CHANGELING

First published in 2000 by Absolute Magnitude

THE FIRST THING THEY told him when he emerged from the catastrophic healing unit was that his wife had died in the accident.

The second thing they told him was that her Clan was pursuing retribution to the fullest extent of the Code.

They left him alone, then, the med techs, with instructions to eat and rest. The door slid closed behind them with the snap of a lock engaging.

Out of a habit of obedience, he walked over to the table and lifted the cover from the tray. The aroma of glys-blossom tea rose to greet him and he dropped the cover, tears rising.

He had not known his wife well, but she had been pretty and bold and full of fun—one found it inconceivable, newly healed from one's own injuries and with the scent of her preferred blend in the air, that she was—that she was—

Dead.

The tears spilled over, blinding him. He raised his hands to cover his face and wept where he stood.

His name was Ren Zel dea'Judan, Clan Obrelt. He was twenty-one Standard years old and the hope of all his kin.

* * *

THEY WERE SHOPKEEPERS, Clan Obrelt. It scarcely mattered what sort of shop, as long as it wanted keeping. In the hundreds of years since the first dea'Judan took up the trade, Obrelt had kept flower shops, sweet shops, hardware shops, book shops, wine shops, green groceries and shops too odd to mention. The shops they kept were never their own, but belonged to other, wealthier, Clans who lacked Obrelt's genius for management.

Having found a trade that suited them, Obrelt was not minded to change. They settled down to the work with a will and achieved a certain reputation. Eventually, it came to be Obrelt managers that the High Clans sought to manage the stores the High Clans owned. In the way of commerce, the price that Obrelt might ask of Clans desirous of employing their shopkeepers rose. The House became—not wealthy, not in any Liaden terms—but comfortably well-off. Perhaps not nearly so well-off by the standard of the far homeworld, Liad itself; but comfortable enough by the easy measure of outworld Casia.

A Clan of shopkeepers, they married and begat more shopkeepers, though the occasional accountant, or librarian, or Healer was born. These changelings puzzled the Clan elders when they appeared, but honor and kin-duty were served and each was trained to that which he suited, to the increase and best advantage of the Clan.

Into Clan Obrelt, then, in the last relumma of the year called Mitra, a boychild was born. He was called Ren Zel, after the grandfather who had first taken employ in a shop and thus found the Clan its destiny, and he was a normal enough child of the House, at first, second and third counting.

He was quick with his numbers, which pleased Aunt Chane, and had a tidy, quiet way about him, which Uncle Arn Eld noted and approved. No relative was fond enough to proclaim him a beauty, though all allowed him to be neatly made and of good countenance. His hair and eyes were brown; his skin a rich, unblemished gold.

As befit a House in comfortable circumstance, Obrelt was wealthy in children. Ren Zel, quiet and tidy, was invisible amid the gaggle of his cousins. His three elder sisters remembered, sometimes, to pet him, or to scold him, or to tease him. When they noticed him at all, the adults found him respectful, current in his studies, and demure—everything that one might expect and value in the child of a shopkeeper who was destined, himself, one day to keep shop.

It was Aunt Chane who first suspected, in the relumma he turned twelve, that Ren Zel was perhaps destined to be something other than a shopkeeper. It was she who gained the Delm's permission to take him down to Pilot's Hall in Casiaport. There, he sat with his hands demurely folded while a lady not of his Clan tossed calculations at him, desiring him merely to give the answer that came into his head.

That was a little frightening at first, for Aunt Chane had taught him to always check his numbers on the computer, no matter how certain he was, and he didn't like to be wrong in front of a stranger and perhaps bring shame to his House. The lady's first calculations were easy, though, and he answered nearly without thinking. The quicker he answered, the quicker the lady threw the next question, until Ren Zel was tipped forward in his chair, face animated, brown eyes blazing in a way that had nothing tidy or quiet about it. He was disappointed when the lady held up her hand to show she had no more questions to ask.

Also that day, he played catch with a very odd ball that never quite would travel where one threw it—at least, it didn't the first few times Ren Zel tried. On his fourth try, he suddenly understood that this was only another iteration of the calculations the lady had tossed at him, and after that the ball went where he meant it to go.

After the ball, he was asked to answer timed questions at the computer, then he was taken back to his aunt.

She looked down at him and there was something . . . odd about her eyes, which made him think that perhaps he should have asked the lady's grace to check his numbers, after all.

"Did I do well, Aunt?" he blurted, and Aunt Chane sighed.

"Well?" she repeated, reaching to take his hand and turning toward the door. "It's the Delm who will decide that for us, youngling."

Obrelt Himself, informed in private of the outcome of the tests, was frankly appalled.

"Pilot? Are they certain?"

"Not only certain, but—enthusiastic," Chane replied. "The Master Pilot allows me to know that our Ren Zel is more than a step out of the common way, in her experience of pilot-candidates."

"Pilot," the Delm moaned and went over to the table to pour himself a second glass of wine. "Obrelt has never bred a pilot."

Chane pointed out, dryly, that it appeared they had, in this instance, bred what might be trained into a very fine pilot, indeed. To the eventual increase of the Clan.

That caught Obrelt's ear, as she had known it would, and he brightened briefly, then moved a hand in negation. "All very well to say the eventual increase! In the near while, have you any notion how much it costs to train a pilot?"

As it happened, Chane did, having taken care to possess herself of information she knew would lie near to Obrelt's concern.

"Twenty-four cantra, over the course of four years, apprentice fees for two years more, plus licensing fees."

Obrelt glared at her. "You say that so calmly. Tell me, sister, shall I beggar the Clan to educate one child? I allow him to be extraordinary, as he has managed to become your favorite, though we have prettier, livelier children among us."

"None of whom is Ren Zel," Chane returned tartly. She sighed then and grudgingly showed her lead card. "A first class pilot may easily earn eight cantra the Standard, on contract."

Obrelt choked on his wine.

"They say the boy will achieve first class?" he managed a few moments later, his voice breathless and thin.

"They say it is not impossible for the boy to achieve first class," she replied. "However, even a second class pilot may earn five cantra the Standard."

"'May'," repeated Obrelt.

"If he brings the Clan four cantra the Standard, he will pay back his education right speedily," Chane said. Observing that her brother wavered, she played her trump.

"The Pilot's Guild will loan us his first two year's tuition and fees, interest-free, until he begins to earn wages. If he achieves first class, they will write paid to the loan."

Obrelt blinked. "As desirous of the child as that?"

"He is," Chane repeated patiently, "more than a step out of the common way. Master Pilot von'Eyr holds herself at your pleasure, should you have questions for her."

"Hah. So I may." He walked over to the window and stood looking down into the modest garden, hands folded behind his back. Chane went to the table, poured herself a glass of wine and sipped it, recruiting herself to patience.

Eventually, Obrelt turned away from the window and came forward to face her.

"It is a strange path we would set the child upon, sister, to a place where none of his age-mates may follow. He will sail between stars while his cousins inventory stock in back storerooms. I ask you, for you have given him his own room in your heart: Do we serve him ill or well by making him a stranger to his kin?"

And that was the question that needed to be asked, when all considerations of cantra-costs were ended. What was best done for Ren Zel himself, for the good of all the Clan?

Chane set her glass aside and met her Delm's eyes straightly.

"He is already a stranger among us," she said, speaking as truly as she knew how. "Among his age-mates he is a cipher—he is liked, perhaps, but largely ignored. He goes his own way, quiet, tidy, courteous—and invisible. Today—today, when the pilots returned him to me, it was as if I beheld an entirely different child. His cheeks glowed, his eyes sparkled, he walked at the side of the Master Pilot visible and proud." She took a breath, sighed it out.

"Brother, this boy is not a shopkeeper. Best for us all that we give him the stars."

And so it was decided.

* * *

REN ZEL ACHIEVED his first class piloting license on the nineteenth anniversary of his Name Day. He was young for the rank, especially for one who had not sprung from a piloting House, but not precocious.

Having thus canceled out half of his tuition and fees, he set himself to paying off the balance as quickly as possible. It had been plain to him for several years that the Clan had gone to extraordinary expense on his behalf and he did not wish his cousins to be burdened by a debt that rightly belonged only to himself. That being so, he had the Guild accountant write a contract transferring the amount owed from Clan Obrelt to Ren Zel dea'Judan Clan Obrelt, as a personal debt.

He was young, but he had a reputation among the elder pilots with whom he'd flown for being both steady and level-headed, a reputation they were glad to broadcast on the Port.

That being so, contracts came his way—good contracts, with pay-outs in the top percentage of the Guild's rates. Often enough, there was a bonus, for Ren Zel had a wizard's touch with a coord string—or so his elders praised him. Those same elders urged him to go for Master, and he thought he would, someday.

After he cleared his debt.

* * *

IT WAS NIGHT-PORT at Casia by the time he finished shut-down and gave the ship into the keeping of the client's agent. Ren Zel slung his kit over a shoulder and descended the ramp, filling his lungs with free air. World air tasted different than ship air, though he would have been hard put to say which flavor he preferred, beyond observing that, of world-air, he found Casia's the sweetest.

At the bottom of the ramp, he turned right and walked leisurely through the night-yard, then out into the thoroughfare of Main Port.

The job he had just completed had been profitable—an exhilarating run, in fact, with the entire fee paid up front and a generous bonus at the far end. A half-dozen more like it would retire his debt. Not that such runs were common.

Night-port was tolerably busy. He saw a pilot he knew and raised a hand in greeting. The other waved and cut across the crowded walkway.

"Ren Zel! I haven't seen you in an age! There's a lot of us down Findoir's—come and share a glass or two!"

He smiled, but moved his hand in a gesture of regret. "I'm just in. Haven't been to Guild Hall yet."

"Well, there's a must," the other allowed cheerfully. "Come after you've checked in, do, for I tell you we mean to make a rare night of it. Otaria's gotten her first."

"No, has she? Give her my compliments."

"Come down after you've checked in and give them to her yourself," his friend said, laying a hand briefly on his sleeve. "Until soon, Ren Zel."

"Until soon, Lai Tor."

Warmed, he continued on his way and not many minutes later walked up the stairs into Casiaport Guild Hall.

The night clerk took his license, scanned it and slid it back across the counter. "Welcome home, Pilot." She tapped keys, frowning down at her readout. Ren Zel put his card away and waited while she accessed his file.

"Two deposits have been made to your account," she said, scrolling down. "One has cleared, and twelve percent Clan share has been paid. Eleven-twelfths of the balance remaining has gone against the Pilots Guild Tuition Account, per standing orders. No contracts pending . . ." She paused, then glanced up. "I have a letter for you, Pilot. One moment." She left the console and walked to the back.

Ren Zel frowned. A letter? A paper letter? Who would—

The clerk was back, holding a buff colored envelope. She used her chin to point at the palm reader set into the surface of the counter.

"Verification, please, Pilot."

Obediently, he put his palm over the reader, felt the slight tingle, heard the beep. He lifted his hand and the clerk handed him the envelope. His fingers found the seal embossed on the sealed flap—Obrelt's sign.

Ren Zel inclined his head to the clerk.

"My thanks."

"Well enough," she replied and looked once more her screen. "Status?"

He paused on the edge of telling her "on-call," feeling the envelope absurdly heavy in his hand.

"Unavailable," he said, fingers moving over the seal.

She struck a last key and inclined her head.

"So recorded."

"My thanks," he said again and, shouldering his kit, walked across the hall to the common room.

As luck would have it, the parlor was empty. He closed the door behind him, dropped his kit and slid his finger under the seal.

A letter from Obrelt? His hands were not quite steady as he unfolded the single sheet of paper. Paper letters had weight, and were not dispatched for pleasantries.

Has someone died? he wondered, and hoped that it might not be Chane, or Arn Eld or—

The note was brief, written in Obrelt's Own Hand.

Ren Zel dea'Judan was required at his Clan house, immediately upon receipt of this letter.

His Delm judged it time for him to wed.

* * *

IT WAS MORNING WHEN the taxi pulled up before Obrelt's house. Ren Zel paid the fare, then stood on the walkway until the cab drove away.

He had not come quite "immediately," there being no reason to rouse the House at midnight when so many were required to rise early and open the various shops under Obrelt's care. And he was himself the better for a shower, a nap and a change of clothes, though it was still not easy to consider the reason he had been summoned home.

Home.

Ren Zel turned and looked up the walk, to the fence and the gate and the tall town house beyond them. He had grown up in this House, among the noisy gaggle of his sibs and cousins; it was to this House that he had returned on his brief holidays from school. Granted, he had come back less often after he had finished with his lessons, but there had been flight time to acquire, techniques to master and the first class to win.

Once he held first class, of course, there had been contracts to fulfill, the debt to reduce. Between contracts, he had routinely kept his status on "on call," which required him to lodge at the Guildhall. The debt shrunk, but so, too, did his contact with his family.

He looked at the gate, and took a deep breath, steeling himself as if for some dreaded ordeal. Which was nonsense. Beyond the gate were only his kin—his Clan, which existed to shelter him and to care for him and to shield him from harm.

He took a step up the walkway.

The gate in the wall surrounding Obrelt's house sprang open and a woman emerged from the fastness beyond, walking briskly in her neat, shopkeeper's uniform and her sensible boots, a manager's clipboard cuddled against her breast.

She saw him and checked, eyes widening for the leather-jacketed stranger on Obrelt's very walk. Ren Zel held out his hands, palms showing empty.

"Eba," he said softly to his next eldest sister, "it is I."

"Ren Zel?" Her gaze moved over his face, finding enough of Obrelt there to soothe her into a smile and a step forward, hand extended. "Brother, I scarcely knew you!"

He smiled in his turn and went to take her hand.

"The jacket disarmed you, doubtless."

She laughed, kin-warm. "Doubtless. Jump-pilot, eh? It suits you extremely."

Eba had been his favorite sister—young enough not to entirely despise the childish projects of a younger brother, yet old enough to stand as sometimes ally against the more boisterous of the cousins. Ren Zel pressed her fingers.

"I find you well?"

"Well," she conceded, and then, playfully, "And well you find me at all, rogue! How many relumma have passed since you last came to us? I suppose it's nothing to you that I am tomorrow sent to Morjan for a twelve-day? I was to have left today, but necessity calls me to the shop. Say at least you will be at Prime!"

"I believe I shall," he said. "The Delm calls me home, on business."

"Ah!" She looked wise. "One had heard something of that. You will be pleased, I think." She dropped his hand and patted the leather sleeve of his jacket. "Go on inside. I must to the shop."

"Yes, of course." She read his hesitation, though, and laughed softly, shaking her glossy dark hair back.

"You cannot stand out on the walk all day, you know! Until Prime, Ren Zel!"

"Until Prime, Eba," he replied, and watched her down the walk. She turned at the corner without looking back. Ren Zel squared his shoulders, walked up to the gate and lay his palm against the plate.

A heartbeat later, he was within Obrelt's walls. Directly thereafter, the front door accepted his palmprint and he stepped into the house.

His nose led him to the dining room, and he stood on the threshold several minutes before one of the cousins caught sight of him, touched the arm of the cousin next to him, who turned, then spoke quickly—quietly—to the cousin next to her until in no time the whole busy, bustling room was still, all eyes on the man under the archway.

"Well." One stirred, stood up from her place at the table.

"Don't dawdle in the doorway, child," said Aunt Chane, for all the stars as if he were ten again. "Come in and break your fast."

"Yes, Aunt," he said meekly and walked forward. The cousins shook themselves, took up the threads of their conversations, poured tea and chose slices of sweet toast. Ren Zel came to the table and made his bow.

"Ma'am."

"Ren Zel." She held out a hand, beckoning, and he stepped to her side. Chane smiled, then, and kissed his cheek. "Welcome home."

* * *

AUNT CHANE SAT ON the short side of the table across which Ren Zel and Obrelt Himself faced each other, in the Advocate's Chair. The wine was poured and the ritual sip taken; then the glasses were set aside and Obrelt laid the thing out.

"The name of the lady we propose for your wife is Elsu Meriandra, Clan Jabun," he said, in his usual bluff way.

Ren Zel blinked, for Jabun was a Clan old in piloting. Certainly, it was not Korval, but for outworld Casia it was very well indeed—and entirely above Obrelt's touch.

The Delm held up a hand. "Yes, they are beyond us absolutely—pilots to shopkeepers. But Obrelt has a pilot of its own to bring to the contract suite and Jabun was not uninterested."

But surely, Ren Zel thought, surely, the only way in which Obrelt might afford such a contract was to cede the child to Jabun—and that made no sense at all. Jabun was a Clan of pilots, allied with other of the piloting Houses. What use had they for the seed of a child of Obrelt, bred of shopkeepers, the sole pilot produced by the House in all its history? He was a fluke, a changeling; no true-breeding piloting stock such as they might wish to align with themselves.

"The child of the contract," his Delm continued, "will come to Obrelt."

Well, yes, and that made sense, if Obrelt found pilot wages to its taste and wished to diversify its children. But, gods, the expense! And no guarantee that his child would be any more pilot than Eba!

"No," Aunt Chane said dryly, "we have not run mad. Recruit yourself, child."

Ren Zel took a deep breath. "One wishes not to put the Clan into shadow," he said softly.

"We have been made to understand this," Obrelt said, of equal dryness with his sister. "Imagine my astonishment when I learned that a debt contracted by the House for the good of the House had been reassigned to one Ren Zel dea'Judan Clan Obrelt. At his request, of course."

"My contracts are profitable," Ren Zel murmured. "There was no need for the House to bear the burden."

"The Clan receives a tithe of your wages," Aunt Chane pointed out.

He inclined his head. "Of course."

He looked up in time to see his Aunt and his Delm exchange a look undecipherable to him. The Delm cleared his throat.

"Very well. For the matter at hand—Jabun and I have reached an equitable understanding. Jabun desires his daughter to meet you before the lines are signed. That meeting is arranged for tomorrow evening, at the house of Jabun. The lines will be signed on the day after, here in our own house. The contract suite stands ready to receive you."

The day after tomorrow? Ren Zel thought, feeling his stomach clench as it did when he faced an especially tricksy bit of piloting. Precisely as if he were sitting board, he took a breath and forced himself to relax. Of course, he would do as his Delm instructed him—obedience to the Delm, subservience to the greater good of the Clan, was bred deep in his bones. To defy the Delm was to endanger the Clan, and without the Clan there was no life. It was only—the matter came about so quickly . . .

"There was a need for haste," Aunt Chane said, for the second time apparently reading his mind. "Pilot Meriandra's ship is come into dock for rebuilding and she is at liberty to marry. It amuses Jabun to expand his alliances—and it profits Obrelt to gain for itself the child of two pilots." She paused. "Put yourself at ease: the price is not beyond us."

"Yes, Aunt," he said, for there was nothing else to say. Two days hence, he would be wed; his child to come into Clan, to be sheltered and shaped by those who held his interests next to their hearts. The Code taught that this was well, and fitting, and just. He had no complaint and ought, indeed, feel honored, that the Clan lavished so much care on him.

But his stomach was still uncertain when they released him at last to settle his business at the Port and to register his upcoming marriage with the Guild.

* * *

THE LINES WERE signed, the contract sealed. Elsu Meriandra received her Delm's kiss and obediently allowed her hand to be placed into the hand of Delm Obrelt.

"Behold, the treasure of our Clan," Jabun intoned, while all of Clan Obrelt stood witness. "Keep her safe and return her well to us, at contract's end."

"Willingly we receive Elsu, the treasure of Jabun," Obrelt responded. "Our House stands vigilant for her, as if for one of our own."

"It is well," Jabun replied, and bowed to his daughter. "Rest easy, my child, in the House of our ally."

The cousins came forward then to make their bows. Ren Zel stood at the side of his contract-bride and made her known to each, from Obrelt Himself down to the youngest child in the nursery—his sister Eba's newest.

After that, there was the meal of welcoming. Ren Zel, who held lesser rank in Obrelt than his wife held in Jabun, was seated considerably down-table. This was according to Code, which taught that Obrelt could not impose Ren Zel's status on Elsu, who was accustomed to sitting high; nor could her status elevate him, since she was a guest in his House.

He had eaten but lightly of the meal, listening to the cousins on either side talk shop. From time to time he glimpsed his wife, high up-table between his sister Farin and his cousin Wil Bar, fulfilling her conversational duty to her meal partners. She did not look down-table.

The meal at last over, Ren Zel and Aunt Chane escorted Jabun's treasure throughout Obrelt's house, showing her the music room, the formal parlor and the tea room, the game room and the door to the back garden. In the library, Aunt Chane had her place a palm against the recording plate. This registered her with the House computer and insured that the doors allowed to contract-spouses would open at her touch.

Departing the library, they turned left down the hall, not right toward the main stair, and Aunt Chane led the way up the private stairway to the closed wing. In the upper hallway, she paused by the first door and bowed to Elsu Meriandra.

"Your room, contract-daughter. If you find aught awry, only pick up the house phone and call me. It will be my honor to repair any error."

Elsu bowed in turn.

"The House shows me great kindness," she said, most properly, her high, sweet voice solemn. She straightened and put her hand against the plate. The door slid open and she was gone, though Ren Zel thought she looked at him, a flickering glance through modestly lowered lashes, in the instant before the door closed behind her.

Though it was not necessary, Aunt Chane guided him to the third and last door on the hallway. She turned and smiled.

"Temporary quarters."

This sort of levity was not like his Aunt and Ren Zel was startled into a smile of his own. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Thank us, is it?" She tipped her head, considering him in the hall's dim light. "Let the flowers aid you," she said softly. "It will be well, child."

He had his doubts, in no way alleviated by the few words he had actually exchanged with his wife, but it would serve no useful purpose to share them with Aunt Chane. The Clan desired a child born of the union of pilots: His part was plainly writ.

So, he smiled again and raised her hand, laying his cheek against the backs of her fingers in a gesture of kin-love. "It will be well," he repeated, for her comfort.

"Ah." She seemed on the edge of saying something further, but in the end simply inclined her head before walking, alone, back the way they had come.

After a moment, Ren Zel put his hand against the door and entered his temporary quarters.

He had been here yesterday, moving in his clothes and such of his books as he thought would be prudent. He had even opened the inner door and gone into the middle room—into the contract room itself—walking lightly on the lush carpet.

The bed was ornate, old, and piled high with pillows. The flowers twined up two bedposts and climbed across the connecting bars, spilling down in luxuriant curtains of green and blue. Sunlight poured down from the overhead window, heating the blossoms and releasing the aphrodisiac scent. Standing by the wine-table, Ren Zel had felt his blood stir and taken a step away, deliberately turning his back on the bed.

The rest of the room was furnished but sparsely: there was the wine-table, of course, and a small table with two chairs, at which two might take a private meal; and a wide, yellow brocade sofa facing a fireplace where sweet logs were laid, awaiting the touch of a flamestick. The solitary window was that above the bed; the walls were covered in nubbled silk the color of the brocaded sofa.

Across the room—directly across the room from the door by which he had entered—was another door. Beyond, he knew, was another room, like the room he had just quit, where his sisters were laying out those things Elsu Meriandra had sent ahead.

Some trick of the rising heat had filled his nostrils with flower-scent again and Ren Zel had retreated to his own quarters, locking the door to the contract-room behind him.

Now, showered and dressed in the robe his sisters had given him in celebration of his marriage, he paused to consider what little he knew of his wife.

She was his elder by nearly three Standards, fair-haired, wide-eyed and comely. He thought that she was, perhaps, a little spoilt, and he supposed that came of being the true-daughter of a High Clan Delm. Her manners were not entirely up in the boughs, however, and she spoke to Aunt Chane precisely as she ought. If she had little to say to him beyond those things that the Code demanded, it was scarcely surprising. He was in all things her inferior: rank, flight-time, age, and beauty. And, truth be told, they had not been brought together to converse.

That which had brought them together—well. He had taken himself to the sleep learner, to review the relevant section of Code, for the contract-bed was a far different thing than a breakshift tumble with a comrade—and there his wife had the advantage of him again. She had been married once already, to a pilot near her equal her rank, and Jabun had her child in its keeping.

Sighing, he straightened his garment about him, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror: Ordinary, practical Ren Zel, got up in a magnificent indigo-and-silver marriage robe that quite overwhelmed his commonplace features. Sighing again, he glanced at the clock on the dresser.

The hour was upon him.

Squaring his shoulders under their burden of embroidery, Ren Zel went to the inner door, and lay his palm against the plate. The door opened.

Elsu Meriandra was at the wine table, back to him. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her robe an expensive simplicity of flowing golden shadowsilk, through which he could plainly see her body. She heard the door open and turned, her eyes wide, lustrous with the spell of the bed-flowers.

"Good evening," she said, her high voice sounding somewhat breathless. "Will you drink a glass with me . . . Ren Zel?"

His name. A good sign, that. Ren Zel took a breath, tasting the flowers, and deliberately drew the scent deep into his lungs. He smiled at the woman before him.

"I will be happy to share a glass with you, Elsu," he said softly, and stepped into the contract-room.

* * *

REN ZEL WOKE IN the room he had been allotted, and stretched, luxuriating in his solitude even as he cataloged his various aches. The lady was not a gentle lover. He thought he could have borne this circumstance with more equanimity, had he any indication that her exuberance sprang from an enthusiasm for himself. To the contrary, she had brushed his attentions aside, as one might dismiss the annoying graspings of a child.

Well, he thought ruefully, he had heard that the flower did sometimes produce . . . unwarranted . . . effects.

So thinking, he rolled neatly out of bed, showered, and dressed in his usual plain shirt and pants. He stamped into his boots and picked up his latest book—a slender volume of Terran poetry. The habit of taking a book with him to breakfast had formed when he was a child and it had come to his notice that the cousins let him be, if he were diligently reading.

He was passing the game room on his way to the dining hall when the sound of child's laughter gave him pause.

It was not entirely . . . comfortable . . . laughter, he thought. Rather, it sounded breathless, and just a little shrill. Ren Zel put his hand against the door and, quietly, looked inside.

Elsu Meriandra was playing catch with young Son Dor, who had, Ren Zel remembered, all of eight Standards. She was pitching the ball sharply and in unexpected directions, exactly as one might do when playing with a pilot—or one destined to be a pilot.

Son Dor was giving a good accounting of himself, considering that he was neither a pilot nor the child of a pilot. But he was clearly at the limit of both his speed and his skill, chest heaving and face wet with exertion. As Ren Zel watched, he dove for the ball, reacting to its motion, rather than anticipating its probable course, actually got a hand on it and cradled it against his chest. He threw it, none too steadily, back to Elsu Meriandra, who fielded the toss smoothly.

"That was a good effort," she said, as Ren Zel drifted into the room, meaning to speak to her, to offer her a tour of the garden and thus allow Son Dor to escape with his melant'i intact.

"Try this one," Elsu said and Ren Zel saw her hands move in the familiar sequence, giving the ball both velocity and spin. Dropping his book, he leapt, extended an arm and snagged the thing at the height of its arc. He danced in a circle, the sphere spinning in a blur from hand to hand, force declining, momentum slowing, until it was only a ball again—a toy, and nothing likely to break a child's fragile fingers, extended in a misguided attempt to catch it.

"Cousin Ren Zel!" Son Dor cried. "I could have caught it! I could have!"

Ren Zel laughed and danced a few more steps, the ball spinning lazily now on the tips of his fingers.

"Of course you could have, sweeting," he said, easily. "But you were having so much fun, it was more than I could do not to join in." He smiled, the ball spinning slowly. "Catch now," he said to Son Dor, and allowed the toy to leave his fingers.

The child rushed forward and caught it with both hands.

"Well done!" Ren Zel applauded. Son Dor flushed with pleasure and tossed the ball back. Ren Zel caught it one-handed, and allowed his gaze to fall upon the wall clock.

"Cousin," he said, looking back to the child, "is it not time for history lessons?"

Son Dor spun, stared at the clock, gasped, and spun back, remembering almost at once to make his bow.

"Ma'am, forgive me. I am wanted at my studies."

"Certainly," Elsu said. "Perhaps we might play ball again, when your studies free you."

Son Dor looked just a bit uneasy about that, but replied courteously. "It would be my pleasure, ma'am." He glanced aside.

"Cousin . . ."

Ren Zel waved a hand. "Yes, all you like, but do not, I implore you, be late to Uncle Arn Eld. You know how he grumbles when one is late!"

Apparently Son Dor knew just that, and the knowledge gave his feet wings. The door thumped closed behind him and Ren Zel let out his breath in a long sigh before turning to face Elsu Meriandra.

She was standing with her head tipped, an expression of amused curiosity upon her face.

"He is not," Ren Zel said, stringently even, "a pilot. He will never be a pilot."

She frowned slightly at that and motioned for the ball. He threw it to her underhanded and she brought it, spinning hard, up onto her fingers.

"Are you certain of that, I wonder? Sometimes, when they are young, they are a little lazy. When that is the case, the spinball may be depended upon to produce the correct response."

Ren Zel moved his shoulders, letting the tension flow out of him. She did not understand—how could she? Pilot from a House of pilots. He sighed.

"The children of this House are shopkeepers. They have the reactions and the instincts of shopkeepers." He paused, thinking of Son Dor, laboring after a toss that a pilot's child would find laughably easy.

"He was striving not to disappoint," he told Elsu Meriandra. "What you see as 'a little lazy' is Son Dor's best reaction time. The spinball—forgive me—damage might well have been done."

Her face blanked. She caught the ball with a snap and bowed, unexpectedly low. "It was not my intention to endanger a child of the House."

She straightened and looked at him out of the sides of her eyes. "One was told, of course, but it is difficult to recall that this is not a House of pilots. Especially when there is yourself! Why, one can hardly hold a conversation in Guild Hall without hearing of your accomplishments!" She bowed again, more lightly this time. "You do our Guild great honor."

She did not wait for his reply, but turned and crossed the room to put the ball away. After a moment, Ren Zel went to pick up his fallen book.

"What have you?" she asked from just behind him. He turned and showed her the cover.

She frowned at the outlandish lettering. "That is Terran, is it not?"

"Indeed. Duet for the Star Routes is the title. Poetry."

"You read Terran?" She seemed somewhat nonplused by this information.

"I read Terran—a little. I am reading poetry to sharpen my comprehension, since I find it a language strong in metaphor."

Elsu moved her gaze from the book to his face. "You speak Terran."

That was not a question, but he answered it anyway. "Not very well, I fear. I meet so few to practice against that my skill is very basic."

"Why," she asked, the frown back between her eyes, "would you wish to learn these things?"

Ren Zel blinked. "Well, I am a pilot. My craft takes me to many ports, some of them Terran. I was . . . dismayed . . . not to be able to converse with my fellows on those ports and so I began to study." He paused. "Do you not speak Terran?"

"I do not," she returned sharply. "I speak Trade, which is sufficient, if I am impelled into conversation with—with someone who is not able to speak the High Tongue."

"I see," Ren Zel murmured, wondering how to extricate himself from a conversation that was growing rapidly unpleasant for them both. Before he arrived at a solution, however, the lady changed the subject herself.

"Come, we are both pilots—one of us at least legendary in skill!" she said gaily. "What do you say we shake the House dust from our feet and fly?"

It sounded a good plan, he owned; for he was weary of being House-bound already. There was, however, one difficulty.

"I regret," he said, his voice sounding stiff in his own ears. "Obrelt does not keep a ship. One is a pilot-for-hire."

"As I am," she said brightly. "But do not repine, if you haven't your own ship. I own one and will gladly have you sit second board."

Well, and that was generous enough, Ren Zel thought. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the better the scheme appeared. They were, as she said, both pilots. Perhaps they might win through to friendship, if they sat board together. Only look at what had lain between himself and Lai Tor—and see what comrades they had become, after shared flight had made their minds known to each other.

So—"You are generous," he told Elsu Meriandra. "It would be pleasant to stretch one's wings."

"Good. Let me get my jacket. I will meet you in the front hall."

"Well enough," he said. "I will inform the House."

* * *

ELSU'S SHIP WAS A small middle-aged packetspacer, built for intra-system work, not for hyperspace. It would also, Ren Zel thought, eyeing its lines as he followed his contract-wife toward the ramp, do well in atmospheric flight. The back-swept wings and needle-nose gave it an eerie resemblance to the raptors that lived in the eaves of the Port Tower, preying on lesser birds and mice.

"There," Elsu used her key and the ship's door slid open. She stepped inside and turned to make him an exaggerated bow, her blue eyes shining.

"Pilot, be welcome on my ship."

He bowed honor to the owner and stepped into the ship. The hatch slid shut behind him.

Elsu led the way down the companionway to the piloting chamber. She fair flung herself into the chair, her hands flying across the board, rousing systems, initiating checks. From the edge of the chamber, Ren Zel watched as she woke her ship, her motions nearer frenzy than the smooth control his teachers had bade him strive to achieve.

She turned in the pilot's chair, her face flushed, eyes brilliantly blue, and raised a hand to beckon him forward.

"Come, come! Second board awaits you, as we agreed! Sit and make yourself known to the ship!" Her high voice carried a note that seemed to echo the frenzy of her board-run and Ren Zel hesitated a moment longer, not quite trusting—

"So an intra-system is not to your liking?" she inquired, her voice sharp with ridicule. "Perhaps the legendary Ren Zel dea'Judan flies only Jumpships."

That stung, and he very nearly answered in kind. Then he recalled her as she had been the night before, inflicting her hurts, tempting him, or so it seemed, to hurt her in return—and he made his answer mild.

"Indeed, I took my second class on just such a ship as this," he said and walked forward at last to sit in the co-pilot's chair.

She glanced at him out of the edge of her eyes. "Forgive me, Pilot. I am not usually so sharp. The lift will improve my temper."

He could think of nothing to say to that and covered this lapse by sliding his license into the slot. There was a moment's considering pause from the ship's computer, then his board came live with a beep. Ren Zel initiated systems check.

Elsu Meriandra was already on line to the Tower, requesting clearance. "On business of Clan Jabun," Ren Zel heard and spun in his chair to stare at her. To characterize a mere pleasure-lift as—

His wife cut the connection to the Tower, looked over to him and laughed. "Oh, wonderful! And say you have never told Tower that a certain lift was just a little more urgent than the facts supported!"

"And yet we are not on the business of Clan Jabun," Ren Zel pointed out, remembering to speak mildly.

"Pah!" she returned, her fingers dancing across the board, waking the gyros and the navcomp. "It is certainly in the best interest of Jabun that one of its children not deteriorate into a jittercase, for cause of being worldbound." She leaned back in the pilot's chair and sighed. "Ah, but it will be fine to lift, will it not, Pilot?"

"Yes," Ren Zel said truthfully. "Whither bound, Pilot?"

"Just into orbit, I think, and a long skim down. Do you fancy a late-night dinner at Head o'Port when we are through?"

Ren Zel's entire quartershare was insufficient to purchase a dinner at Head o'Port, which he rather thought she knew.

"Why not a glass and a dinner at Findoir's? There are bound to be some few of our comrades there."

She moved her shoulders. The comm beeped and she flipped the toggle.

"Dancer."

While she listened to Tower's instruction, Ren Zel finished his board checks and, seeing that she was feeding coords into her side, reached 'round to engage the shock webbing.

"Pilot?" he inquired, when she made no move to do the same.

"Eh?" She blinked at him, then smiled. "Oh, I often fly unwebbed! It enhances the pleasure immeasurably."

Perhaps it did, but it was also against every regulation he could think of. He opened his mouth to say so, but she waved a slim hand at him.

"No, do not say it! Regulation is all very well when one is flying contract, but this is pleasure, and I intend to be pleased!" She turned back to her board. The seconds to lift were counting down on the center board. Ren Zel ran another quick, unobtrusive check, then Elsu hit the engage and they were rising.

It was a fine, blood-warming thing, that lift. Elsu flew at the very edge of her craft's limits and Ren Zel found plenty to do as second board. He found her rhythm at last and matched it, the two of them putting the packet through its paces. They circled Casia twice, hand-flying, rather than let the automatics have it. Ren Zel was utterly absorbed by the task, caught up entirely in the other pilot's necessity, enwrapped in that state of vivid concentration that comes when one is flying well, in tune with one's flight-partner, and—

His board went dead.

Automatically, his hand flashed out, slapping the toggle for the back-up board.

Nothing happened.

"Be at ease, Pilot!" Elsu Meriandra murmured, next to him. "I have your board safe. And now we shall have us a marvelous skim!"

She'd overridden him. Ren Zel felt panic boil in his belly, forced himself to breathe deeply, to impose calm. He was second board on a ship owned by the pilot sitting first. As first, she had overridden his board. It was her right to do so, for any reason, or for none—regulations and custom backed her on this.

So, he breathed deeply, as he had been taught, and leaned back in his chair, the shock web snug around him, watching the descent on the screens.

Elsu's path of re-entry was steep—Ren Zel had once seen a tape of a Scout descent that was remarkably like the course she had chosen. She sat close over the board, unwebbed, her face intent, a fever-glitter in her eyes, her hands hurtling across her board, fingers flickering, frenzy just barely contained.

Ren Zel recruited his patience, watching the screens, the descent entirely out of his hands. Gods, how long since he had sat passenger, wholly dependent on another pilot's skill?

The ship hit atmosphere and turbulence in the same instant. There was a bump, and a twitch. Ren Zel flicked forward, hands on his useless board—and sat back as Elsu made the recover and threw him an unreadable look from over-brilliant blue eyes.

"Enjoy the skim, Pilot," she said. "Unless you doubt my skill?"

Well, no. She flew like a madwoman, true enough, but she had caught that boggle just a moment ago very smoothly, indeed.

The skim continued, and steeper still, until Ren Zel was certain that it was the old Scout tape she had fashioned her course upon.

He looked to the board, read hull-heat and external pressure, and did not say to the woman beside him that an old packet was never the equal of a Scout ship. She would have to level out soon, and take the rest of the skim at a shallow glide, until they had bled sufficient momentum to safely land.

She had not yet leveled out when they hit a second bit of turbulence, this more demanding than the first. The ship bucked, twisted—again Ren Zel snapped to his dead board, and again the pilot on first corrected the boggle and flew on.

Moments passed, and still Elsu did not level their course.

Ren Zel leaned forward, checking gauges and tell-tales, feeling his stomach tighten.

"Pilot," he said moderately, "we must adjust course."

She threw him a glance. "Must we?" she asked, dulcet. "But I am flying this ship, Ren Zel dea'Judan."

"Indeed you are. However, if we do not level soon, even a pilot as skilled as yourself will find it—difficult—to pull out. This ship was not built for such entries."

"This ship," she stated, "will do what I wish it to do." Incredibly, she kept her course.

Ren Zel looked to the screens. They were passing over the ocean, near enough that he could see the v-wakes of the sea-ships, and, then, creeping into the edge of screen four, towering thunderheads where the water met the land.

"Pilot," he said, but Elsu had seen them.

"Aha! Now you shall see flying!"

They pierced the storm in a suicide rush; winds cycled, slapping them into a spin, Elsu corrected, and lightning flared, leaving screen three dead.

"Give me my board!" Ren Zel cried. "Pilot, as you love your life—"

She threw him a look in which he had no trouble reading hatred, and the wind struck again, slamming them near into a somersault in the instant her hand slapped the toggle. The cabin lights flickered as Ren Zel's board came live, and there was a short, snapped-off scream.

Poised over the board, he fought—fought the ship, fought the wind, fought his own velocity. The wind tossed the ship like so many flower petals, and they tumbled again. Ren Zel fought, steadied his craft and passed out of the storm, into a dazzle of sunlight and the realization that the ground was much too close.

He slapped toggles, got the nose up, rose, rose—

His board snapped and fizzed—desperately, he slapped the toggle for the secondary back-up.

There was none.

The ship screamed like a live thing when it slammed into the ground.

* * *

ON THE MORNING OF his third day out of the healing unit and his second day at home, his sister Eba brought him fresh clothes, all neatly folded and smelling of sunshine. Her face was strained, her eyes red with weeping.

"You are called to the meeting between Obrelt and Jabun next hour, brother," she said, her voice husky and low. "Aunt Chane will come for you."

Ren Zel went forward a step, hand outstretched to the first of his kin he had seen or spoken to since the accident. "Eba?"

But she would not take his hand, she turned her face from him and all but ran from the room. The door closed behind her with the wearisome, too-familiar sound of the lock snapping to.

Next hour. In a very short time, he would know the outcome of Jabun's pursuit of Balance, though what Balance they might reasonably take remained, after three full days of thought on the matter, a mystery to him. The Guild would surely have recovered the flight box. They would have run the tape, built a sim, proven that it had been an accident, with no malice attached. A tragedy, surely, for Jabun to lose a daughter. A double tragedy, that she should die while in Obrelt's keeping. There would be the life-price to pay, but—Balance?

He considered the computer in its alcove near the window. Perhaps today he would be allowed to access the nets, to find what the world knew of this?

But no, he was a pilot and a pilot's understanding was quicker than that. He knew well enough the conditions of his tenure here. All praise to Terran poetry, he even knew the proper name for it.

House arrest.

Escorted by med techs, he'd arrived home from the Medical Center, and brought not to his own rooms, but to the Quiet Suite, where those who mourned, who were desperately ill—or dying—were housed. There was a med tech on-call. It was he who showed Ren Zel the computer, the call button, the bed; he who locked the door behind him when he left.

There was entertainment available if one wished to sit and watch, but the communit reached only the med tech and the computer accessed only neutral information—no news, no pilot-net; the standard piloting drills did not open to his code, nor had anyone brought his books, or asked if he wished to have them. This was not how kin cared for kin.

Slowly, Ren Zel went over to the pile of clean clothes. He slipped off the silver-and-indigo robe, and slowly, carefully, put on the modest white shirt and dark trousers. He sat down to pull his boots on and sat a little longer, listening to the blood singing in his ears. He was yet low of energy. It would take some time, so the med tech told him—perhaps as long as a relumma—to fully regain his strength. He had been advised to take frequent naps, and not to overtire himself.

Yes, very good.

He pushed himself to his feet and went back to the table. His jacket was there. Wonderingly, he shook it out, fingering the places where the leather had been mended, pieced together by the hand of a master. As he had been.

The touch and smell of the leather was a reassuring and personal commonplace among the bland and antiseptic ambiance of the quiet suite. He swung the jacket up and on, settling it on his shoulders, and looked at the remaining items on the table.

His piloting license went into its secret pocket. For a moment, he simply stared at the two cantra pieces, unable to understand why there should be so much money to his hand. In the end, still wondering, he slipped them into the pocket of his jacket.

Behind him, he heard the lock snap, and turned, with a bare fraction of his accustomed speed, staggering a little on the leg that had been crushed.

Chane dea'Judan stepped into the room, the door sliding silently closed behind her. He stood where he was, uncertain, after Eba and two days of silence, what he might expect from his own kin.

If Aunt Chane will not speak to me, he thought, I will not be able to bear it.

She paused at the edge of the table and opened her arms. "Ren Zel."

He almost fell into the embrace. His cheek against her shoulder, he felt her stroke his hair as if he were small again and needing comfort after receiving some chance cruelty from one of his cousins.

"It's gone ill, child," she murmured at last and he stirred, straightened, and stood away, searching her solemn face.

"Ill," he repeated. "But the life-price of a pilot is set by the Guild. I will take the—" He stopped, struck dumb by the impossible.

Aunt Chane was weeping.

"Tell me," he said then. "Aunt?"

She took a moment to master herself, and met his eyes squarely.

"A life for a life," she said. "Jabun invokes the full penalty. Council and Guild uphold them."

He stared at her. "The flight box. Surely, the Guild has dumped the data from the flight box?"

"Dumped it and read it and sent it by direct pinbeam to a Master Pilot, who studied it and passed judgement," Aunt Chane said, her voice edged with bitterness. "Jabun turned his face from the Master Pilot's findings—and the request to hold open review at Casiaport Hall! He called on three first class pilots from Casiaport Guild to judge again. I am told that this is his right, under Guild law." She took a deep breath and looked him squarely in the eye.

"The honored pilots of Casiaport Guild find you guilty of negligence in flight, my child, the result of your error being that Pilot Elsu Meriandra untimely met her death."

But this was madness. They had the box, the actual recording of the entire flight, from engage to crash.

"Aunt—"

She held up her hand, silencing him.

"I have seen the tape." She paused, something like pride—or possibly awe—showing in her eyes. "You will understand that it meant very little to me. I was merely astonished that you could move so quickly, recover so well, only to have the ship itself fail you at the last instant . . ." Another pause.

"I have also read the report sent by the Master Pilot, who makes points regarding Pilot Meriandra's performance that were perhaps too hard for a father to bear. The Master Pilot was clear that the accident was engineered by Pilot Meriandra, that she had several times ignored your warnings, and that she had endangered both ship and pilots by denying you access to your board during most of the descent. That she was not webbed in . . ." Chane let that drift off. Ren Zel closed his eyes.

"I heard her scream, but I could not—the ship . . ."

"The Master Pilot commends you. The others . . ."

"The others," Ren Zel finished wearily, "are allied to Jabun and dare not risk his anger."

"Just so. And Obrelt—forgive us, child. Obrelt cannot shield you. Jabun has demonstrated that we will starve if we reject this Balancing."

"Demonstrated?"

She sighed. "Eba has been released from her position, her keys stripped from her by the owner before the entire staff of the shop. Wil Bar was served the same, though the owner there was kind enough to receive the keys in the privacy of the back office. Both owners are closely allied with Clan Jabun."

Gods. No wonder Eba wept and would not see him.

"We will mourn you," Aunt Chane said softly. "They cannot deny us that." She glanced at the clock, stepped up and offered her arm.

"It is time."

He looked into his Aunt's face, saw sorrow and necessity. Carefully, tender of the chancy leg, put his hand on the offered arm and allowed himself to be led downstairs to die.

* * *

THE HOUSE'S MODEST ballroom was jammed to overflowing. All of Clan Obrelt, from the eldest to the youngest, were present to witness Ren Zel's death. Fewer of Clan Jabun were likewise present, scarcely a dozen, all adult, saving one child—a toddler with white-blonde hair and wide blue eyes that Ren Zel knew must be Elsu's daughter.

On the dais usually occupied by musicians during Obrelt's rare entertainments was a three-sided table. On the shortest side stood Ren Zel; Aunt Chane and Obrelt Himself were together at one of the longer sides; Jabun and his second, a grey-haired man with steel-blue eyes, stood facing them.

In the front row of witnesses sat a figure of neither House, an old and withered man who one might see a time or two a year, at weddings and funerals, always wearing the same expression of polite sadness: Tor Cam tel' Vana, the Eyes of Casia's Council of Clans.

"We are here," Jabun lifted his voice so that it washed against the far walls of the room, "to put the death upon the man who murdered Elsu Meriandra, pilot first class, daughter of Jabun."

"We are here," Obrelt's voice was milder, but no more difficult for those in the back to hear, "to mourn Obrelt's son Ren Zel, who dies as the result of a piloting accident."

Jabun glared, started—and was restrained by the hand of his second on his sleeve. Thus moderated, he turned his hot eyes to Ren Zel.

"What have you in your pockets, dead man? It is my Balance that you go forth from here nameless, rootless and without possessions."

Slowly, Ren Zel reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the two cantra pieces.

"Put them on the table," Jabun hissed.

"He will return them to his pocket," Obrelt corrected and met the other's glare with a wide calmness. "Ren Zel belongs to Obrelt until he dies. It is the tradition of our Clan that the dead shall have two coins, one to an eye." He gestured toward the short side of the table, still holding Jabun's gaze. "Ren Zel, your pocket."

Obediently, he slipped the coins away.

Once again, Jabun sputtered; once again, he was held back by his second, who leaned forward and stared hard into Ren Zel's face.

"There is something else, dead man. We will see your license destroyed ere you are cast away."

Ren Zel froze. His license? Were they mad? How would he work? How would he live?

"My nephew gave his life for that license, Honored Sir," Aunt Chane said serenely. "He dies because he was worthy of it. What more fitting than it be interred with him?"

"That was not our agreement," the second stated.

"Our agreement," said Obrelt with unbreached calm, "was that Ren Zel dea'Judan be cast out of his Clan, and made a stranger to his kin, his loss to Obrelt to precisely Balance the loss of Elsu Meriandra to Clan Jabun. Elsu Meriandra was not made to relinquish her license in death. We desire, as Jabun desires, an exact Balancing of accounts."

Jabun Himself answered, and in such terms that Ren Zel would have trembled, had there been room for fear beside the agony in his heart.

"You think to buy him a life? Think again! What ship will employ a dead man? None that Jabun knows by name." He shifted, shaking off his second's hand.

In the first row of witnesses, the aged man rose. "These displays delay and impair the death," murmured the Eyes of Council. "Only his Delm may lay conditions upon a dying man, and there is no death until the Delm declares it." He paused, sending a thoughtful glance to Jabun. "The longest Balance-death recorded stretched across three sundowns."

Jabun glared briefly at the Eyes, then turned back to the table.

"He may retain the license," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "May it do him well in the Low Port."

There was silence; the Eyes bowed toward the Balancing table and reseated himself, hands folded on his knee.

Obrelt cleared his throat and raised his voice, chanting in the High Tongue.

"Ren Zel dea'Judan, you are cast out, dead to Clan and kin. You are nameless, without claim or call upon this House. Begone. Begone." His voice broke, steadied.

"Begone."

Ren Zel stood at the small side of the table, staring out over the roomful of his kin. All the faces he saw were solemn; not a few were tear-tracked.

"Begone!" snarled Jabun. "Die, child-killer!"

In the back of the ballroom, one of the smallest cousins began to wail. Steeling himself, not daring to look at Chane, nor anywhere, save his own feet, Ren Zel walked forward, down the three steps to the floor; forward, down the thin path that opened as the cousins moved aside to let him gain the door; forward, down the hallway, to the foyer. The door stood open. He walked on, down the steps to the path, down the path to the gate.

"Go on!" Jabun shouted from behind. Ren Zel did not turn. He pushed the gate open and walked out.

The gate crashed shut behind him and he spun, his heart slamming into overaction. Shaking, he flattened his palm against the plate, felt the tingle of the reader and—

Nothing else. The gate remained locked. His print had been removed from the House computer. He was no longer of Obrelt.

He was dead.

* * *

IT WAS FULL NIGHT when he staggered into the Pilots Guildhall in Casiaport. He'd dared not break a cantra for a taxi-ride and his clan-credit had proven dead when he tried to purchase a news flimsy with the headline over his photograph proclaiming "Pilot Dead in Flight Negligence Aftermath." His sight was weaving and he was limping heavily off the leg that had been crushed. He had seen Lai Tor in the street a block or an eternity over, raised his hand—and his friend turned his face aside and hurried off in the opposite direction.

Dead, Ren Zel thought, and smiled without humor. Very well, then.

A ghost, he walked into the Guildhall. The duty clerk looked up, took him in with a glance and turned her face away.

"You are not required to speak to me," Ren Zel said, and his voice sounded not quite . . . comfortable . . . in his own ears. "You are not required to acknowledge my presence in any way. However." He pulled his license from its secret pocket and lay it face down on the reader. "This license—this valid license—has a debt on it. This license will not be dishonored. List the license number as "on call," duty clerk. The debt will be paid."

Silence from the clerk. No move, toward either the license or the computer.

Ren Zel took a ragged breath, gathering his failing resources. "Is Casiaport Guildhall in the practice of refusing repayment of contracted loans?"

The clerk sighed. Keeping her eyes averted, she turned, picked up the license and disappeared to the back.

Ren Zel gasped, questioning the wisdom of this play, now that it was too late, his license possibly forfeit, his life and his livelihood with—

The clerk reappeared. Eyes stringently downturned, she placed a sheet of printout and his license on the countertop. Then she turned her back on him.

Ren Zel's heart rose. It had worked! Surely, this was an assignment. Surely—

He snatched up his license and slipped it away, then grabbed the paper, forcing his wavering sight to focus, to find the name of the client, lift time, location.

It took him all of three heartbeats to realize that he was not looking at flight orders, but an invoice. It took another three heartbeats to understand that the invoice recorded the balance left to be paid on his loan, neatly zeroed out to three decimal places, "forgiven" stamped across the whole in tall blue letters, and then smaller blue letters, where the Guildmaster had dated the thing, and signed her name.

Tears rose. He blinked them away, concentrating on folding the paper with clumsy, shaking fingers. Well and truly, he was a dead man. Kinless, with neither comrades nor Guildmates to support him. Worldbound, without hope of work or flight, without even a debt to lend weight to his existence.

The paper was folded, more or less. He shoved it into his jacket pocket, squared his aching shoulders and went out into the night Port.

On the walk, he turned right, toward Findoir's, taking all of two steps before recollecting himself. Not Findoir's. Every pilot on Port had news of his death by now.

His comrades would turn their faces away from him, as Lai Tor had. He might speak to them, but they would not answer. He was beyond them—outcast. Nameless. Guildless. Clanless.

Dead.

The tears rose again. He blinked them away, aghast. To weep openly in the street, where strangers might see him? Surely, even a ghost kept better Code than that.

He limped a few steps to the left and set his shoulders against the cool stone wall of Casiaport Guildhall. His chest hurt; the bad leg was afire, and the street scene before him seemed somewhat darker than even night might account for.

Ren Zel took a breath, imposing board-calm. Dispassionately, he cataloged his resources:

A first-class piloting license. A jump-pilot's spaceleather jacket, scarred and multiply patched. Two cantra.

He leaned his head against the stone, not daring to close his eyes, even here, in the relative safety of Main Port.

They expected that he would go to Low Port, Clan Jabun did. They expected him to finish his death there. Obrelt had cast against that, winning him the right to hold his license; winning him, so he must have thought, a chance to fly. To live.

And how had Jabun countered? Briefly, Ren Zel closed his eyes, seeing again the three-sided table, the crowd of cousins, weeping and pale; heard Jabun snarl: "What ship will employ a dead man? None that Jabun knows by name."

And that was his doom. There was no ship on Casiaport that Jabun could not name.

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 Judgement, 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.

"Got the go," she said now.

"Then we go," Ren Zel replied, and engaged the gyros.

* * *

NIGHT PORT WAS IN its last hours when Ren Zel and Suzan walked through the gate and into the company's office. Christopher's second, a dour person called Atwood, waved them over to the counter.

"Guy in here looking for you, Ren Zel."

His blood chilled. Gods, no. Let it not be that Christopher was forced to send him away.

Some of his distress must have shown on his face, more shame to him, for Suzan frowned and put her big hand on his sleeve. "Pilot?"

He shook her off, staring at Atwood, trying to calm his pounding heart. "A—guy. The same who asked before?"

Atwood shook her head. "New. Chris says," she glanced down, reading the message off the computer screen: "Tell Ren Zel there's another guy looking for him. This one's a gentleman. Asked for him by name. Might be a job in it." She looked up. "It says he—the guy—will be back here second hour, Day Port, and wants to talk to you."

He took a breath, imposing calmness. By name? And who on Casia would speak his name, saving these, his comrades, Terrans, all. Ah. Christopher perhaps would . . . understand . . . Terran gentleman. How such a one might have the name of Ren Zel dea'Judan was a mystery, but a mystery easily solved.

He glanced at the clock over the schedule board: last hour, Night Port, was half gone. Too little time to return to his room, on the ragged edge of Mid Port. Too long to simply wait on a bench in the hall . . .

"'Bout enough time to have a bite to eat." Suzan grinned and jerked her head toward the door.

"There's a place couple streets down that actually brews real coffee," she said. "C'mon, Pilot. My treat."

* * *

COFFEE, REN ZEL thought, some little while later, was clearly an acquired taste.

The rest of the meal was unexceptional—even enjoyable—in its oddness. The one blight was the lack of what Suzan styled 'poorbellows'. An inquiry after this unknown and absent foodstuff gained Ren Zel the information that poorbellows were a kind of edible fungus, after which the coffee tasted not quite as bitter as he had at first thought it.

The meal done, Suzan drained her third cup and went to the front to settle the bill, stubbornly refusing his offer to pay for his share with a, "Told you it was my treat, didn't I?"

Ren Zel shrugged into his jacket and followed her slowly. "Treat" was a Terran concept, roughly translating into "a gift freely given," with no Balance attending. Still, it went against his sense of propriety, that his co-pilot should give him a gift. Perhaps he might search out some of these poorbellows elsewhere on port and make her a gift in return? He considered it, then found his thoughts drifting elsewhere, to the mysterious "gentleman" whom he was, very soon now, to meet.

That the "gentleman" was Terran seemed certain. That he would, indeed, offer Ren Zel dea'Judan a jump-pilot's contract, as Christopher seemed to think, was—not so certain.

But if the offer was made? Ren Zel wondered, stepping out onto the walkway and slipping his hands in the pockets of his jacket. If the unknown gentleman offered a standard jump contract, with its guarantee of setting the pilot on the world of his choice after the terms were fulfilled, then Ren Zel might yet prosper, though in a solitary, Terran sort of way. If he chose his port wisely, he—

"There!" The unfamiliar voice disrupted his thoughts, the single word in Liaden. He looked toward the sound, and saw a gaggle of five standing half-way to the corner. All were dressed in Low Port motley; four also wore the leather jackets of jump-pilots.

And not one of them, to Ren Zel's eye, was anything like a pilot.

The foremost, perhaps the one who had spoken, bowed, slightly and with very real malice.

"Dead man," he said with mock courtesy, "I am delighted to find you so quickly. We are commissioned to deliver you a gift."

Yes—and all too likely the gift was a knife set between his ribs, after which his jacket would become a prize for the fifth in the pack.

"All right, Pilot, let's get us back to hall and see this mystery man of—" Suzan froze, the door to the restaurant still balanced on the ends of her fingers, looking from Ren Zel to the wolf pack.

"Friends of yours?"

He dared not take his eyes from the face of the leader, who seemed dismayed by the advent of a second, much larger, player in the game.

"No," he told Suzan.

"Right," she said, and pushed the door wider, rocking back on her heel. "There's a back door. After you."

Keeping his back to the wall, he slithered past her, then followed as she sped through the main dining room, down a short hallway and into the kitchen. She raised a hand to a woman in a tall, white hat, and opened the door in the far wall. In keeping with a co-pilot's duty, she stepped through first, then waved him after.

"OK. Down this alley about two blocks, there's a beer joint. Tom and Gina hang out there on their downshifts. We'll pick 'em up and all go back to the hall together."

It was prudent plan, Tom and his partner being no strangers to street brawls, if even half of their stories were to be believed. Ren Zel inclined his head. "Very well."

"Great. This way."

They had gone perhaps a block in the direction of the tavern, when Ren Zel heard a noise behind them. A glance over his shoulder showed him the wolf pack just entering the alley by the rear door to the restaurant.

Suzan swore. Ren Zel saw the gleam of metal among the pack as they moved into a ragged run nothing like the smooth flow of pilot motion. Though it would serve. And when they were caught, the wolf pack would not care whether they killed one or two.

He already had one death on his hands.

"Go on," he said to Suzan. "I will speak with them."

She snorted, "Pilot, I thought you knew I wasn't as big a fool as I look. Those boys don't want talk—they want blood." She reached down and grabbed his arm.

"Run!"

Perforce, he ran, stretching to match her pace, willing the bad leg not to betray him. Behind, he heard their pursuers, chanting—"Dead man! Pilot slayer! Dead man!"—and found time to be grateful, that Suzan did not speak Liaden.

"Here," she gasped and pulled him with her to the right. One massive shoulder hit the plastic door, which sprang open, and they were eight running paces into a dark and not overcrowded room before Suzan let him go, shouting, "Vandals right behind us! Call the Watch!"

Several of the patrons of the room simply dropped the long sticks they had been holding and bolted for the front door, for which Ren Zel blamed them not in the least. Left on his own, he spun, fire lancing the bad leg, which held, thank the gods, and looked about him for a weapon.

There were several small balls on the green covered table just beside him. Before he had properly thought, he had snatched the nearest up. The ball was dense for something so small, but that was no matter. His hands moved in the familiar pattern, the thing was spinning and then airborne as the first of the wolf pack charged into the room.

The ball caught the fellow solidly in the nose. He went down with a grunt, not quite tripping the man immediately behind him. That one, quick enough, if not pilot-fast, leapt his comrade and landed on the balls of his feet, a chain dangling from his hand.

He saw Ren Zel and smiled. "Dead man. But still alive to pain, eh?" The chain flashed as the man jumped forward. Ren Zel ducked, heard metal scream over his head, grabbed one of the fallen long sticks and came up fast, whirling, stick held horizontal between his two hands.

The chain whipped again. Ren Zel threw the stick into the attack. The chain wrapped 'round the gleaming wood twice, and Ren Zel spun, trying to pull the weapon from his adversary's grip.

With a laugh, the wolf jumped forward, grabbed the stick and twisted. Ren Zel hung on, then lost his grip, danced back a step, and then another as the man raised the weapon in both hands and swung it, whistling, down.

Once again, action preceded thought. Ren Zel dove, rolling under the green covered table, heard chain and stick hit the floor behind him, and came up on the far side of the table just in time to see Suzan place a well-considered bar stool into the back of his opponent's head.

Elsewhere in the room, the remaining three of the pack were engaged with those of the patrons who had not run. Suzan waded back into the melee, swinging her bar stool with abandon. Thinking that he might yet have use for a weapon, Ren Zel, went 'round the table to retrieve the long stick. The thing was shattered, the pieces still wrapped in chain. That he let lie, judging he was more likely to harm himself than any adversary, should he try to wield such an unfamiliar weapon. He straightened, ears pricked. Yes—from the open front door came the sound of a siren, growing rapidly louder. The Port Proctors would soon arrive, Ren Zel thought, with a sinking sense of relief. All would be—

Across the room, the pack leader dropped his man with a flickering knife thrust. He spun, seeking new blood, saw Suzan's unprotected back—

"Ware!" Ren Zel screamed, but the word was in Liaden; she would not know . . .

Ren Zel jumped.

The knife flashed and he was between it and his co-pilot, one shoulder, covered in tough space-leather, taking the edge and turning it. Ren Zel spun with the force of the blow, deliberately using it as he came back around—

And the bad leg failed him.

Down he went, the wolf leader atop, and it was a muddle of shouts and blows and kicks before the quick shine of the knife, snaking past the leather this time, slicing cloth and flesh. Ren Zel lashed out, trying to escape the pain. The knife bit deeper, twisting. He screamed—and was gone.

* * *

"MASTER PILOT, I regret," Casiaport Guildmaster was all but stuttering in distress. "Notification should have been sent. I swear to you that I will learn why it was not. However, the fact remains that no hearing has been scheduled. The case was adjudicated by three first class pilots, fault has been fixed and the matter is closed."

Shan lifted his eyebrows, feeling the woman's guilt like sandpaper against his skin, and she rushed on, babbling.

"Guild rule is plain, as the Master Pilot surely knows. Three first class pilots may judge, in the absence of a Master—and may overturn, in the case of a disputed judgement."

"Guild rule is plain," Shan agreed, in the mode of Master to Junior, which was higher than he usually spoke with another pilot. "Though it is considered good form to allow the Master Pilot in question to know that his judgement has been disputed."

"Since I am here in any wise," he continued, "I will see the file."

The Guildmaster gasped; covered the lapse with a bow.

"At once, Master Pilot. If you will step down to the private parlor, the file will be brought."

Shan inclined his head. "Bring also Pilot dea'Judan, if he is on-Port."

"Pilot dea'Judan?" the Guildmaster repeated, blankly.

"Pilot Ren Zel dea'Judan Clan Obrelt," Shan explained, wondering how such a one had risen to the rank of Guildmaster of even so backward a port as Casia. "Surely you recall the name?"

"I—Indeed I do." She drew a deep breath and seemed to recruit her resources, bowing with solemn precision. "I regret. Ren Zel dea'Judan Clan Obrelt is dead."

Shan stared. "And yet I ran the license number through the port's own database just before departing my ship and found it listed as valid and active."

The Guildmaster said nothing.

"I see," Shan said, after several silent moments had elapsed. "I will review the case file now, Guildmaster." He turned and walked down the hall to the private parlor.

The file, brought moments later by a pale-faced duty clerk, was thin enough, and Shan was speedily master of its contents. True enough, his judgement had been set aside in favor of the cooler findings of three first class pilots, all of whom flew out of Casiaport Guildhall. Shan sighed, shaking his head as his Terran mother had sometimes shaken hers, expressing not negation so much as ironic disbelief.

There was a computer on the desk. He used his Master Pilot's card to sign onto the news net and spent a few minutes tracking down the proper archives, then shook his head again.

The legal notices told the story plainly: Obrelt had been cruelly Balanced into banishing their only pilot and naming him dead. None that kept strict Code would deal with a man who had no Clan to stand behind his debt and honor . . .

It was the description of the circumstances surrounding death, fully witnessed by the Eyes of Council, that sent him once again into the public ways of Casiaport and finally to the Gromit Company's shabby Mid Port office.

There, the luck was slightly out, for Pilot dea'Judan was flying. The man behind the counter, one Christopher Iritaki, had suggested he return early next morning and had promised to let the pilot know that an appointment had been set in his name.

Shan presented himself at Gromit Company slightly in advance of the appointed hour, to find Mr. Iritaki's second on duty.

"I'm sure they'll be back any minute, sir," Ms. Atwood said, sending a faintly worried look at the clock. "They just went a couple streets over for a bite and a cup of coffee. Ren Zel's solid. He wouldn't miss an appointment for anything short of catastrophe."

"I'm sure you're right," Shan said soothingly. He smiled at the roster boss and had the satisfaction of seeing the worry fade from her face.

"I could fancy some coffee myself," he confided. "Do you happen to know which shop the pilots favor? Perhaps I won't be too late to share a cup with them."

It happened that Atwood did know which shop, which was a favorite among the company's pilots. "Only place on Casia you can get real coffee," she said, and Shan would have sworn there were tears in her eyes.

A few moments later, possessed of directions to this mecca, and having extracted Ms. Atwood's promise to hold Pilot dea'Judan, should he arrive back at the Hall in the meantime, Shan sauntered out into the sharp air and rumble of early morning Casiaport.

Though there was nothing in his face or his gait to betray it, Shan was in a fever to shake the dust of Casia from his feet. His evening had been spent delving deeper than was perhaps good for his peace of mind into the affairs of Casiaport Guildhall and a certain Clan Jabun. The information he uncovered was disturbing enough that he found he had no choice, as a Master Pilot who owed duty to the Guild, but to call Jabun before a full board of inquiry.

However, he thought, stretching his long legs and turning into the street where he would find the "best damn coffee on Casia," that job of form-filing would certainly wait until he had Ren Zel dea'Judan safely in hand.

The coffeeshop hove into view on his left, precisely as promised. Shan checked his long stride, but did not approach the door, which was crowded around with people, all staring up-street, where a commotion was in progress.

Shan felt the hairs shiver on the nape of his neck. What was it that the Ms. Atwood had said? That nothing would keep Ren Zel from an appointment except calamity?

The scene up-street had every trapping of calamity, including the white trucks and flashing blue lights of Casiaport Rescue, clustered in such abundance that the Port Proctor's sun-yellow scooters were scarcely noticeable.

Shan stretched his legs again, moving quickly toward the hub-bub.

He had no trouble walking through the cordon thrown up by the Proctors—he was never stopped by guards if he did not wish to be—and into what the sign by the door dignified as "Wilt's Poolroom and Tavern."

Inside—well.

All about were knots of med techs, attending the wounded. Elsewhere, Proctors questioned several unmistakable grounders who were for some reason wearing pilots' leathers. Toward the back of the room, a figure was shrouded in a white plastic sheet. Not far distant lay another figure, blood a black pool on the floor. Shan touched a stud on his belt, alerting every Dutiful Passage crewmember on Port that there was a comrade down and in danger. Help was on the way. Now . . .

Directly before him, a Terran woman was shouting at a med tech.

"Hey!" she yelled in Trade, grabbing the tech's arm. "There's somebody over there who needs you."

The tech turned, glanced along the line of the Terran's finger, then slid his arm free, sighing slightly.

"I am not allowed to tend that one."

"What?" the Terran gaped. "You just patched up four of the worst desperadoes I've seen on this Port in a long time and you ain't allowed to tend a pilot who was wounded while protecting his co-pilot?"

"He is Clanless," the tech said, with a note of finality in his soft, Liaden voice.

"He'll be lifeless if you people don't do something for him soon!"

The tech turned his back.

The Terran pilot raised her hand, and Shan swung forward, catching her lightly 'round the wrist.

"Precisely how will being arrested for assault help your pilot?" he inquired in Terran.

The woman spun, pulling her wrist free. She stared at him; took a deep breath.

"He's gonna die."

Shan glanced at the still figure in its pool of black blood, noting the ragged breath, and the sweat on the pale, unconscious face. He looked back to the Terran pilot.

"Perhaps not. Just a moment." He stepped forward, claiming the med tech's attention with a genteel cough and bowed when the man turned.

"Good-day. I am Shan yos'Galan Clan Korval, Captain of Dutiful Passage."

Recognition moved in the tech's eyes. "Captain yos'Galan, I am honored." He bowed, deeply.

Shan inclined of the head, then pointed across the room to the downed pilot.

"That person is one of my crewmen, med tech. His contract started today. I understand that you may not tend him, but my melant'i is clear. I require the use of your kit."

Relief flickered across the tech's face; he held the kit out with alacrity. "Certainly, sir. Please return it when you are through."

"I will," Shan inclined his head once again and turned, gathering the Terran pilot with a glance and lifted eyebrow.

"What'd you say?" she asked, following him to where her pilot lay, alone in the midst of all the official bustle.

"That I required the use of his kit in order to perform first aid on my crewman." Shan knelt down, heedless of the blood, and began to remove the towels she had used to try to staunch the blood.

"He ain't your crew," she protested.

"Ah, but he is a pilot, and I am partial to pilots. Besides, he might well have been mine, if he'd managed to stay out of trouble long enough to . . ." His breath caught. The wound was bad—deep and ragged. Immediately, reflexively, he ran a quick mental sequence to relax and focus himself.

"Knife," the Terran said, succinctly. "He took it for me. At least," she amended, as Shan opened the med kit and poked among the various tools of the tech's trade, "the first strike was meant for me. Got between me and the blade—I coulda handled it, but he's so damned fast. He'd've been OK, except the bum leg went out on him and the hood was on him like a terrier on a rat . . ."

Shan had found what he was looking for—a suture gun. "Unpleasant, but effective," he commented,fingering the settings. "At least he's unconscious. We'll just do a quick patch, I think—something to hold him together until we can get him up to the Passage."

The Terran blinked. "You're the guy the pilot was supposed to meet at the hall this morning."

He met her eyes. "In fact, I am—and I am remiss. My name is Shan yos'Galan Clan Korval."

She sucked air, eyes going wide. "Tree and Dragon," she said, possibly to herself, then inclined her head, roughly, but with good intent. "I'm Suzan Fillips."

Shan nodded. "Suzan Fillips, your pilot needs you. Please hold him while I do the patch."

She did and Shan bent to the unpleasant task, sending up indiscriminate petitions to all the gods of mercy, that the boy beneath his hand remain unconscious.

At last the thing was done. He set the suture gun aside and sat back on his heels. Suzan Fillips took her hands slowly from the downed pilot's shoulders and looked up.

"Tell me about this 'bad leg'," Shan said. "Had he been injured before today?"

"He was in a crash not too long ago and the leg never healed right," Suzan said, meeting the eyes straitly. "You know about the crash—you're the Master Pilot. I remember your name from the report."

"Do you?" He look at her with renewed interest. "Where did you get the report, I wonder?"

She snorted. "I'm a registered pilot on this port. I used my card and pulled the file. Even Terrans hear rumors—and we'd heard one about a crackerjack pilot who'd been drummed outta the local Guild for not having the good taste to die in a crash. I read the reports—yours and the one they liked better. Tried to get the sim, too, but the Guild won't lend it."

The slanted white brows pulled together. "Won't lend it? Yet you are, as you point out, a pilot on this port."

"Jabun." The voice was faint and none too steady. Both Shan and Suzan jumped before staring down at the wounded pilot. His eyes were open, a dilated and glittering black, the brown hair stuck to his forehead in wet, straggling locks.

"Jabun," he repeated, the Liaden words running rapidly and not altogether in mode. "Not enough that they had me cast out. I must die the true death, if he must hire a wolf pack to the task. Dishonor. Danger! They must not find—" He struggled, trying to get his good arm around.

Shan put his hands firmly on the boy's shoulders. "Pilot. Be at ease."

The unseeing black eyes met his. "When will they have done?" he demanded. "When will they—"

Shan pushed, exerting force as well as force of will. "Lie down," he said firmly, in a mode perilously close to that he would use with a feverish child. "You are wounded and will do yourself further injury."

"Wound—" Sense flickered. "Gods." He twisted, weakly; Shan held him flat with no trouble.

"Suzan!"

She snapped forward, touching his unwounded shoulder. "Here, Pilot. I'm OK, see?"

Apparently, he did. The tension left him and he lay back, understanding in his eyes now. Shan frowned.

"You accuse Clan Jabun seriously," he said, in the Liaden mode of Comrade, and thinking of his own discoveries of the evening before. "Have you proof?"

"The pack leader . . ."

He glanced at Suzan, who jerked her head to the left, where two Port Proctors were talking to sullen man in a scarred leather jacket.

"All right," he said, in Terran, for Suzan Fillips' benefit. "I will speak to the pack leader. Pilot dea'Judan, you will remain here quietly with your co-pilot."

The glittering eyes stabbed his. "Yes."

One of the Proctors looked up as he approached and came forward to intercept him. "Master Trader?" he inquired courteously.

Shan considered him. "One hears," he said, delicately, "that yon brigand was hired by a House to deal death to a dead man."

The Proctor sighed. "It produces the name of Jabun—but this is not unusual you know, sir. They grasp at anything they hope will win them free of the present difficulty."

"Just so," Shan murmured, and drifted back toward Suzan Fillips and Ren Zel dea'Judan.

"I believe you," he said to the wounded pilot's hot eyes, and looked thoughtfully at the Terran.

From the entrance came the sounds of some slight agitation among the guards, who parted to admit a pilot of middle years, his pale hair going to gray, his leather gleaming as if new-made.

"It's him!" shouted the man who had been the wolf pack leader, and was silenced by his guards.

A Proctor moved forward, holding his hands up to halt the newcomer.

"Sir, this is the scene of a death by misadventure; I must ask you to leave unless you—"

"Ah, is it a death?" The man's face displayed such joy that Shan swallowed, revolted. "I must see for myself!"

The Proctor moved his hand as if to deny, but another signed assent and the three of them strode across the room to the covered form.

"Your Lordship is to understand that this is . . . unpleasant," the first Proctor said. "The nose has been forcibly crushed into the brain by a blow . . ."

"That is of no matter," the newcomer snapped, "show me!"

The Proctors exchanged glances, then bent and lifted the covering back. Shan rose to his feet, eyes on His Lordship's proud, eager face, glowing with an anticipation so—

"What nonsense is this?" the man shouted. "This is not he!"

"I am here . . . Suzan, help me stand. Jabun, I am here!"

The voice was barely a croak, nearly inaudible. The bloodied figure gained his feet, more than half-supported by his grim-faced co-pilot.

"The dead man you want . . . the dead man you want is here!" Ren Zel gritted out, and Shan stepped back, giving Jabun clear sight of his victim.

"You!" Jabun flung forward one step, hatred plain in his comely face, then froze, as if he had abruptly understood what he had done.

"Speaking to a dead man?" Ren Zel rasped. "Out of Code, Jabun." He drew a sobbing breath. "Look on me—dead by your malice. One death was not enough, one Balance insufficient . . ." He swayed and Shan moved to offer his support as well. Ren Zel gasped.

"You, who deal in life and death—you will be the death of all you are pledged to hold!"

A gasp ran through the room, and Shan felt a tingle in the close air of the poolroom, as if a thunderstorm were charging.

Jabun stood as if struck; and Shan heard a med tech mutter, "Dramliza, you fool! Will you play Balance games against a wizard?"

Ren Zel straightened, informed by an energy that had nothing to do with physical strength.

"Jabun, you are the last delm of your House. The best of your line shall lifemate a Terran to escape your doom. The rest of your kin will flee; they will deny their name and their blood, and ally themselves with warehousemen and fisherfolk for the safety such alliances buy!

"Hear me, Jabun! In my blood is told your tale—witness all, all of you see him! See him as he is!"

"Pilot—" began Suzan, but Shan doubted Ren Zel heard her worried murmur, lost as he was in the dubious ecstacy of a full Foretelling.

"It is Jabun the pod-pirate," he cried, and Shan felt the hairs raise on his arms, recalling his own researches. "Jabun the thief! Jabun the murderer! Beware of his House and his money!"

The poolroom was so completely quiet that Shan heard his own heartbeat, pounding in his ears.

Jabun was the first to recover, to look around at the faces that would not—quite—return his regard.

"Come, what shall you? This—this is a judged and Balanced murderer, dead to Code, clan and kin. It is raving, the shame of its station has no doubt broken its wits. We have no duty here. It is beneath our melant'i to notice such a one."

"Then why," came the voice of man Suzan had identified as the wolf pack leader, "did you give us a cantra piece to beat him to death?"

Jabun turned and stared at his questioner, moved his shoulders under the bright leather. "Proctors, silence that person."

"Perhaps," murmured one of the two who had shown him the dead brigand. "I fear I must ask you to remain here with us, Your Lordship. We have some questions that you might illuminate for us."

"I?" Jabun licked his lips. "I think not."

"We have authority here, sir," the second Proctor said, and stepped forward, beckoning. "This way, if you will, Your Lordship."

"Of your kindness, pilots," Ren Zel dea'Judan said, his Liaden slurring and out of mode, "I would sit . . ."

Shan and Suzan got him into a chair, where he sagged for a moment before reaching out none-too-steadily to touch his co-pilot's sleeve

"Tell Christopher," he managed, and his Terran was blurred almost out of sense. "I—apologize. The hall—his pilots—I did not know. It is not done . . ."

Suzan patted his knee. "It's OK, pilot. You leave Chris to me."

Shan nodded, reached into his sleeve and pulled out a card. He held it out to Suzan Fillips, who blinked and shook her head.

Patiently, he held the card extended, and looked seriously into her eyes.

"Should you find yourself at risk over this incident," he said, "use the beam code on the card."

She licked her lips. "I—"

"Take. It." The wounded pilot's voice was barely audible, but the note of command was strong. The woman's hand rose. She slipped the card out of Shan's fingers and slid it immediately into her license pocket.

"Good," said Ren Zel, and Shan saw now only a wounded pilot, with no trace of the power of Foretelling, nor voice of command . . .

There was a clatter at the door. Shan looked around and spied Vilt and Rusty of his own crew, raised a hand, and then glanced down at Ren Zel dea'Judan.

"Pilot, I offer you contract: A Standard year's service on the Dutiful Passage, after which we will renegotiate or, if you wish, you will be set down on the world of your choice."

Ren Zel swallowed, and looked up to meet his gaze firmly. "You are Liaden," he managed. "I am dead."

"No," Shan said, in earnest Terran. "You really must allow my skill to be better than that."

Almost, it seemed that the wounded boy smiled. The lids drooped over the fevered eyes.

"I accept," he murmured. "One Standard year."