Changeling Read online

  "He was striving not to disappoint," he told Elsu Meriandra. "What you see as 'a little lazy' is Son Dor's best reaction time. The spinball--forgive me--damage might well have been done."

  Her face blanked. She caught the ball with a snap and bowed, unexpectedly low. "It was not my intention to endanger a child of the House."

  She straightened and looked at him out of the sides of her eyes. "One was told, of course, but it is difficult to recall that this is not a House of pilots. Especially when there is yourself! Why, one can hardly hold a conversation in Guild Hall without hearing of your accomplishments!" She bowed again, more lightly this time. "You do our Guild great honor."

  She did not wait for his reply, but turned and crossed the room to put the ball away. After a moment, Ren Zel went to pick up his fallen book.

  "What have you?" she asked from just behind him. He turned and showed her the cover.

  She frowned at the outlandish lettering. "That is Terran, is it not?"

  "Indeed. Duet for the Star Routes is the title. Poetry."

  "You read Terran?" She seemed somewhat nonplused by this information.

  "I read Terran--a little. I am reading poetry to sharpen my comprehension, since I find it a language strong in metaphor."

  Elsu moved her gaze from the book to his face. "You speak Terran."

  That was not a question, but he answered it anyway. "Not very well, I fear. I meet so few to practice against that my skill is very basic."

  "Why," she asked, the frown back between her eyes, "would you wish to learn these things?"

  Ren Zel blinked. "Well, I am a pilot. My craft takes me to many ports, some of them Terran. I was ... dismayed ... not to be able to converse with my fellows on those ports and so I began to study." He paused. "Do you not speak Terran?"

  "I do not," she returned sharply. "I speak Trade, which is sufficient, if I am impelled into conversation with--with someone who is not able to speak the High Tongue."

  "I see," Ren Zel murmured, wondering how to extricate himself from a conversation that was growing rapidly unpleasant for them both. Before he arrived at a solution, however, the lady changed the subject herself.

  "Come, we are both pilots--one of us at least legendary in skill!" she said gaily. "What do you say we shake the House dust from our feet and fly?"

  It sounded a good plan, he owned; for he was weary of being House-bound already. There was, however, one difficulty.

  "I regret," he said, his voice sounding stiff in his own ears. "Obrelt does not keep a ship. One is a pilot-for-hire."

  "As I am," she said brightly. "But do not repine, if you haven't your own ship. I own one and will gladly have you sit second board."

  Well, and that was generous enough, Ren Zel thought. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the better the scheme appeared. They were, as she said, both pilots. Perhaps they might win through to friendship, if they sat board together. Only look at what had lain between himself and Lai Tor--and see what comrades they had become, after shared flight had made their minds known to each other.

  So--"You are generous," he told Elsu Meriandra. "It would be pleasant to stretch one's wings."

  "Good. Let me get my jacket. I will meet you in the front hall."

  "Well enough," he said. "I will inform the House."

  * * *

  ELSU'S SHIP WAS A small middle-aged packetspacer, built for intra-system work, not for hyperspace. It would also, Ren Zel thought, eyeing its lines as he followed his contract-wife toward the ramp, do well in atmospheric flight. The back-swept wings and needle-nose gave it an eerie resemblance to the raptors that lived in the eaves of the Port Tower, preying on lesser birds and mice.

  "There," Elsu used her key and the ship's door slid open. She stepped inside and turned to make him an exaggerated bow, her blue eyes shining.

  "Pilot, be welcome on my ship."

  He bowed honor to the owner and stepped into the ship. The hatch slid shut behind him.

  Elsu led the way down the companionway to the piloting chamber. She fair flung herself into the chair, her hands flying across the board, rousing systems, initiating checks. From the edge of the chamber, Ren Zel watched as she woke her ship, her motions nearer frenzy than the smooth control his teachers had bade him strive to achieve.

  She turned in the pilot's chair, her face flushed, eyes brilliantly blue, and raised a hand to beckon him forward.

  "Come, come! Second board awaits you, as we agreed! Sit and make yourself known to the ship!" Her high voice carried a note that seemed to echo the frenzy of her board-run and Ren Zel hesitated a moment longer, not quite trusting--

  "So an intra-system is not to your liking?" she inquired, her voice sharp with ridicule. "Perhaps the legendary Ren Zel dea'Judan flies only Jumpships."

  That stung, and he very nearly answered in kind. Then he recalled her as she had been the night before, inflicting her hurts, tempting him, or so it seemed, to hurt her in return--and he made his answer mild.

  "Indeed, I took my second class on just such a ship as this," he said and walked forward at last to sit in the co-pilot's chair.

  She glanced at him out of the edge of her eyes. "Forgive me, Pilot. I am not usually so sharp. The lift will improve my temper."

  He could think of nothing to say to that and covered this lapse by sliding his license into the slot. There was a moment's considering pause from the ship's computer, then his board came live with a beep. Ren Zel initiated systems check.

  Elsu Meriandra was already on line to the Tower, requesting clearance. "On business of Clan Jabun," Ren Zel heard and spun in his chair to stare at her. To characterize a mere pleasure-lift as--

  His wife cut the connection to the Tower, looked over to him and laughed. "Oh, wonderful! And say you have never told Tower that a certain lift was just a little more urgent than the facts supported!"

  "And yet we are not on the business of Clan Jabun," Ren Zel pointed out, remembering to speak mildly.

  "Pah!" she returned, her fingers dancing across the board, waking the gyros and the navcomp. "It is certainly in the best interest of Jabun that one of its children not deteriorate into a jittercase, for cause of being worldbound." She leaned back in the pilot's chair and sighed. "Ah, but it will be fine to lift, will it not, Pilot?"

  "Yes," Ren Zel said truthfully. "Whither bound, Pilot?"

  "Just into orbit, I think, and a long skim down. Do you fancy a late-night dinner at Head o'Port when we are through?"

  Ren Zel's entire quartershare was insufficient to purchase a dinner at Head o'Port, which he rather thought she knew.

  "Why not a glass and a dinner at Findoir's? There are bound to be some few of our comrades there."

  She moved her shoulders. The comm beeped and she flipped the toggle.

  "Dancer."

  While she listened to Tower's instruction, Ren Zel finished his board checks and, seeing that she was feeding coords into her side, reached 'round to engage the shock webbing.

  "Pilot?" he inquired, when she made no move to do the same.

  "Eh?" She blinked at him, then smiled. "Oh, I often fly unwebbed! It enhances the pleasure immeasurably."

  Perhaps it did, but it was also against every regulation he could think of. He opened his mouth to say so, but she waved a slim hand at him.

  "No, do not say it! Regulation is all very well when one is flying contract, but this is pleasure, and I intend to be pleased!" She turned back to her board. The seconds to lift were counting down on the center board. Ren Zel ran another quick, unobtrusive check, then Elsu hit the engage and they were rising.

  It was a fine, blood-warming thing, that lift. Elsu flew at the very edge of her craft's limits and Ren Zel found plenty to do as second board. He found her rhythm at last and matched it, the two of them putting the packet through its paces. They circled Casia twice, hand-flying, rather than let the automatics have it. Ren Zel was utterly absorbed by the task, caught up entirely in the other pilot's necessity, enwrapped in that state of vi
vid concentration that comes when one is flying well, in tune with one's flight-partner, and--

  His board went dead.

  Automatically, his hand flashed out, slapping the toggle for the back-up board.

  Nothing happened.

  "Be at ease, Pilot!" Elsu Meriandra murmured, next to him. "I have your board safe. And now we shall have us a marvelous skim!"

  She'd overridden him. Ren Zel felt panic boil in his belly, forced himself to breathe deeply, to impose calm. He was second board on a ship owned by the pilot sitting first. As first, she had overridden his board. It was her right to do so, for any reason, or for none--regulations and custom backed her on this.

  So, he breathed deeply, as he had been taught, and leaned back in his chair, the shock web snug around him, watching the descent on the screens.

  Elsu's path of re-entry was steep--Ren Zel had once seen a tape of a Scout descent that was remarkably like the course she had chosen. She sat close over the board, unwebbed, her face intent, a fever-glitter in her eyes, her hands hurtling across her board, fingers flickering, frenzy just barely contained.

  Ren Zel recruited his patience, watching the screens, the descent entirely out of his hands. Gods, how long since he had sat passenger, wholly dependent on another pilot's skill?

  The ship hit atmosphere and turbulence in the same instant. There was a bump, and a twitch. Ren Zel flicked forward, hands on his useless board--and sat back as Elsu made the recover and threw him an unreadable look from over-brilliant blue eyes.

  "Enjoy the skim, Pilot," she said. "Unless you doubt my skill?"

  Well, no. She flew like a madwoman, true enough, but she had caught that boggle just a moment ago very smoothly, indeed.

  The skim continued, and steeper still, until Ren Zel was certain that it was the old Scout tape she had fashioned her course upon.

  He looked to the board, read hull-heat and external pressure, and did not say to the woman beside him that an old packet was never the equal of a Scout ship. She would have to level out soon, and take the rest of the skim at a shallow glide, until they had bled sufficient momentum to safely land.

  She had not yet leveled out when they hit a second bit of turbulence, this more demanding than the first. The ship bucked, twisted--again Ren Zel snapped to his dead board, and again the pilot on first corrected the boggle and flew on.

  Moments passed, and still Elsu did not level their course.

  Ren Zel leaned forward, checking gauges and tell-tales, feeling his stomach tighten.

  "Pilot," he said moderately, "we must adjust course."

  She threw him a glance. "Must we?" she asked, dulcet. "But I am flying this ship, Ren Zel dea'Judan."

  "Indeed you are. However, if we do not level soon, even a pilot as skilled as yourself will find it--difficult--to pull out. This ship was not built for such entries."

  "This ship," she stated, "will do what I wish it to do." Incredibly, she kept her course.

  Ren Zel looked to the screens. They were passing over the ocean, near enough that he could see the v-wakes of the sea-ships, and, then, creeping into the edge of screen four, towering thunderheads where the water met the land.

  "Pilot," he said, but Elsu had seen them.

  "Aha! Now you shall see flying!"

  They pierced the storm in a suicide rush; winds cycled, slapping them into a spin, Elsu corrected, and lightning flared, leaving screen three dead.

  "Give me my board!" Ren Zel cried. "Pilot, as you love your life--"

  She threw him a look in which he had no trouble reading hatred, and the wind struck again, slamming them near into a somersault in the instant her hand slapped the toggle. The cabin lights flickered as Ren Zel's board came live, and there was a short, snapped-off scream.

  Poised over the board, he fought--fought the ship, fought the wind, fought his own velocity. The wind tossed the ship like so many flower petals, and they tumbled again. Ren Zel fought, steadied his craft and passed out of the storm, into a dazzle of sunlight and the realization that the ground was much too close.

  He slapped toggles, got the nose up, rose, rose--

  His board snapped and fizzed--desperately, he slapped the toggle for the secondary back-up.

  There was none.

  The ship screamed like a live thing when it slammed into the ground.

  * * *

  ON THE MORNING OF his third day out of the healing unit and his second day at home, his sister Eba brought him fresh clothes, all neatly folded and smelling of sunshine. Her face was strained, her eyes red with weeping.

  "You are called to the meeting between Obrelt and Jabun next hour, brother," she said, her voice husky and low. "Aunt Chane will come for you."

  Ren Zel went forward a step, hand outstretched to the first of his kin he had seen or spoken to since the accident. "Eba?"

  But she would not take his hand, she turned her face from him and all but ran from the room. The door closed behind her with the wearisome, too-familiar sound of the lock snapping to.

  Next hour. In a very short time, he would know the outcome of Jabun's pursuit of Balance, though what Balance they might reasonably take remained, after three full days of thought on the matter, a mystery to him. The Guild would surely have recovered the flight box. They would have run the tape, built a sim, proven that it had been an accident, with no malice attached. A tragedy, surely, for Jabun to lose a daughter. A double tragedy, that she should die while in Obrelt's keeping. There would be the life-price to pay, but--Balance?

  He considered the computer in its alcove near the window. Perhaps today he would be allowed to access the nets, to find what the world knew of this?

  But no, he was a pilot and a pilot's understanding was quicker than that. He knew well enough the conditions of his tenure here. All praise to Terran poetry, he even knew the proper name for it.

  House arrest.

  Escorted by med techs, he'd arrived home from the Medical Center, and brought not to his own rooms, but to the Quiet Suite, where those who mourned, who were desperately ill--or dying--were housed. There was a med tech on-call. It was he who showed Ren Zel the computer, the call button, the bed; he who locked the door behind him when he left.

  There was entertainment available if one wished to sit and watch, but the communit reached only the med tech and the computer accessed only neutral information--no news, no pilot-net; the standard piloting drills did not open to his code, nor had anyone brought his books, or asked if he wished to have them. This was not how kin cared for kin.

  Slowly, Ren Zel went over to the pile of clean clothes. He slipped off the silver-and-indigo robe, and slowly, carefully, put on the modest white shirt and dark trousers. He sat down to pull his boots on and sat a little longer, listening to the blood singing in his ears. He was yet low of energy. It would take some time, so the med tech told him--perhaps as long as a relumma--to fully regain his strength. He had been advised to take frequent naps, and not to overtire himself.

  Yes, very good.

  He pushed himself to his feet and went back to the table. His jacket was there. Wonderingly, he shook it out, fingering the places where the leather had been mended, pieced together by the hand of a master. As he had been.

  The touch and smell of the leather was a reassuring and personal commonplace among the bland and antiseptic ambiance of the quiet suite. He swung the jacket up and on, settling it on his shoulders, and looked at the remaining items on the table.

  His piloting license went into its secret pocket. For a moment, he simply stared at the two cantra pieces, unable to understand why there should be so much money to his hand. In the end, still wondering, he slipped them into the pocket of his jacket.

  Behind him, he heard the lock snap, and turned, with a bare fraction of his accustomed speed, staggering a little on the leg that had been crushed.

  Chane dea'Judan stepped into the room, the door sliding silently closed behind her. He stood where he was, uncertain, after Eba and two days of silence, what he migh
t expect from his own kin.

  If Aunt Chane will not speak to me, he thought, I will not be able to bear it.

  She paused at the edge of the table and opened her arms. "Ren Zel."

  He almost fell into the embrace. His cheek against her shoulder, he felt her stroke his hair as if he were small again and needing comfort after receiving some chance cruelty from one of his cousins.

  "It's gone ill, child," she murmured at last and he stirred, straightened, and stood away, searching her solemn face.

  "Ill," he repeated. "But the life-price of a pilot is set by the Guild. I will take the--" He stopped, struck dumb by the impossible.

  Aunt Chane was weeping.

  "Tell me," he said then. "Aunt?"

  She took a moment to master herself, and met his eyes squarely.

  "A life for a life," she said. "Jabun invokes the full penalty. Council and Guild uphold them."

  He stared at her. "The flight box. Surely, the Guild has dumped the data from the flight box?"

  "Dumped it and read it and sent it by direct pinbeam to a Master Pilot, who studied it and passed judgment," Aunt Chane said, her voice edged with bitterness. "Jabun turned his face from the Master Pilot's findings--and the request to hold open review at Casiaport Hall! He called on three first class pilots from Casiaport Guild to judge again. I am told that this is his right, under Guild law." She took a deep breath and looked him squarely in the eye.

  "The honored pilots of Casiaport Guild find you guilty of negligence in flight, my child, the result of your error being that Pilot Elsu Meriandra untimely met her death."

  But this was madness. They had the box, the actual recording of the entire flight, from engage to crash.

  "Aunt--"

  She held up her hand, silencing him.

  "I have seen the tape." She paused, something like pride--or possibly awe--showing in her eyes. "You will understand that it meant very little to me. I was merely astonished that you could move so quickly, recover so well, only to have the ship itself fail you at the last instant..." Another pause.

  "I have also read the report sent by the Master Pilot, who makes points regarding Pilot Meriandra's performance that were perhaps too hard for a father to bear. The Master Pilot was clear that the accident was engineered by Pilot Meriandra, that she had several times ignored your warnings, and that she had endangered both ship and pilots by denying you access to your board during most of the descent. That she was not webbed in..." Chane let that drift off. Ren Zel closed his eyes.