Saltation (39 page)

Hand still braced against the table, he bowed a special bow, indicating respect for the elders, and said something in Liaden which she understood part of, and something else in Liaden, which got by her ear entirely. Within a heartbeat, he bowed again, murmuring in Terran, what must have been the translation: "May you have all joy in the memory of your loved one."

"No," she burst out. "He's not dead! He's
gone
. Missing! Run away from his classes in a beat-up spaceship and—
his classes!
"

Win Ton went through another set of changes, relief perhaps coming into his shoulders, while his eyebrows drew painfully together.

"And has he never before—"

"No, not ever not ever!"

Theo realized that she'd banged the memo pad onto the table again.

"Sorry," she said, very low, and then took it to Liaden, with proper gravity, "Forgive me if I offend in this moment of uncertainty."

"No offense," he murmured, inclining his head.

Theo closed her eyes momentarily.
Inner calm
, she told herself, deliberately relaxing tight muscles. She opened her eyes. Win Ton was still standing, braced against the table, his arm trembling with strain.

"Please," she said, alarmed, "sit. This—this is not your problem. I'm not sure it's my problem, except—"

Win Ton stood away from the table carefully, a soothing hand barely touching hers before he moved back to his chair.

"Your father, this is the Jen Sar Kiladi you spoke of?"

Theo nodded, staring again at the screen and Kamele's last, accusatory sentence.
I felt that you must be told, and can only hope your connections with your father are not as fully disrupted as my own.

"Kamele thinks I must have known," she said. "He had a
spaceship
on world, and he never mentioned it."

Win Ton's hands now soothed her from a distance, his fingers moved, maybe trying to form words. After a moment, he folded them together on the table.

She looked down at the pad again, trying to think clearly. What
could
she do, after all? Go to Delgado and stare at a car full of fishing poles? Witness an empty spot in a ship park she'd never known of?

"I repeat, Sweet Mystery." The irony in his hoarse voice penetrated and brought her eyes to Win Ton's face.

"By all understanding your father is Liaden, whether he properly wears a clan name out of history, or not. It is obvious that his clan has called him home. The delm has the right to demand, and the clan member has the duty to return."

"No," she said. "He wouldn't—"

She stopped, hearing Kara's voice, speaking very seriously, warning her—warning her about Liadens.

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.

She closed her eyes, trying to accommodate a universe in which
Father
could be commanded—compelled. Father had always been a force unto himself—like a law of nature, Kamele used to say.

"Theo?"

Her hand moved of itself, fingers forming
pause
.

Contract, she thought. Win Ton. Father.
Bechimo
. Four problems, pulling in different directions, and no clear solution to any of them. She needed—

She needed time. Focus.

Theo rose, memo pad in hand, sparing Win Ton a nod that was far more curt than she intended.

"And by this you mean?" he asked with some perspicacity.

She took a breath.

"I mean that I need time to think. I'm missing a father. There's a ghost ship looking for me. I have a friend who is dying. I have a contract to read and a future to decide. Right?"

She stared at the cuff of Rig's jacket—
her
jacket—and looked back at him.

He rose, shaky, but determined.

"Be as well as you can, my friend," she said, softly. "We
will
sit board together again. I
want
that. If there's anything I can do to make that happen, be sure I'll do it."

He bowed then, perhaps with a bit of energy.

"You have my direction, Theo. I will contact you as soon as I may, if you cannot contact me."

Theo sighed, and gave him the pilot's salute she'd learned on Melchiza.

"I'm due back on
Primadonna
," she said. Chaos! Tranza would think she'd been taken by slavers!

"If you do not return or reply, Sweet Mystery, what shall I assume? That you have decided that my plight is beyond your care?"

She took the question, looked at it advertently, felt the terrors around the edge of it. Carefully, she extended her hand, and took his cold, weak one. He did not withdraw.

"Win Ton. Pilot yo'Vala. Friend. I will reply as soon as I may. If I do not reply it is because the solution is one beyond me, and I've gone—gone for help. Is that acceptable?"

His eyes widened very briefly, and he bowed a stately bow on unsteady legs.

"Pilot's choice, Theo. As I sit your second, it must be acceptable."

"Right."

Rig stood with arms crossing his chest, noting the board feed Theo was taking from Volmer's orbiting station. She could see him reflected in the screens—a not-unusual thing for her this past year.

"It makes sense to see what they're looking for there, but, Theo, the real action's right there in the bar, right? They got the same feed you got from station and they got bidders and askers looking for work right now. The usual applies, of course—makes sense to get a checkup on the ship if you can, and know the crew if there is one—but here you can find something you can check before lunch and sign before dinner if you need to, and you don't have to pay a fare or pull a favor to get there, and you're not paying for your own air while you wait. Right. Station-waiting can be a big drain on the accounts!"

That made good pilot sense, even if her mood now was to get off-planet as soon as she could. With no need to go to Delgado, no real need to be
anywhere
except at the board of a ship . . . and coming up with a plan to find her father, of course. And figure out a way to help Win Ton, and
Bechimo
, if it existed, and for which, she had realized on her ride back to
Primadonna
, she only had the word of a very ill and perhaps unstable man.

"Guild member to Guild member, Rig, am I reading this right?" She flicked to the screen displaying the new Hugglelans contract.

"Right. See, historically, the whole trip run gets credited to whoever runs the board, with time as PIC. This contract, I think they want to make it so they can keep running to places like Eylot and Tourmalin and—well, these places that want to look at the ship's log for the last ten years and see if you've ever been anywhere they don't like. So see, they'd not mention that you was even on board here at Volmer if they wanted you to be PIC when we got to, say, Tourmalin, who don't hold with trading someplace where the Juntavas is quite so thick on the ground. Thing is, by this contract they could hide that, and once you hide that on the ship records, then it gets pretty easy to hide or steal flight time from pilots, or release it only under seal to the Guild and such."

"That's what I thought I was seeing, like here—" Theo pulled a second screen live, several sections highlighted in the ugliest pink she could find. "Which, it looks to me, means they could cut my pay if I'm aboard a ship going to Eylot, by cutting me out of the in-and-out loop there so Eylot Admin wouldn't see my name and number; they wouldn't need to give me full time-in-grade points and—"

Rig tapped his ear, which meant his volume must be wrong or—no, the sound of footsteps in the corridor reached her.

"Pilot Tranza, I believe you are duty pilot, are you not? Would you care to share with me the status of the ship? This chitchat—"

"Pilot Mayko," he replied without turning, "a Guild member has asked my advice on a matter of current interest to both of us, and one which affects this ship intimately. As you are returned I assume that our immediate mission here is done and we can begin implementing the routes and procedures outlined for this vessel by Pilot Waitley. Shift sequence alone requires the PIC—that's me—to be aware of staffing availability."

"Pilot," Mayko began, and now Theo could see her approaching reflection, "you seem to be counseling a crew member to seek work elsewhere. That could be—"

"Oh hush, right, Mayko?"

Rig turned to her smoothly, arms still crossed over his chest as he leaned in her direction. Mayko took a half step back, and he leaned even more in her direction.

"The contract she's working under gives Theo a trip to the nearest employment center following the end of her employment. That means
Primadonna
is liable right now, if Theo Waitley wishes, to take her to orbit. If she finds something here, well then, she can walk out under her own power and precious Hugglelans Galactica don't have to feed her for the next day. But this is still the contract offer period,
boss
, and you offered her a contract. She's got the right to consider, to get advice, to look for competing offers. Right. Let her look. She'll likely find there's nothing out there near as cushy as a job hooked up to the Howsenda . . . and then your problem is finding her a ship!"

He turned his back on Mayko.

"Now, Pilot," he said to Theo, "if you want an actual legal analysis of that contract you could always take it to the Guild office proper and pay that fee—"

Mayko gasped. "You wouldn't!" she said. "You singsong—"

Rig's face broke up into a laugh.

"You never were all that good in cussing battle with me, Mayko. Let's fix us something to eat and let the girl take her jacket to the bar. The ship can fly as soon as we get topped off foodwise, elsewise, since you asked."

Mayko looked around him, to wave a come-on motion to Theo.

"Pilot, if you hurry you can probably catch the cart before it goes back . . . the girl was checking on the steering when I left."

The "girl" was of indeterminate age, as far as Theo could tell, but certainly older than her, and she had one of the front panels on the cart open and an instrument Theo didn't recognize in her hand while she swept the interior with a scan wand. The breeze made the driver's extra-dark hair swirl so she had to shake her head to see around it, and if the earrings she wore were real she'd need a guard for them on a couple ports Theo knew.

The driver reached into the panel and Theo grimaced, wondering how many more things could go off in the wrong direction—she'd nearly forgotten to bring her crew kit, and then . . . 

"Bad jets?" she asked. "Down for repairs? Are you the driver?"

The breeze, or concentration and the normal noise of a port in action, must have swallowed the words since the driver didn't react, and Theo repeated herself.

The woman, for now Theo was sure she was older than any mere girl, swept around elegantly as if surprised to discover anyone near. Wand held before her, still watching the instrument, she had a gentle smile on her face.

Theo relaxed. The woman was showing no signs of concern and her calm made Theo feel better.

"Yes, Pilot. I can drive you. Indeed not on the repairs; the sensor was getting an anomalous reading, but with so many extra ships on port these days, and so many security scans, unexpected readings will occur. Please, strap in and I will seal this instantly. You may call me Dulsey."

Theo sat in the passenger seat, strapped in, and watched the special elegance of this person who . . . was a pilot, and a dancer. Why then was she driving pilots about the port? She answered her own question—after all did not Aito wait tables at the Howsenda? Clearly though, this was no mere dayworker.

"May I drive you to the hiring hall, Pilot?"

Theo looked into the woman's face, but she was intent on starting, making sure the driving line was clear.

"Do I look like I'm leaving home?"

The driver glanced at her, still with that smile on her face.

"The hiring hall is a very popular destination, Pilot, especially today, and your shipmate came from there most recently, as I may be permitted to recall."

Mayko had been to the hiring hall? Of course, one way or another, Theo's spot on
Primadonna
would need filling.

"I understand there are several—but, yes, take me to a hiring hall."

The driver moved a hand used to work over the controls and the cart shot forward. Clearly the steering had no troubles, and after several sharp turns and dashes around other carts Theo began to assume that it was the brakes that needed looking into.

A few moments into the trip, after a sudden winding turn into a ramp new to her, Theo asked, "What hall are we going to? I thought they were mostly—"

The inner workings of the port came into view and flashed by: cables and pipes, ramps and people, warning signs and strange markings meant only for those who worked there.

"Ah, Pilot, since you come from the ship of the Hugglelans I thought it perhaps not best to travel to the hall where they hire now. Instead, I know a private party interested in hiring a pilot of special caliber such as yourself."

Theo held on as the cart lost altitude, taking a turn into a tunnel off of the ramp, tires' noise rising as the speed increased yet again. "Is this private party known onworld, and at the Guild hall? May I get a name?"

"Surely known on-world, Pilot. Why just a few hours ago, I drove there some Scouts."

Before the last word was fully annunciated, Theo gently moved her hand toward her pocket, saying, "I'm not sure that I'm interested in visiting this place, having recently taken leave of a Scout. Please take me elsewhere."

"Alas, Pilot Waitley, I believe you are committed now," said Dulsey, as the cart came to a squealing halt beneath the open bay door of a ship type Theo, despite her intensive study of silhouettes, couldn't identify.

"We have already copies of your records, and it behooves you to at least listen to our offer, which I assure you is far more interesting than the ordinary low-grade smuggler's contract offered in the halls here."