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Fledgling
...A Liaden Universe® Adventure
by
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
...the story of Theo Waitley and how she came to have a "kind of complicated" problem to lay before the delm of Korval.
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Chapter One
"Why do I have to go with her?" Theo demanded,
and winced at the quaver in her voice. She'd meant to sound cool
and remote and adult. Instead, she just sounded like a kid on the
edge of a tantrum.
Her mother's onagrata looked up from his work screen
and regarded her just a shade too seriously. Theo bit her lip.
"Because," he said in his deep, calm voice, "in the
culture predominant upon Delgado, children -- by which I mean those
persons who have not attained what that same culture deems as their
majority -- are understood to be submissive to, and the responsibility
of, their biological mother." He raised a strong black
eyebrow. "Surely you are aware of these things, Theo."
Well, she was. But that didn't mean she had to like them. Or live with them.
"You're the one who taught me that accepting cultural mores is a choice,"
she said, pleased that her voice was steady now, if still more heated
than she would have liked. "I don't chose to accept these
particular conditions."
"Ah." Jen Sar Kiladi leaned back in his chair,
hands folded on the edge of his desk, considering her out of thoughtful
dark eyes. "But a decision to rebel against predominant standards
is only half a decision. What will you do instead?"
"I'll stay here. With you." There. She'd said it.
Both eyebrows rose, and he tipped his head to one
side, consideringly. Theo felt a brush against her knee, and a
moment later black-and-white Mandrin leapt to the top of the desk and
sat down primly next to the keyboard.
"A bold and straightforward plan," Professor Kiladi
said eventually. "My congratulations." He reached out to
scratch Mandrin's ears. "I must ask, however, if you have
considered all the ramifications of this choice?"
Theo eyed him. "What do you mean?"
"Decisions have consequences," he murmured, his
attention seemingly centered on the cat, though Theo knew better.
The liaison between her mother and Professor Kiladi had been in place
for as long as Theo could remember. She knew him every bit as
well as she knew her mother -- and liked him better, too, she thought
rebelliously. In fact, sometimes she wished --
"For instance," he told Mandrin. "Your mother
will certainly be both shocked and saddened by this decision. She
may exert her influence. Ethics and law are, as you know, on her
side. How will you respond? To what extent are you willing
to fund this choice? How much sorrow are you willing to
cause? How much disdain are you willing to bear? Surely
your friends will also recoil from you, for stepping beyond what they
feel and know to be proper. Your mentor may consider it incumbent
upon her to alert the proctors, and the proctors deem it their duty to
intervene.”
Mandrin shook her head vigorously, as if the
scenario were too awful to contemplate. Professor Kiladi smiled
slightly and refolded his hands, gaze settling on the untidy stack of
hard copy on the desk-side table.
“In fact," he told the papers gravely, "such
deviance from the norm might come to the attention of the
Chapelia, who would perhaps feel Moved to send a Simple to you, to
ascertain if your rebellion might Teach."
He glanced up and pinned her in a sharp, dark glance.
"If you were to ask me -- which I note that you have
not -- I would say the price seems excessive for what may be at most a
few months' inconvenience." He inclined his head. "You
must, of course, please yourself."
Theo swallowed. "You don't know that it's only for a few months," she said, voice unsteady again.
"Do I not?" he murmured in that over-polite voice he
used when he thought you were being stupid. "How inept of me, to
be sure."
Theo sighed and looked down at the floor and the
blaze of galaxies dancing there. His study floor usually
projected the star fields; he said they helped put his work into
perspective. Theo's mother said they made her dizzy.
"Do you," she said, raising her head and meeting his eyes. "Do you know for certain that it's only going to be a couple months?"
"Child..." He came out of his chair in one of
his boneless, catlike moves, and flowed toward her across the
pirouetting stars, silent in his soft, embroidered slippers.
"Nothing is certain in life. Your mother tells me that she
requires a few months in order to concentrate on her own affairs.
She is, I believe, at a delicate point with regard to her position
within her department, and wishes to do all that she may to advance
herself."
He paused, head cocked to one side. "Who am I
to argue with such excellent reasons? For I don't hide from you,
Theo, that I am a lazy fellow. Indeed, if I did not already enjoy
tenure I would surely be too indolent to seek it."
"You're not lazy," she said sullenly, and took a
deep breath. "And the fact is, you don't know when -- or if! --
she'll decide to come back here. She might decide to, to --"
To choose another onagrata, which was --
unthinkable. Theo took a hard breath. She wouldn't cry, she
thought. She wouldn't.
"She may decide to remain separate from me," he
said, completing her thought calmly, like it didn't matter. "She
may decide to seek another arrangement for herself and for you.
These things fall within her rights as an adult in this society.
However, I believe you will find that you have some rights, as
well. For how long have we enjoyed our private dinner on Oktavi
evening?"
She blinked at him. "Ever since Kamele started
teaching the late seminar," she said. "Years and years."
"So. It is a long-standing arrangement to
which your mother has given her consent. There is therefore no
reason to discontinue our pleasant habit, unless you wish to do so."
"I don't!"
The ancient mechanical clock wall mounted behind him
struck its two notes just then – one for the hour, and one for the
eighth, which was seven – a muted thweep from her pocket
registered her mumu's agreement.
Professor Kiladi moved his shoulders in that familiar, supple shrug of his.
"There is no more to be said, then." He
reached out and tousled her hair, like she was six instead of
fourteen. "The hour advances, child. Go finish
packing. Your mother will wish to leave for her apartment before
night opens its eyes."
"I --" She cleared her throat. "I'll come by your office on Oktavi, at the usual time."
"Indeed," he said solemnly. "I look forward to
the occasion with pleasure." He smiled. "Take good care,
Theo. We need not be strangers, you know."
"I know," she said. Mustering her dignity, she
turned to go, only to find her body over-ruling her mind, as it so
often did. She spun, flinging herself against him in a hug,
squeezing tight, feeling strong arms hugging her in return.
"You take care," she muttered fiercely into his shoulder. "Promise me, Father."
"I promise, child," he murmured, and let her go, stepping back out of the embrace.
"Go, now. Be on time for your mother."
Theo dropped the case containing her music slips
into the packing cube, narrowly missing Coyster's inquisitive pink
nose.
"Keep out of there!" she told him, turning back
toward the desk. "You don't want to get packed, do you?"
Coyster didn't answer. Theo swept up her
biblioslips, the extra thread and her back-up hooks, and went back to
the cube, walking so hard that the simulated koi
swimming in the floor mosaic dashed away to hide under the simulated lily pads.
Bending, she put her things carefully
into the cube and sighed, staring into the half-empty interior.
Beside her, Coyster sighed in sympathy and settled down onto the
rippling blue waters, white paws tucked neatly under orange chest,
amber eyes serious.
"Hey." Theo knelt and tickled him under the
chin. "I'm going to miss you, cat," she whispered, and blinked
hard. "Don't play with Father's lures, 'k? You'll get in
trouble if I'm not around to untangle them for you."
Coyster squeezed his eyes shut in a smile, and Theo
blinked again before giving him one last chuck under the chin and
rising to her feet.
Her bed was stripped and folded away; the desk was
clear. The desk itself, and the bed, were staying right here; all
the faculty apartments in the Wall were furnished, Kamele had told her,
and that one desk was as good as another.
Theo doubted that, but Kamele had made it clear that
the discussion period was closed, so she'd kept the thought to herself.
She took a deep breath. Really, she was
almost done. All that was left was to take the pictures down,
fold up the closet, and decide about the mobile.
The mobile -- that was hard. She'd made it
herself for an art project, back when she'd been a kid. It was
the Delgado system, with its space station and twin ringed ice giants,
built to micro-scale. With Father's help, she'd hung it up where
the air from the vent would move it. Coyster had discovered it as
a kitten, and hatched all kinds of plans to reach it -- from leaping
straight up from the floor, to taking a running leap off the top shelf
over the desk -- but the mobile remained uncaptured.
Lately, he'd gotten above trying to capture it, but
Coyster still harbored a fascination for the flying spinning
thing. Theo would entertain him -- and herself -- by changing the
speed or direction of the air flow from the vent, to make the mobile
twirl wildly, or spin verrrrry slowly. She turned her head.
Yes, he was watching it now from his tuck-up next to the cube, ears set
at a calculating angle.
Theo grinned, then nodded. That settled
it. The mobile stayed; it would give Coyster something to do
besides stalking Mandrin and playing with Father's fishing gear.
Which left...the closet, and the pictures.
Crossing the room, she tapped on the side of the
closet, stepping back as it began to compress, squeezing the air out of
her clothes. Next stop was the control unit over the desk.
She put her fingers against the keys, eyes closed so she didn't have to
see the picture of Delgado from the space station's observation
tower snap out of existence, or the picture of Zolanj, who had been
Father's cat before Mandrin, and who had sometimes agreed to sit on
Theo's lap, but never on Kamele's. Or the picture of the river
camp where Father went to fish, or...
Her fingers moved across the keypad with cold
deliberation, like they belonged to someone else, while Theo bit her
lip and reminded herself that they were stored in the house bank, and
that she easily could retrieve them when she came...back.
Her fingers touched one last button. Theo took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
Spinning on a heel, she surveyed her denuded
room. It looked ...peculiar... with blank walls and floor,
without her things spread around -- like a stay-over room on the
'station. She blinked again, reminding herself for the hundredth
time that she was not going to cry.
"Is this move really necessary?" she asked
Coyster, but he was absorbed in watching the mobile and didn't answer.
Theo shook her head. Something was wrong --
really wrong -- and whatever it was, the adults weren't talking to her about it.
"Pack up, Theo, we're moving to the Wall," she said,
in a wicked -- and deadly accurate -- imitation of Kamele in her I-am-the-mother voice.
And Father -- Theo sniffed. She'd been sure he would understand her position. But he was just as bad as Kamele -- Don't be late for your mother! Treating her like a kid --
That was wrong, too, Theo thought, as she leaned
over the ambiset again, to turn off the aromatics, white noise
and breeze. Father never treated her like a kid -- even when she acted like one.
"If they don't want to tell me what's going on," she
said over her shoulder in Coyster's general direction; "then they
don't get my help."
Behind her came the snap of the closet's
magnetic locks meeting and sealing. At that instant, her mumu thweeped its reminder – her mother would be waiting downstairs, with new keys in hand.
"Chaos!" Theo muttered. She grabbed the
closet's handle and dashed back to the cube, sealing it with one hand
while she dragged her bag over a shoulder with the other.
One last look then around the blank, bleak
room. Then, she took a firm grip on closet and cube and hurried
out, heading for the vestibule.
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Who are we?
Sharon Lee
and Steve Miller are the authors of a dozen collaborative science
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Base page created December 1, 2006 by Sharon Lee
Chapter updated January 22, 2007
technical revision posted January 23, 2007
Update March 15, 2008, 12:39 p.m. EDT
copyright © 2006-2007 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
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