Accepting the Lance Page 11

  Bond-space and its fascinations faded away. She blinked at the well-lighted bridge, her returning sense of the here-and-now sorting sounds into words, her eyes catching movement, her nose—

  “Maize buttons? You’ve got maize buttons?”

  Clarence laid a small tray before her, keeping himself between an interested norbear and the treat.

  “That’ll be for you to tell me. These’re just samples—I’ve got four different batches testing for time and technique. For something that oughta be simple, there’re enough secrets, tricks, and must-do preferences in the recipes to make my head spin. And since you’re the expert, you’ll have to let me know which ones the crew can be roused to duty to cull for you…”

  Kara appeared then, smiling and nodding Terran-style, remains of some delicacy held daintily in an upraised hand.

  “This is a duty I will suffer to do for you, O my Captain.”

  From her chair, Theo lightly bowed acknowledgment of one acting out of the interest of others, which brought an outright laugh. Theo hoped it wasn’t because she’d done it badly. Bechimo’d been coaching her on her bows.

  She took the tray from Clarence and rose, waving him to her chair.

  “Sit, by all means! My expertise is required elsewhere.”

  * * *

  The sorting of Kara and Clarence into stations had caught Hevelin’s interest, so Theo and Bechimo had the galley to themselves.

  There’d been a recent discussion among crew, regarding what favorite foods and treats they particularly missed. Kara had lamented the lack of a certain cheese tart; Win Ton a seed cake.

  Theo had remembered her father’s preferred snack, with a sigh as much for his absence as the tasty treat.

  “Bechimo, what are you doing?”

  Even as she took the first delightful bite of a lightly browned and slightly crunchy maize button, Theo was in bond-space again, feeling Bechimo’s watchful presence over her shoulder, as it were, before she was distracted again by the button—the slightly moist yellow interior, and butter—ah, butter! And the dainty texture of the properly ground meal, far more present and piquant than a simple powdered maize flour…and the butter smoothly at odds with the grittiness, textures to tease her tongue and please her mouth…

  “I have watched the process of this baking,” Bechimo said. “I am attempting to determine exactly how the…individual parts of the recipe trigger your enjoyment. I—I am not able to taste in exactly the way you do, but I can use my sensors to…”

  His voice faded off, as if he was embarrassed.

  “To what?” Theo asked.

  More hesitation, which was even more intriguing than the maize button. Bechimo had mostly gotten past his…reticent phase; this return to uncertainty was…puzzling. Especially since maize buttons, in Theo’s experience, weren’t particularly frightening.

  The pause grew longer.

  She put the rest of the maize button into her mouth and sighed. Butter!

  And, as if the act of eating the last half of the button had released him from some moment of intense observation, he spoke.

  “Through our bond I have access to sensors—extra sensors, which are providing me with data that I am…not equipped to analyze. Taste is a complex sequence of events. Through you, I am experiencing a…unique delight. I would, with your permission, like to share this sequence with Joyita. As comm officer he may need to be able to discuss similar experiences with those with whom he comes into contact.”

  Theo chose a maize button from the tray in the far upper corner of the table and considered it for a moment. It felt…right…in her hand; it was the proper weight for its size, it had the proper density, and was properly toned from pale yellow to tan on its surface.

  “So,” she said carefully, “you’re learning to taste?”

  “And to anticipate taste, as you are doing now, which is a different level of enjoyment. The shading of flavor appears to be an act of art rather than science. I am attempting to analyze in what—!”

  Space blazed around Theo; her mind naked to the stars, as distant Chuck-Honey, along with a thousand known moving objects within Surebleak System, cycled into acceleration curves. Shielding increased, the blaze dimming, threat assessments blending over each tracked object. There was a new brilliant energy as powerful as Jump glare, dulling even as they sought the new energy source, the blare of its energies dissipating, becoming a point, an object, a—

  Rock.

  Bechimo’s automatic subsystems were already working with spectrum analysis, timing the actual entry real-space, understanding vectors, attentive to everything at once.

  “What?” Theo managed, immersed in the whole of it, almost understanding, if she could only—

  “Anomaly,” Bechimo said, isolating the pertinent data into a single line that unrolled before her mind’s eye, suddenly comprehensible. “That was not a Jump; it was energy displaced by drive function.”

  “Drive function!” she exclaimed, seeing it as the data continued to unroll. “This close to a planet, that’s—”

  “A Clutch-style approach,” Bechimo said, and there was more data now, in a second line. “Without more information we cannot be certain that it is a Clutch vessel, but evidence strongly indicates that—”

  An image of the thing flickered into Theo’s consciousness, a subsystem showing it in multispectra display, too far away for active radar, but closing into that range fast.

  It came to her then that it was not just a rock. If not a traditional hull, it had still been shaped, it was visibly elongated, and—energy flowed as the object’s vectors changed.

  Theo felt the flutter of systems working; focusing on one allowed the others to fade somewhat into the background. She blinked predictive tracking closer, finding no ambiguity there.

  “It’s headed directly for Surebleak,” she muttered, to herself or to Bechimo; it was all the same. “This isn’t an accidental entry.”

  “Agreed. There is no indication of hostile intent, no indication of Old Tech influence, no active scan emissions. Joyita…”

  He paused, as if verifying something on the main board, and in that instant Theo saw it herself—comm lines open.

  “Joyita is in communication with the incoming vessel, and with Jeeves,” Bechimo said.

  The crew, Theo thought, then. The crew was enjoying Clarence’s latest culinary experiment, with no idea what was happening outside the galley, much less the ship.

  “Comm,” she said or thought, and it was hers.

  “Object incoming,” she said, her voice dragging across her ears almost too slow to hear, while the data flowed through her, bright and crisp.

  “Joyita, live feed to main screens! All crew to bridge!”

  Joyita was abruptly at the edge of bond-space, and the feed was enriched with information gained from his analyses, weaving seamlessly into the loop of what was known and extrapolated.

  “Show me that entry,” Theo demanded, “which sensors reacted first!”

  The feed blurred; re-formed into a list of sensors in order of their reaction, by nanoseconds, found the trace of an event occurring, which next, when the sensor checked again against random noise and determined that this was a signal, then when the individual sensor triggered the array that notified a higher system to attend this happening, when the…

  “Butter?” Theo asked in wonder.

  The sudden taste of butter in her bond-space mouth fled.

  “Calculating,” Bechimo said, which he never did, and finally in an almost sheepish sharing sotto voce, “Yes, butter, Theo. You were sharing the sensation of butter overwhelming the tongue’s first taste buds, and it became…connected to the event of the sensor report by happening simultaneously.”

  “That happens,” Theo told him. “These…associations…happen. But I didn’t think it would happen to you.”

  “I am,” Bechimo reported austerely, “in contact with Jeeves. He has asked for our assistance in coordinating what is reported to be a visit t
o Delm Korval. Joyita is in contact with the pilot, confirms Clutch.”

  Theo blinked back to the feeds, located the projected course.

  “That’s close to the house.”

  “Yes. All projections agree: the Clutch ship will land in the driveway.”

  “Miri’s going to like that.”

  “It will be very convenient for her,” Bechimo said, and Theo laughed.

  “The port has issued a space weather alert,” he said. “Clarence has called all hands to stations. I believe this includes Captain Waitley.”

  “It probably does,” she said, and sighed as bond-space melted away around her.

  * * *

  Win Ton, hair tousled with sleep, swung into the galley as Theo was rising from the table.

  He grinned, snatched a handful of maize buttons, and bowed lightly.

  “Captain, please. Precede me.”

  Jelaza Kazone

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  The scanner was a constant, comradely presence as Chernak and Stost pursued their studies in the Troop common room. This morning, they had an additional comrade in Diglon Rifle, who was also at study, which they understood to be a part of his assigned duty for the house.

  So, three soldiers at duty, the scanner a cheerful babble in the background, naming ships, issuing lane changes, chastising the laggards, assigning berths, and lift-out times…

  “Sleet and snow!” the scanner shouted.

  Three soldiers spun in their chairs. Stost went so far as to come to his feet, head at an angle as the port issued its instructions.

  “We need a screen!” he said. “If someone is throwing rocks at the planet, we need to see!”

  “Agreed,” Diglon said, and raised his voice somewhat. “Jeeves, we would profit from a feed in the common room.”

  The screen hanging on the wall over the scanner flickered and, indeed, there was an image, a large rock, cutting across the orderly lanes of Surebleak traffic as if it were navigating plain space. An overlay appeared.

  “The larger, that is the rock-ship which brought this house and all its goods from the world of Liad to this location,” Diglon said. “There are similarities, but this one incoming is smaller. More rapid, I think.”

  In the background, elsewhere in the house, Captain Robertson asked a question, and Jeeves answered, “On course for our driveway.”

  “Divert it!” Chernak snapped.

  “Descent is already slowing,” Jeeves stated. “House shielding is up. I anticipate a soft landing.”

  Stost turned to look at Chernak. Chernak turned to look at Diglon.

  “A soft landing,” she repeated. “Rifle, you have some experience of these?”

  “Only one other—the larger rock I spoke of. It came in soft and set the house down with precision. Mr. pel’Kana said it was so gently done, not a wine glass was broken.”

  “Who pilots such a craft—in such a manner?” demanded Stost.

  “The Clutch,” said Diglon, and paused, as if awaiting some moment of recognition.

  Chernak showed open, empty hands. “We are not familiar.”

  “No? This, more than anything else you have said, convinces me that you hail from another universe,” Diglon said, his eyes on the screen.

  “You see? It slows again.”

  “It does,” Stost agreed. “But these—Clutch. What manner of pilot? How are they allowed to land with such disregard of the lanes and order of approach?”

  “A function of the drive,” Diglon said. “You know that I am not a pilot, but there are papers written, some of which I have read. So far as I understand, the drive demands that the craft work close, using surrounding mass to navigate.”

  Stost reclaimed his abandoned chair.

  “They are warlike, these Clutch?” asked Chernak. “You are surprised that fellow soldiers do not know them.”

  “I think…not warlike,” said Diglon. “They prefer to give fair warning. Many, many years ago, they gave fair warning to the Troop: Cease what you are about in this area of space, or we, the Clutch, will lay waste to your ships and yourselves.”

  He paused, frowning somewhat. “The Clutch, they do not appear warlike. They are large, it is true, but impeded by their own bodies. They do not move rapidly. They seem, so my wife assures me, comical…not beings that soldiers, even such as I, might consider to be a threat.”

  “Nor did the soldiers who confronted the Clutch so many years ago?” Stost guessed. “They ignored the fair warning?”

  “They did,” Diglon said somberly. “And so the Clutch made good their threat. Two Conquest Corps were lost, and outlying ships. And, to this day, should a ship of the Troop find itself in the vicinity of a ship of the Clutch, it is the Troop who run away.”

  “And these…warriors are going to land in the driveway. Where will we run to, Friend Diglon?”

  “We will stay where we are, unless the Captain calls us,” Diglon said with dignity. “If we are wanted, we will go. We are soldiers of the house, under the Captain’s command. I will shame neither.”

  “Well said,” Stost said solemnly. “Have you an idea of how many might be in the rock incoming?”

  Diglon frowned at the screen.

  “It seems…very small,” he said. “Maybe a Clutch, or two, new from the creche might comfortably fit in such a vessel. The Scout’s Clutch-brother, Edger, whom I have seen and been made known to—he could not fit.”

  “Is he so large then?”

  “Large, yes, but also, he cannot bend. When this one is down and away from the ship, you will understand why that is.”

  In the screen, the rock-ship had slowed again.

  The three of them gave up any pretense of study, and watched the ship’s progress, until it landed, very lightly indeed, on the drive at the front of the house.

  “Will the Captain want us?” Chernak asked then.

  Diglon shook his head.

  “She has not called us. And look—she brings Jeeves.”

  In fact, the screen showed Captain Robertson approaching the vessel through eddies of steam, Jeeves beside her.

  “We will watch,” Stost said.

  “Oh, yes,” said Diglon. “We will watch.”

  • • • ✴ • • •

  It sat, steaming gently, on the driveway. Not much bigger, Miri thought, than the forty-eight-seat touring bus mothballed in the garage, darker than hull plate and vaguely cigar-shaped. There was no visible hatch, no visible instrumentation or lights. No obvious identification.

  Just a rock, that was all.

  It’d made a good landing, too, Miri noted; hadn’t even dimpled the tarmac. She allowed that to be a point in the pilot’s favor, but not enough to off-set her growing irritation.

  She turned her head to address the man-high canister topped by a ball that was, at the moment, glowing palely orange.

  “Jeeves, please ask Mr. Joyita to find out when our visitor intends to emerge. The delm of Korval awaits. Impatiently.”

  “Transmitting the delm’s request,” Jeeves said agreeably.

  There was a brief pause.

  “Joyita reports that the pilot thanks the delm of Korval for the gift of her time. She will emerge with all haste.”

  A crack appeared in the rock’s pitted surface, and another. Soundlessly a hatch opened, and a figure, stooped, yet still taller than either Miri or Jeeves, emerged, moving awkwardly.

  It achieved the surface of the drive and straightened, a young—no, Miri corrected herself—a small Clutch.

  Among the Clutch the tell for age was shell size, not height. A youngster, like He Who Watches, would have a very small shell, nestled between the shoulders, like a daypack.

  This person’s shell covered them from shoulder to shoulder in the back, like proper armor, tapering down to where their waist might be, if they’d had one. Over the shoulders at the front, there was more armor, lighter in color and maybe, Miri thought, in weight.

  Compared to Edger
’s bulk, this person was short, slim—almost streamlined. But they were, she was sure, an adult.

  Suddenly, the person—“she” according to Joyita, from whatever store of knowledge he was working from—stretched as suddenly and as sinuously as a cat. Somewhere halfway through, the stretch morphed into a bow, full of grace and meaning.

  Miri had seen Edger turn graceful like this, and was searching her memory for appropriate response, but their visitor spoke even as she finished her bow.

  Hasty, thought Miri, and felt a distant agreement from her lifemate.

  “I am called, for the purpose of this mission, Emissary Twelve.”

  The voice was light; nowhere near Edger’s occasionally head-rattling boom.

  “I am charged by the Elders to deliver a message directly to Delm Korval, on the matter of the short-term security and well-being of planet Surebleak.”

  She felt Val Con’s presence rise, until it seemed like he was standing there on the drive next to her. Barely behind and scarcely less physical, the vast green intelligence of Korval’s Tree swelled out of the depths of a self-imposed restorative slumber and into her awareness, curiosity roused, eager to be included in this new diversion.

  That’s all we need, she thought, and felt Val Con laugh.

  Surebleak Orbital Influence Zone

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  The Clutch ship was down.

  Bechimo had not given the port the first report of the anomaly, nor done anything more than confirm other reports on the sighting. They did share the information that the rock was piloted by Emissary Twelve, bound for an urgent meeting with the Delm of Korval. The setdown in the Road Boss’s drive—that by itself would be gossip for a week; no sense adding to the river of chatter.

  “Now that we’re all at stations and awake,” Theo said, offering Win Ton a wry grin, “let’s take a couple minutes to go over the form and substance of this first report we’re supposed to be submitting to Portmaster Liu in a few hours.”

  “Portmaster Liu,” Clarence commented, “has had an unusually hard day, I’m thinking, even for the master of Surebleak Port.”