The Dragon Variation (5 page)

The rest of her was as strange to the standard of beauty he acknowledged: Her breasts, brown as her face and rosy brown at the very tips, were round and high, larger than his hand could encompass. She was saved from being top-heavy by the width of her hips, flaring unexpectedly from a narrow waist, and she moved with a pilot's smooth grace. Her hands were long-fingered and strong—musician's hands—and her voice was quite lovely.

He thought of the face of the latest proposed to him: Properly Liaden, well-mannered and golden. A person who understood duty, who would do as she was bid by her delm. And who would very properly rebuke Er Thom yos'Galan, should he but reach out a finger to trace the line of her cheek, or lay his lips against hers.

But I do not want her!
he thought, plaintive, childish, undutiful—strange. As strange as lying here in this present, in a too-large bed, his arms about a woman not of his kind, who expected him to sleep next to her the night full through; to be there when she awoke . . .

Carefully, he slid down until his eyes were on a level with her closed eyes. For a long while, he stared into her unbeautiful, alien face, watching—guarding—her sleep. Finally, he moved his head to kiss her just-parted lips and said at last the thing he had come to tell her, the thing which must not be forgotten.

"I love you, Anne Davis."

His voice was soft and not quite steady, and he stumbled over the Terran words, but it hardly mattered. She was asleep and did not hear him.

Melant'i
—A Liaden word denoting the status of a person within a given situation. For instance, one person may fulfill several roles: Parent, spouse, child, mechanic, thodelm. The shifting winds of circumstance, or 'necessity,' dictate from which role the person will act this time. They will certainly always act honorably, as defined within a voluminous and painfully detailed code of behavior, referred to simply as 'The Code.'
To a Liaden,
melant'i
is more precious than rubies, a cumulative, ever-changing indicator of his place in the universal pecking order. A person of high honor, for instance, is referred to as "a person of
melant'i
," whereas a scoundrel—or a Terran—may be dismissed with "he has no
melant'i
."
Melant'i
may be the single philosophical concept from which all troubles, large and small, between Liad and Terra spring.

—From
A Terran's Guide to Liad
 

LATE IN THE morning
, loved and showered and feeling positively decadent, Anne stood in front of the tiny built-in vanity. A few brush-strokes put her shower-dampened hair into order, and she smiled into her own eyes as her reflected fingers found and picked up her pendant.

"Anne?"

She turned, transferring her smile to him. An elfin prince, so Brellick had described him, enticing Anne to meet a real, live Liaden. And elfin he was: Slim and tawny and quick; hair glittering gold, purple eyes huge in a beardless pointed face; voice soft and seductively accented.

The eyes right now were very serious, moving from her hand to her face.

"Anne?" he said again.

"Yes, my dear. What can I do for you?"

"Please," he said slowly, gliding closer to her. "Do not wear that."

"Don't wear—" She blinked at him, looked down at the fine golden chain and pendant seed-pearls, artfully blended with gold-and-enamel leaves to look like a cluster of fantasy grapes.

This is a misunderstanding,
she told herself carefully;
a problem with the words chosen.
Er Thom's command of Terran tended to be literal and uneasy of idiom—much like her careful, scholar's Liaden. It made for some interesting conversational tangles, now and then. But they had always been able to untangle themselves, eventually. She looked back into his eyes.

"You gave this to me," she said, holding it out so he might see it better. "Don't you remember, Er Thom? You gave it to me the day
Dutiful Passage
—"

"I remember," he said sharply, cutting her off without a glance at the pearls. He lay a hand lightly on her wrist.

"Anne? Please. It was—it was given to say good-bye. I would rather—may I?—give you another gift."

She laughed a little and lay her hand briefly over his.

"But you won't be here long, will you? And when you leave again, you'll have to give me another gift, for another good-bye . . ." She laughed more fully. "My dear, I'll look like a jewelry store."

The serious look in his eyes seemed to intensify and he swayed closer, so his hip grazed her thigh.

"No," he began, a little breathlessly. "I—there is a thing you must hear, Anne, and never forget—"

The doorbell chimed. Anne glanced up, mouth curving in a curious smile, and raised her fingers to touch his cheek.

"That's Jerzy," she said, laying the pendant back in its carved ivory box. She moved past him toward the living room. "Er Thom, there's someone I want you to meet."

He stood still for a moment, running through a pilot's calming exercise. Then, he went after her.

The man who was coming in from the hallway was not large as Terrans go; he was, in fact, a bit under standard height for that race, and a bit under standard weight, too. He had rough black hair chopped off at the point of his jaw and a pale face made memorable by the thick line of a single brow above a pair of iron-gray eyes. He was carrying a cloth sack over one shoulder and a child on the opposite hip. Both he and the child were wearing jackets; the child also wore a cap.

"Jerzy delivers kid latish in the a.m., as promised. Notice the nobility of spirit which would not allow me to steal him, though I was tempted, ma'am. Sore tempted."

"You're a saint, Jerzy," Anne said gravely, though Er Thom heard the ripple of laughter through her words.

"I'm a lunatic," the young man corrected, bending to set the child on his sturdy legs. He knelt and pulled off the cap, revealing a head of silky, frost-colored hair, and unsealed the little jacket, much hampered by small, busy hands.

"Knock it off, Scooter. This is hard enough without you helping," he muttered and the child gave a peal of laughter.

"Help Scooter!" he cried.

Jerzy snorted. "Regular comedian. Okay, let's get the arms out . . ."

"I can do that, you know," Anne said mildly, but Jerzy had finished his task and stood up, sliding the bag off his shoulder and stuffing the small garments inside.

"And have you think I don't know how to take care of him? I want him back, you know. Say, next week, same time?"

"Jerzy—"

But whatever Anne had meant to say to her friend was interrupted by a shriek of child-laughter as young Scooter flung himself hurly-burly down-room, hands flapping at the level of his ears. Er Thom saw the inexpert feet snag on the carpet and swooped forward, catching the little body as it lost control and swinging him up to straddle a hip.

The child laughed again and grabbed a handful of Er Thom's hair.

"Good catch!" Jerzy cried, clapping his palms together with enthusiasm. "You see this man move?" he asked of no one in particular and then snapped his fingers, coming forward. "You're a pilot, right?"

"Yes," Er Thom admitted, gently working the captured lock of hair loose of the child's fingers.

The young man stopped, head tipped to one side. Then he stuck out one of his big hands in the way that Terrans did when they wanted to initiate the behavior known as "shaking hands." Inwardly, Er Thom sighed. Local custom.

He was saved from this particular bout with custom by the perpetrator himself, who lowered his hand, looking self-conscious. "Never mind. Won't do to drop Scooter, will it? I'm Jerzy Entaglia. Theater Arts. Chairman of Theater Arts, which gives you an idea of the shape the department's in."

An introduction. Very good. Er Thom inclined his head, taking care that the child on his hip did not capture another handful of hair. "Er Thom yos'Galan Clan Korval."

Jerzy Entaglia froze, an arrested expression on his forgettable face. "yos'Galan?" he said, voice edging upward in an exaggerated question-mark.

Er Thom lifted his eyebrows. "Indeed."

"Well," said Jerzy, backing up so rapidly Er Thom thought
he
might take a tumble. "That's great! The two of you probably have a lot to talk about—get to know each other, that kind of stuff. Anne—seeya later. Gotta run. 'Bye, Scooter—Mr. yos'Galan—" He was gone, letting himself out the door a moment before Anne's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Bye, bye, bye!" the child sang, beating his heels against Er Thom's flank. He wriggled, imperatively. "Shan go."

"Very well." He bent and placed the child gently on his feet, offering an arm for support.

The boy looked up to smile, showing slanting frosty eyebrows to match the white hair, and eyes of so light a blue they seemed silver, huge in the small brown face. "Shank you," he said with a certain dignity and turned to go about his business.

He was restrained by a motherly hand, which caught him by a shoulder and brought him back to face Er Thom.

"This is someone very important," she said, but it was not clear if she was talking to the boy or to himself. She looked up, her eyes bright, face lit with such a depth of pride that he felt his own heart lift with it.

"Er Thom," she said, voice thrilling with joy, "this is Shan yos'Galan."

"yos'Galan?" He stared at her; looked down at the child, who gazed back at him out of alert silver eyes.

"yos'Galan?" he repeated, unable to believe that she would—without contract, without the Delm's Word, without—He took a breath, ran the pilot's calming sequence; looked back at Anne, the joy in her face beginning to show an edge of unease.

"This is—our—child?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady, his face politely distant. Perhaps he had misunderstood. Local custom, after all—and who would so blatantly disregard proper behavior,
melant'i
,
honor
 . . .

Relief showed in her eyes, and she nearly smiled. "Yes. Our child. Do you remember the night—that horrible formal dance and it was so hot, and the air conditioning was broken? Remember, we snuck out and went to the roof—"

The roof of the yet-unfinished Mercantile Building. He had landed the light-flyer there, spread the silk for them to sit on as they drank pilfered wine and snacked on delicacies filched from a hors d'ouevre tray . . .

"Fourteen moons," he whispered, remembering, then the outrage struck, for there was no misunderstanding here at all, and no local custom to excuse. "You named this child
yos'Galan
?" he demanded, and meant for her to hear his anger.

She dropped back half-a-step, eyes going wide, and her hands caught the boy's shoulders and pulled him close against her. She took a deep breath and let it sigh out.

"Of course I named him yos'Galan," she said, very quietly. "It is the custom, on my homeworld, to give a child his father's surname. I meant no—insult—to you, Er Thom. If I have insulted you, only tell me how, and I will mend it."

"It is improper to have named this child yos'Galan. How could you have thought it was anything else? There was no contract—"

Anne bowed her head, raised a hand to smooth the boy's bright hair. "I see." She looked up. "It's an easy matter to change a name. There's no reason why he shouldn't be Shan Davis. I'll make the application to—"

"No!" His vehemence surprised them both, and this time it was Er Thom who went back a step. "Anne—" He cut himself off, took a moment to concentrate, then tried again, schooling his voice to calmness. "Why did you not—you sent no word? You thought I had no reason to know that there was born a yos'Galan?"

She moved her hands; he was uncertain of the meaning, the purpose, of the gesture. The child stayed pressed against her legs, quiet as stone.

"I wanted a child," she said, slowly. "I had decided to have a child—entirely my own choice, made before I met you. And then, I did meet you, who became my friend and who I—" Again, that shapeless gesture. "I thought, 'why shouldn't I have the child of my friend, instead of the child of someone I don't know, who only happened to donate his seed to the clinic'?" She moved her head in a sharp shake.

"Er Thom, you were leaving! We had been so happy and—is it wrong, that I wanted something to remind me of joy and the friend who had shared it? I never thought I'd see you again—the universe is wide, my brother says. So many things can happen . . . It was only for my joy, my—comfort. Should I have pin-beamed a message to Liad? How many yos'Galans are there? I didn't think—I didn't think you'd
care,
Er Thom—or only enough to be happy you'd given me so—so fine a gift . . ." She bent her head, but not before he'd seen the tears spill over and shine down her cheeks.

Pity filled him, and remorse. He reached out. "Anne . . ."

She shook her head, refusing to look at him, and Shan gave a sudden gasp, which quickly became a wail as he turned to bury his face against her legs. She bent and picked him up, making soothing sounds and stroking his hair.

Er Thom came another step forward, close enough to touch her wet cheek, to lay his hand on the child's thin shoulder.

"Peace, my son," he murmured in Liaden while his mind was busy, trying to adjust to these new facts, to a trade that became entirely altered. He thought of the proposed contract-marriage that must somehow be put off until he had done duty by this child—
his
child—a half-bred child, gods—whatever would he say to his mother?

"No!" Anne jerked back, holding the sobbing child tightly against her. Her face was ashen, her eyes shadowed with some dire terror.

"Anne?"

"Er Thom, he is
my
son! He is a Terran citizen, registered on University.
My
son, of whom your clan was never told—for whom your clan doesn't care!"

Harsh words, almost enough to strike him to anger again. But there, Terrans knew nothing of clans.

"The clan knows," he said softly, telling her only the truth, "because I know; cares because I care. We are all children of the clan; ears, eyes and heart of the clan."