Changeling (6 page)

Or was there?

Ren Zel opened his eyes.

Jabun's daughter--had not spoken Terran.

Perhaps then her father did
not know the names of
all
the ships on port.

He pushed away from the wall and limped down
the walk, heading for Mid Port.

* * *

THE MAN BEHIND THE desk took his license and
slid into the computer. His face was bored as he scrolled down the
list of Ren Zel's completed assignments.

"Current," he said indifferently. "Everything
in order, except..." The scrolling stopped. Ren Zel's mouth went
dry and he braced himself against the high plastic counter. Now.
Now was when the last hope died.

The duty cler--no. The roster boss looked
down at him, interest replacing boredom in his face.

"This note here about being banned from the
big hall. That temporary or permanent?"

"Permanent," Ren Zel answered, and was
ashamed to hear his voice shake.

"OK," the boss said. He pulled the license
out of the slot and tossed it across the counter. Exhausted though
he was, still Ren Zel's hand moved, snatching the precious thing
out of the air, and sliding it safely away.

"OK," the boss said again. "Your card's good.
Fact is, it's too good. Jump-pilot. Not much need for jump-pilots
outta this hall. We get some intersystem jobs, now and then. But
mostly the jumps go through Casiaport Guild. Little bit of a labor
tax we cheerfully pay, for the honor of being allowed
on-world."

It was an astonishment to find irony here.
Ren Zel lifted his eyes and met the suddenly knowing gaze of the
roster boss, who nodded, a half-smile on his lips.

"You got that, did you? Good boy."

"I do not," Ren Zel said, careful, so
careful, of the slippery, mode-less Terran syllables, "require a
jump-ship, sir. I am ... qualified ... to fly intra-system."

"Man's gotta eat, I guess." The boss shook
his head, stared down at the computer screen and Ren Zel stood
rooted, muscles tense as if expecting a blow.

The boss let his breath out, noisily.

"All right, here's what. You wanna fly outta
here, you gotta qualify." He held up a hand, though Ren Zel had
said nothing. "I know you got a first class card. What I don't know
is, can you run a Terran board. Gotta find that out before I turn
you loose with a client's boat." He tipped his head. "You followin'
this, kid?"

"Yes, sir." Ren Zel took a hard breath, his
head aching with the effort of deciphering the man's fluid,
idiomatic Terran. "I am ... required ... to, to demonstrate my
worth to the hall."

"Close enough," the boss allowed, crossing
his arms atop his computer. "The other thing you gotta do, after
you pass muster, is post a bond."

Ren Zel frowned. "Forgive me, I do
not--'bond'?"

"Right." The boss looked out into nothing for
a moment, feeling over concepts, or so Ren Zel thought. "A bond
is--a contract. You and me sign a paper that basically says you'll
follow the company rules and keep your face clean for a Standard,
and to prove you're serious about it, you give me a cantra to keep.
At the end of the year, if you kept your side of the contract, I
give you your money back." Again, he held up his hand, as if he
expected Ren Zel's protest.

"I know your word binds you, you being all
honorable and Liaden and like that, but it's Gromit Company policy,
OK? You don't post bond, you don't fly."

"O...K," Ren Zel said slowly, buying himself
a thimbleful of time while he worked the explanation out. He
gathered, painfully, that the hall required him to post earnest
money, against any misfortune that might befall a client's goods
while they were under his care. In light of what had happened to
the last item entrusted to him in flight, it seemed that the hall
was merely prudent in this. However...

"If the ... Gromit Company? ... does not
fulfill its side of the contract?"

The boss gave a short laugh. "Liadens! If the
company don't fulfill its side of the contract, kid, we'll all be
lookin' for work."

That didn't quite scan, but he was tired, and
his head ached, and his leg did, and if he did not fly out of the
Terran hall, who else on all of Casiaport would hire him? He
inclined his head.

"I accept the terms," he said, as formally as
one could, in Terran.

"Do you?" The boss seemed inclined to find
that humorous as well. "OK, then. Report back here tomorrow
Port-noon and we'll have you take the tests. Oh--one more
thing."

"Yes."

The man's voice was stern. "No politics. I
mean that. I don't want any Liaden Balances or vendettas or
whateverthehell you do for fun coming into my hall. You bring any
of that here and you're out, no matter how good a pilot you are.
Scan that?"

Very nearly, Ren Zel laughed. Balance. Who
would seek Balance with a dead man?

He took a shaky breath. "I understand. There
is no one who ... owes ... me. Anything."

The boss held his eyes for a long moment,
then nodded. "Right. Keep it that way." He paused, then sighed.

"You got a place to sleep?"

Ren Zel pushed away from the counter. "I ...
not..." He sighed in his turn, sharply, frustrated with his
ineptitude. "Forgive me. I mean to say--not this evening. Sir."

"Huh." The boss extended a long arm and
hooked a key off the board by his computer. "This ain't a guild
hall. All we got here is a cot for the willfly. Happens the willfly
is already in the air, so you can use the cot." He threw the key
and Ren Zel caught it between both palms. "You pass the entry
tests, you find your own place, got it?"

Not entirely, no. But comprehension could
wait upon the morrow.

"Yes, sir," Ren Zel said respectfully, then
spent two long seconds groping for the proper Terran phrase. "Thank
you, sir."

The man's eyebrows rose in apparent surprise.
"You're welcome," he said, then jerked his head to the left.
"Second door down that hall. Get some sleep, kid. You're out on
your feet."

"Yes," Ren Zel whispered, and managed a
ragged approximation of a bow of gratitude before turning and
limping down the hall. He slid the key into the slot and the second
door whisked open.

The room beyond was no larger than it needed
to be to hold a Terran-sized cot. Ren Zel half-fell across it, his
head hitting the pillow more by accident than design. He managed to
struggle to a sitting position and pulled off his boots, setting
them by long habit where he would find them instantly, should he be
called to fly. After sober thought, he removed his jacket and
folded it under the pillow, then lay down for a second time.

He was asleep before the timer turned the
room lights off.

* * *

ON ITS FACE, THE case had
been simple enough: A catastrophe had overtaken two first class
pilots. First board was dead; second nearly so, and Guild law
required that such matters be reviewed and judged by a Master
Pilot. So the Guild had called upon Master Pilot Shan yos'Galan
Clan Korval, Master Trader and Captain of the tradeship
Dutiful Passage
.

Shan had, he admitted to
himself, ridden the luck long enough, having several times during
the last three Standards been in
precisely
the wrong place to be
called upon to serve as Master of Judgment, though his name had
been next on the roster.

This time he was the only
Master Pilot near, and in fact had already filed a flight plan
calling for him to be
on
, the planet on which the fatal
incident had occurred. Thus the Guild snared him at last, and
offered a budget should he need to study what was left of the ship,
or convene a board to do so.

A budget was all very good, but it did
nothing to lessen Shan's dislike of this particular duty. Still, he
had read the file, reviewed the raw data from the flight box and,
finally, in a state of strong disbelief, flew the sim.

Even in simulation, flying fatals
is--unpleasant. It was not unknown that Master Pilots emerged
weeping from such flights.

Shan emerged from flying the Casia fatal in
an all-but-incandescent fury.

First board was dead because she was a
fool--and so he stated in his report. More--she had allowed her
stupidity to endanger not only the fine and able pilot who had for
some reason found it necessary to sit second to her, but unnamed
and innocent civilians. That the ship had finally crashed in an
empty plain was due entirely to the skill of the pilot sitting
second board, who might have avoided the ground entirely, had only
the secondary back-up board required by Guild regulations been in
place.

Shaking with rage, Shan pulled the ship's
maintenance records.

The pilot-owner had not even seen fit to keep
to a regular schedule of routine maintenance. Several systems were
marked weak in the last recorded mechanic's review--three Standard
years past!--at which time it was also noted that the co-pilot's
back-up board was non-operational.

Typing at white heat, Shan finished his
report with praise for the co-pilot, demanded an open hearing to be
held at Casiaport Guildhall within a day of his arrival on-Port,
and shunted the scalding entirety to the Tower to be pinbeamed to
Guild Headquarters, copy to Casiaport Guildmaster.

He had then done his best
to put Casia out of his mind, though he'd noted the name of the
surviving pilot. Ren Zel dea'Judan Clan Obrelt.
There
was a pilot Korval might do
well to employ.

* * *

"REN ZEL, GET YOUR ass over here."
Christopher's voice was stern.

Ren Zel checked, saw the flicker of anger on
his co-pilot's face and waved her on toward the gate. "Run system
checks. I will be with you quickly."

"Yah," she said, grumpily. "Don't let Chris
push you around, Pilot."

"The schedule is tight," Ren Zel returned,
which effectively clinched the argument and sent her striding
toward the gate. Ren Zel altered course for the counter and looked
up at the roster boss.

"Christopher?"

The big man crossed his arms on top his
computer and frowned down at him. "What'd I tell you when you first
signed on? Eh? About what I didn't want none of in this hall?"

"You wished no vendettas, Balance or
whateverthehell I might do for fun to disturb the peace of the
hall," Ren Zel recited promptly, face betraying nothing of the
puzzlement he felt.

An unwilling grin tugged at the edge of
Christopher's mouth. "Remember that, do you? Then you remember that
I said I'd throw you out if you brought anything like that
here."

"Yes..." What was this? Ren Zel wondered.
Half-a-relumma he had been flying out of the Terran hall. And
now--

"Guy come in here last night, looking for
you," the boss said now. "Fancy leather jacket, earrings, uptown
clothes. Blonde hair going gray; one of them enameled rings, like
the House bosses wear. Talked Trade, and I wouldn't call him
polite. Seemed proud of his accent. Reeled off your license number
like it tasted bad and wanted to know if it was registered here."
Christopher shrugged. "Might've told him no--ain't any business of
his who flies outta this hall--but your number was right up there
on the board, with today's flight schedule. He didn't talk Terran,
but he could read numbers quick enough."

Jabun? was Ren Zel's first
thought--a thought he shook away, forcefully. There was no reason
for Jabun to seek him; he was
dead
and it was witnessed by the Eyes. Surely Jabun, of
all the Clans on Casia, knew that.

In the meantime, Christopher was awaiting an
explanation, and his co-pilot was awaiting him at the ship they
were contracted to lift in a very short while.

"I--do not know," he told
the roster boss, with what he hoped was plain truth. "There is no
one--
no one
--who
has cause to seek me here. Or to seek me anywhere. I am ... outside
of Balance." He hesitated, recalled his co-pilot's phrase and
offered it up as something that might be sensible to another
Terran: "
I am no longer a
player
."

"Huh." The boss considered that for a moment,
then shook his head. "OK, but it better not happen again." He
glanced to one side. "Look at the clock, willya? You gonna lift
that ship on time, Pilot?"

"Yes," said Ren Zel, taking that for
dismissal. He turned and strode quickly toward the gate. The leg
that had been crushed had not--entirely--healed, and was prone to
betray him at awkward moments, so he did not quite dare run, though
he did move into a trot as he passed the gate onto the field.

The client's ship--a packet somewhat older
than the one that had belonged to Elsu Meriandra--was mercifully
near the gate, the ramp down and the hatch open. Ren Zel clattered
up-ramp, slapped the hatch closed as he sped through and hit the
pilot's chair a heartbeat later, automatically reaching over his
shoulder for the shock strap.

"Tower's online," Suzan said, her fingers
busy and capable on the second's board. "We got a go in two
minutes, Pilot."

"Yes." He called up his board, flickering
through the checks; reviewing the flight plan and locking it;
pulling in traffic, weather and status reports. "Cargo?"

"Port proctor's seal on it."

"Good. Please tell the Tower we are
ready."

He and Suzan had flown together
before--indeed, they were already seen as a team among certain of
the clients, who had made a point to ask Christopher to "send the
pilots we had last time." This was good; they made a name for
themselves--and a few extra dex.

Suzan was a solid second classer with more
flight time on her license than the first class for whom she sat
co-pilot. She flew a clean, no-nonsense board, utterly dependable;
and Ren Zel, cautiously, liked her. From time to time, she
displayed a tendency to come the elder kin with him, which he
supposed was natural enough, considering that she overtopped him,
outmassed him, and could easily have given him twelve
Standards.