A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume I Read online

  BAEN BOOKS

  by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

  The Liaden Universe ®

  Fledgling

  Saltation

  Mouse & Dragon

  Ghost Ship

  Dragon Ship

  Necessity's Child

  Trade Secret (forthcoming)

  The Dragon Variation (omnibus)

  The Agent Gambit (omnibus)

  Korval's Game (omnibus)

  The Crystal Variation (omnibus)

  A Liaden Universe ® Constellation: Volume1

  A Liaden Universe ® Constellation: Volume 2

  (forthcoming)

  The Fey Duology

  Duainfey

  Longeye

  by Sharon Lee

  Carousel Tides

  A LIADEN UNIVERSE ® CONSTELLATION: VOLUME 1

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  “To Cut an Edge” originally appeared in Two Tales of Korval, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1995. “A Day at the Races” originally appeared in Two Tales of Korval, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1995. “Where the Goddess Sends” originally appeared in Fellow Travelers, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1998. “A Spell for the Lost” originally appeared in Fellow Travelers, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1998. “Moonphase” originally appeared in Fellow Travelers, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1998. “Pilot of Korval” originally appeared in Duty Bound, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1999. “Breath's Duty” originally appeared in Duty Bound, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 1999. “The Wine of Memory” originally appeared in Certain Symmetry, SRM Publisher, Ltd., December 2000. “Certain Symmetry” originally appeared in Certain Symmetry, SRM Publisher, Ltd., December 2000. “Balance of Trade” originally appeared in Absolute Magnitude #11, Summer 1999. “A Choice of Weapons” originally appeared in Absolute Magnitude #12, Winter 1999. “Changeling” originally appeared in Absolute Magnitude #14, Summer 2000. “A Matter of Dreams” originally appeared in A Distant Soil #27, April 1999. “Phoenix” originally appeared in Loose Cannon, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 2001. “Naratha's Shadow” originally appeared in Such a Pretty Face, edited by Lee Martindale, Meisha Merlin Publishing, 2000. “Heirloom” originally appeared in Shadows and Shades, SRM Publisher, Ltd., November 2002. “Sweet Waters” originally appeared in 3SF #1, Spring 2002.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Liaden Universe® is a registered trademark.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3923-0

  Cover art by Stephen Hickman

  First Baen printing, July 2013

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lee, Sharon, 1952-

  [Short stories. Selections]

  A Liaden Universe constellation / by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.

  v. cm

  Contents: Volume 1. To cut an edge -- A day at the races -- Where the goddess sends -- A spell for the lost -- Moonphase -- Pilot of Korval -- Breatha's duty -- The wine of memory -- Certain symmetry -- Balance of trade -- A choice of weapons -- Changeling -- A matter of dreams -- Phoenix -- Naratha's shadow -- Heirloom -- Sweet waters -- Volume 2. Veil of the dancer -- Quiet knives -- This house -- Lord of the dance -- Necessary evils -- The beggar king -- Fighting chance -- Prodigal son -- Daughter of dragons -- Dragon tide -- Shadow partner -- Persistence -- Misfits -- Hidden resources -- Moon on the hills -- Skyblaze.

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3923-0 (v. 1) -- ISBN 978-1-4516-3944-5 (v. 2)

  1. Science fiction, American. I. Miller, Steve, 1950 July 31- II. Title.

  PS3562.E3629A6 2013

  813'.54--dc23

  2013011058

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Foreword

  One of the questions that readers often ask writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?”

  There are a couple of ways to reply to this, depending on your writer. In general, answers range from Harlan Ellison’s now-classic, “I get my ideas from a post office box in Schenectady,” to the more factual, and most often disbelieved, “Ideas are easy,” to the in-your-face, “Do you mean to say that you don’t have ideas? For God’s sake, tell me how to make them stop!”

  Since we’ve been working in the same fictional universe for quite a number of books now, we’re also pretty often asked, “What if you run out of stories?” Or, paraphrasing, “Aren’t you afraid that you’ll run out of ideas?”

  The answer to that is, well. . .we’re not going to run out of stories, or ideas for stories. We promise.

  And for evidence, there’s this book, the one you’re holding in your hand, right now.

  A brief introduction may be in order before we go any further.

  We’re Sharon Lee and Steve Miller and, as of the date of this letter to the future, we’ve written sixteen novels set in a space opera universe called collectively, the Liaden Universe®. By the time you read this introduction, we’ll have turned in the seventeenth novel in that universe, and may have contracts to write a couple of more.

  Space operas, for those to whom that may be a new term, are stories of romance and adventure in an imaginary future. Because opera, and romance, and adventure are activities in which people indulge, space opera—at least, space opera as it’s practiced in the Liaden Universe®—is about people. Character-driven fiction, that’s what we write.

  The fact that our fiction is primarily about people who find themselves in strange or exciting circumstances makes us even more certain that we won’t run out of either ideas or stories.

  Because people, in addition to being endlessly fascinating, are peerless in their ability to surprise.

  That’s why we write novels about people.

  Now, novels . . . novels don’t happen in a vacuum. Characters in novels come from someplace, they’re going someplace. In simplest terms, they’re coming from their past and they’re going to their future. That means, among other things, and just like you and me, that they’ve existed before the story starts, and will continue to exist after the story stops. They’ll have done things and known people.

  Some of the things they’ve done are outside the scope of the novel under construction . . .

  . . . and some of the people they’ve known, or know, have stories that are as much worth telling as . . . anyone else’s story, really.

  And that’s what’s in this book—the other stories, that happened before, or after, or to someone else.

  You don’t have to have read a Liaden Universe® novel to understand these stories. Several first appeared in venues, such as Absolute Magnitude, 3SF, and A Distant Soil, where the core audience had never, arguably, heard of our novels. Which reminds us to say that people figure into our writing in another, and very important way, and you’ve already guessed what we’re talking about—readers.

  For a number of years—from 1995 to 2011—we wrote and/or collected one long or two (rarely three) mid-length stories into booklets called chapbooks. These chapbooks were titled Adventures in the Liaden Universe®, and we produced seventeen of them, under the imprint of SRM Publisher, Ltd. They were a specialty item available from us, and from two or three specialty science fiction bookstores.

  Baen Books recently asked if the short
stories didn’t deserve a wider distribution. We agreed that they did, and so here you are—a constellation of the shorter works from the Liaden Universe®, the first of two and likely more, since we haven’t stopped writing short stories, and don’t expect to run out of ideas any time soon.

  The stories in this volume appeared in Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Volumes 1-8, and in the chapbook entitled Calamity’s Child—seventeen stories in all.

  We hope you enjoy them.

  Thank you for reading.

  —Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

  Waterville Maine

  April 2012

  To Cut an Edge

  AS AGREED, he was lost.

  He was, in fact, a good deal more lost than he wanted to be. It took him several seconds to realize that the continent overhead was not the one he’d secretly studied for—followed quickly by the realization that it was not even the world he’d expected.

  He’d crammed for oceanic Talanar, a planet quite close to the studies he’d been urged to make by his elders. This world was . . . ?

  What world was it, after all?

  Determining fall-rate overrode curiosity for this present. He located a magnetic pole and arranged to have the ship orient thus, then began a preliminary scan of—well, of wherever it was—as he slowed rotation smoothly and watched the screens.

  Air, good. Water, probably drinkable. Gravity, a bit heavier than the training planet: within ten percent of Liaden gravity. Preliminary scan established that this could be any of three or four hundred worlds.

  His ship was moving in, as it must. It had been dropped by an orbiting mothership, a carefully timed burst of retros killing its orbital speed. If he worked very hard and was very careful, he could keep the tiny craft in orbit, but that meant immediate expulsion, no appeal, unless he could demonstrate equipment failure . . .

  Instead, he nursed the strictly limited fuel supply by using only attitude jets, and hurried the computer a little to give him potential range.

  Three hours before he hit serious atmosphere. After that, depending on his piloting skills and local weather conditions, he might be in the air for an hour. The world below would turn one and a half times before he landed. He wondered what Daria would have thought—

  And quashed the thought immediately. Daria was dead, killed in the drop from the mothership, victim of a freakish solar storm. It had been stupid of them to be so involved, of course. Stupid and beautiful.

  Daria was months dead now, and Val Con yos’Phelium would be a Scout. Not partnered, as they’d promised so hastily, protected against all unnamed and unbelieved disasters by the strength of each other’s arms. Not partnered. But a Scout, nonetheless.

  After he passed the test.

  He considered the readouts. There were cities down there, yet not so closely huddled that there weren’t plenty of places to land a quick, slender craft. His instructions: achieve planetfall; learn the language, customs, life-forms; survive for six Standard months and sound Recall. This was not the final test, after all, but merely a preliminary. Pass this, then the true Solo and, behold! Scout. Simplicity itself.

  He shook his head and began the second scan. Optimism, he chided himself half-seriously, is not a survival trait.

  HE SET DOWN in the foothills above an amber valley where fields and possible houses lined a placid river.

  Grounded, he initiated the final pre-scan, whistling indifferently. His instrument of choice was the omnichora. A portable—gift from his fostermother on the recent occasion of his seventeenth Name Day—was packed away with the rest of his gear.

  It was remarkable the ’chora was there at all. Test tradition was that a cadet carried no tech-gear during prelims, except for that equipment found in a standard kit. However, those who had him under their eyes understood that to deprive Val Con yos’Phelium of the means of making his music for a period of six months, Standard, would be an act of wanton inhumanity. It had been debated hotly within the council of instructors, had he but known it. He knew only the end—that the ’chora was aboard the test ship and that his immediate superior took care to comment that music was communication, too.

  Sighing, Val Con studied the results of the scan. Air, a bit light on oxygen, but not enough to present problems. Microbes, nothing to worry him there. Scout inoculations are thorough. Soil samples showed levels of copper, iron, a shade too much sulfur. No harmful radiations. In fact, it was going to be rather dim outside.

  Hull temp read orange: too hot for exit.

  He stretched in the pilot’s chair and released the web of shock straps. Asking the rationboard for a cup of hot tea, he stood sipping, trying to damp the surge of excitement that threatened, now he was really here.

  Wherever “here” was.

  He grinned suddenly. What did it matter? It was a Scout’s task to discover such things, after all! This was what he had been trained for. More fool he, cramming for a world lightyears distant, when he could have been . . . been sleeping.

  Resisting the urge to tell the temperature display precisely what he thought of its arbitrary limitations, he bent down, opened the crew locker and brought out two bundles.

  The first was his ’chora, wrapped in oiled yellow silk. His fingers caressed it through the fabric as he set it aside.

  The second bundle was wrapped in black leather and clanked when he hefted it. He settled back on the floor and twisted the clasps, pulling out a broad belt, also of black leather, hung about with objects.

  A Scout must wear a complete belt-kit at all times.

  He looked at the heavy thing with deep resentment. Complete? If he came to require local currency, he need only open a hardware concession. Oh, some of them made sense: pellet gun, machete, rope. But a flaregun? Pitons? Surely, if there were mountains to climb, one would know in sufficient time to prepare oneself?

  Ah well, regulations are regulations. And if any of the several things he judged useless were not on his belt, should a proctor turn up, he would flunk on the instant.

  Sighing, he began the kit-check.

  Pellet gun: OK.

  Flaregun: OK.

  Machete: What can go wrong with a machete? OK.

  Stick-knife . . . He smiled and flipped it open to reveal the strong, dainty blade. The stick-knife was pleasing. He found knives in general pleasing, and had studied their construction during his so-called spare time, even attempting to craft a few. The most successful of these was a plain steel throwing blade, which, of course, was not with him at the moment. The stick-knife was not for throwing, but for surprise and efficiency in close, desperate situations. He flicked his wrist, vanishing blade into hilt.

  Stick-knife: OK.

  A Scout’s belt-kit is comprehensive. By the time Val Con finished his check the orange temperature light had gone out.

  DAY SEVEN.

  He rose and tidied the ship while drinking a mug of tea, checked the monitors, buckled on his kit and went out.

  It was dim, like a day threatening downpours on his own bright world, and sultry. A breeze blowing from the south brought a medley of unfamiliar odors with it. He sniffed appreciatively and paused to pick an old reed from the side of the path.

  Six days had seen many accomplishments. His eyes had adjusted to the lower light level, even as his body rhythms had reached an acceptable compromise with the overriding song of the world. Sensors had been set out and calibration programs begun. The log was up-to-date.

  His failure lay in contacting the people.

  Not that there weren’t people. On the contrary, there were at least two hundred individuals living in the valley at the end of this path, though the count was necessarily approximate. He found it difficult to differentiate at distance between one large-shelled person and another. Given variation in shell size, person size, decoration and harness, individuality would eventually come through; but it would be a slow process. Worse, he had yet to find one single person who would speak with him—or even acknowledge his presence.

  He�
�d tried all the approaches he’d been taught—and several he’d invented on the spur of the moment—angling for any response at all.

  And had been roundly ignored.

  Yesterday, he had boldly stepped in front of a group of three, bowed low, as he had seen those small-shelled or shell-less bow when addressing those more magnificent than themselves. The group split and detoured around him, unhurriedly, but with determination.

  The path wound around an outcropping of rock and sloped toward the caves and valley floor. Val Con stopped to survey his prospects, idly twirling the reed.

  Across the valley, people were about what he now perceived as their daily business. Four individuals were in the fields along the river, working among the growing things with long-handled tools vaguely reminiscent of hoes. Toward the center, a cluster of eight? ten? large persons was engaged in a certain choreographed activity, which could have been dancing, game-playing or military drill. Across the river, large greenish shapes moved among the hulking rounded stones—dwelling places, so he thought: The town itself.

  Just downhill from him now, though somewhat distant from the caverns and convenient to a nice flat rock, was a very large individual with sapphire glinting randomly from the tilework of its shell. With it were four small people, shell-less, and bumbling in a way that shouted children to him. The largest was scarcely taller than he.

  It is dangerous to approach the young of an isolate and perhaps xenophobic people—or, indeed, of any people. But Val Con’s observations indicated that he could easily outrun the adult, should it attempt an attack, and children are often curious . . .