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II. darvell: northern hemisphere

Hands in his pockets, Jessan strolled down the quiet, well-kept streets. Most of the people he saw had on what looked like uniforms of some kind, but others wore the sort of casual civilian clothing favored by free-spacers and others whose business took them from world to world; so far, he didn’t feel too conspicuous. He spotted an announcement kiosk on one corner, and sauntered over to check out the monitors.

Plan of the day, said the heading on the largest screen. Jessan stepped closer and started to read.

“Excuse me, sir. May I please see your identification?” said a soft voice behind him.

Jessan turned. A young man stood looking at him. The friendly expression on the watcher’s clean-cut features didn’t offset the nightstick, the blaster, and the “Duty Guard” brassard around one uniformed arm.

The Khesatan did his best to look innocent. “Is there a problem, sir?”

“All personnel are required to read and be familiar with the Plan of the Day prior to noon,” the young man explained. “And it’s way past fourteen hundred. May I see your ID?”

“Sure,” said Jessan, reaching into the right inside pocket of his jacket. He brought his hand out again empty, and shook his head. “Must be in the other one . . . I’ll have it for you in a minute.”

He tried the left inside pocket and both the big zippered outer pockets, coming up empty each time.

“You’re supposed to carry your ID in your left top front shirt pocket when you’re not in uniform,” the duty guard informed him helpfully. “Why don’t you look there?”

“Shirt pocket,” Jessan said. “Of course.” Then, a moment later, “Oh, dear. I think I forgot to transfer my card when I changed shirts.”

The duty guard looked dubious, and Jessan held his breath. Let it slide, damn you.

But today wasn’t going to be his lucky day, it seemed. The duty guard shook his head and brought out a small notebook. “I’m afraid that I’ll have to put you on report for feilure to carry required documents. What’s your unit and section?”

“My unit and section?” echoed Jessan, stalling for time while he tried to think. He saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and then Llannat’s black-clad figure seemed to materialize next to the duly guard.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, in a soft, hesitant voice. “But can you help me?”

The duty guard looked down at her. “Of course, miss. What’s the problem?”

Llannat looked at the pavement. “I’m new here, and I think I’m lost. They told me to turn right and I’d see the Mini-Mart, but I got all mixed up and now I don’t know where I am.” She lifted her head again, and gave the duty guard a smile. “So, please, could you tell me how to find the Mini-Mart?”

“Of course, miss,” the young man began.

“You’re so nice to help me like this!” exclaimed Llannat, with a deep sigh of relief—rather too deep for realism, Jessan thought critically, but the guard appeared too fascinated by Llannat’s snug black sweater to notice any minor flaws in the Adept’s performance.

“Actually, miss,” the guard said, managing to look serious and hopeful at the same time, “I’m afraid the directions from here might be kind of confusing. It’s almost the end of my shift—why don’t I just walk you there instead?”

“Oh, thank you!” Llannat exclaimed, treating the duty guard to another radiant smile.

Time to leave our friend to Mistress Hyfid’s tender mercies, thought Jessan. This is where I say good-bye.

He faded out of sight around the corner and resumed his stroll down the street in the westering light, taking care not to be seen reading any more signs. As he walked, he kept hearing Beka’s voice, back in the sickbay of the asteroid base: “So calm and law-abiding it’s unnatural.

The captain had spoken truer than she knew. After rough, muddy Nammerin and gaudy, wide-open Pleyver, Jessan found this Darvelline town almost eerie in its polished perfection. Everywhere he looked along the wide, straight streets he saw nothing but order: carefully tended lawns and identical three-story buildings, painted sparkling white under their red tile roofs and set well back from the spotless sidewalks. There wasn’t a scrap of litter or garbage anywhere.

A building came up on his right. The large sign on the wall by the door proclaimed the structure’s occupants to be the Housing and Transportation Section, Second Level. Local intelligence, he reminded himself. Time to get some. Jessan went in. The decor in the entrance foyer featured colorful posters (lift with your legs, not with your back!, in orange holographic lettering), a bulletin board announcing a dance and assorted sporting events, and a wall rack holding a selection of health and safety pamphlets. A placard over the rack suggested take one, which meant that browsing was probably safe and possibly even required.

Jessan flipped through the available offerings. After a moment’s consideration, he pulled out several, including a copy of “Welcome to Darvell—Know Your Rights and Duties.”

He tucked the pamphlets into his inside jacket pocket, and looked about the foyer again. Off to his right, he spotted a door labeled shipping/distribution—authorized personnel only in black stencil on translucent plastic. Jessan ran a hand over his breeze-ruffled hair and straightened his jacket. Then, after a moment’s pause, he palmed the lockplate.

If the door asks for a clearance, I’m stuck. But if they just want to keep out sightseers . . . 

The door panel slid aside. Jessan walked in, and up to the young man seated at the nearest desk.

“Comm-code listing,” he said, in his best “don’t ask questions, just do it” tone of voice.

The young man at the desk didn’t look up from the comp screen and the stack of invoices in front of him. “Official or commercial?”

“Official.”

Still without taking his eyes from the comp screen, the young man reached over to the shelf at his right hand, pulled out a directory, and handed it across. “Don’t take it out of the office.”

“Right,” Jessan said, and stood beside the desk while he thumbed through the fat volume. “It’s not in here,” he said pettishly, after a few minutes. “Can I see the commercial listings?”

“We don’t keep those here,” the young man said. “Try Statistics and Tariffs.”

“Thanks anyway,” Jessan said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“You’re welcome,” said the young man, eyes still glued to the screen. He pulled another invoice from the stack. “Have a nice day.”

Once back out on the street, Jessan began to feel a bit more sanguine about the whole idea of intelligence gathering. The next building along bore the label quality assurance branch, chief. furniture inspection. Jessan looked at the sign for a moment, shrugged, and entered. He walked past another authorized personnel only sign into another office, where a small group of young men and women in uniform stood around a drink dispenser. One of the men looked up when Jessan came in. “May we help you?”

“I’m hunting for a commercial comm-code listing.”

The young man frowned a moment, and then turned toward the woman whom Jessan had already pegged as the senior in the crowd—a statuesque blonde about the Khesatan’s own age, with more elaborate rank insignia than the others, a wider variety of colored patches and tabs on her uniform tunic, and a general air of having been around the system for a while.

“We got any of those, ma’am?” the young man asked.

She nodded. “Sure do, Starky. Printing and Distribution dropped off a whole box just last week. Go fetch Mister . . . ?”

“Jamil,” said the Khesatan hastily.

“Mister Jamil one.”

Starky hurried off, and the woman—Specialist One Griff, according to the nametag on her uniform—asked, “Care for a cup of uffa while you wait?”

“Sure.”

Griff pulled a cup from a rack on the wall and worked it under the spout of the dispenser. Red liquid poured into the container. When the machine cut off, she handed Jessan the cup and asked, “Where do you work?”

He took a swallow of the uffa. The hot drink had a sharp, sweetish flavor, plus the familiar jolt of a mild stimulant. “Down at Housing and Transportation.”

“When do you people knock off for the day? We still have ten minutes to go.”

“We knock off at the same time you do. I got sent to get one of the new code lists.”

The commercial comm list showed up then, in time to save him from any further awkward inquiries. He took the printout and began to thumb through it. A quick glance revealed that the twenty or so pages of small print covered much more than a single township.

“Thanks,” he said aloud, folding the printout in half twice and slipping it into one of the outer pockets of his jacket.

“No problem,” said Griff. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

Nobody in the group seemed upset by the possibility, so Jessan ordered his heart down out of his larynx and back into the position his old Anatomy of the Vertebrate Sentients text said it ought to occupy. “That’s right. How’d you guess?”

“I know most of the people down at H and T, and I’d remember seeing you,” Griff said. “I’ll bet you’re staying over in the forty-block quarters, too.”

“Right again,” said Jessan, trying not to sound nervous. The Specialist One had a speculative look in her eye that he didn’t like. Maybe “forty-block” is a trick question. Fine time to think of that. And me without even a blaster.

But it seemed that Griff had something other than Operational Security in mind. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “Darvell’s a real friendly place. You’ll get to know people fast. In fact—” She smiled at him, and the speculative look got even more speculative. “—after knock-off we’re all going over to the get-acquainted mixer Civic Affairs is putting on. Want to come along?”

Jessan smiled back, almost dizzy with relief. There’s all kinds of ways to intelligence-gather. And once we’re at the mixer, I can vanish on my way to the punch bowl.

“Sure,” he said.


Beka whirled around, bringing the Gyfferan blaster up from her side to the firing position as she turned. She pressed the stud, and a thin beam of light—the weapon’s “tracer” setting—flashed across the clearing toward a new-cut blaze on a conifer opposite.

“Still a bit low, my lady,” said the Professor’s voice behind her.

She dropped her arm and turned back toward Defiant, the blaster in her right hand pointing once more at the ground. “I’m used to something with a bit more weight. But it’ll do when the time comes.”

“Nevertheless,” the Professor said, “practice. The time may come sooner than you think.”

The grey-haired Entiboran came on down Defiant’s ramp. For the first time, Beka got a good look at the short ebony staff tucked under his belt. He’d had it back in the docking bay on the asteroid, she remembered, but other things had claimed her attention at the time, and she’d filed away the black and silver rod as something to think about later.

Well, now it’s later. She looked for a minute at the staff, and shook her head. “Are things going to be that bad?”

Ari had been tasting a spoonful of the game stew. He lifted his head as she spoke, and she saw him look from her to the Professor and back again. He nodded in the general direction of the staff. “You knew?”

“No,” she told him. “But I can’t say it surprises me.” She turned back to the Professor. “Well?” she asked.

The Entiboran smiled. “There comes a time, my lady, when one ceases to worry about attracting unwanted attention.”

Something ran down her spine on little icy feet, and she shivered. But try as she might, she couldn’t read anything in the Professor’s grey eyes except what might have been affection, assuming that her copilot was capable of the emotion.

Ari’s deep voice broke the uncomfortable silence. “If nobody besides me claims any of this stew . . . ”

She forced herself to relax. “Big brother, if you take the whole dinner for yourself and leave the rest of us to break our teeth on unheated space rations, I’ll use you for target practice instead of that tree over there. And I won’t leave the beam on ‘tracer,’ either.”

“Then go get some bowls and spoons from the galley,” he said. “Because this stuff’s done.”

The rest of the awkwardness died in the bustle of fetching utensils, dishing out the savory chunks of meat, and settling down for the meal.

“Good food,” said Beka, a plate or so of stew later. “Who taught you to cook—Ferrda?”

“Mostly,” said her brother.

“How’d you like a permanent job in the ’Hammer’s galley?”

Ari shook his head. “Sorry, I just signed on for one cruise. And speaking of things like that—now that we’ve made it this far, what’s the plan?” He gave her a dubious look. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

She couldn’t resist. “No, I don’t have a plan.” She let the pause drag out long enough for Ari to start turning red, then nodded toward the Professor. “He does, though.”

Ari turned with elaborate patience to her copilot. “Speaking as my sister’s tactician,” he said, “can you tell me how we’re going to handle this?”

The Professor sat with both hands around a cup of cha’a from the self-heating pot he’d brought out of Defiant’s galley. “Much depends,” he said, “upon the intelligence Mistress Hyfid and Lieutenant Commander Jessan bring with them when they return. Roughly, the plan is this: Nivome the Rolny maintains a vast hunting preserve in the heart of Darvell’s capital city. So much is general knowledge across the civilized galaxy. In fact, invitations to join the Rolny for a weekend of shooting wuxen are highly prized in certain circles of the Republic.”

“I’m sure everybody has a wonderful time,” Ari said. “But what does that have to do with us? The ‘House of Sapne’ act’s gone stale by now.”

Beka shook her head. “You shouldn’t have slept through breakfast before we left base. This time we’re doing a straightforward smash-and-grab.”

“In the middle of the capital city?”

“That’s the importance of the hunting preserve,” said the Professor. “Security is tight at Rolny Lodge—but Nivome’s other residence is not called the Citadel for compliment’s sake alone.”

After dinner, silence fell over the clearing. Ari shied small pebbles one at a time across the open ground at a patch of light-colored moss. Beka worked over the leather belt of the Gyfferan blaster, first measuring it off against her old belt, then punching a series of new holes with the point of her knife. The Professor, meanwhile, had settled back against a convenient boulder and, as far as Beka could tell from looking at him, had gone to sleep.

Let him rest, she told herself as she worked the knife point through the thick leather. That approach laid you out flat for a solid day afterward, even with a copilot to share everything but the worst parts—and you ’re still young.

Ari had caught her quick glance over at the elderly Entiboran. “Fond of him, are you?”

She put a bit more pressure behind the knife and felt the leather give under the point. Another push, and the tip of the knife popped through on the other side of the belt like a tiny metal fang. She twisted the knife to enlarge the hole a little.

“I suppose so,” she said, after a whiles “Somewhat.”

Ari looked disapproving. “Hard as nails, aren’t you, Bee?”

“That’s right,” she said. She measured the new belt against the old one again, and began work on a second hole.

“So where does Jessan fit into your scheme of things? Light amusement?”

She laid the leather belt down on the ground and looked across at him, balancing the knife in her right hand. “I’d say it’s none of your damned business.”

Ari shied another pebble at the patch of moss. It hit dead-on, like all the others had. “He’s my friend, and you’re my sister. I’d say that makes it my business.”

She drew her lips back from her teeth. “Think again. Or shall I start asking questions about your Adept girlfriend?”

“Mistress Hyfid is not my ‘Adept girlfriend’!”

“Then what the hell was she doing out in civvies with you on an emergency call?”

Ari reddened. “She came along as a courtesy to a medical colleague.”

“Right,” said Beka. “And I’m the Princess of Sapne.”

“Gently, my lady,” said the Professor’s quiet voice. “Gently, Lieutenant. Squabbling will not bring your friends home any sooner.”


Morning came. Somewhere beyond the combination of fog and low-lying clouds hanging over the mountainside, the sun had presumably risen as usual. In the clearing, Beka hunched her shoulders inside Tarnekep Portree’s Mandeynan long-coat and poked at a bowl of congealing water-grain porridge with her spoon. The hole stayed behind when she withdrew the utensil, like an impression in wet concrete. She scowled at the brownish glop, and looked over at her brother.

Ari sat next to the tiny campfire, his only concession to the dawn chill a light jacket over his loose shirt, working his way stolidly through a second helping of porridge. Beka watched him for a few moments, but when he tilted the bowl to scrape out the last few thickening spoonfuls she felt her patience snap.

“Damn it, Ari, doesn’t anything ever affect your appetite?”

He looked up. “If you can show me how skipping breakfast is going to help, I’ll skip breakfast and lunch both. Otherwise, there’s no point in starving.”

“Oh, the hell with it,” she said in disgust, shoving away her bowl and standing up. “Finish mine, too, if you’re going to be so damned practical.”

She stalked over to the tree she’d used for target practice the night before, and stood leaning against it with one hand and jabbing her dagger into the soft wood with the other.

“You’ll just have to clean the sap off the blade later,” Ari said.

She didn’t turn around. “I’m not worried about it,” she said, working the blade loose and slamming it back into the tree trunk. “I’ve cleaned off worse stuff than this by now.”

Ari didn’t answer. After a few seconds she yielded to curiosity and turned back around to see what was wrong. “Ari?”

Her brother sat without moving, his head tilted a little to one side. “Shh.” After a few breaths, he added, in an almost inaudible murmur, “Someone’s coming.”

She switched the knife to her left hand, and let her right hand fall to touch the comforting presence of the Gyfferan blaster. Over by the fire, Ari rose to his feet in one smooth, soundless motion.

Now she could hear footsteps, too—and, incongruously, the delicate opening bars of Klif’s Fifth Mixolydian Etude, its whistled notes pitched clear and true.

Only Jessan, she thought, biting down hard on a shaky laugh. She felt herself starting to tremble all over; it took all the self-control she had to pull Portree’s lace-trimmed handkerchief out of her right sleeve and concentrate on wiping the resin off the blade of her dagger.

“Anybody home?” called Mistress Hyfid’s soft alto voice.

“Just us,” Ari replied, in a curt monotone. “You made enough noise coming up here to scare off all the game in the district.”

“That was more or less the idea,” said a second voice. “We didn’t want to get blasted out of the bushes before we could identify ourselves.”

With careful, precise motions, Beka tucked the sticky handkerchief into her coat pocket, slid the dagger into its forearm sheath, and allowed herself to look over at the new arrivals. Nyls Jessan stood watching her through the morning fog, his jacket collar turned up and droplets of moisture beading his hair. Their eyes met; he came forward, smiling, from the mist-shrouded underbrush, and held out his hands.

She crossed the ground between them in a half-dozen strides. “You nearly got blasted anyway, you Khesatan idiot,” she told him. “My big brother over there can hear the grass growing. If we hadn’t been watching for you ever since last night—”

She stopped hard on the last word while her voice was still under control, and clutched his hands instead. Jessan’s long fingers closed around hers, and she felt her trembling ease off and stop.

“We couldn’t get away until past midnight,” Llannat Hyfid was explaining to Ari. “And after that we had to walk most of the way back.”

“Most?” Beka asked, without letting go of Jessan’s hands.

The Khesatan didn’t show any inclination to let go either. “We stole rides on ground transports for part of the way,” he said, still smiling at her. “Easier.”

“And faster,” said Llannat. “We’ve got some interesting stuff for the Professor. In the meantime—what’s for breakfast?”


Jessan and the Adept had put away a couple of bowls of cold porridge each by the time the Professor emerged from Defiant and joined the group at the campfire. He carried the self-heating cha’a pot in one hand and a bunch of mugs in the other. From her place across the fire from Beka, Llannat Hyfid gave the Entiboran a smile that lit up her entire face.

“You’re a lifesaver, Professor—we’ll even forgive you for sleeping in and missing our return.”

“I was meditating,” said the Professor, setting the cha’a pot down on a flat rock and laying out the mugs around it with as much care as if they had been translucent porcelain instead of cheap plastic. “To quote an Adept of my acquaintance, ‘It seemed necessary.’ ”

“Now that we’re all here,” Beka said as the mugs of cha’a went round, “just what did you manage to bring back?”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t look like much,” Jessan said. He began unzipping his jacket pockets and pulling out pamphlets, leaflets, and sheets of folded paper. Beka reached out and picked up one of the gaudier ones.

“ ‘Seven Tested Tips For Hoverbike Safety’?” she asked.

“You never know what might come in handy,” said Jessan. “Try the one under it, though.”

“ ‘Welcome to Darvell,’ ” she read off the cover. “With a blown-in flatpic of Our Beloved Leader, suitable for framing . . . that’s more like it.”

“He still looks like he did the last time I met him,” Jessan said. “A bit greyer and jowlier, but the same old Nivome and no mistake.”

“Now that,” said the Professor, as he riffled through the collection, “is gratifying intelligence. What else have you brought back?”

“A commercial comm-code listing,” Jessan said, “a Child’s First History of Darvell—with maps—and a lot of firsthand observation that someone may well find interesting once we get back. Quite a place, this planet.”

“What do you mean?” Ari asked. Beka jumped a little; it was the first thing her brother had said since the Professor showed up with the cha’a.

“The whole place is regulation-happy,” Llannat said. “ID cards to get into the stores, ID cards to make your purchase, ID cards to get out again . . . you get the general idea.”

“If you think the Space Force likes red tape,” Jessan added, “then you should see this place. Or maybe not—I nearly got hauled off just for reading the Plan of the Day at the wrong time. A guard spotted me acting suspicious and wanted to write me up for failure to carry my ID card in the proper pocket. I thought I’d had it until Llannat came along and managed to change his mind.”

Curious, Beka looked over the rim of her mug at the Adept. “I thought you had ethical convictions about—what was it, Mistress Hyfid, ‘invasion and compulsion’?”

The Adept lowered her eyes with a faint smile. “Take my word for it, Captain—the method I used wasn’t the kind they teach up at the Retreat.”

Over beyond Jessan, Beka could hear Ari choking on a mouthful of cha’a. She stared for a moment at the small woman and then began to grin.

“I think, Mistress Hyfid—”

“That’s ‘Llannat,’ ” said the Adept. “Please.”

“Llannat, then,” said Beka, still grinning, while Ari glowered dark-browed at them both. “I think we’re going to be friends after all.”



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