Saltation (24 page)

The man went pale but said nothing.

"Did you not hear Pilot Waitley say she had figured the ball out? Look!"

yos'Senchul put the data case down against his knee, and pulled back his other sleeve, revealing a metal and ceramic arm adorned with a plethora of readouts.

"As I hold this ball, it contains enough stored energy to launch itself to the nearest town. Pilot Waitley says, and I trust her enough to have her pilot my own craft, that she has figured the ball out."

The instructor bowed toward Theo, gently.

"Tell us, Pilot: what do you see?"

Theo returned the bow.

"There's something extra in the ball, like a resonance. It takes the ordinary changes and, I sort of plotted it, I think. The more often the ball is thrown quickly, the more energy it takes from the spin and every so often the energy comes out in a throw. I can see the timing of that release."

"Enough. Close enough. And your strategy?"

He looked at her expectantly, and Theo raised both hands, weighing the phrasing.

"I was going to take the pass from the shorter player, dive, roll, and give the ball to the taller, chest high. He keeps his hands too far on the fringe, and he's not quick—"

Enough
, yos'Senchul signed. He bowed again.

"Pilot, thank you. An able strategy, indeed, and more than sufficient to have told the tale."

Turning to the two men, now standing well isolated from the DCCT players, yos'Senchul waved them casually before him with the admonition, "Sirs, you may thank me for saving your lives, while we walk together to the Commander's office. A discussion of the source of the modification kit will not be out of order."

Yberna was more than just tired, she was
ill
. Theo didn't think she'd ever seen anyone that exact shade of yellow, especially considering how pale the girl usually was, and the color didn't go well at all with scrapes and bruises. With yos'Senchul gone DCCT was acting like a team, indeed—someone had broken out extra oxygen and there were a couple first aid kits circulating among the combatants.

"I'll be fine," Yberna said, her hands trembling and her lips going blue, "I just need a little oxygen."

But oxygen didn't help, nor did the simple remedy of keeping calm that some were loudly advocating. Even before yos'Senchul and his wards were out of sight, Kara was on the comm with the infirmary, demanding an emergency pickup at DCCT.

"Yes, we have first aid providers," her voice rose, shutting down adjacent conversations, "but none of us has prenatal training and Yberna is pregnant."

The words struck Theo's ears like a sonic boom, and she wasn't the only one whose near-squeaked "pregnant?" broke the air. She managed not to ask "how" as a follow-up, but surely Yberna wouldn't have
planned
a pregnancy for this late in her school career!

"It isn't
silly
to rest, Yberna," Kara was saying, "and we're not going to carry you down the hill over our backs like a day pack! Here, use this for a pillow, and try the relaxation exercises for concentration. They've got a crew out the door already."

"Thank you, Pilot Waitley, you have done well for your friend, and you, Kara ven'Arith, you have great empathy!"

Theo nodded to the crew chief's bow, pleased to see him, surprised to be recalled.

"Theo? Theo, please? Did you really know? Were you going to knock him down?"

Yberna was being tucked into the stretcher, monitors squinching closed on her wrists as she peered around the medical staff, trying to move against the pressure pads that held her still. The one who had bowed to them—Theo saw a name tag reading "Healer el'Kemin"—fluttered a vague hand-sign, perhaps meant to be
say please in truth.

Theo nodded vigorously. "On the next throw, Yberna. He had it coming to him."

Yberna attempted a smile.

"Good! We can't let them win, you know!"

The stretcher was locked to the pallet attach points and the hoverlift smoothly rose.

The med tech—Healer el'Kemin—and one of the other staffers got up behind the driver; the other two ran outrigger and Yberna was away, weakly trying to wave. Healer el'Kemin, reached down to touch her head, likely adjusting a medication, because the girl went quiet, as if she'd suddenly fallen asleep. "Make way, clear, make way, clear!"

The sled was gone, moving briskly down the hill toward the dispensary.

Kara took a step after them. "I should—" she began, and was intercepted by Vin, wielding a med kit.

"Kara, hold still; you're bleeding."

DCCT's common room was alive with swirling conversations, the galaxy-portrait end walls giving back echoes and the knots of noise moving and coagulating. Theo'd never seen the group so animated. It was almost as if they'd won something, despite Yberna's difficulties.

Freck was almost bouncing.

"Did you
see
that? Theo was going to take them out big time. Think they can run up here from their silly club and take all of DCCT with one trick? I think this planet loyalty stuff is way overrated for pilots!"

Theo hadn't recognized them but enough of the crew had: two of the Young Pilots of Eylot, membership restricted to those born on Eylot of Terran descent.

The sudden holiday mood was helped by Bova and assorted helpers rushing around with sweet rolls, served with creamy topping and an accompanying hit of oxygen.

Theo took the roll, and spurned the oxy, frustrated that so many conversations were going on at once that she couldn't get more than the gist of things. She gathered that the Young Pilots had a complaint—DCCT got first shot at the break jobs at Hugglelans. That, they claimed, was a right of the planet-born.

Trying to follow the discussion got more frustrating as Bova played wrong-side advocate and took up the Young Pilots' argument, which felt a lot like a Simple sermon to Theo.

"I
should
have gone with her! I got in the game to let her drop out!"

Theo turned and touched her friend's shoulder.

"Two problems: no room for a copilot on the sled—and she was already asleep. You'd have slowed the ship."

Kara closed her eyes, and maybe she did a dance move in her head, because Theo saw some of the tension flow out of her. Eyes open, she moved her hands:
truth
.

"How did you figure out what was wrong with the ball? I saw—and felt!—that it was moving strangely, but I couldn't understand it. You just grabbed it and went, like you knew exactly what was going to happen!"

Theo shrugged.

"I didn't know,
exactly
; I was just reacting to what the ball was really doing, and not what it
should have
been doing. It's like dance competition stuff—at some point
something's
got to vary, so you have to be patient, and alert, and when the vary comes, deal with it. I
did
know that we were getting acceleration in there, and I'm afraid I was already running with a lot of energy when I came looking for you, so I was primed to run the numbers, and that's the course I saw. I didn't have time to calculate all of the variables, just that I could return it to him with spin and velocity he couldn't handle. Mostly I wanted to stop the game long enough to be sure you were just winded."

"
Just
winded? I wish I could say that. I was going to half measures, to just keep the ball in play. You were right on top of it compared to the rest of us."

Theo sighed, held out a hand. It was absolutely steady. Kara held out her hand, holding it still, and laughed as she rippled those fingers into some kind of nonsense rhyme about
pilot's choice copilot's bad dream
.

Kara lifted her hand toward her face, then made a fist and forced it down to her side.

"Guess they didn't give me a full numb on this thing. Is it awful?"

Theo leaned in closer, shook her head.

"Looks raw, but not drippy or anything. It ought to hurt, I'd say."

"Itches." She chewed her lip, then took a deep, deliberate breath, like she was putting something aside to worry about later.

"You said you were coming to see me?"

"I was," Theo admitted. "I had to get out of the dorm, and I wanted to . . . check custom. You're looking pretty shook, though. Maybe you should lie down."

"No," Kara said definitively. "I should
not
lie down. Come on, let's find someplace where we can hear each other speak."

The language room was vacant. They shut the door and sat on one of the tables, Theo cross-legged, and Kara swinging her feet, like she still had excess energy to burn.

Kara listened, her face far more serious than usual, quite in what Theo thought of now as
Liaden face
: bland and careful. It reminded her of Father's face when he was being particularly himself: almost a mask without a hint of what he was thinking. She'd always thought of it as something personal, belonging only to him; discovering that he shared it, not only with Kara, but with yos'Senchul, and apparently the whole race of Liadens had been . . . strange, at first. Also familiar, and obscurely comforting, was the slight tilt of Kara's head, indicating attention to Theo's concern.

Theo finished in a rush.

"But this gift—is it too much? What do I promise by accepting it?"

Kara moved her shoulders, her gaze focused maybe on her alternating boot tips, maybe on lessons so deep-learned it took effort to pull them out where they could be explained.

"The Code," she said slowly. "The Code lists many occasions upon which the giving of a gift is either appropriate or required. There is another list, matching gift to occasion, so that one neither presumes by too much generosity, nor insults by too little. The occasions: an evening visit, to seal a contract marriage, to end an affair of pleasure—there are, as I say, many such." She paused, and looked to Theo.

"Your Win Ton being a Scout, it is perhaps wrong of us to expect him to hold entirely by Code, especially in matters concerning one who is outside of Liaden custom. He would, being a Scout, wish to deal rightly with you according to your own custom. So I ask—is there a custom of Delgado that might make sense of this gift?"

Theo nodded. "A keepsake; sort of a reminder—like keeping pics of family and favored friends."

"So there is custom." Theo got the feeling that Kara was relieved, though her friend was still in Liaden face. "This letter—does it seem that he assumes
obligation
of you?"

Theo felt her ears heat.

"Obligation—no. He specifically said that it was my choice whether or not to wear the gift. He was also clear that he had an interest in us being together to . . . enjoy each other again—and I'm interested in that, too."

"Your courses align, then. I would say, in that case, that the gift is neither too much nor too little, but well given as a promise of desire and intent. But—" Kara stopped.

Theo considered her. "But?"

Kara sighed. "At the risk of telling you something you already know—remember that we—that Liadens—
belong to
our clans. This means that your Win Ton, Scout though he be, is bound by the order of his delm. Everything—promises, partnerships and plans—must be set aside, should the clan call one to duty. Remember that, about Liadens, Theo. It's just—it might help. Later."

"I—"

A quick rap on the door was immediately followed by the entrance of Pilot yos'Senchul, two-armed still, data carrier in hand.

He bowed to the pair of them, his free hand describing the Liaden bow-sign for
necessity
.

"Pilots, you will forgive the intrusion. Pilot Waitley, I assume you have not been to your room, and thus have not seen my request. I am in need of someone to pilot me to Codrescu, leaving yesterday, if not sooner. Your class schedule being clear for forty-three hours, I wonder if you might do the honors?"

They got to orbit in a sprightly fashion,
Cherpa
's spot on a hotpad meaning Theo slotted the ship into a launch window quickly, even if that window wasn't optimum from a fuel viewpoint.

yos'Senchul gave her initial lift plan a vague glance, praising it as textbook perfect. Then he'd gone on:

"This is not an exercise for finding fuel efficient launches, Pilot. Consider your necessity as a PIC to be conserving time, rather than energy. Once lifted, please find us the fastest way to docking. Consider me your client and your payload for an express delivery."

Pilot Waitley had followed those instructions implicitly, allowing the routing to include what was, as she considered it, an expensive burn from what would have been a higher elliptical orbit to arrive at the proper orbit more quickly.

Cherpa
's boards felt more familiar than the shuttle's had last time she'd flown it—all the sim time she'd put in recently meant she expected a ship scan to include more than nearby space; expected it to have warning for Jump, expected what was in front of her. What she hadn't
quite
expected was how much of her scan was blocked by Eylot's presence, nor the sudden change in comm traffic when their destination rose above the horizon.

Theo spent some small time studying the scans to see if she could figure which ships were actually going somewhere in system and which were transiting to Jump points.
Cherpa
's navsystem was immensely helpful in this; she could, with the touch of a button, plot a dozen ships likely outbound and a few more than that likely inbound from Jump. As she watched the scan fill in, a ship seemed to fuzz into existence outside local space but—according to the scan grid—well inside regular Jump space. Experimentally she ran the scan back—yes. There was the place where the new ship wasn't—and, suddenly, without glare, flare, or warning, there it was.

"Second," she said to yos'Senchul, "is there a reason the ship that just showed up without Jump glare isn't tagged with a name or ID number?"