whimpering at the pain.

Arms closed around her; she shook her head, not daring to open her mouth, and Sally rubbed her back.

“Oh, sweetie, go ahead and cry. I bet even the master trader would cry, if he’d been treated like that. The least they could have done was return your goods!”

It was perhaps the ridiculous notion that Master Trader yos’Galan would have, under any circumstances, allowed his profit to be stolen from him—

Or perhaps it was the offer of a temporary bond of kinship; a place no larger than the circle of Sally’s arms, in which it would be…
not improper
to indulge in emotion.

Or, perhaps, she was simply that tired.

Whichever, and entirely to her own astonishment, her face pressed against Sally’s shoulder, Padi did, indeed, begin to cry.

—•—

Shan stood with Priscilla in the docking area antechamber, his hand in hers.

“I’m to tell you that you will need your Moonhawk in all her aspects,” he murmured, surprising both of them. He hadn’t intended to tell Priscilla about his encounter in Healspace—at least not until they were alone and very private.

Her head turned sharply, and she looked directly into his eyes.

“From Lute?”

“Yes, from Lute, meddling creature. He would also advise me that I’m going to need him, soon or late.”

“That’s fair warning, then,” Priscilla said.

“Fairer had he said which it was,” Shan muttered, and Priscilla might perhaps have answered that, save the light over the shuttle bay door went from ruby to emerald.

First through the door was Third Mate Tiazan, calm and forthright as ever. He bowed, precisely, to the captain’s honor, and murmured, “Captain. I will have a report.”

“Yes,” she said. “But tell me first, are you harmed, or in need?”

“I am well. The young trader…” He stopped short, as if catching himself on the edge of an infelicity, and looked to Shan. “The guards were not above playing games, and I fear the young trader took some of their…less savory tales to heart. Certainly, the disposition of her trade angered her.” He hesitated, and inclined his head.

“Comm Tech Triloff offered a comrade’s care during the lift,” he concluded. “It may be done with, now.”

“Thank you,” Shan said, “for your care.”

Dil Nem bowed. “Captain. Master Trader.”

He took himself off down the hall, as Comm Tech Triloff approached, anger glowing orange in the region of her heart. Walking beside her, seeming slightly subdued, was Padi.

Shan considered her on all the levels available to him as a Healer.

On the surface, he saw the sweet pale greens and blues of utter calmness, which was…startling. He tried to recall where Sally Triloff had ranked in empathy, but even if she were a full Healer herself, he would still have expected to see—

There. Beneath the damp pastels that might well denote a good cry, he found scorch marks along her matrix; remnants of an incandescent anger.

That
was more in keeping with the nature of events, he thought, relieved. After all, the child had seen her profit cruelly taken from her, and been arrested; these things sit ill with traders as a class, and those of Korval, more so.

He transferred his attention to Sally Triloff, whose emotive grid was still ablaze with fury.

“Thank you,” he said gently, “for your care of my child.”

She blinked, perhaps not expecting him to take that road. Sally had been with the
Passage
—worked with Liadens—long enough to have a feel for
melant’i
. She would have expected him to be the master trader in the matter, as Padi had been acting as trader herself. A comrade’s care, though—that was personal, which perhaps Sally hadn’t thought about.

“You’re welcome,” she said now. “It wasn’t right, what happened to her—to her cargo.”

Ah, Terrans and their touching notion of
right
.

Shan smiled.

“Sadly, this sort of thing does happen, from time to time. Not often, but infuriating all the same.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sally returned the smile tentatively, and went on to speak with Priscilla.

Padi looked up at him.

“I lost my profit,” she said, merely stating a fact.

“So I’ve heard. You must tell me all about it. In fact, I wonder if you would share a private nuncheon with me, so that you
may
tell me all about it.”

She took a hard breath, and he tasted anger and loss—which were expectable—and…resignation…which was not.

He waited, showing her a calm face, sternly refusing to reach out and hug her.

“I’d be pleased to report on my trade,” Padi said properly, her voice at least revealing nothing save what might have been an entirely reasonable weariness.

“Splendid!” he said, showing broad pleasure. “Let’s walk together, shall we?”

—•—

The last few shifts had been quiet. Not that Jemiatha Station sat at the crossroads of the universe, or anything like that, but they had their regulars—and their usual traffic.

’Course part of that usual traffic had been the Tinker, who’d come in three, four times a cycle, and not always more trouble’n she was worth. Had an eye for interesting tech, did the Tinker, and she’d taught him a thing or two about microrepairs, which he hadn’t thought nobody could’ve done.