RUNNING, HE CUT the corner into the main hall close, skidded and threw himself into a somersault in order to avoid the collision.
He landed on his feet by the opposite wall, and only then saw who he had very nearly run down.
"Captain." He bowed deeply, feeling his face heat.
"Alas, no longer," Shan yos'Galan said calmly. "But don't, I beg you, be cast into despondency on my account! The truth is that I am perfectly well-satisfied to retire to the rank of master trader and laze through every shift while Priscilla and yourself accomplish the hard work between you."
This was a pleasantry, as Ren Zel well knew, and felt relief, that the cap—that Master Trader yos'Galan's experience of war had not altered him out of recognition.
"But tell me, do! Wherever were you rushing off to at such a pace?"
He bit his lip. "I am late to my shift on the bridge."
"A grievous thing, I agree." The silver eyes considered him, and there was something—someone . . .
"I wonder," Shan said, interrupting his line of thought, "not that it's any business of mine, of course! But, still, I do wonder what has happened to your jacket?"
"My—" He looked down at his arm, blinking. Why in the names of the gods had he been sleeping in his jacket? "I—" he began again and tentatively, unbelievingly, ran his hand down the unmarred leather sleeve. Memory stirred and he saw her again in the starlight, taking his jacket—All honor to it—and shaking it, shaking it out . . .
He looked up and met Shan yos'Galan's silver eyes and it came to him all at once where he had seen the like.
Ren Zel took a deep breath. "I had—a dream," he said, knowing that it explained nothing.
"I would say that you had quite a marvelous dream," Shan said, straightening from his lean against the wall. He beckoned, the master trader's ring blazing purple fires.
"Come along, child. We'd best sort this out."
"WILL YOU HAVE wine, friend?" Shan yos'Galan asked, some few moments later in the captain's private office.
Ren Zel hesitated, thinking of wine on an empty stomach after an evening, or so his memory insisted, rich in exercise.
"I think," he said carefully, "that I would rather—tea."
"And something with which to break your fast," Shan said, leaning to the comm unit. Priscilla was standing near the sofa, Ren Zel's mysteriously healed jacket held in her two hands, her eyes intent and her face peculiarly unfocussed.
"Thank you, BillyJo," Shan said into the comm. "It's good to hear your voice again, too."
Priscilla blinked, and sighed, as if the jacket were too heavy for her. Ren Zel stepped forward to take it out of her hands, his fingers delighting in the supple new feel of the leather.
"Well?" Shan asked, leaning a hip against the desk.
"Anthora," she said, "definitely Anthora. She's the only wizard I know who might have done something like this so seamlessly." She sighed once more. "Breakfast?"
"On the way."
"Good." She looked to Ren Zel and moved a hand, inviting him to take one of the two easy chairs as she sank down onto the sofa.
"I think you had better tell us about this—dream."
BREAKFAST ARRIVED as he was describing the garden with its massive tree and welcoming cat. He made a detour there, to summarize the previous dream and the impossible whisker caught in his coverlet. Shan put a plate in his hand, and he ate, not really attending, his mind on the memory of the dream, straining for every nuance, every description.
They listened silently, captain and master trader. At some point in the narration the comm buzzed, and by silent agreement it was the master trader who rose to answer.
Finally, he reached an end, and looked down into a teacup he did not recall emptying, and back to Priscilla's brilliant, dramliza eyes.
"It was a dream," he said, for perhaps the dozenth time.
"I don't believe that it was just a dream," Priscilla said gently.
"Other parties are likewise unconvinced," Shan added, lounging beside her on the couch. "That comm call was an encoded pinbeam from Jelaza Kazone." He looked at Ren Zel, slanting brows high, silver eyes—amused?
"My sister Anthora wishes to advise her elder and her thodelm of the fact of her lifemating with Ren Zel dea'Judan, first mate of Dutiful Passage. Very proper of her, don't you agree?"