Loose Cannon (7 page)

"Neither can I," Cyra said. admitted,
staring down into her tea and trying not to think of Bell at the
hottest part of his cycle, locked away from his paints and pens.
"Neither can I."

* * *

"YOU HAVE ARRIVED," the receptionist told
Cyra, "at a bad time. I have no one to spare to listen to your
story, as interesting as it must be. The Scouts are not in the
habit of interfering with the proctors on matters of Low Port
drunk-and-disorderly ..."

Cyra glared. "He was not drunk--not at this
time in the cycle. Disorderly--he did strike a proctor, but--" she
stopped, suddenly struck by a thought, and came near to the counter
again.

"Have you a Scout named Jon?" she asked.

"Only several," a female voice said from
close behind her. Cyra spun, face heating. The Scout tipped her
head, eyes bright and manic, as the eyes of Scout's so often were.
"Would you wish us to know that it is a Scout named Jon whom the
proctors discovered to be drunk and disorderly? I don't find that
impossible. Why, I myself have been drunk and disorderly in Low
Port. It is excellent practice for the dining situations found on
several of the outworlds."

"Captain sig'Radia..." the receptionist
began, but the Scout waved a hand.

"Peace. Someone has arrived with time to
spare for a story about a drunk and disorderly in Low Port." She
cocked a whimsical eyebrow in Cyra's direction, looking her full in
the face, as if the disfiguring scars were invisible, or
non-existent. "The acoustics of this hallway are quite amazing, but
allow me to be certain--I did hear you say 'struck a proctor'?"

Cyra admitted it dejectedly. "But it is not
the Scout Jon who did this," she continued, feeling an utter fool.
"I had merely thought, since my friend--Bell--was known to the
Scout..."

"Ah. And something more of your
friend--Bell--if you please? For I do not believe, despite our
abundance of Jons, that we have any Scouts named Bell."

Cyra bit her lip. "He is a Terran--an
artist. Last night, the apartment house he lived in fell down,
and--"

"Now I have the fellow!" Captain sig'Radia
cried, and grinned with every appearance of delight. "What we heard
on the Port is that he knocked down a prepared, on-duty proctor,
barehanded. Quite an accomplishment, though I don't expect the
proctors think so. No sense of humor, proctors."

"It must be unpleasant," Cyra murmured,
"after all, to be knocked down."

"Oh, wonderfully unpleasant," the Scout
agreed happily. "Especially with the rest of your team looking
on."

"Yes," Cyra bit her lip,
wondering how possibly to explain the cycles, and the tragedy of
Bell being without his paints
now
. "If you please, Bell--it is very
bad..." she stammered to a halt.

"Complicated, eh?" the Scout said
sympathetically. "Come, let us be private."

She took Cyra's arm as if they were long
friends, and escorted her out of the main room and down a hall.

"Ah, here we are," the Scout said, and put
her palm against a door, which opened willingly, utterly
silent.

The lights came up as they walked down the
room to the table and chairs. Cyra looked about, marveling at the
size of the chamber, her eye caught and held by a projection on the
front wall--a planetscape, it was, showing a sun and a great-ringed
planet in the distance and a close up portion of bluish-green
atmosphere--

Cyra gasped, recognition
going through her like a bolt, though she had never seen this
painting, but the composition, the eloquence the
work
--it could only
be--

"That is Djymbolay, is it not?" She asked
the Scout captain, her voice shaking.

The woman looked at her in open wonder. "It
is, indeed. How did you know?"

"My friend Bell painted the original of
that." She used her chin to point.

The captain looked, face very serious now.
"I see. You will then be comforted to know that the original is
safe in the World Room." She looked back to Cyra, her smile
crooked.

"And your friend Bell is by extrapolations
no more nor no less than Jon dea'Cort's glorious madman. Allow me
to see if the Scout is within our reach."

* * *

SUMMONED, JON DEA'CORT arrived quickly and
heard the tale out with a grin almost as wide as Bell's could be,
when he stood at the height of his powers. When all was said, he
looked to Cyra, and inclined his head.

"Your Bell, he is at what stage in his
continuing journey?"

She blinked against the rise of unexpected
tears and made herself meet his eyes squarely. "He is painting.
Please--"

He held up a hand. "Yes. You were right to
come to us." He looked to Captain sig'Radia, who lifted an
eyebrow.

"A change of custody, I think," he said to
her. "Certainly, they will insist that he be heard, and fined, but
he must be got out of the holding tank at once and allowed to paint
before drunk-and-disorderly becomes cold murder."

Cyra sat up, horrified. "Bell would not--" A
bright glance stopped her.

"Would he not? Perhaps you are correct. But
let us not put him to the test, eh?" He grinned suddenly,
Scout-manic. "Besides, I want to see what magic flows from his
brush this time."

* * *

THEY GAVE HER A room, and a meal, and
promised to fetch her, when Bell was arrived. She ate and laid down
on the bed, meaning to close her eyes for a moment only...

"Cyra?" The voice was quiet, but unfamiliar.
"It is I, Jon dea'Cort. Your Bell is safe."

She sat up, blinking, and found the Scout
seated on the edge of her bed, face serious.

"Is he well?" she demanded. "Is he--"

He held up a hand. "Would you see him? He is
painting."

"Yes!"

"Come then," he said, and he led her out and
down the hall to a lift, then down, down, down, perhaps to the very
core of the planet, before the doors opened, and there was another
hall, which they walked until it intersected another. They turned
right. Jon dea'Cort put his hand against a door, which slid,
silently, open, and they stepped into a large and well-lit
studio.

Bell at the farther end of the room, his
easel in the best light and he was working with that focused,
feverish look on his face that she had come to know well--and to
treasure.

The Scout touched her hand, and tipped his
head toward the door. Cyra followed him out.

"Thank you," she said, feeling conflicting
desires to sing and weep. "He will crash--sometime. Often, he knows
when, but in a strange place, with this interruption--I do not
know. Someone--someone should pay attention to him."

"Surely," the Scout said amiably. "And that
someone ought to be yourself, if you are able?"

She hesitated for a moment, thinking of the
shop in Low Port, and then inclined her head. "I am able."

* * *

"CYRA?" SHE LOOKED UP from her work,
smiling, and found Bell gazing seriously down at her.

Having gained her attention, he went to a
knee, and raised his hand to her face. She nestled her cheek into
the caress.

"Are you sorry, Cyra? To leave your home, to
be rootless, companioned to inconvenient Bell, and in the sphere of
Scouts..."

She laughed and turned her face, brushing
her lips against his palm, and straightening.

"What is this? You will be painting
tomorrow, my friend; do not try to tease me into believing that you
are on the down-cycle!"

He smiled at that, and touched a fingertip
to her nose before dropping his hand to his knee. "You know me too
well. But, truly, Cyra..."

She put the pliers down and reached out,
placing her hands on his shoulders and gazing seriously into his
eyes.

"I am not sorry, Bell. Did you not say that
you would take me away? You have done so, and I am not sorry at
all."

He had kept the other part of that
pillow-sworn vow, as well, and the portrait of herself that he had
completed in Scout Headquarters remained there, on display in the
reception area, with other works of art from many worlds.

"I have the original," he had said to Jon
dea'Cort. "Take you the copy, and let us be in Balance."

And so it had been done, and now they
were--attached to Scouts, spending time on this research station,
or that surveillance ship, while Bell painted, and sketched, and
fed his art. Cyra fed her own art, and her jewelry was sought
after, when they came to a world where they might sell, or
trade.

"We do well," she said, leaning forward to
kiss his cheek. "I am pleased, Bell."

He laughed gently and leaned forward,
sliding his arms around her and bringing her on to his knee.

"You're pleased, are you?"
he murmured against her hair. "But could you not be--just a
little--
more
pleased?"

She laughed and wrapped her arms closely
around his neck, rubbing her cheek against the softness of his
beard.

"Why, yes," she said,
teasing him. "I might be--just a
little
--more pleased."

He laughed, and rose, bearing her with him,
across their cabin to the bed.

--Standard Year 1293

About the
Author
s

SHARON LEE AND STEVE MILLER
live in the rolling hills of central Maine, where they repaired
from Maryland--with cats, books, music, and computers--after
selling the first three Liaden Universe
®
novels in the late 1980s.

Before moving to Maine, Steve and Sharon
were active in the Baltimore science fiction community for years as
fans, short story writers, editors, bookstore owners and art
agents. In the mid seventies Clarion West (class of '73) graduate
Steve was the founding Curator of the UMBC Science Fiction Research
Collection as well as the Director of Information for the
burgeoning Baltimore Science Fiction Society. A well known
traveling fan, Steve attended well over 100 conventions during this
period.

Since moving they've
continued to write in the Liaden Universe
®
and six of the
novels--
Local Custom
,
Scout's Progress
,
Conflict of
Honors
,
Agent of
Change
,
Carpe
Diem
, and
Plan
B
are now in print, with
I Dare
set to follow in
February 2002,
Balance of Trade
due in 2003, and two additional Liaden novels
coming in the years after that.

The current novels are
available individually in electronic format from Embiid as well as
in Meisha Merlin trade paper editions; the omnibus
Partners in Necessity
--containing the first three novels--is also out in hardcover
from the Science Fiction Book Club and soon there will be mass
market editions of all the novels from Ace.

Along the way, Sharon and
Steve were (and are) fortunate in having very supportive readers.
In 1995 those readers requested--via an internet mailing
list--something Liaden to tide them over. Steve's experience in
chapbook publishing came to the fore and thus he began SRM
Publisher.
Two Tales of Korval
was SRM's first book and it's first print run was
expected to be 60--but ended up at 200. Those rapidly sold out, as
well, and now
Two Tale
s is the SRM Publishing stable's best seller, with over 3500
copies in print.

As readers continued to ask
for more short works, SRM brought out other chapbooks, including a
reissue of pre-Liaden fantasy
The Naming of
Kinzel
. Eventually Absolute Magnitude
magazine got into the act with Liaden Universe
®
short stories. Editor Warren Lapine
accepted the novelette "Balance of Trade" for issue 11 of Absolute
Magnitude, snapped up "A Choice of Weapons" for issue number 12 and
then took the very popular novella "Changeling" for issue 14. These
stories were collected into the fifth and sixth Liaden
Universe
®
chapbooks
from SRM. "Changeling" has proved very popular and is also
available as an Embiid electronic book.

After a stint as Web Libriarian at a
start-up dot.com SRM Publisher grew to be Steve's "day job"--in
part because SRM Publisher took over the original Sharon Lee and
Steve Miller "Authors of the Liaden Universe" website, expanding it
to include an online catalog page as well as a list of congruent
authors.

As SRM Publisher grew,
Michael Capobianco, then President of SFWA -Science Fiction Writers
of America--asked Sharon to become the organization's first
Executive Director, a full time position she held for more than
three years. With contracts for Liaden Universe
®
novels set through 2005, Sharon gave
up that job last year, running for and winning the SFWA Vice
Presidency, which she assumed July 1st of 2001.

Ace Books will be
reprinting Lee & Millers 7 exisitng Liaden
Universe
®
novels
starting in 2002, while Embiid will publishing a non-Liaden
Lee& Miller SF novel in August of 2002.

As fulltime writers Sharon and Steve are
frequently free to attend science fiction conventions and signings
around the US and Canada. In the last few years they've been guests
or participants at libraries, conventions and science fictional
events in Schenectady, Chicago, San Jose, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Roanoke, Boston, Burlington, Bangor, and Fredericton (New
Brunswick) with upcoming travels to Kansas City, San Jose,
Baltimore, and Toronto.