The Dragon Variation (115 page)

"Thodelm," she breathed, touching the collar that framed her face and lent blush to her cheeks. Lina had provided clothing that the head of a Liaden Line might wear when about the business of the Line.

Hesitantly she approached the mirror, and put out a finger to trace the features of her own face: the slender brows, the straight nose and startling cheekbones, the stubborn chin, the full mouth, and all around them the tumbling mass of midnight curls, relieved at each ear by the pure curve of a platinum hoop.

"Priscilla Mendoza," she said aloud.

On her hand the borrowed amethyst glittered—and that was wrong. She was not Master Trader.

Nor was she outcast.

She stared into the purple depths, considering that thought. "Moonhawk is returned to the Mother."

Truth.

And what did that truth mean, after ten years, a double-dozen worlds—a death? What did it mean here, in the place her heart called home, surrounded by friends, buoyed by a power she thought had fled?

Lady Mendoza, the old gentleman invariably addressed her with profound respect. Lina had not found it unusual that her friend possessed power, only that she had not been taught courtesy in its use. Shan . . . .

But it was not possible to think clearly of Shan. Certainly he regarded her abilities, like his own, as natural and acceptable. "How do you make love?" she recalled him asking, and she put a hand to a cheek suddenly flaming. Don't do that, Priscilla . . . .

Last night . . . How much had been drug-dream, how much true actions? He had come—she wore the proof on her hand even now! He had brought her home. What else besides these was fact?

Disturbed, she turned slowly and left the 'fresher.

In the hall she hesitated. It was time she reported for duty. Yet Vilt had not released her, and the finery she wore was not meant to withstand a second mate's rounds.

"Hello, Priscilla. Can you spare me a few moments?" Shan's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"All the moments you like," she told him gladly even as she groped for his pattern.

It was subdued, though she caught an indefinable jolt of something as he paused and looked at her closely.

"Are you well, Priscilla? Tell me the truth, please—no heroics."

"Well," she caught doubt and drifted an unconscious step forward, smiling reassuringly. "I lost some weight—strong magics have that effect. Vilt has me eating the most incredible amount of food! But I am well. In fact, I was getting ready to sign out of here and go back on duty."

"Duty? Priscilla . . . ." He paused, glancing about. "Is that the room you were in? Do you mind if we speak there? I . . ."

Something was wrong. She expanded her scope, trying to read it from his pattern, but received only a discord of pain, bitterness, anger, despair—a medley so unlike Shan that she would hardly have known him had her outer eyes been closed.

"Of course."

He stood aside to let her enter first, then closed the door behind them and dropped into the single chair. Uncertainly, she sat on the bed.

The silence was uneasy; scanning was worse than useless. She pulled the Master Trader's ring from her thumb and held it out.

He stared, despair increasing: taking the ring, he sat holding it between thumb and forefinger, toying with the lights among its facets.

"Have you decided," he asked, looking at the ring, his voice husky, "where it is I shall take you?"

She stared at him, ice blossoming in chest and belly.

"Why," she managed, "should you take me anywhere?"

"I gave my word," he told the amethyst. "You only said you would stay until you were—
well,
Priscilla."

Through the isolated, tangled scenes of the night before, she recalled it and licked her lips. "You said you—had come to take me home."

"Did I?" Still he did not meet her eyes, but stared at the ring in his hand. "I will then, Priscilla. But you must tell me where that is. Home."

"Shan!" Anguish knifed through her; she made no attempt to damp it, and felt his answering surge of concern as he at last raised his face.

"You don't want me to go!" she cried, knowing it was truth. "Why—"

"It doesn't matter what I want, Priscilla! What matters is what you want! If there is a place that is home to you, where you know, if you are in need, that there is someone—anyone!—who will aid you, I'll take you there. See you safe—settled . . . ." His voice cracked on the unaccustomed harshness. Instantly the black lashes flicked down, shielding him.

He took a breath, then another, his emotions an unreadable riot. "That a member of this ship's complement should feel there was no place to go when she was in direst need . . . I am ashamed, Priscilla. I've failed you as a captain . . . and as a friend."

"I want to stay." Her words came as barely a breath of sound. She gripped the mattress and tried again. "Captain, please. You never failed me. I failed, by not learning soon enough . . . by not understanding what it means to be a crew member." Tears ran her cheeks, unheeded. "Shan, by the Mother! The
Passage
is my home. Don't—don't make me leave!" She drew a shuddering breath and loosed the mattress to wipe her face with shaking fingertips.

"Really, Priscilla, you might tell me in advance if I'm expected to provide handkerchiefs for us both."

She gave a startled gasp, groping perhaps toward a laugh, and took the proffered cloth. "Thank you."

"Don't give it a thought. I have dozens. I just don't happen to have them all with me at the moment." He leaned back, his face less bleak, his pattern showing a glimmer of what might be hope.

"The ship would miss the services of the second mate," he said carefully. "The captain's information is that the second mate progresses excellently in her training, taking over more responsibilities each shift. The first mate is pleased. The captain is also pleased."

Melant'i
. She drew a deliberately even breath, relaxing tight chest muscles as she recalled sleep-lessons and Lina's tutoring. "The second mate wishes with all her heart to continue serving the ship and the captain."

Relief like a draught of ice-cold water cascaded from him to her. "Good. You will take your duties up again in four shifts." He raised a hand to still her protest. "There is a meeting at local midnight in the port master's office, Priscilla. Since you are intimately involved, it's best that you be there. Also present will be Delm Plemia, Sav Rid Olanek, Port Master Rominkoff, Shan yos'Galan, Gordon Arbuthnot, Mr. dea'Gauss, and Lina Faaldom, as observer."

"Balance?"

"Balance, indeed. Which reminds me, Thodelm. Mr. dea'Gauss wishes to meet with you in a very few moments now to ascertain the extent of debt owed you by Plemia and Korval—"

"Korval owes me nothing!" she cried. "If anything, I owe Korval for giving me a job, for—"

"Priscilla, do be reasonable. If you hadn't been on this ship, there quite possibly wouldn't be a ship right now, whether or not there was a captain. Ship's debt exists. As well as a personal debt."

"No," she said stubbornly. "I won't take payment from you. There's no debt now, if there ever was one." She leaned forward, extending a tentative hand. "Shan? You gave me—a life. I gave you a life. Balance."

He hesitated, then put his hand into hers. "Balance, then, Priscilla." He smiled. "You drive a hard bargain. Mr. dea'Gauss awaits us. May I escort your Ladyship to the meeting?"

"No," she said, gripping his hand and drinking in his lightening pattern with giddy joy. "But you may escort your friend."

Shan grinned and stood. "Much better, I agree." He flourished the bow between equals. "After you, Priscilla."

Ten minutes before the hour.

Taam Olanek sternly forbade himself the luxury of fidgeting with the papers before him. It was not expected that a delm betray uneasiness. At his right hand, Sav Rid sat silent. He still did not grasp it, Taam knew, pity warring with anger. He wondered briefly what had caused the younger man's madness, and set wonder aside. It hardly mattered.

Across the room, Mr. dea'Gauss was in quiet conversation with Port Master Rominkoff. The balance of the group had yet to arrive.

The door buzzed and was opened by the guard stationed there. Taam Olanek felt his breath snag.

A plain-faced Liaden woman in the costume of Thodelm entered, a tow-headed Terran child at her side. Taam Olanek's breathing eased. Of course Korval would arrive last. It was proper.

"I'm not sitting at the same table with him!"

The child had stopped, eyes fixed on—
Me?
Taam thought. No. On Sav Rid.

The woman had her hand on the boy's arm and was speaking in gentle Terran. "Gordon? We are here to settle past difference. You know this. To do so we must sit and speak together."

"I'm not," Gordon said through clenched teeth, "sitting at a table with him. He called me 'it,' and he said Priscilla was a thief."

With a feeling of infinite sadness, Taam Olanek rose and went across the room. A child, Sav Rid? he thought.

He and Mr. dea'Gauss reached the spot at the same moment. Asking permission with a flicker of fingers, Taam bowed to the child: elder to young person of rank. The boy eyed him narrowly but returned the bow properly, then straightened and stood waiting.

"I am," Taam said, speaking the unaccustomed tongue with great care, "Taam Olanek. The person you object to is one who will obey my word. Will it satisfy you, young sir, if I pledge that my kinsman Sav Rid will behave with fitting courtesy during the time we meet together?"

The brown eyes looked into his: a weighing glance. Taam returned it calmly. The boy looked to Mr. dea'Gauss.

"Is that true?" There was no insult in the tone; he was merely requesting information. Taam Olanek found himself amused.

Mr. dea'Gauss inclined his head. "The word of Delm Plemia is above reproach, Master Arbuthnot. What he has said will be."

"Okay." The boy inclined his head. "Thank you, Delm Plemia."

Taam bowed graciously. "Thank
you,
Master Arbuthnot."

Mr. dea'Gauss indicated the patient woman. "Plemia, here is Thodelm Faaldom Clan Deshnol."

He inclined his head. "Thodelm, I am pleased to meet you."

She bowed, as Head-of-Line-to-Delm-of-Another-Clan. "I am pleased to meet you, Plemia." Neither voice nor face betrayed her thoughts. Her behavior was most proper.

As observer, Thodelm Faaldom sat at the bottom left of the table. The boy sat to her right, near Mr. dea'Gauss. Sav Rid eyed both coldly; he made neither overture nor introduction.

The hour struck on the clock above the door, nearly covering the sound of the door buzzer.

The woman was tall, though not much taller than Shan yos'Galan, who walked just behind her right shoulder, and black-haired and slender. But for its paleness, her face might have been Liaden. She wore calm authority like a silken cloak over the clothing of Thodelm.

Gliding, she crossed to the port master and bowed as between equals.

Pilot, Taam Olanek thought, seeing the woman's grace mirrored in her white-haired escort. He understood now Mr. dea'Gauss's moment of outrage. Pleasure-love she might be, but this regal lady was no one's plaything.

"Port Master," she was saying, her voice soft and deeper than one expected, "I'm happy to see you again. Please accept my gratitude now for your kindness to myself and my friend."

The port master smiled in momentary pleasure, then waved a dismissing hand. "You owe me no gratitude, Lady Mendoza. My duty was clear. I believe there are still amends to be made; we must meet again before you leave."

The black-haired woman murmured assent and stepped aside.

Shan yos'Galan made his bow to the port master. "I'm pleased to see you again, ma'am. Please accept my gratitude as well, to be flung aside with Lady Mendoza's."

She laughed. "A lesson in manners, Captain? Very well, I accept the gratitude of all—including the boy's, though he hasn't offered it. Perhaps he's a realist." She indicated the rest of the table. "We are all gathered now. Mr. dea'Gauss?"

Korval's man of business rose to his spare height and bowed profoundly to the two just arrived.

"Thodelm yos'Galan. Thodelm Mendoza. Here are Elyana Rominkoff, Port Master; Taam Olanek, Delm Plemia; Lina Faaldom, thodelm and observer; Gordon Arbuthnot, foster-son and witness; Sav Rid Olanek, Trader."

Plemia inclined his head. Beside him, Sav Rid shifted and snapped,
"Lady
Mendoza!"

The woman's face remained coolly serene; she might not have heard. Certainly yos'Galan had heard; the light eyes glittered steel.

Plemia turned his face. Deliberately, using the Command mode of the High Tongue, he instructed for the ears of all, "You will exercise fitting courtesy here!"

Impossibly, Sav Rid looked hurt. "Certainly, sir."

Taam sighed to himself and saw a flicker of a reaction cross Lady Faaldom's face. At the top of the table, Lady Mendoza sat, Lord yos'Galan at her right. Plemia very nearly sighed aloud. Korval thus demonstrated its support of Thodelm Mendoza's demands and subordination of its claims to hers.

"It must be known," Mr. dea'Gauss announced, "that a pin-beam has been received from
Eldema
yos'Galan. It reads thus—" He plucked a sheet of hard copy from the pile before him. "'In the present affair between Plemia and Korval, it shall be that Thodelm yos'Galan speaks with the very voice of Korval. I, Nova yos'Galan, First Speaker in Trust, Clan Korval.'"

yos'Galan inclined his white head, his ugly face austere. "It shall be done as the First Speaker instructs."

Mr. dea'Gauss laid the sheet aside. "For the purpose of balance, it shall be considered that Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza is indeed Thodelm. Since she has chosen to disassociate herself from House Mendoza, Sintia, she must also be considered Delm Mendoza Offworld—"

"Offworld?" Sav Rid cried, cutting the old gentleman off. "Outlaw, more like!"

"Sav Rid!" Plemia allowed irritation to be heard. "I remind you again that I will have courtesy from you, for every person here."