The Agent Gambit (48 page)

"You are now concentrating on the color violet," he said softly. "The end of the Rainbow. How do you feel, cha'trez?"

"Nice," she murmured, voice slightly fuzzy. "Warm and kind of-cloudy-feeling. Safe." She smiled a little. "I'm glad we're closer here."

He tipped a brow at that but replied gently, "I am glad, also. Look about you now, Miri. Do you see the stairway?"

"Standing on the top stair," she told him, voice entirely unsurprised. "It goes down a way."

"Will it make you feel-unsafe-to walk down?"

"No," she said unhesitatingly. "Should I?"

"If
you
wish to, Miri."

"Okay." A slight pause, then she said, "Val Con?"

"Yes."

"There's a door."

"So?" he murmured. "What sort of door?"

"Old-time door-all shiny, dark-brown wood and a big brass knob. There's a keyhole as big as my fist."

"Why not go in? Or would you rather return now?"

"I'd rather go in," she said definitely. "But I don't have a key to fit this beast-"

"Perhaps in your pouch," he suggested softly.

"Naw, I don't have a key like-" Her brows twitched over closed eyes. "I'll be damned."

There was a longish pause before she said again, "Val Con?" Wonder and excitement filled her voice.

"Yes, cha'trez."

"It's a
library,"
she breathed. "You never
saw
so many books-tapes and bound-and a desk and a chair-big and soft-candles-little knickknack things and-uh-oh."

"What is wrong?" He expended the effort necessary to keep his voice smooth.

"I'm in trouble, boss-there's a Belansium planetscape in here."

He grinned. "I do not think you need worry. Does the room please you?"

"Please-it's
wonderful!
Is yours like this?"

"Everyone's room is different," he told her gently, firmly refusing to consider the shambles his own must be in, if it still existed at all. "I am happy that you are happy."

He paused, then decided on a departure from Clonak's technique. "Miri?"

"Yo."

"May I give you a gift?"

Her brows contracted slightly. "A gift? Why?"

He winced. "It gives me joy to do so," he said very gently. "Will you allow it?"

"Yes."

"Thank you," he said seriously. "Look on the seat of your chair. Do you see the book there? Not a large book-very thin, in fact. Bound, with paper pages . . ."

"Here it is!" After a moment she went on, hesitantly. "Val Con? It's-it's beautiful. You sure you want to give it to
me?"

He extended a hand, stopping just short of touching her near-sleeping face. "I wish it," he said gently, "with all my heart." He paused. "Listen, now, and I will tell you about this book. You will see that each of the pages is blank, except for the first four, where I have written something for you."

"Yes."

"Good. The first page, that says 'Sleep,' does it not?"

"Yes," she agreed once more.

"And the next," he continued, "says 'Study;' the third, 'Relax;' and the fourth, 'Return.' Is that correct?"

"Exactly correct."

"Very good. Now, what you may do, whenever you come to your library, is look at this book and choose what you will do. If you choose to sleep, you need only open to that page, concentrate on the word there-and you will sleep. If you wish to allow your mind to review and integrate the day's affairs-or if you wish to work on a particular problem-you will open to the page marked 'Study,' concentrate on the word, and your mind will be ready to learn.

"If you find yourself growing tense, you might wish to go to your library and regard 'Relax.' And, if you wish to return to the world outside your room, you need only bring your attention to the fourth page, and you will awaken." He waited a moment to let it all sink in.

"Miri, please open your gift to the page on which I have written 'Return.' Concentrate on it . . ."

She took a sudden sharper breath, then her eyes flickered open, and she smiled at him, very gently.

He smiled back. "Hello, Miri."

"Hi." She stretched, catlike, her smile widening to a grin as she extended a hand and touched his scarred cheek. "You're beautiful."

He raised a brow. "I am happy that I please you," he murmured. "How do you feel?"

"Wonderful. This gimmick might not help me talk to Zhena Trelu, but if I feel this relaxed every time I go down and come back, we're up."

"But it will help you talk to Zhena Trelu. If you choose to do so, you may go to your library and concentrate on 'Study' and 'Sleep.' Then you will be able to assign your attention to sorting and making sense of all that has come to pass-today, for instance-while your body and your waking mind rest. Tomorrow you will then have access to all of today's data, not just a jumbled mess that you have no time to sort through."

"If you say so." Her brows twitched together in a frown. "Where'd you learn this gag?"

He unfolded his legs and stretched out beside her, head pillowed on an arm, eyes level with hers. "It is a Scout thing. A man named Clonak ter'Meulen taught me, when my uncle hired him to make Shan a master pilot."

"Your uncle hired a
Scout
to teach your cousin to pilot?"

"Oh, no-Shan had been a pilot for years! He merely required tutoring to attain his master's rank, and Uncle Er Thom would settle for no less. As for hiring a Scout . . ." He moved his shoulders. "Clonak desired passage; my uncle desired his son to have the best tutor available. So a bargain was struck."

"And he just taught you this Rainbow thing on the side?"

"Of his kindness. He had known my father, you see, and he was much taken with Shan and me. I achieved my third class that trip, under his training." He stroked her cheek lightly. "Will you do a thing for me now?"

"Do my best."

He smiled. "Will you go through the exercise again, while I watch? And when you achieve your library, would you assign your concentration to 'Sleep'? The past days have been very hard for you-I am sorry that I did not understand
how
hard, so that we could have resolved this sooner. And tomorrow we are to go to town and buy clothes, which may prove trying for us all . . ."

Miri laughed and laid her lips firmly against his; he felt her fingers in his hair, and a quickening of his own blood. When she leaned back, the laughter was still in her eyes.
"Sure
you want me to go to sleep?"

"Alas," he murmured, half smiling in regret and admiration.

"Slave driver." But she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. In a little while, the rhythm of her breathing told him that she was asleep; and in an even shorter while, he followed her.

DUTIFUL PASSAGE:
Liad Orbit

Priscilla took off her shirt
and laid it neatly on the bed, then stretched with casual sensuality and bent to remove her boots. The soft belt with its cleverly worked silver buckle was next, followed by the dark blue trousers.

Unencumbered, she stretched again and crossed the first mate's quarters to the wide, cloth-covered chair. She curled into it like a cat, which reminded her of Dablin, so that she smiled for a moment before closing her eyes and beginning the discipline that erased all expression from her face.

The discipline progressed: breathing deepened; heartbeat slowed until it was a distant boom coming at long intervals, like an ocean beyond the hills; body temperature dropped four degrees. When she was satisfied that those functions had stabilized and would remain steady until the body itself failed of hunger or trauma, Priscilla withdrew her attention to her place of safety, admitted the prayer that would keep her whole on such a chancy venture, opened the door between her Self and that which was not her Self-and went forth.

Sounds, dazzling patterns, seductive perfumes: the
Passage
and all within it suddenly experienced with only the inner senses. There: Shan on the bridge. There: Lina in the common room. There: Gordy in the trader's room; Rusty at the comm; Ken Rik, Calypso, BillyJo, Vilt . . . Priscilla touched each, acknowledged all-and let them go.

The
Passage,
with its din of familiarity and love, dropped away, and she was alone in the noisy outside. She disallowed the clamor of strangers, brought up the template of the aura she sought, and focused on it, stretching awareness until her Self was barely more than a webbing of moth antennae, listening, quivering, straining far and farther . . .

It was at the point that Self was strained to the thinnest, when the thread that anchored her to the
Passage,
to the body, was at the limit of its elasticity, that she heard/sensed/saw it.

A glimmer, no more. A hint of familiarity; a bare taste of acerbic sweetness . . .

Awareness contracted as Self rushed toward the hint, unsubtle in desire; everything focused on the pattern growing in her senses, intent on contact, so that it was not until the last instant that she recognized the subpattern of one protected within deep meditation.

Aboard the
Passage
the body cried out, awareness and Self expanding toward dissolution as she struggled to absorb the psychic impact, scrambling even then for the shredding lifeline, clawing her way back, awareness a shivering knot of pain within the fire-shot network of Self-and plummeting into the body at last, heavy as a stone.

She cried out again as the pain ate along nerve and sinew, heartbeat stuttering, respiration a gasping mess, body soaked in sweat, and it was hot, hot, too hot-

Cool.

"Shan!" That cry was no less desperate, for all he was Healer and strong in his skill. "Shan, no!"

Cool enveloped her, leaching the heat and stifling the agony. She collapsed into it as if into his arms, and opened herself utterly, allowing him to cool even the memory of the pain, letting it vanish out of knowledge as heart rhythm steadied and breathing smoothed . . . She sighed and drifted, thinking of nothing.

"Priscilla."

It was with no common effort that she opened her eyes and looked into his face, vaguely surprised to find that she was indeed lying in his arms.

"No more, Priscilla." Face and voice were stern; exhausted witch-sense brought her the echo of his terror. She thought about smiling, and perhaps she even did.

"I saw Val Con."

His pattern changed too subtly for her to read. "Where?"

She moved her head. "It doesn't work that way, love. There aren't any directions when you go-spirit-walking. He's alive . . . strong . . . Meditating-playing, perhaps. I should have remembered how the music rings around him when he plays . . .That's what got me in trouble. Rushing in before I looked close. Wooly-headed as Anthora."

"I don't recall that Anthora has ever put herself in quite so much danger in her checks on my brother-or on any of the rest of us. Understand me-no more. You will not endanger yourself searching for my renegade of a brother, who is, incidentally, quite capable of taking care of himself." His arms tightened fractionally, and she had no trouble reading the shift in his pattern that time. "I can't afford to lose you, Priscilla; have some sense."

There was no talking to him, not with the fright he had just had-she saw that clearly, exhausted as she was. She smiled once more and lifted a hand to his stark cheek. "Of course, dear," she murmured. And slept.

STARSHIP CLARION,

ALLIED TO CAPTAIN ROBERT CHEN-JACOBS

Taking Orbit About the World Named Kago

The trip had been hasty
and wondrous; the captain of the Terran vessel in which Sheather and his T'carais traveled was a gracious individual with an understanding nearly as bright as that of Val Con yos'Phelium Scout. He was a treasure, was Captain Chen-Jacobs, and Sheather had lovingly subscribed him to memory, knowing already how much might be learned from those hasty persons of the Clans of Men.

Consider that his T'carais, known to men as Edger, claimed untold wisdoms acquired from his adopted brother, that same Val Con yos'Phelium Scout-and the T'carais had a memory both long and rich. Indeed, only see what Sheather himself had learned, through their last brief meeting with the brother of the T'carais and the lifemate of that brother. Another treasure entirely was Miri Robertson; and Sheather dwelled often upon the honed brightness of her, to his wider appreciation of what was.

"Four days from Lufkit to this place," Edger said beside him.

Sheather blinked solemnly. "The Clans of Men and the ways of those Clans are hasty indeed, brother. And yet I find myself-exhilarated-by their speediness, touched by the valiance of their striving."

"Do you so?" The T'carais considered him with care.

There was that in the voice of the T'carais which brought to mind vividly one's own position as a mere Seventh Shell; yet Sheather did not efface himself. "I find myself," he said instead, "looking at this action or another of an individual with the eyes of our new sister. It is a difficult endeavor, and one that I perhaps undertake imperfectly, yet I say to you, brother, that a certain-correctness-exists, though the view must be both hasty and imperfect." He foundered somewhat under the unwavering regard of his T'carais and the eldest of his brothers. "No doubt there is much thought yet required."

"No doubt," Edger responded calmly. "Honor me, brother, with your further thoughts upon this subject, when you have considered more widely."

"Certainly, brother."

"Your pardons, Most Wise." Captain Chen-Jacobs bowed deeply, and Sheather, seeing as his new sister might see, understood that the man was distressed.

His eldest brother, with what resources must be available to the one who was both T'carais and Edger for the Clan, had achieved the same understanding. "My pardon you do not need, for you have done us no harm," he assured the man in a booming voice. "But I perceive that you are uneasy and hope that ill news has not found you."

"Ill news?" The captain spread his hands, palms up, in a variation of the gesture favored by Val Con yos'Phelium Scout. "Who can tell? But you spoke of a pressing need to raise Shaltren when you boarded my ship, and I said that I would try to make arrangements for a connection from Kago."