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  "Miri Robertson."

  "Huh. What's your momma's name?"

  Miri looked up into the woman's face, but there wasn't no reading it, one way or the other.

  "Katy Tayzin," she said.

  The face did change then, though Miri couldn't've said exactly how, and the level shoulders looked to lose a little of their starch.

  "You're the spit of her," the woman said, and put her fingers against her neat gray chest. "Name's Lizardi. You call me Liz."

  Miri blinked up at her. "You know my mother?"

  "Used to," Liz said, sliding her gun away neat into its belt-holder. "Years ago that'd be. How's she fare?"

  "She's sick," Miri said, and hesitated, then blurted. "You know anybody's got work–steady work? I can do some mechanical repair, and duct work and chimney clearing and–"

  Liz held up a broad hand. Miri stopped, swallowing, and met the brown eyes steady as she could.

  "Happens I have work," Liz said slowly. "It's hard and it's dangerous, but I'm proof it can be good to you. If you want to hear more, come on inside and take a sup with me. Grover does a decent stew, still."

  Miri hesitated. "I don't–"

  Liz shook her head. "Tradition. Recruiting officer always buys."

  Whatever that meant, Miri thought, and then thought again about Torbin and her father being on the loose.

  "Your momma all right where she is?" Liz asked and Miri nodded.

  "Staying with Braken and Kale," she said. "Won't nobody get through Kale."

  "Good. You come with me."

  *

  "Grew up here," Liz said in her lazy way, while Miri worked through her second bowl of stew. "Boss Peterman's territory it was then. Wasn't much by way of work then, neither. Me, I was little bit older'n you, workin' pick-up and on the side. Your momma, she was baker over–well, it ain't here now, but there used to be a big bake shop over on Light Street. It was that kept us, but we was looking to do better. One day, come Commander Feriola, recruitin', just like I'm doin' now. I signed up for to be a soldier. Your momma . . ." She paused, and took a couple minutes to kinda look around the room. Miri finished her stew and regretfully pushed the bowl away.

  "Your momma," Liz said, "she wouldn't go off-world. Her momma had told her there was bad things waitin' for her if she did, and there wasn't nothin' I could say would move her. So I went myself, and learned my trade, and rose up through the rank, and now here I'm back, looking for a few bold ones to fill in my own command."

  Miri bit her lip. "What's the pay?"

  Liz shook her head. "That was my first question, too. It don't pay enough, some ways. It pays better'n whorin', pays better'n odd jobs. You stand a good chance of gettin' dead from it, but you'll have a fightin' chance. And if you come out on the livin' side of that chance, and you're smart, you'll have some money to retire on and not have to come back to Surebleak never again."

  "And my pay," Miri persisted, thinking about the drug Braken thought might be had, over to Boss Abram's turf, that might stop the blood and heal her mother's lungs. "I can send that home?"

  Liz's mouth tightened. "You can, if that's what you want. It's your pay, girl. And believe me, you'll earn it."

  Braken and Kale, they'd look after her mother while she was gone. 'Specially if she was to promise them a piece. And it couldn't be no worse, off-world than here, she thought–could it?

  "I'll do it," she said, sounded maybe too eager, because the woman laughed. Miri frowned.

  "No, don't you spit at me," Liz said, raising a hand. "I seen temper."

  "I thought–"

  "No, you didn't," Liz snapped. "All you saw was the money. Happens I got some questions of my own. I ain't looking to take you off-world and get you killed for sure. If I want to see you dead, I can shoot you right here and now and save us both the fare.

  "And that's my first question, a soldier's work being what it is. You think you can kill somebody?"

  Miri blinked, remembering the feel of the gun in her hand–and blinked again, pushing the memory back away.

  "I can," she said, slow, "because I have."

  Liz pursed her lips, like she tasted something sour. "Have, huh? Mind sharing the particulars?"

  Miri shrugged. "'Bout a year ago. They was kid slavers an' thought they'd take me. I got hold of one of their guns and–" she swallowed, remembering the smell and the woman's voice, not steady: Easy kid . . .

  ". . . and I shot both of 'em," she finished up, meeting Liz's eyes.

  "Yeah? You like it?"

  Like it? Miri shook her head. "Threw up."

  "Huh. Would you do it again?"

  "If I had to," Miri said, and meant it.

  "Huh," Liz said again. "Your momma know about it?"

  "No." She hesitated, then added. "I took their money. Told her I found the purse out behind the bar."

  Liz nodded.

  "I heard two different ages out there on the street. You want to own one of 'em?"

  Miri opened her mouth – Liz held up her hand.

  "It'd be good if it was your real age. I can see you're small. Remember I knew your momma. I seen what small can do."

  Like whaling a man half again as tall as her and twice as heavy across a room and out into the hall . . .

  "Almost fourteen."

  "How close an almost?"

  "Just shy a Standard Month."

  Liz closed her eyes, and Miri froze.

  "I can read," she said.

  Liz laughed, soft and ghosty. "Can you, now?" she murmured, and opened her eyes, all business again.

  "There's a signing bonus of fifty cash. You being on the light side of what the mercs consider legal age, we'll need your momma's hand on the papers."

  *

  Braken eyed Miri's tall companion, and stepped back from the door.

  "She's in her chair," she said.

  Miri nodded and led the way.

  Braken's room had a window, and Katy Tayzin's chair was set square in front of it, so she'd get whatever sun could find its way through the grime.

  She was sewing–mending a tear in one of Kale's shirts, Miri thought, and looked up slowly, gray eyes black with the 'juice.

  "Ma–" Miri began, but Katy's eyes went past her, and she put her hands and the mending down flat on her lap.

  "Angela," she said, and it was nothing like the tone she'd used to deny Robertson, but it gave Miri chills anyway.

  "Katy," Liz said, in her lazy way, and stepped forward, 'til she stood lookin' down into the chair.

  "I'm hoping that denial's wore off by now," she said, soft-like.

  Katy Tayzin smiled faintly. "I think it has," she murmured. "You look fine, Angela. The soldiering treated you well."

  "Just registered my own command with merc headquarters," Liz answered. "I'm recruiting."

  "And my daughter brings you here." She moved her languid gaze. "Are you for a soldier, Miri?"

  "Yes'm," she said and stood forward, marshalling her arguments: the money she'd send home, the signing cash, the–

  "Good," her mother said, and smiled, slowly. "You'll do well."

  Liz cleared her throat. "There's a paper you'll need to sign."

  "Of course."

  There was a pause then. Liz's shoulders rose–and fell.

  "Katy. There's medics and drugs and transplants–off world. For old times–"

  "My reasons remain," Katy said, and extended a frail, translucent hand. "Sit with me, Angela. Tell me everything. Miri–Kale needs you to help him in the boiler room."

  Miri blinked, then nodded. "Yes'm," she said, and turned to go. She looked back before she got to the door, and saw Liz sitting on the floor next to her mother's chair, both broad, tan hands cupping one of her mother's thin hands, brown head bent above red.

  *

  Miri'd spent half her recruitment bonus on vacked coffee and tea, dry beans and vegetables for her mother, and some quality smokes for Braken and Kale. Half what was left after that went with Milt Boraneti into Boss Abram's
territory, with a paper spelling out the name of the drug Braken'd thought would help Katy's lungs.

  She'd gone 'round to Kalhoon's Repair, to say good-bye to Penn, and drop him off her hoard of paper and books, but he wasn't there. Using one of the smaller pieces of paper, she wrote him a laborious note, borrowed a piece of twine and left the tied-together package with his dad.

  Liz'd told her she'd have a uniform when she got to merc headquarters, the cost to be deducted from her pay. For now, she wore her best clothes, and carried her new-signed papers in a bag over her shoulder. In the bag, too, wrapped up in a clean rag, was a smooth disk–intarsia work, her mother had murmured, barely able to hold the thing in her two hands.

  "It was your grandmother's," she whispered, "and it came from off-world. It doesn't belong here, and neither do you."

  "I'll send money," Miri said, looking into her mother's drugged eyes. "As much as I can."

  Katy smiled. "You'll have expenses," she said. "Don't send all your money to me."

  Miri bit her lip. "Will you come? Liz says–"

  Katy shook her head. "I won't pass the physical at the port," she said, and coughed. She turned her head aside and used a rag to wipe her mouth.

  She turned back with a smile, and reached out her thin hand to rest it on Miri's arm. "You, my daughter. You're about to begin the adventure of your life. Be bold, which I know you are. Be as honest as you can. Trust Angela. If you find love, embrace it."

  The cough again, hard this time. Miri caught her shoulders and held her until it was done. Katy used the rag, and pushed it down beside her on the chair, but not before Miri saw it was dyed crimson.

  Katy turned back with another smile, wider this time, and held out arms out. Miri bent and hugged her, feeling the bones. Her mother's lips brushed her cheek, and her voice whispered, "Go now."

  And so she left, out the door and down the hall and into the street where Liz Lizardi was waiting, and the adventure of her life begun.

  PRODIGAL SON

  Miri, Val Con thought wryly as he moved silently down the pre-dawn hallway, is not going to like this.

  He paused outside the door to the suite he shared with his lifemate, took a breath, and put his palm firmly against the plate.

  The door slid aside, and he stepped into their private parlor, pausing just over the threshold.

  Across the room the curtains had been drawn back from the wide window, admitting Surebleak's uncertain dawn. The rocking chair placed at an angle to the window moved quietly, back and forth, back and forth, its occupant silhouetted against the light.

  "What ain't I gonna like?" she asked, apparently plucking the thought out of his head. Val Con shivered. The link they shared as lifemates made each aware of the other's emotions and general state of mind, and there had been instances of one of them suddenly acquiring a skill or a language which had previously belonged only to the other. This wholesale snatching of thoughts from his mind, though–that was new, and in one direction only. It seemed that Miri could read his mind perfectly well, while hers was as closed to him in detail as ever it had been. He wondered, not for the first time, if this was in some way linked to her pregnancy . . .

  "Things looked kinda dicey there for a while," she went on. "From what I could tell."

  "It was not without its moments," he allowed, moving toward the window. "Even the presence of Scout Commander ter'Meulen was insufficient to turn all to farce."

  "If Clonak was half as stupid as he acts, something with lotsa teeth would've had him for lunch a long time ago."

  "True," he murmured from the side of her chair. He reached down and slipped his fingers through the wealth of her unbound hair. "But you discount the joy of the masquerade."

  "No I don't. I just wonder why he bothers."

  "I believe we must diagnose an excess of energy."

  She snorted. Next to her, he smiled into the dawn, then sighed.

  "Wanna tell me about it?"

  "In fact," he said, dropping lightly to the rug beside her and leaning his head against her thigh; "I do."

  "Ready when you are." He felt her hand stroke his hair and sighed in contentment made more poignant by the knowledge that it was to be all too brief.

  "The highly condensed version," he murmured, "is that one of the teams the Scouts sent to gather the severed blossoms of the Department of Interior . . ." She choked a laugh, and he paused, his eyes on the meager garden below them.

  "That's gotta be Clonak," she said.

  "Indeed, Commander ter'Meulen was pleased to style it thus," he said. "Allow it, with the understanding that the actual business was not nearly so poetical."

  He felt her hair move as she shook her head. "'Course it wasn't."

  "Yes, well." Her robe was fleece, soft and warm under his cheek. "This team of Scouts obtained news of a situation which . . . lies close to us, cha'trez."

  Her hand stilled on his hair. "How close, exactly?"

  "Close as kin," he answered. "It would seem that the Department deployed a field unit, and perhaps a tech team, to Vandar after Agent sig'Alda failed them."

  He felt her grasp it, and the frisson of her horror. Her hand fell to his shoulder, fingers gripping.

  "We gotta go in," she said, and he smiled at her quickness. "Zhena Trelu, Hakan, Kem–gods, what if they've already . . ."

  "We have some hope that they have not already," Val Con murmured. "A field unit is by no means an Agent of Change. But we dare not tarry."

  "We are going, then." There was satisfaction in her voice.

  Val Con shook his head. "Alas, I am going. You, my lady, will stay here and mind Korval's concerns–and our daughter."

  "Got a real hankering for a girl, doncha? What if the baby's a boy?"

  "Then he will doubtless also be as intelligent and as beautiful as his mother."

  Miri laughed, then sobered. "Who's your backup, then? If I'm staying home to mind the store."

  "I thought to travel quickly," he murmured; "and leave within the hour. Clonak is gathering a contact team. He expects them to lift out no later than three days from–"

  "What you're saying is that you're going in without any back-up." The rocker moved more strongly; inside his head, he heard the arpeggio of her irritation.

  "Not," she said firmly, "on my watch."

  "Cha'trez–"

  "Quiet. I ain't gotta tell you how stupid it is to go into something like this by yourself, 'cause if you'd take a second think, you'd figure it out for yourself. What I am gonna tell you is you got two options: I go–or Beautiful goes."

  He could not risk her–would not risk their child. His rejection was scarcely formed when he heard her sigh over his head.

  "My feelings are hurt. But have it your way." Her hand left his shoulder. He rolled to his feet and helped her to rise, pulling her into an embrace.

  "I will take Nelirikk with me," he whispered into her ear, and felt her laugh.

  "That's a good idea," she murmured. "Glad you thought of it."

  "Indeed." He hugged her tight, and stepped back. Slipping Korval's Ring from his finger, he handed it to her.

  She shoved it onto her thumb and closed her fingers around it.

  "Get your kit," she said. "I'll call down to the pilot and give him the good news."

  *

  It was a good thing, Hakan thought sourly, that he'd come to university to study guitar. The storm winds knew what they might have made him do, if he'd come to study walking. Lie on his stomach and march on his elbows, legs dragging in the dirt behind him, probably.

  "Zamir Darnill," Zhena Teone, his music history professor, inquired crisply from the front of the classroom. "Is there a problem with your zamzorn?"

  Besides it being the most useless instrument in the scope of creation? Hakan thought. A flute made from a full horn, with a range of only an octave, its point sharp enough to stab unwary fingers? No wonder the thing had been abandoned for the ocarina by the serious musicians of two hundred years ago. He sighed to himself
and looked up.

  "A little trouble with the fipple, Zhena," he said quietly. No matter his own feelings about flutes cut from ox horn, Zhena Teone doted on the thing; and if he'd learned nothing else at university thus far, he had learned that the wise student didn't provoke his professors.

  "Zamir Darnill," his teacher said sadly. "The zamzorn represents an important part of our musical tradition. I fear you are giving it neither the respect nor the attention that it deserves."

  "I'm sorry, Zhena," he muttered. "Flute isn't really my–"

  "Flute? Flute indeed!"

  Her pause was worth a fortune of concern, and when she spoke again it was obvious that she was keeping her voice level.

  "Zamir, the king has seen fit to send you here, and you will have the goodness to learn. I suspect you have not been carrying the zamzorn on your person, as you have been told this last ten day, so that it stays at the proper temperature for playing at a moment's notice. In the past the only thing closer to a musical zamir than his zamzorn, was his zhena. So carry yours at all times, yes?"

  She caressed the instrument in her hands, producing a subcurrent of stifled laughter in the room.

  "You will have ample time to pursue your interest in stringed instruments–" she made it sound like a disease, or at least an unpleasant habit that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company– "after you have absorbed the lessons that history has to teach us. Now, then. Has your disagreement with the fipple been resolved?"

  There was an outright titter from the front row, and Hakan felt his ears heat.

  "Yes, Zhena."

  "Good. I direct the class's attention once more to the jig on page forty-five . . ."

  *

  "A green and pleasant world," Nelirikk said, as they broke their march for the meal local time decreed as dinner. "Is it always so chill?"

  "Never think it," Val Con answered. "In fact, I am persuaded there are those native to the world who would pronounce today balmy in the extreme, and perfect for turning the garden."

  Nelirikk sipped from his canteen. He was, Val Con thought, a woodsman the like of which Gylles had rarely seen: bold in black-and-red plaid flannel, work pants, and sturdy boots, with a red knit cap pulled down over his ears in deference to the chill of dusk.