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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 Five
"They didn't have any Yummifish at the co-op," she
told Coyster apologetically. He flicked his ears and looked at
her reproachfully from his perch on the edge of the desk.
"I know, I know. I'm a bad provider.
But, look. I brought you a ball." She put it on the desk by
his toes, and gave it a push. It jingled across the surface,
beady red eye-lights flickering enticingly.
Coyster yawned.
Theo shook her head in mingled amusement and
irritation. "You're welcome," she said, moving across the room.
She shifted the cube to the front wall, one end against a corner of the
closet, picked up the lid and went up the hall to the 'fresher.
The shredded paper -- unused, as far as she could
tell -- went into the disposal. The lid went into the sanitizer,
just in case. She washed her face while it was being zapped and dragged
a comb through her hair, wincing when she pulled knots, and wishing,
not for the first time, that she had sleek, well-behaved hair like
Lesset's.
The sanitizer pinged and she retrieved the top,
wrinkling her nose in protest of the sweet, lingering antiseptic odor.
A rapid series of jingles greeted her as she opened
the door to her room, but by the time she stepped inside, Coyster was
sitting in the middle of the floor washing his face, his back to the
ball.
Theo grinned, but pretended not to notice as she fit
the lid onto the cube and went crossed the room to her bag.
The Best in Five Worlds Kitty Pan had cost more than
she'd expected -- "Twenty creds!" she told Coyster as he inserted a
supervisory nose into the assembly process. "I hope you're
happy."
She pushed him gently out of the way while she
finished programming the cycles, but he was in it almost before she'd
gotten it into the corner.
While Coyster was busy inspecting his new
facilities, Theo unwrapped the self-cleaning bowls from their sanitary
wrappings. One, she filled with kibble from the sack she'd picked
up -- not, as it happened, the same kind that they fed the cats at
home, but the only kind the co-op carried.
She stowed the opened sack in the bottom drawer of
the desk and went up the hall again to put water in the second bowl,
coming back just as Coyster pushed his head in the crack between the
door and the jamb. Theo frowned.
"Thought I'd closed that," she said, toeing him out
of the way. She made sure it latched behind her before putting
the water next to the food bowl, and sitting down on the cold, smooth
floor.
The bowls were blue. In the co-op, they'd
looked bright and cheerful; here, they looked -- faded, and more than a
little forlorn.
"It wouldn't be so bad," Theo told Coyster, who'd
wandered over to sniff at the kibble. "If we could dial up a
mosaic. All this white is ... boring."
Coyster looked at her over his shoulder -- accusingly, she thought.
"I know it's not the best kind, but it's all they had."
He blinked, executed one of his in-place precision
turns and put his front feet on her knee, looking questioningly up into
her face.
Theo smiled and rubbed his ear, smile widening as he pushed his head into it.
"If you really want to know," she said, "I had a
lousy day. Professor Appletorn has a scope primed for our team; I
made Lesset fall on the belt, the safeties gave the whole team three
downs and we were late for math, which was two downs
more. Not only that," she continued gloomily, bending over so
Coyster could butt her head with his. "Marjene wants to have a chat tomorrow after teamplay, and all the rugs in the co-op are made out of plaslin!"
Coyster burbled and tugged on a lock of her unruly hair.
"Thanks," Theo said, using both hands to stroke him
down his whole length. Soft fur over wire-strong muscles.
Not what you'd expect from a creature whose most strenuous activity was
chasing a ball around the room for a couple minutes.
She stroked him again. He purred briefly, then
backed gently from between her hands, executed another precision turn
and faced the food bowl. He picked a single crunchy up in his
mouth and munched it consideringly. Theo waited, wondering if she
was going to get the emphatic left-hind-foot-shake that meant, so
Father said, "This is not acceptable."
After a pause, Coyster bent his head again and began to eat.
Relieved, Theo rolled to her feet, socks slipping on
the floor, requiring a quick twist of her shoulders to stay upright.
"Nidjit anti-social floor!" she
muttered. "Whoever thought making everything out of ceramic was a
good idea ought to be evaluated!"
She grabbed her bag and hauled it over to the desk,
making sure to place her feet firmly. Most of her solo work
was done, thanks to a double research period after math. She'd
better go over the analysis trees for Advertence again, though -- after
today, she didn't want to do anything to call Professor Appletorn's attention to her ever again.
"Though it would be useful," she told Coyster, as
she unslung her school book, "to know what made him so mad." Or
maybe not, she thought, jacking the 'book into the cable labeled
'research'. It wasn't as if the class could do anything to prevent whatever it was from happening a--
Coyster, momentarily sated, was sitting back half to
her, looking high into a corner of the room, the way cats will.
Just trying to fool her into thinking there was something
there... but no! If he'd been at home, and finished with
his after-school snack, now would be the time she'd change the
airflow to the mobile that by all rights should be hanging in that
corner. Too late to bring it, and besides, it didn't look like
the mobile's kid-safe auto-attach would work on the slick ceiling
anyway. Why couldn't things have just stayed...
Warmth spread from the utility pocket where she kept
her mumu. She reached down and pulled it out, flicking the screen
on with a practiced one-handed motion.
It was a text from Kamele, short and, Theo thought, terse.
Agenda lengthy. Home before ninebell. Do your solos. Don't forget to eat.
Eat. Theo sighed wistfully as she slid the
mumu away. She didn't suppose the kaf would be able to deliver
one of Father's melted cheese sandwiches and a mug of evening
tea. Her eyes filled, blurring the desk. She bit her lip
and turned, her foot slid and she went down, hard, on her rump on the
cold floor.
"Chaos!" she yelled -- and began, to her utter embarrassment, to cry.
She'd been lucky in her timing. Not only did
she catch the direct bus to Efraim, which was Nonactown's official
name, but she got a seat by the screen, where she could pretend to be
absorbed in the map and condition reports and ignore the superior looks
of the half-dozen Chapelia initiates in their baggy gray uni-suits and
half-face gauze.
She did bite her lip when the 'change for
Leafydale Place highlighted, but she didn't tap for a stop; she stayed
in her seat, hands folded decorously on her lap, and only had to blink
once or twice to clear her eyes as the bus continued on its way.
Strictly speaking, she should have had her mother's
permission, if not an actual bluekey, for a solitary expedition outside
the Wall. She had tried to text Kamele. All
she'd gotten was the 'away' message, though, which meant the meeting
with the lengthy agenda was level two confidential or higher, a fact
that might have been more interesting if Theo hadn't been focused on
other things.
In the end, and after a consultation with Coyster,
she'd left a short message in Kamele's in-queue, grabbed a sweater, and
ran for the bus. With any luck at all, she'd be back home, errand
accomplished, before Kamele's meeting broke up.
She did think that her mother might not be delighted
to hear that Theo had been out alone to Nonactown. But it wasn't,
Theo thought, like she was going shopping. She was only going to one store -- Gently Used, on Merchant Street. Father had taken her there -- if not often,
then at least several times. He'd introduced to the proprietor,
too. While that didn't exactly put the proprietor or the shop on
the Safe List, Theo felt sure that Father wouldn't have taken her
anyplace dangerous.
Despite the bus being a Direct, transit time to
Merchant Street was somewhat longer than she had estimated. The
Chapelia de-bussed ahead of her, enmasse and in step, going right while
she would be going left, and she breathed a sigh of relief to see them
go.
Her own feet had barely touched the street when her
mumu sang sevenbells. Still, she thought as she walked down the
pathway -- no belts in Nonactown -- or in the suburbs, either -- it
shouldn't take that long to buy a rug.
The evening breeze made her glad she had her sweater
and reminded her that walking within the Wall, or in its shadow, made
both time-keeping and weather-minding by sight difficult. Father
did that – used the position of the sun in the sky, or the type of
clouds and wind-direction – he said it "kept him close to the world" --
and he'd taught her the way of it, to Kamele's amusement.
"We have these things called clocks, Jen Sar," she'd
said, from her seat on the garden bench. "Which tell us the time
when we're inside, too."
"Indeed," Father had answered gravely. "And
yet sometimes -- we are outside. And in some circumstances --
rare, I allow! -- devices fail."
Kamele had shaken her head with a small smile and
returned to her book; and Father had continued Theo's lesson.
As for time, Theo thought, shaking herself out of
her memory, it was passing, and the clouds were moving from the west.
The street was busy this evening, light spilling
from unshuttered shop windows and doors out into the dusk. Theo
walked carefully, her stomach grumbling as the breeze brought the scent
of frying spice bread to her. Almost, she crossed the street to
buy a slice, but the recollection that there were only twenty-four
creds left on her card moved her on past.
First, she thought, she'd buy the rug. Then, she'd have a piece of fried bread.
The door to Gently Used stood open. Gorna Dail was
outside on the walk, talking vivaciously to an old man with an
electronic zither strapped to his back.
Theo slipped past the animated conversationalists
and into the store. She passed the low counter with its
light-guarded displays of rings, fobs, bracelets, and dangles with only
a cursory glance. Father wore jewelry -- a twisted silver ring on
the smallest finger of his right hand -- but Kamele said that honors
were decoration enough.
The rugs were in the back of the store, piled
together by size. Theo located the pile she wanted and knelt
beside it, her fingers busy over the fabric.
"Is there something in particular you're looking for, young student?"
Theo gasped, and blinked up into the worn face and smiling eyes of Gorna Dail.
"Such concentration," the shopkeeper said, and the
smile moved from her eyes to her lips. "Theo Waitley, that's your
name, isn't it? Has the housefather commissioned you for solo
flight?"
Theo looked down, and rubbed her hand over the nap
of the rug she'd dragged across her knees. It felt good, springy
and soft at the same time. Like Coyster.
"My mother and I have...relocated to the Wall," she said to the rug.
There was a small silence, then a neutral, "I
see." Gorna Dail hunkered down next to Theo and ran her hand over
the rug, like she was considering its merits, too.
"It's good to have something to break up all the white," she said, "inside the Wall."
Theo looked at her in surprise. "You've been inside?"
Gorna Dail laughed. "Long ago -- and only for
a semester. I was a Visiting Expert, so they gave me an apartment
on -- Three? -- no, I'm wrong. Topthree. It was
well enough. By the standards of fourth-class ship quarters, it
was spacious. But I remember those walls, and the floors -- all
white and slick. Easy to clean and to sanitize, I suppose, but
not very restful." She glanced at Theo. "In my opinion, of
course."
"Not only that," Theo said feelingly, "you can hardly stand up without your feet sliding out from under you!"
"Yes," said Gorna Dail placidly. "I remember
that, too." She stroked the rug on Theo's lap again, frowning
slightly, and reached out, running an expert thumb down the side of the
stack.
"You were a Visiting Expert?" Theo asked, diverted.
"Oh, yes. Years and years ago. Before
you were born, I daresay. It's what I did, in those days, to make
a name for myself. You won't believe me, maybe, but I have two
master certifications, from University itself."
Theo looked at her, but the older woman's attention
was on the rugs. "But," she blurted, "what are you doing in Nonac
-- in Efraim?"
That got her a sideways smile.
"Hah. I forgot that ... Non-academic!
Everyone who is not studying or teaching is non-academic! You
think I should be living inside the Wall?" She shook her
head. "I'm retired, now."
"Then," Theo said. "Why are you on Delgado?"
Gorna Dail laughed. "Because, after all my
traveling, I wanted to settle on a nice, quiet, boring little world,
where nothing of note ever happens. And Delgado certainly is
that. Ah." She slid her hand into the pile of rugs, and
pushed them up. "Pull out that green one and tell me what you
think of it."
Theo grabbed the rug indicated, and pulled. It
was heavier than she had expected, with a sheen to the mixed blues and
greens that reminded her of water.
"Betinwool and silk," Gorna Dail murmured.
"It's used, but whoever owned it before me took care of it. It
could pass for new."
"New --" Theo snorted as she flipped the
edge of the rug up and looked at the knots on the underside. "The
new rugs at the co-op are all made out of plaslin."
"And you won't have that, eh?" Gorna Dail
smiled again. "I don't blame you in the least, Theo
Waitley. Now, tell me honestly -- what do you think of this rug?"
Theo ran her hand over it, pleased with the way the
nap silked along her skin, and smiled at the swirling blues and
greens. It would almost, she thought, be like having her water
mosaic again.
"I like it," she said to Gorna Dail.
"Good. Now, let's talk price."
"All right," Theo said steadily. "How much is it?"
Gorna Dail laughed, and sat back on her heels. "No dickering here, I see!"
Theo looked down, cheeks hot. "I don't know
what you mean," she said, her voice sounding sullen in her own ears.
"A joke, Theo Waitley," the shopkeeper said
placatingly. "Only a joke. On many worlds, in many cities,
a price is...mutable. It changes with the weather, the time of
the day, the demeanor of the buyer, the mood of the shopkeeper.
It is not an entertainment of which Delgado partakes, more's the
pity. So, for you, the price on the rug is forty cred."
Theo licked her lips, and ran her hand over the rug
again, which was a mistake, because it only made her want it more.
"I can't spend that much today," she said, and
looked up into the woman's face. "Could you -- I can pay
twenty-four cred today, if you can put it aside for me? And
tomorrow -- well, no, not tomorrow," she corrected herself. "I've
got teamplay after class. But, I'll bring the rest the day after
tomorrow for sure."
Gorna Dail tipped her head. "And carry the rug home on the bus?"
Theo paused, then smiled. "I'll take a cab."
"Excellent," the old woman said, "but I think I may have a better solution, if you'll allow me."
"I'd be glad to learn," Theo said politely, and wondered why Gorna Dail chuckled.
"I propose this: I will charge your card for
the full amount --" Theo opened her mouth -- and subsided when
the shopkeeper held up a hand. "Wait until you've heard it
all. What I propose is charging your card for the full amount, tomorrow."
Theo blinked. "Can you do that?"
"Easily," the woman assured her. "Also,
because you're such an accommodating customer, I'll throw in a pack of
grippers, so your rug won't slide all over that slick floor, and --" She paused and smiled at Theo. "And I'll have them and this rug delivered to you tomorrow evening, after teamplay."
"Really?"
"Really. All you need do is swipe your card
and give me your direction. Will that suit you, Theo Waitley?"
"It will!" Theo smiled, relieved. "Thank you!"
"My pleasure, child," Gorna Dail huffed as she pushed to her feet. "My pleasure."
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Base page created December 1, 2006 by Sharon Lee
Chapter updated February 26, 2007
technical revision posted February26, 2007
Update March 15, 2008, 12:34 p.m. EDT
copyright © 2006-2007 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
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