Adventures in the Liaden Universe Part 14

The black eyes opened, the dark head moved on the pillow, and the familiar, beloved smile infused the sharp-featured face with beauty.

"Hullo, denubia," he said, swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up. "What's amiss?"

Er Thom stared, the skin of his palm still tickling with the after-effect of the scan.

"How," he demanded, rather faintly, "did you get here?"

"Oh, there's nothing to that[" Daav told him. "I can show you the trick, if you like." He tipped his dark head, mischief glinting. "Own that you're glad to see me, beast, or I shall be inconsolable."

"Yes, very likely," Er Thom retorted reflexively, then laughed and threw his arms wide. "In truth, I was just wis.h.i.+ng for you extremely,"

"Well, there's a proper welcome!" Daav rose and flung himself into the embrace with a will. For a moment, they clung, cheek to cheek, arms each about the other. Er Thom stepped back first.

"But, truly, Daav, how did you get here?"

"To the Pa.s.sage you mean?" He moved his shoulders. "I cast myself at the feet of an elder scout, who was bound for this quadrant." Mischief glinted again. "Surely you don't think I walked?"

"But, the Academy..." Er Thom gasped, suddenly struck with a thought almost too horrible to contemplate. "You haven't-they never rusticated, you?""Rusticated me?" Daav looked properly outraged, which of course proved nothing. "Certainly they did not rusticate me! Of all the notions! I suppose you've never heard of term break?

"Term..." Er Thom blinked, counting the relumma backward, and sighed. "I never thought of it," he confessed. "But, surely, our mother..."

"Save her leave, saving only that I find my own way out and back and that I arrive early to my first cla.s.s at break-end." Suddenly, Daav stretched, and put a hand on his lean middle. "What's the nearest hour for a meal, brother? I'm not halfway hungry."

Well, and that was no surprise. Er Thom sighed and tried to look stern.

"As it happens, I'm scheduled for dinner this hour. Perhaps I can convince the cook to give you a few dry crackers and a gla.s.s of water."

"A feast!" Daav proclaimed gaily, and slid his arm through Er Thom's, turning them both toward the door. "Come, let us test your powers of persuasion!"

"TOOK YOUR LICENSE?" Daav stared, soup spoon halfway to his mouth. It was his second plate of soup. The first had vanished with an alacrity unusual even by Daav's standards, and Er Thom suspected that the elder Scout had not been over-generous with rations. "Pray, what profit comes of taking your license?"

Er Thom moved his shoulders and looked down at his plate. He had made some inroads into his own meal-at least he would not be called to book for neglecting his duty to stay healthy.

"Master ven'Ducci feels my proper rating is provisional second," he told his plate. "One ... understands...

him to believe that the-the strain of carrying a full second cla.s.s is ... interfering... with one's studies."

"Rot," Daav said comprehensively. "Does he think you're to finish at second cla.s.s? We're both for master, darling-unless you believe our mother will allow us anything less?"

"No, of course not," Er Thom replied. Chi yos'Phelium had never held shy of telling her sons exactly what she expected them to accomplish on behalf of clan and kin, and neither Er Thom nor Daav could conceive of failing her.

Daav had another sip of soup. "Do you fly live?"

"Live?" Er Thom blinked. "I fly the dummy board on the inner bridge."

"A second cla.s.s pilot, practicing at a dummy board?" Daav demanded. "What nonsense!"

"Oh, I suppose you practice live!" Er Thom retorted, stung.

"Of course I do," his brother answered, with a surprising lack of heat. "It's required."

"In fact," he said after swallowing the last bit of soup, "I sat second board to the elder scout on the trip out. I don't doubt but I'll make the same trade with another pilot for the ride back." He lifted his eyebrows, from which Er Thom deduced that he had allowed his astonishment to show.

"Surely you can't think that the ever-amiable Lieutenant tel'Iquin would lift extra ma.s.s where there was no profit to herself?""As I have not had the pleasure of the Lieutenant's acquaintance-" Er Thom began, and broke off as a shadow fell across the table between them.

"So," said Captain Petrella yos'Galan, and there was a hard s.h.i.+ne in her blue eyes that Er Thom had learned meant the entire opposite of his foster-mother's twinkle. "Nephew, well I had a beam from your mother my sister, desiring me to expect you. When did you think you would come and register your presence with the Captain?" She inclined her head, in mock courtesy. "Or perhaps you believe the s.h.i.+p will feed you for free?"

"Aunt Petrella, my mother sends her love," Daav said with a calm Er Thom envied. "I regret that the desire to see my brother caused me to delay making my bow to the Captain." He smiled one of his sudden, transforming smiles. "And I surely never expected the s.h.i.+p to guest me. I am able and willing to work my pa.s.sage."

"You relieve me," Er Thom's mother said punctiliously. "And your pa.s.sage is-?"

"I have ten Standard Days for the s.h.i.+p," Daav said. "At Venture I will barter for a lift back to Liad."

"And your mother agrees to this." She raised a hand. "No, do not speak. I have her beam. My sister a.s.sures me that she reposes faith in both your abilities and in your oath to be early to the first cla.s.s of the new term. The matter is outside my authority. Within my authority, however ..." She frowned down at them both.

"Er Thom is not at liberty. He has his studies and his a.s.signed duties, which do not disappear because you have chosen to appear."

Daav inclined his head. "Nor am I at liberty, as we have both agreed that I shall work my pa.s.sage."

Petrella's lips bent in her pale smile. "So we have. At what work are you able, nephew?"

"I might be of some small service to the cargo master," Daav said. "I might also be put to use in the mechanics bay or at clerical." He picked up his mug and had a sip of tea before slanting a quick, black glance at Er Thom and looking back to the Captain. "I can help my brother with his piloting."

Er Thom felt a jolt. Daav tutor him at piloting? Now, there was turnabout! He felt a glare building, then remembered that Master ven'Ducci held his license hostage and subsided, eyes stinging. Happily, neither his brother nor his mother seemed to have noticed his near display.

"Oh?" Petrella said, with the ironic courtesy that characterized so much of her discourse with her son.

"Last I had heard, you held a second cla.s.s provisional."

"I now hold a first cla.s.s provisional," Daav said, with a remarkable lack of preening. "Of course, one requires flight time."

"Which one gains," Er Thom murmured, suddenly enlightened, "by sitting second board to Scout pilots in trade for transport."

Petrella frowned down at him. "Master ven'Ducci has spoken to me," she began, "Master ven'Ducci," Daav interrupted, against best health, "is an idiot. Come, aunt! Who ties a second cla.s.s to a dummy board?"

Both of her eyebrows rose and Er Thom held his breath, waiting for one of her blistering scolds to fall upon Daav's heedless head."So, we agree again," Petrella murmured, and there was something less of irony and somewhat more of courtesy in her voice. "You will be pleased to learn then, both of you, that Master ven'Ducci has been Instructed to use the Captain's Shuttle for future piloting lessons, beginning tomorrow. I will see to it that your schedules coincide for that lesson, and then-we shall see." She fixed Daav in her eye. "If I hear aught of mayhem from the master pilot, you will find yourself early indeed for first cla.s.s, young Daav. Do I make myself sufficiently plain?"

Respectfully, he inclined his head, but Er Thom saw his eyes dancing in mischief. "Aunt, you do."

"It is well," she sighed. "Apply to the first mate for quarters and s.h.i.+p-garb-your brother will show you the way. Your work schedule will be on your screen tomorrow at first hour; pray do not be tardy." Her gaze s.h.i.+fted. "My son..."

Er Thom raised his face to hers.

"Mother?"

Her lips bent once more in her slight smile, and she reached into her belt, withdrawing a flat rectangle. Er Thom's hand leapt out, fingers questing, and his mother's smile, strangely, deepened.

"Not a pilot," she murmured, perhaps to herself. "What nonsense." She put the license into his hand and inclined her head.

"Be worthy of it, child of Korval."

HE SAT SECOND board to Daav, Master ven'Ducci a poised, silent presence in the jump-seat at their backs.

"Systems check," Daav murmured, hands moving with precision across his board. Er Thom followed his brother's lead, hands steady and careful, waking that portion of the piloting board which was the responsibility of the co-pilot. Screens lit, toggles glowed, maincomp beeped. The comm unit likewise beeped as information began to flow in from Dutiful Pa.s.sage. Er Thom fielded the data, translated it, replied and received yet more data.

"The s.h.i.+p wishes us gone, brother," he said, scarcely noting that he spoke. "We are cleared to leave immediately, if that is the pilot's pleasure."

"Nothing more," Daav answered, and threw him a grin. "We have a course, I see, locked to navcomp,"

Er Thom looked-a two hour run?-then his brother's voice drew him back to his immediate duty.

"Pray request Dutiful Pa.s.sage to open the bay door."

Er Thom flipped the toggle that opened the voice line. "Captain's Shuttle ready for departure. Request bay door open."

"Bay door open," affirmed the cool voice of the pilot on duty at the stars.h.i.+p's main board. "Good lift, pilots."

Screen One showed the bay door iris; Daav laughed, slapped the toggle, and the shuttle rolled free.

* * * "MUCH IMPROVED," Master ven'Ducci said, nearly three hours later, as they stood once again in the bay corridor. He bowed, very slightly. "I am encouraged, Pilot yos'Galan."

Er Thom returned the bow. The lift had been a fine and bewildering thing. The simulations he had been flying were meticulously crafted, but live flight-live flight was different He was still a-tingle with energy, his thoughts as sharp as fabled clutch crystal, standing tall in an exhilaration that persisted despite the full knowledge of having several times bungled his board.

"You will both attend me here tomorrow at the same hour," the master pilot said, and with another slight bow strode away down the hall. Er Thom stared after him, frowning.

"Trouble, darling?" Daav was fair glittering himself, black eyes wide in his narrow face.

Er Thom drew a deliberate breath, trying to quiet the exuberant pounding of his heart. "Say, rather, puzzlement. I botched things rather badly at the phase-change and yet he makes no mention of it. Had I made an error one-twelfth as grievous on the practice board, he would not have held shy of apprizing me, never fear it! Yet, today, with three ham-witted errors to my tally, he is 'much encouraged'!"

"Perhaps he means to see if you repeat the errors tomorrow?"

"Repeat them tomorrow?" Er Thom stared. "I should never had made them today! I've been working phase equations in my head since Master Robir showed us the forms, when we were eight."

"Learning curve," Daav said, linking his arm in Er Thom's and beginning to stroll down the hall in the master pilot's wake. "I tremble to tell you how badly I've bungled my math at piloting, we were training on sling landings, you see, and I transposed my vectors."

Er Thom laughed. "Tell me you came in upside down!"

"But of course I came in upside down," Daav said amiably. "And hung upside down in the sling, like seven sorts of fool, while Master dea'Cort used my situation to lesson the rest of the cla.s.s on the need to thoroughly check one's equations." He sighed and looked briefly mournful, then dropped Er Thom's arm with a grin.

"Enough telling tales out of piloting cla.s.s!" he said gaily. "It will no doubt astonish you to learn that I am ravenous. If we hurry, I can wheedle an apple out of the cook before reporting to the cargo master for duty, catch me."

He was gone, running full speed down the hall.

Er Thom bit back a newly acquired curse and hurtled after.

IT WAS WELL into Fourth s.h.i.+ft and both of them should have been long abed. Instead, they were in the control room at the heart of the Pa.s.sage. Er Thom was sitting first board. There was no second.

Daav was leaving for school on the morrow. He sat, hands folded on his lap, in what would have been the jump-seat in a smaller s.h.i.+p-a pa.s.senger on this, their last flight together.

Er Thom's hands moved across the board with swift surety, no wasted motion, no false moves. His face was intent and his shoulders just a bit rigid, but that was expectable, the sim he was flying being somewhat in advance of his skill level.

The screen flashed a familiar pattern-Daav's own particular nemesis, as it happened-and he leanedforward, watching as Er Thom adroitly-one might say, casually-fed in the proper course for an avoid, and the simultaneous adjustment to s.h.i.+p's pressure. Quietly, Daav sighed, leaned back in his chair-and jerked forward the next moment as the screen flared and Er Thom's elegant ch.o.r.eography degenerated into a near random slap at the Jump b.u.t.ton, which was entirely wrong and too late besides.

Using the exercise he had been taught by the scouts, Daav released the tension in his muscles, then put his hand on his brother's shoulder.

"A good run, darling. Don't repine."

Er Thom looked up, blue eyes flas.h.i.+ng a frustration of his own inept.i.tude that Daav understood all too well.

"It can't quite be a good run, can it," he snapped, "when the s.h.i.+p is destroyed around one?"

"Well-no," Daav admitted. "On the other face, you flew further than I have yet to fly."

"Truly?" Er Thom looked so startled that Daav laughed.

"Yes, truly, you lout! Remember me, the ten-thumbed junior brother?"

"All too well, thank you!" Er Thom replied with a gratifying flash of brotherly scorn. He sobered almost immediately. "You have changed, you know. Even in so short a time. I-do you find it at all ... odd or, or ... lonely, to, to-" He floundered.

"Do I find it disquieting to be away from all that was usual in my life, and made to stand singleton before the world, when I have no memory but of being half of the whole we two made between us?" Daav said in a serious and quite adult voice. Er Thom took a breath and met bleak black eyes straightly.

"Yes," said Daav, "I do."

"So do I," Er Thom murmured, relieved, in an odd way, that at least this much had not changed-that he found his brother and himself at one on this matter of importance to them both. "One's ... mother...

a.s.sures one that these feelings will pa.s.s. Do you think-"

The door to the control room opened and Petrella yos'Galan strode within.

"Of course I would find you both here," she snapped, but Er Thom thought her face was-not entirely-displeased.

"Good s.h.i.+ft, Aunt Petrella," Daav said politely. "Er Thom has just been having a run at the general-flight masters sim."

Petrella's eyebrows rose. "Oh, indeed? And how did he fare, I wonder?"

"Poorly enough." Er Thom spun his chair to face her. "My s.h.i.+p was destroyed two-point-eight minutes into the flight."

Astonis.h.i.+ngly, his mother grinned. "No, do you say so? Well I recall that dicey bit of action! Forty-four times, I lost my s.h.i.+p exactly there. The forty-fifth-well, say I survived another minute."

"And I," Daav said mournfully, "am doomed to forever lose my wings at two-point-three."

"There?" Er Thom turned to stare at him. "But that was a mere nothing!""So you say!"