Halfling Moon

Halfling Moon

Adventures in the Liaden Universe®

Number Sixteen

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Pinbeam Books

http://www.pinbeambooks.com

Halfling Moon

Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Sharon Lee and
Steve Miller

This is a work of fiction. All the characters
and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance
to real people or events is purely coincidental and really
amazing.

All rights reserved. This book may not be
reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written permission of
the publisher or authors except for the purpose of reviews.

Hidden Resources © 2009 Sharon Lee and Steve
Miller

Moon On The Hills © 2009 Sharon Lee and Steve
Miller

Cover art copyright © 2009, 2011 by Bill
Wright

Published by Pinbeam Books

PO Box 707

Waterville, ME 04903

email: [email protected]

ISBN:

Kindle: 978-1-935224-24-2

EPub: 978-1-935224-25-9

PDF: 978-1-935224-26-6

HALFLING MOON

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For the Clans of Blueblaze and Kennebec, for
all the joy your offspring have brought us

Hidden Resources

Runig's Rock

The ship was still there, hanging just
inside the sensors' range. Not a ship of the Clan, certainly; nor
yet the ship of an ally, the captain of which would have been given
the pass-codes, hailing protocols, and some understanding of the
capabilities of this, Korval's most secret and secure
hidey-hole.

This ship . . . This ship only sat there,
making no attempt at contact, seeming to think itself both hidden
and secure -- watching.

Waiting.

The urgent question being -- waiting for
what?

Alone in the control parlor, Luken bel'Tarda
leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, wearily.

His wager, slim as it was, rested on the
square marked "orders," while Lady Kareen, his collaborator in
maintaining the integrity of Korval's treasure-house, had her coin
on "back-up."

That the fruition of either choice would do
more than inconvenience themselves and that which they guarded was
assured. With Plan B in effect, he and Lady Kareen were their own
safety and rescue. Even if they had been inclined to endanger
others of the Clan in these uncertain times, the news that reached
them was not encouraging. Liad in turmoil, trade in disarray,
murmurings even of the Juntavas, which in saner times certainly
took care to keep itself and its business far from the news feeds .
. .

No, even if they had been so minded, there
was no certainty that any of the secure message drops remained so,
and they could not risk what they guarded on anything less than
certainty.

They were not without resources -- weapons,
that would be. And so it was that he and Kareen had decided,
uneasily, to wait, though at an increased level of alertness.

Luken rubbed his eyes again and looked once
more to the screens.

The ship was gone.

* * *

Syl Vor was snoring.

To be perfectly truthful, it wasn't so much a snore as a
sort of
puff-puff-puff
sound that Quin customarily found . . .
comforting. If his small cousin were sleeping thus deeply, it must
after mean that they were all perfectly safe, no matter that they
were in hiding, and deliberately cut off from clan and
kin.

Tonight, though -- say that tonight thoughts
of kin weighed heavy on Quin's mind, magnifying the small sound of
Syl Vor's sleep into an intolerable annoyance.

He had tried turning onto his side, and
putting his head under the pillow. But then it was hot, and he
couldn't find a comfortable place for his hands, and his feet kept
twitching, and --

Syl Vor sneezed, tiny and sharp, like a
kitten; he muttered, bed clothes rustling as he resettled himself
without really waking up.

Quin took a careful breath, loud in the
sudden silence.

There was no sound from the bunk beneath,
where his cousin Padi slept as if all were well, as if they hadn't
just today . . .

Well. It wasn't
her
father who hadn't reported in, after all. Cousin
Shan had missed several call-ins, but then began reporting again,
just as usual.

Pat Rin yos'Phelium, however . . .

Pat Rin yos'Phelium had never once reported
in. Which meant . . .

Quin swallowed, hard.

It does not mean
, he told himself,
that Father is . . . is -- anything
could have happened! He might be safe with, with an ally, or . . .
traveling! Or . . .

But his inventiveness failed here, and after all he wasn't
a youngling like Syl Vor. He knew what Plan B meant. More, he knew
that people could die. That people
did
die.

Even people one cared about.

But not
, he thought,
Father. He's far too clever. He will have -- He
will have done SOMEthing . . .

He swallowed again, and it was abruptly
intolerable, lying here with his thoughts whirling, and the
children asleep around him.

Syl Vor sneezed again.

Quin gritted his teeth and sat up in his
bunk. He put the blanket aside, and swung silently over the
edge.

* * *

Luken had walked the Rock for the third and last time
during his shift, manually verifying every reading. It was in its
way a soothing routine, and by the time he let himself into the
family quarters, he was fairly calmed. He might, he thought, be
calmer, if he could
know
what had moved that ship,
now
, and whether it had gone for
good, or for ill.

It might be, he told himself, that the ship master had
never harbored any intentions regarding themselves. There were
reasons enough for a ship to drop out of Jump and tarry a time.
Urgent repairs would be one reason. An importuned or wounded pilot,
another. Also, a ship and a pilot might from time to time find it
necessary to lie low for such reasons as tended to beset
pilot-kind. It was an odd eddy of space they sat in, and far out
from usual traffic. Still, they were not
hidden
, only inconveniently located.
Despite which, a pilot of Korval had found it -- the place and the
Rock -- and so another pilot might also.

A clatter drew his attention as he turned
into the main hall. A clatter and a light, glowing green over the
door to the galley. The lady's constitution was excellent, as was
her discipline, but he had once or twice met Kareen yos'Phelium
awake during the latter part of his shift. An early riser, she
styled herself on the first such meeting, with a wry modesty much
unlike her usual mode. She had offered him tea at that first, and
perhaps not quite chance, meeting. He had accepted and they had
talked the pot empty. And so it was on the second meeting, and the
third. On the subject of their shared duty, he came to know her as
a stern and subtle thinker, and was glad of her insights.

Indeed, he thought, putting his hand on the
latch, he would be glad of her insight just now.

Nor would a cup of tea be out of the
way.

The door slid aside. A slim figure in a
rumpled robe turned from the counter, teapot in hand, opal blue
eyes wide in a thin, golden face.

"Quin," said Luken, smiling.

"Grandfather!" the boy gasped, looking
conscious. He smiled, then, and nodded down at the pot.

"Would you like a cup of tea? It's fresh
made."

* * *

Grandfather looked tired, Quin thought. No, more than that,
he looked
worried.
That was an honor. Grandfather was treating him
like an adult, not like a child or a halfling to whom an untroubled
face must be shown.

It was also deeply disturbing, which Quin
had noticed was the case with many of adulthood's honors. He sipped
his tea, watching Luken do the same, and wished that there was some
way in which he could ease that all-too-obvious worry. His father,
he thought, would know exactly what to do.

But his father wasn't here.

Heart cramped, Quin put his cup down.

"Would you like some cookies, Grandfather?"
he asked.

Luken lowered his cup, and smiled gently.
"Thank you, boy-dear, but I think not. The tea is very welcome,
though." He sipped again, appreciatively, and placed his cup on the
table. "Now, tell me, what brings you awake so early in the
morn?"

When they had first come here, Grandmother
Kareen had insisted that they keep the homeworld's hours and
maintain a strict division of day and night. She said it was their
duty, which Quin supposed it must be, since Grandmother knew
everything about duty and how it was most properly fulfilled. For
himself, Quin could have done with a little less duty and a little
more Luken, though it worked out well enough once the two elders
began to rotate shifts, "so that we do not become stale and
accustomed," as Grandfather had it.

"Quin?"

He started, and sighed. "I was . . . thinking," he
admitted, and suddenly leaned forward, his hands gripping each
other painfully. "Grandfather, do you think -- do you think it
goes
well
? It's been so long . . ."

"Has it been
so long
?" Luken murmured. He patted Quin's arm softly. "I
suppose it has been some time, at that, and your year is longer
than mine by reason of you having so few of them. Well." He picked
up his cup.

Quin forced himself to sit back and picked up his own cup.
The tea
was
good, he thought, but he didn't sip.

Neither did Luken.

"I think," he said slowly, as if he were
considering the matter deeply, "that it goes as well as it may.
Understand that some matters require more time than others. The
First Speaker will surely wish to be certain of Korval's position
and of our allies before she calls us to her side."

The First Speaker -- Cousin Nova, that was,
who was almost as much of a stickler as Grandmother Kareen. Quin
had once remarked to his father that Cousin Nova was no gambler,
and received a sharp set-down for his impertinence.

I should hope that the one who holds the clan's future in
trust for the delm is everything that is prudent. Gambling with
lives is for Korval to do.

Quin bit his lip. "If it -- If the First
Speaker needed pilots, she'd remember to send for me -- wouldn't
she, Grandfather?"

"Things would be desperate indeed, boy-dear, before the
First Speaker deprived us of
our
pilot."

Our
pilot. That was, Quin thought, with some bitterness, him.
Not that he'd been allowed to pilot anything more than a sim since
they came here, and done enough board drills to last him a long
lifetime. He held a second class card, but, he thought, he
should
have been a first class by now.
Would have
been
,
if Plan B hadn't caught them all in its net of duty and
boredom.

"I'm scarcely a pilot if I'm not allowed to
fly," he pointed out, his voice sounding churlish in his own ears.
"Your pardon, Grandfather," he muttered, and sipped tepid tea.

"That's only the truth spoken," Luken said,
pushing his cup across the table. "Pour for me, child."

He did, first filling Grandfather's cup,
then his own, and put the pot aside.

"You recall the protocol," Luken said
gently. "If I fall, the keys are yours, whereupon --"

"No!" Quin interrupted, so forcefully that his tea sloshed
over the edge of the cup and onto his hand. "Grandfather,
you
are not going to
fall!"