Accepting the Lance Read online

  She paused in her purposeful stride and looked up at them, brows drawn.

  “At ease,” she said in Terran.

  They relaxed into parade rest.

  She looked well, Stost thought, taut and full of energy—the look, in fact, of a soldier with a mission before her. Could it be possible…?

  “I came to let you know,” Captain Waitley said, continuing in Terran, “that Bechimo has been assigned a task by the port. We’re lifting within the next few hours. Is there anything you require from the ship, anything you’re missing here that we can provide? Do you have any messages that I can deliver for you?”

  “Captain,” Chernak said. “We want for nothing.”

  She hesitated, but Stost did not.

  “Respectfully, we remind the captain that we are not without skills and may be useful to her and to the ship in this new assignment.”

  The captain sighed, thin face showing what might have been regret.

  “I’m aware. I’ve written a letter of recommendation for both of you, outlining all of your skills. If I was selfish, I’d bring you on board for this, but that would be short term. You need to settle yourselves, long term, and I respect you too much to rob you of that opportunity.

  “My brother and his lifemate are committed to seeing you honorably situated. You can depend on them as you would…myself. Am I understood?”

  Stost felt rather than heard Chernak’s sigh.

  “Captain, you are understood,” she said. “We would,” she added, “wish the crew to know that we recall them as comrades. It was an honor to serve with them.”

  “Yes,” Stost said, hollowly. “An honor.”

  Bechimo

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  “Theo.”

  Bechimo’s voice in bond-space sounded…tentative, which—Bechimo had mostly given up tentativeness as a mode.

  Theo rapidly reviewed the projects under way. Absent this particular project—prepping to lift and start cleaning up the garbage—she couldn’t think of anything that might produce tentativeness.

  “Yes?” she answered lightly. “Have you realized that the crew will be in your way on this?”

  There was a short, sharp silence as if Bechimo had blinked.

  “My crew will never be in my way. Never.”

  This time, Theo blinked, breath-caught at the intensity—the passion—in his voice. Deliberately, she breathed in, nice and deep, and sighed the breath out.

  “Was that,” Bechimo asked, voice cool now, “meant to be a joke?”

  “Not entirely,” she said. “Partly, I was acknowledging that this is the beginning of a new phase for you—in your life. Always before, you’ve had to hide who—and what—you are. Val Con’s field judgment means—ought to mean—that you’ll never have to hide your true nature again.”

  There was another palpable pause, somehow softer, as if Bechimo was thinking in a new direction.

  “I had not considered,” he said eventually. “This bargain we have made with the portmaster will, possibly, hasten awareness of the field judgment and the new status of Complex Logics with regard to the law. Still, change will require time—quite a lot of time.”

  Especially for those who told time like Bechimo, Theo thought.

  “You’re right,” she said. “It’s going to take a whole lot of small steps forward—and some steps back, too. There’s a lot of changes that’ll have to be made, because that judgment has the potential to make a whole new future—”

  This wasn’t a new thought, but it wasn’t any more comfortable on a second thinking. Almost, she wondered if Val Con knew what he’d done—but of course he’d known. He hadn’t crafted his judgment only to save Bechimo’s life or just to spit in Captain yos’Thadi’s eye. Val Con had wanted a future where AIs were fully integrated, and when the chance had come past him, he’d grabbed it.

  Which led to wondering…why did Val Con want that future?

  And that wasn’t comfortable thinking at all.

  “Theo,” Bechimo said again. “I have a question.”

  “All right,” she said, sitting back in her chair and closing her eyes, so she could concentrate on him totally. “What’s your question?”

  “When you accepted your brother’s invitation to formally join the new extended family, did you consider what that might mean to us?”

  Eyes closed, Theo frowned.

  “I didn’t,” she admitted. “And now that you’ve raised the question, I’m afraid I don’t know why it should mean anything other than I—”

  She stopped.

  “This isn’t about Korval being on your disallowed list again, is it? I thought that was settled a long time ago.”

  “It is not, and it was,” Bechimo snapped.

  “Then I don’t understand the question,” Theo said. “Can you please rephrase or elaborate?”

  “We are a bonded pair: captain and ship. We are we. Together, ship and captain are stronger, faster, more versatile, more able.

  “By accepting the invitation to formally join a family, you have placed something—you have placed another allegiance—between captain and ship. We are no longer we when you are them.”

  Theo took a deep breath.

  “I’ve always been Val Con’s sister, my father’s child.”

  “Yes…”

  “We’re not the same; we’re different. We’ve always been different, starting with the fact that I’m human and you’re a starship. We each bring something to the bonding. We each bring different strengths to the bonding. That’s why your Builders decided that a bonded pair was the optimum model.

  “My…induction into Val Con’s family doesn’t change anything between us. It’s surely not a threat to our bond. Nothing can threaten the bond, can it? The fact is that we are a bonded pair. Can you decide to leave our relationship and take up with another captain?”

  “No!”

  “Well, there’s your answer,” she said reasonably. “I have no plans, and no desire, to bond with another ship. We’re exactly the same as we were.”

  This was greeted by a profoundly unhappy silence, interrupted by an announcement so brisk it sounded like a recording.

  “We are cleared for lift, Captain. You are needed on the bridge.”

  “In a minute,” Theo said. “I can feel that you’re not satisfied. Bring this to us again, when we’re not pressed for time.”

  “Yes, Captain,” said Bechimo, still in that impersonal tone.

  Theo sighed, and opened her eyes.

  The Bedel

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  The sound bellowed across the camp, echoing in the garden, rattling the steam pipes inside their confining metal belts, intruding, even, into the din and thunder of Rafin’s forge.

  The kompani leapt to their feet as one, hearts pounding, breath caught. Not one among them had ever heard that alarm, yet all knew it for what it was.

  Droi had been sitting beside her hearth, having just finished her first cup of tea. Kezzi, who had been sharing her tent in accordance with the luthia’s wisdom, had just gotten to her feet and Malda with her. Kezzi was to go up into the City Above, and the gadje school, while the dog stayed with Droi and Maysl, Droi’s child within.

  She froze, looking down at Droi, dark eyes wide.

  “The ship!” she said.

  “No,” Droi said, forcibly calm, and as if the distinction made this event less significant, “only news of the ship.”

  She put the mug on the hearthstone, and struggled to get her feet fairly under her. Her belly defeated this effort, as had become its habit. Droi sighed and held up her hands.

  “Help me rise,” she said moderately, though it was hard for her to ask for aid.

  Kezzi obeyed with alacrity and, in addition, made certain to stand so that a steadying shoulder was within reach should Droi’s feet become foolish.

  On this rising, she was steady enough, though her blood rema
ined chilled by the klaxon’s blare. It was quiet now, having destroyed the kompani’s peace, and already there were those of her brothers and sisters moving past her hearth on the way to the common fire.

  To hear news of the ship.

  “I’ll be late for school,” Kezzi said, keeping pace as Droi turned her face, as well, toward the gather-place.

  School had become important to Kezzi, as had her brother in the City Above. It had come to Droi just lately, as she dozed and dreamed by her hearth communing with Maysl—it had come to her that the kompani had developed many ties with the gadje here, on this world. There was Kezzi and her brother; Silain the luthia with the Lady and the Professor; Udari, Memit, Syaera, and Isart with the madman at the end of the road; Rys and his Brother Undertree, not to mention his mad oath to the headwoman there…

  Indeed, thought Droi, it had come to her a few nights ago that the common thread running through all these now-woven relationships—was Rys. Rys, who had himself been an outsider, until he had understood his true soul, and came before the fire, there to accept his nature, and the kompani to bind a new brother to them. Rys had also bound himself in brotherhood to Val Con yos’Phelium, headman of the People of the Tree; Kezzi’s brother Syl Vor was of that folk, as were Lady Kareen and Professor Waitley.

  The madman, farmer Yulie Shaper, might as well be undertree, as near as his holding stood, and it had been Rys’s brother, the headman, who had brought news of the work to Memit, who had brought it to Silain the luthia, who had dreamed long upon it…

  …and now there were four of the kompani at the far end of the Port Road, to help Yulie Shaper take in his crops.

  “Droi?” Kezzi said again. “I’ll be late for school. Syl Vor will worry if I don’t send a message.”

  The brother, yes. Yes, he would worry, being, by everything Droi had heard, a tender boy who would, she made no doubt, grow into a man of heart.

  “We must to the fire,” Droi said. “Your brother’s mother is a luthia, is she not?”

  Kezzi nodded.

  “So. She will advise him. This thing—is of the kompani…”

  She shivered suddenly, black showing ragged at the edge of her vision.

  “This,” she said, feeling the burn in her blood, “will alter the fate of the kompani. We must all of us be present, to witness.”

  Her foot caught on an uneven stone, and she staggered. Kezzi thrust a shoulder beneath her questing hand and, so steadied, they went on, in silence.

  After all, Droi thought, Kezzi was Silain the luthia’s ’prentice. She knew a foretelling when she heard one.

  The common fire was lit, the Bedel grouped in a half circle facing it. A hand rose in the air, which was Luma, Maysl’s hearth-mother, beckoning them.

  They joined her, Kezzi and Luma helping Droi to the blanket before sitting, one to a side, and Malda curled on Kezzi’s lap. They gave their attention to the fire, before which stood Alosha the headman, Silain the luthia, and Pulka, who listened along the byways of the stars.

  The Bedel, so say the Bedel of themselves, speak with many voices, as heedless of their song as the birds. Yet it was not so, this day. Those assembled sat quiet, tension roiling above their silence.

  Up before the gather-fire, Droi saw Silain the luthia make a small gesture, and the air lightened somewhat. She drew an easier breath, sighed it out, and put her hand on her belly.

  Maysl, she said inside her head, attend this well.

  She felt her daughter’s attention sharpen, even as Alosha the headman took one step forward and raised his hands.

  “All of you heard the klaxon,” Alosha said. “We have received a message from the ship. Pulka will explain the nature of that message, and what is required of the kompani.”

  He stepped back to Silain’s side; Pulka took one step forward.

  He looked, Droi thought, tired and very nearly grim. Pulka was not, by nature, a happy man, nor was he a stern one. A placid man, who liked his comforts; who could, occasionally, be nagged into brilliance. Very little of life was sharp enough to cut Pulka. The ship’s message, though, which he would have been the first to read, had burned a tiny scar on his heart. Looking with luthia’s eyes, Droi could see it, still hot and hurtful.

  “Sisters and brothers,” Pulka said, “we have this morning received a message from the ship. It is not a direct message, meant for this kompani alone, but an automated dispatch which has been wide-cast to several kompanis such as ours, which have missed their pickup date by a certain number of years.”

  He paused, in anticipation, Droi knew, of the flood of questions which would normally engulf him at this point.

  There was silence; not one voice was raised, no single one of the kompani rose to their feet to speak.

  Pulka cleared his throat, glancing at Alosha the headman, who gave him a grave nod, and turned again to face those waiting, silent, and finished what he had to say.

  “The ship requires an answer. If we fail to answer, it will assume that we have not heard; that we are, in fact, Lost, and the logs will reflect this as our kompani’s fate. The ship will not query again.”

  Another pause, but the exclamations of horror, of outrage did not arise.

  “A proper answer to the ship requires codes which I have Dreamed. When that answer is returned, the ship will flag it for the captain, who will review it, and who will eventually send pickup instructions and an estimated time of the ship’s arrival.”

  At long last, one of the kompani raised herself to her feet: Jin, the luthia’s good right hand.

  “How long,” she asked, “will it be, after a message is sent, for the ship to arrive here for us?”

  Pulka showed empty palms.

  “That, we cannot know. Such information will doubtless be given us, when the captain responds to our ack.”

  “Thank you, Brother.”

  Jin sat down. Pulka waited for more questions.

  Droi, sitting beside Kezzi and Luma, had many questions, though none that she would willingly shout out before all the kompani. She…the ship was so late, she had thought it would never come, that it had forgotten them. And yet, here was news: the ship had not forgotten; it remembered. And that—that altered everything.

  From the far edge of the circle rose a tall, powerful figure—Rafin.

  “Why did the ship not come,” he asked, “at the appointed time?”

  Again, Pulka showed empty hands.

  “That, too, we will doubtless be told later. This automatic sending—it only seeks acknowledgment; it does not give reasons.”

  “We are certain, then, that this is from the ship. Our ship?” Rafin pursued, which was, Droi thought, a good question, and one which had not been among the dozen others clamoring inside her head.

  “I have confirmed that it is from the ship. It is on the correct band; it utilizes the correct codes; it matches all the necessary protocols. If you want to do so, come to me and I will show you the message itself.”

  “I will do that, Brother,” said Rafin, and sat down again.

  Pulka looked ’round.

  “If any others are interested, come to me and I will show you the protocols, the bands, the codes, the match-ups. I have, also, the original Dream from the communications technician who was set down with the kompani, if any wish to Dream it.”

  There was a small murmur ’round the circle at that, and here came another of the kompani to his feet. Apparently, thought Droi, her brothers and sisters were beginning to waken from their shock.

  “How long,” asked that brother, and Pulka blinked.

  “I—” he began.

  “No, I’ll ask it proper,” said the brother. “How long do we have to Dream on this? Before the ship needs its answer?”

  And that, thought Droi, was the most interesting question at all. In story, in Dreams, every kompani is eager to be taken up again into the bosom of the ship. It would seem that her brothers and sisters had not embraced these stories with all of their hearts.

  Alosha
the headman stepped forward; Pulka dropped back one step, to stand next to the luthia.

  “The ship needs its reply at once,” said Alosha. “There are technical reasons for this that Pulka is also able to explain. But there is no call for a decision on this matter. The decision was made when this kompani was formed. We guaranteed to return to the ship with those things we had learned, and those things which we had found. That the ship is late makes no difference to our guarantee.”

  He paused and looked around the circle, his gaze seeming to rest on each one of them in turn.

  “We have heard the ship,” said Alosha the headman, “and we will answer the ship. We are here; we are ready for pickup.”

  Surebleak Port

  Scout Headquarters

  • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

  In point of fact, they were late. And not only late, but over a day late, which revealed them for the sad wastrels they were.

  Happily, the deadlines involved were entirely between the two of them, dictated by nothing more than their mutual desire to achieve licenses and be free to fly once more. That they had put off the accomplishing of this desire for an entire day spoke entirely to the worth of she with whom they had tarried. Daav wondered if Kamele would be flattered to know that she rated higher than a pilot’s license with Aelliana.

  “It might mean something to her now,” said his lifemate, having heard his thought. “And you, of course, would have left on the hour, having accomplished a mannerly and by-the-Code morning visit with an old friend, and proceeded with important business.”

  “You know me too well,” he answered, and smiled when she laughed.

  In the way of things, they were seeking another old friend—older even than the mother of Daav’s daughter, Theo, whose side they had just quit. He had been concerned, before the visit with Kamele, that she might find him too strange to her in his present state, or that she might slight Aelliana, whom she had never—overtly—met.

  He ought to have known better—he who had been Kamele Waitley’s onagrata for more than twenty Standards. But, no, he had been a fool, and it had fallen to Kamele to demonstrate his error.