- Prologue Read online

  He continued in a more normal voice, "Watch the screens: is that a camel or a horse? And what is funny, Sweet Mystery?"

  They'd brought round the tractor that towed the shuttle, and as she watched, Win Ton enumerated the camera views, showing her how to change them. She paid scrupulous attention, saying, "That must be the camel, that's the one they only use on spacecraft. And what's funny is the ballistic routing. Asu told me, before you knocked, that everyone knew you were still on port because there hadn't been an outgoing sonic boom!"

  She glanced at him, saw him manfully straighten the smile off his face.

  "Ah, did she? Then her reputation is mine to save. Please note these amendments, and file the corrected figures when queried."

  They felt the tow start as Win Ton went over radio and feed sequence with her, bailout sequence, and how to set vessel on autoland. With each quick lesson he looked at her, and it was hard not to keep looking at him, except she had to show that she'd heard by using the keys on her quiet board.

  The tractor pulled free, and tower's voice was live:

  "Torvin, your flight plan will be accepted by link, since we're getting good feed, please file, and we'll acknowledge."

  Theo glanced at Win Ton.

  "It is good form to strap in before liftoff," he said conversationally, "and please, file the plan."

  Theo touched the send switch and yanked the strap. It was clear they were in the tower's eye, because the response was instant, and she couldn't hit the acknowledge switch right back, because she was tangled in lap strap.

  "Be sure to file intentions with your destination, Torvin. You may lift at will after your launch signal. Enjoy dinner!"

  "Send the duplicate routing on, Second, and we will . . ."

  Theo did that as Win Ton seemed to go half quiet before saying, ". . . please Asu diamon Dayez, no doubt."

  The klaxon sounded tinny through the ship's outside ears.

  "Now," Win Ton said, and engaged lift.

  By the time they'd set down at the field by Howsenda Hugglelans, with Theo riding comm, her head felt like it was in . . . some other place; like it wasn't directly attached to the rest of her body. She'd followed the board lights, listening to Win Ton's soft-voiced explanation of what he was doing, interrupting only once, with a question.

  "How do I get to do this?"

  "This? Become a Scout?"

  "No—fly this."

  "Ah!" He'd laughed, softly. "Much less difficult! Courier pilots need only be first class, with a demonstrated willingness to fly like a lunatic on any occasion." Her attention on the board, she'd felt, rather than seen him grin at her. "You would do well, I think."

  "I think so, too," she'd answered, and lapsed again into rapt silence.

  Hull cool, they exited Torvin.

  Win Ton offered an arm and she leaned on that, grateful for the support as they approached the desk.

  A familiar-looking man in a sleeveless vest met them, with a grin and a nod to Theo.

  "You return!" said the waiter who wore too much vya. "And this time, you have forgotten your aunt! Very good, Pilot. A terrace table for you and your . . . friend?"

  "Yes," Theo said, straightening, but keeping a firm grip on Win Ton's arm. "Please."

  They followed him up the ramps and let him seat them together on a cushioned bench by a secluded table overlooking the field. Win Ton laughed softly as they were momentarily left alone.

  "You are known everywhere, Theo Waitley! And rightly admired."

  She shook her head at him. "I was here a while ago with Pilot yos'Senchul and Veradantha. Happens we had the same server—luck, is all."

  "Indeed," Win Ton said with a grin. "Luck." He leaned forward and touched her hand. "Now that the fascination of lift has evaporated, tell me of yourself."

  "There's not much to tell," she protested, "outside of what I've been writing to you."

  "Ah. Then tell me this: Why does Admin Frosher claim you for an attitude problem?"

  "Oh, that," Theo said, as their server came back with the requested tea.

  "Service, Pilots?"

  "Today's special," Theo and Win Ton said simultaneously—and laughed in the same heartbeat.

  Their server smiled. "Today's special, it is. A moment while I gather what is needful."

  "Now," Win Ton said, "tell me."

  So, over tea and befores, she told him. Win Ton was a good listener, asking questions only when she'd gotten off track; willing to wait while she sorted out her narrative. When she got to the part about Wilsmyth jigging her flight time he said something sharp in what she guessed was Liaden, though it wasn't in the lexicon she was laboriously sleep-learning, with Veradantha's permission.

  "Where did he strike you?" he asked.

  Theo raised her hand to her head. "It's healed now."

  "Let me see, if I may?" He smoothed her hair back from the place; she shivered at the touch of his fingers, even as she leaned into it.

  "So soft, like sea mist . . ." His breath was warm against her temple; his lips were gentle against the place where the cut had been.

  Theo closed her eyes, feeling a not-entirely-unpleasant roiling in her stomach.

  "Yes," Win Ton murmured. "It has healed without a scar." He kissed the place again, and Theo reached—

  "Will it please you to have dinner now, Pilots?" their server asked, amusement lacing his voice.

  Win Ton eased back and considered him before looking to Theo. "Pilot?"

  She sighed, and met the server's interested gaze. "Yes," she said levelly. "Dinner would be most welcome."

  "So," she ventured, after they had been served. "Now that you've heard my boring news, don't I get to hear yours?"

  "That would appear to be a fair trade," Win Ton agreed slowly, and from the depths of an apparent minute study of the table's centerpiece. His shoulders rose as if he had taken an especially deep breath, and he raised his head, meeting her eyes with a startling degree of seriousness.

  "Alas," he said, and she could hear him making the effort to keep his voice light, as if he were telling a joke. "My news is even more tedious than your own." He extended his hand to touch hers where it lay on the table next to her teacup.

  She didn't look down, but met his eyes, and tried to keep her voice light, too.

  "A star pilot trumped by a student's tales out of school? Hard to believe."

  He laughed, low in his throat. "Yes, but what could be more tedious than to learn that one's clan has finally found a use for one?"

  She blinked. "They're calling you home?" But, she thought, he's a pilot! What would he do at home, if—

  "For a short time only," Win Ton's voice interrupted these unsettling thoughts. His fingers tightened over hers. "My delm has decreed that I'm to wed, Theo. On Liad."

  "Wed?" She blinked at him. "But you joined the Scouts so you didn't have to be on Liad."

  He laughed, not happily. "No, I was given to the Scouts because I was more trouble to my honored kin than my then-current worth. But alliance is alliance, and unless I wish to stand eklykt'i—which I assure you that I do not!—I shall make my bow to duty." He looked at her earnestly. "You understand that it is merely a contract marriage, and after—" His face lost some of its tension and the grin he gave her was very nearly his usual mischievous expression. "After," he said, "I shall be free to do real work."

  "Real work," Theo repeated. "Aren't you doing real work now?"

  He lifted his hand from hers and made a short gesture of dismissal. "It is real, but—not preferred. My goal had always been to be part of a survey team. My duty to the clan done, I may embrace it—I hold the word of my delm on the matter! So . . ." He raised his teacup, as if he offered a toast. "Let us put that topic behind us, if you please, and speak of pleasanter things."

  True to his word, he did just that, chattering away through the remainder of the meal until she was laughing, and matching him absurdity for absurdity. They were still laughing when they climbed the ramp hand in hand and Tor
vin let them in.

  Theo looked to the second chair, took a step—and Win Ton's fingers tightened on hers. She paused and looked into his face, saw . . . something . . . and swayed back, as if it were part of a dance.

  "Win Ton," she began, and—

  "Theo," he started—

  They both laughed again, somehow in the middle of it becoming tangled into a hug. His lips burned against her temple, and she hugged him tighter, wanting to, to melt into him, to—

  She moved her head, and kissed him on the lips. He started, then pulled her closer, his arms so tight she could scarcely breathe, but that really didn't seem to matter. She slid her hands inside his jacket, feeling his back through the sweater. He dropped his head to her shoulder, nuzzling the side of her neck. His hand moved and she felt him touch the wings on her collar.

  "You wear them," he murmured.

  She laughed, shakily. "It's your gift to me. Of course, I wear them."

  "Good," he breathed. "Excellent." His lips charted a lingering course up toward her ear.

  "There's a bunk," he whispered, his voice not at all steady. "Theo—your choice. I—"

  "Yes," she said, shaking, needing, wanting. "I'm not—Win Ton; I haven't had a lot of practice."

  He choked—no, it was laughter, and the look he gave her was brilliant with delight.

  "Well, then," he said unsteadily, "I stand ready. You may practice on me, if you wish."

  "I do wish," she said, and reached up to kiss him again.

  Twenty

  Piloting Praxis

  Anlingdin Piloting Academy

  "Once you've sat first or second seat on orbit around an inhabited planet you'll see that being Pilot in Command of a space vessel makes being PIC on a two- or four-seat air-sucking cloud hopper an order of magnitude less dangerous to all concerned."

  The casual dismissal of their progress to date shocked the room; the palpable intake of breath became a uniform over-the-shoulder glance in her direction from the front—and Theo imagined those behind her staring at the back of her head. As far as she knew there were exactly two people in the room who met that criteria: Instructor yos'Senchul and herself.

  That she had exactly two-hundred-and-fifty-one minutes as orbital second board, certified C&C—Comm and Control—by a Scout was known across the campus, and as the instructor went on to explain, far beyond the campus.

  "In many ways being on orbit in controlled space is safer than flying through the air. It takes far longer to hard-land a spacecraft than a Star King; and there are many more resources in place to ensure that you do not fall out of the sky.

  "Make no miscalculation about it, Pilots, most of these resources are brought to bear not because you are personally more valuable, but because the damage you might do with even a minor lapse in judgment is exponentially greater with each step you take."

  The instructor looked pensive for a moment, which Theo thought was a teacher's act since Liadens she knew rarely showed such emotions. Even Father needed to exaggerate his normal expressions to make them obvious to people who didn't know him.

  The one-handed motion made next was also artful: a toss emphasizing the empty sleeve.

  "Mistakes are expensive. A Slipper striking a home in a small subdivision of a dozen houses might kill the unlucky pilot and damage the home. A Star King doing the same could wipe out the pilot, family, and house, perhaps even two houses. The shuttle . . ."

  He paused for effect then, allowing everyone to digest the thought.

  "But no, we need not speculate on this, because we have available, courtesy of the Scout who recently visited, a virtual museum of recent pilot error accidents. Some are complete with tapes permitting you to fly the error right into the ground, or not, on your own time, in sim. All of the master-adjudicated errors we share today have occurred within the last two Standards. These are not pretty. They are, however, instructional."

  Of the six errors yos'Senchul deemed most instructive, only one was by a trainee, and that trainee already licensed as a Second Class Provisional. Somehow that heartened Theo, when perhaps it was meant as a warning to all of them.

  She took the long-way-around walk to lunch to think through not only what she'd seen, but also what she hadn't. Some of her classmates had simply not reacted at all to the vids, as far as she could see, as if they hadn't recognized the problem instantly. For her part, her hand still ached where she'd clenched the offending palm, trying to take it back from the motion that she hadn't made, that she knew better than to make, already.

  She danced out that realization momentarily, feeling this move here and that move there and seeing that, of course, with the hands and body flowing properly, as compared with dance, even strapped in—especially strapped in—this move, this move that hurt her hand to think about, this move that had killed a pilot and a field boss and injured a dozen farmworkers, this motion went entirely against the warm-up exercises and the way you worked with a bowli ball. Well . . .

  The dancing was combat. The dancing was prep for bowli ball which was prep for moving now. The dancing was board drills. The dancing was what had convinced Win Ton that she . . .

  Chaos!

  Yes, she missed him. Missed him. Not like she missed Father and Kamele, or the way she still sometimes missed Bek. Still, it was difficult not to look at everything she was doing now knowing that Win Ton also shared this information or moved this way, or would understand—

  Well, maybe he'd even understand why it was she'd been spending quite so much time at sim-ship, and why it was she was busy, busy with extra dance, busy with a sudden interest in packet and courier ships, busy avoiding the sometimes just-too-stealthy questions and insinuations from Asu.

  Really, what was it to Asu exactly what they'd done or hadn't, or when, or who started what? The first three days after her return from orbit she'd felt like Asu was peering at her neck, looking at her shoulders, for Simple Sake, checking out her feet and legs for marks and bruises!

  Win Ton was Liaden, and thoughtful and gentle, and Liaden! That meant careful, in many senses.

  And everybody's questions about, "How was it in orbit?" Pfui!

  Yes, Win Ton was a Scout pilot . . . which meant a master class pilot, as it turned out, and so yes, not only could he certify her orbital time but he also should, because that's part of what master class pilots were supposed to do. He'd also been very clear that once they lifted, it was all about the ship.

  She smiled to herself. Yes, when she'd rolled the Torvin through the sun-cooling routine, Win Ton's smile had been good. But she'd rolled it properly on axis, and then she'd offered her calculations to him and the board for the deorbit burn that would bring them down on the longest, flattest, slowest, quietest possible landing the ship could make, according to all the information the ship so willingly fed second board. And it was all about the ship, and about being a pilot.

  Taking the long way to lunch meant a visit to DCCT was out of the question before afternoon class, but it also meant one more chance to avoid Asu, who needed to be in class at about the moment Theo reached for her last cheese muffin, counting teatime in her head. Now that math was falling into place for her she'd been getting in extra dance as well as extra bowli ball and those calories needed to be replaced, and she and Asu were suddenly out of the habit of companionable late night snacks. . . .

  Theo continued the count in her back brain even as she thought about Asu. She was senior bunk, after all, and so she needed to be in some touch with Asu, just in case someone asked.

  Count reached, she said, "One hundred thirty-two" out loud and gently sipped at her second cup.

  Out of the side of her vision appeared a familiar hand with rings on it, fluttering query query before the rest of Kara appeared, bonelessly dropping into the chair opposite, tray carefully isolated from the flump of the body.

  "What?" Theo felt her eyebrow rise and tried to suppress it, without luck. Genes!

  "Counting flower petals odd and even?"

  It
was Theo's turn to flutter query with one hand as she sipped again. It was really hard to get the tea exact when the available hot water varied by so much, but . . .

  "I distinctly heard you counting," Kara said, unzipping food from her tray. "Bova informs me that there's a well-known Terran custom of offering a potential night-friend the opportunity of counting flower petals together. I gather one actually pulls the flower apart in the process. Should both parties reach the last petal with a 'Yes, I will' . . . then the night is decided."

  Theo thought a moment, scrunching up her face seriously, cup still in front of her lips.

  "How many choices are there, I wonder? Or is it binary?"

  Kara bowed, laughing.

  "Yes, it is binary. I think you begin to see, O Pilot."

  "And so if one knows the number of petals a particular flower generally has . . ." Theo sipped, put the cup down in favor of finishing the maize button.

  The grin got wide.

  "Thus speaks a pilot! It is, in fact, pilot's choice. If one is in need, as one may be, one picks the proper flower and starts with the proper count. If there is but one flower to hand, the same result might be obtained."

  Theo chuckled around her swallow. "Fast head or fast hand, it's no gamble."

  Kara sighed gently. "Temptation is always a gamble, my friend, even a temptation one welcomes!"

  Theo theatrically took the last bite, looked toward her empty hand.

  "None left to tempt me."

  Kara sighed again, ending with a laugh.

  "If it was all only so easy! But I digress. I saw you here and haven't caught you at DCCT lately." Her hands waggled busy busy busy. "Session ends become full with duty to school!"

  "Not over," Theo said, "there's ummm . . ."

  "Thirty class days," Kara said, "after today. Many of us will be wandering offworld very soon now. Are you going home to Delgado and kin?"

  Theo sipped, shook her head. "The time, the money, the tickets!" Her free hand emphasized do not mesh. "I don't want to spend all my money and time in between, as much as I'd like the travel . . ."