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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 Six
"So, then," Kamele Waitley said, with a calm authority she was far from feeling; "we're agreed."
She looked carefully around the table at her
colleagues, who had not seen the need, who had not wanted to spend the
money -- and who she had one by tedious one brought to her side.
She wished that it had been finesse or gamesmanship, or anything other
than brute will that had accomplished it. If she had come
back to the Wall sooner or, failing that, taken the time to strengthen
her ties inside the department -- but she had come late, and reluctant,
and the thing had to be dealt with now. If word got out
that the Educational History Department at Delgado University failed to
pursue an investigation after one of their own professors had been
dismissed for falsifying data... They would lose students,
funding, and perhaps their accreditation...
"It appears we are agreed. An in situ
forensic literature search," Mase Toilyn said quietly from half-way
'round the table. "In order to be certain that the two instances
of dishonest scholarship of which we have become aware are, as we
believe, the only such instances."
"It's expensive," Jon Fu said, which had been his
constant objection throughout the meeting. This time the note of
complaint might have given way to one of resignation.
"Expensive, yes, but prudent," Ella ben Suzan,
Kamele's oldest friend and her only ally at the table, concluded firmly.
"...prudent," EdHist Chair Orkan Hafley repeated, and sighed, her hands aflutter over her note-taker.
"Yes," she said, finally, frowning down the table at
Kamele. "Yes, sub-chair, we're agreed that it's our duty to
husband the reputation of the college and its scholars. What we
haven't agreed upon is which of the numerous protocols should be
implemented, or, indeed, who should do the work. Perhaps," she
finished, with heavy irony, "you have a suggestion."
Kamele forced herself to meet that frown and counter it with a smile.
"But remember that the Emeritus Oversight Committee
was formed for this very purpose!" she said with false
cheerfulness. "We'll apply to them for dispassionate searchers."
"Well," Orkan sniffed. "And the protocol?"
Kamele reached to the notepad, fingers dancing over
the lightkeys. Three blue links hovered inside the Group Space at
the center of the table.
"Please," she said, looking 'round at her four
colleagues once more, "everyone contribute three links concerning your
favored protocol."
Fingers moved; a set of yellow links joined the blue, and a moment after, green, red, violet...
Kamele nodded. "Now, if we do a
branch-search," she tapped the command into the notepad, and watched
with satisfaction as the trees formed and connected, closer and closer,
until, at base...
"As you can see," she said, keeping her voice
pleasant and calm. "Each of our favored implementations has at
root the Antonio Smith Method. That being so, I would suggest
that the basic Smith method, which has not only been proved in rigorous
field conditions, but has also birthed so many daughters, is best
suited to our purpose."
There was some discussion of the suggestion, of
course, though briefer than it might otherwise have been. She'd
injected the possibility -- nay, the probability! -- that their own
search and approach might eventually be adopted as an official protocol
for Delgado, and with the calculating looks brought into some eyes and
faces came a certain willingness to move at long last from talk, to
action. When the chair finally adjourned the meeting, the
responsibility for contacting the Oversight Committee rested
satisfactorily in the hands of Ella ben Suzan.
"I think you handled that very well," Ella said as
the door to Kamele's office closed behind them. She stretched hugely
before collapsing dramatically into the visitor's chair, her head
against the back and her eyes half-closed. "And you were afraid
you'd lost your touch."
"I have lost my touch," Kamele said, casting
a half-amused glance at her friend. "Honestly, Ella, you should
have become a professional actor."
"And been disowned? No thank you. I like
my comfort -- now as much as then. Besides, hadn't my best friend
already set aside childish pursuits to aim for a more realistic goal?"
Kamele sat down behind her desk and tapped her mumu
on without looking at it. "With my mother's...strong
encouragement."
"Mothers exist to guide their daughters," Ella
murmured. "I'm quite content with the amateur troupe." She
opened her eyes and squirmed into a more upright position.
"But enough of youthful reminisces! This
evening you not only manipulated a consensus for the best course, but
you got Hafley into a corner, so she had to back you or risk an open
divide within the department, which she can ill afford. All of
that, and you still insist that you've lost your touch?"
Kamele sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I
was clumsy," she said. "If I didn't push them, I certainly drove
them, and you're not the only one who saw the manipulation. Depend
on it -- Hafley saw what I was doing, and she'll find a way to make me
rue it. Having me shoved in as sub-chair over her candidate --"
"And wouldn't Jon Fu have made a wonderful sub-chair," Ella interrupted. "Yes, Chair. Of course,
Chair!" Her voice had gone all wobbly and unctuous. "The
wisdom of a thousand grandmothers could not teach us better than you
do, Chair."
"Stop!" Kamele laughed. She raised a
hand. "Stop -- it's too perfect! His own mother would be
deceived."
"Or she would pretend to be, so she could be rid of
a bad job," Ella said darkly, then waved. "Hafley's light was
fading even before Flandin's perfidy was discovered. The
Directors won't be long in replacing her," she said, and grinned one of
her wide, lunatic grins. "Kamele Waitley, EdHist Chair."
Kamele snorted. "Not likely."
"Nothing more likely," her friend retorted. "You'll see -- and I expect my sabbatical to be quickly approved when you're made Chair."
Kamele considered her. "Sabbatical?
Isn't that out of sequence? In any case, it's my plan to name you
sub-chair if your prescience is proven."
Ella shook her head in mock sorrow. "How many times do I have to tell you, love: First the sugar, then the rod."
"Yet you find hard work sweet."
"You know me too well." Ella said with a fond
smile, that slowly faded. "Speaking of hard work -- how's Theo
taking the... move?"
"She'll adjust," Kamele answered, surprised at the grimness of her own voice.
Ella laughed slightly. "Spoken like a loving and vigilant mother! And you?"
"I?"
"Don't be dense, darling."
Kamele glanced down and fiddled with her mumu for a
moment. "I don't anticipate any problem readjusting to the
Wall. I grew up a Mouse, after all."
"As we both did." Ella stood. "Well, you
know where I am -- not as high on the Quad as you, of course,
sub-chair!"
She walked around the desk and bent down to give
Kamele a quick kiss on the cheek. "I have rehearsal," she
murmured. "You're not working tonight, I hope?"
Kamele shook her head. "Theo's home alone."
"Oh." Ella looked serious. "Well...."
"Ella..." Kamele said warningly.
Her friend raised her hands placatingly. "I
know, I know! She's just a bit clumsy. It's a stage.
She'll grow out of it. If she doesn't do herself or someone else
a serious injury beforehand."
"She'll be fine," Kamele said firmly.
Ella took refuge in a laugh, spun lightly on her toes and headed for the door.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Kamele."
The office door closed behind her and Kamele sank further into her chair, reaching up to rub her eyes.
Chaos and disorder, but she was tired! She'd
crammed a week's worth of meeting prep into a working lunch and tea,
and another week's worth of people-prep into odd moments before the
meeting itself. And the work here was only begun.
And then there was Theo. The child was nervy
at the best of times, and she'd made it plain that the relocation had
neither her approval or her support. Kamele sighed. Depend
on it, had it been Jen Sar who had proposed they move to apartments in
the Wall, Theo would have been brought over in a moment, glowing with
excitement and eager to help in any way she could.
Setting aside the fact that Jen Sar could charm
wisdom from a Simple when he chose to, Theo adored him -- a state of
affairs that should have been addressed some time back. She
had, Kamele admitted to herself, shirked her maternal duty. Theo
was odd enough without developing socially awkward attachments, and her
mother should have put Professor Kiladi into perspective for her long
ago. It was going to be bad enough after her Gigneri --
"Which is borrowing trouble," Kamele said
aloud. The earliest possible date for Theo's Gigneri was more
than six months away. So much could happen in six months, when
you were fourteen.
And when you were forty-three.
Her mumu chimed eight bells four. She'd told
Theo she'd be home before ninebells. If she didn't leave soon,
she'd have broken her word.
She reached for the mumu -- and only then saw the Safety Office icon blinking ominously from the inbox.
Her heart lurched. Gasping, she tapped the message open.
It was not, as she had foolishly feared, a note
calling her to the infirmary or the hospital on her daughter's behalf
-- that was clear from her first hasty scan.
Her second, calmer, reading revealed that the letter
was a Parental Advisory. Theo had taken a fall on the belt
between classes -- and this time, she'd pulled another student down
with her.
Kamele closed her eyes, recited the Delgado Senior Scholar's Pledge, and read the advisory a third time.
It would seem that Theo's victim was Lesset
Grinmordi. Kamele grimaced; as thin as Theo's friend-loop was she
could hardly afford to lose one; even a flutter-head like...
Kamele sighed and looked back to her mumu. The report stressed
that there had been no aggression involved, but was rather an accident,
born of a lapse of judgment.
That much, Kamele thought, was a continuing positive
point in her daughter's behavioral record. Whatever
else Theo was -- odd, clumsy, brilliant, sullen -- she wasn't
aggressive.
The Safety Office recommended that Kamele review
Theo's physical limitations with her again. It further
recommended that the two of them contact the infirmary for an overview
of the various medications -- all perfectly safe! -- that might be
expected to alleviate those same physical limitations.
"Physical limitations..." Kamele muttered. Jen Sar would have one of his mannerly fits if --
But Jen Sar wouldn't know, she recalled. He
was out of the loop; the courtesies paid to the Housefather no longer
his due.
Which didn't make the prospect of reviewing Theo's
physical limitations with her any more appealing. And she would
see the university in ashes before she drugged her daughter to make her
orderly -- perfectly safe, or not.
For a moment she closed her eyes, seeking a restful
pattern and only seeing the slow twirling of a receding star
field. Her sigh was loud enough to startle her eyes open. It
would be easier if she knew she still had the luxury of the occasional
casual glass of wine and exchange of small gossip with Jen Sar. The
very fact that she shouldn't share the details of Theo's growing pains seemed to make them harder for her to take as well.
Well, there, the luxury of respite would not be hers, and there was work to be done.
Kamele touched the mumu's screen, filing the
advisory. The next letter in-queue was from Marjene Kant, Theo's
mentor. Kamele sighed and tapped it open.
Marjene reported that she had arranged to chat with
Theo tomorrow after her teamplay. She appended the Safety Office
report of Theo and Lesset's fall on the belt, and added her own
commentary:
While it is not my intention to second-guess a
mother's arrangements for her minor daughter, I cannot help but feel
that this unfortunate incident would not have occurred if you had
allowed me to prepare Theo for the upcoming alteration in her living
arrangements. It's clear to me that her physical challenges are
exacerbated by stress...
Kamele touched the screen slightly harder than was strictly necessary, filing Marjene's letter away.
The last note was from Theo. It stated, very
briefly, that she had gone out to buy a rug for her room, and expected
to be back at the apartment well before ninebells.
Kamele closed her eyes. A rug.
On one hand, a mother in receipt of a message not
respectfully seeking permission to buy a rug, but informing her of the
act, might -- ought! -- to be ...annoyed.
And yet, on the other hand, she could scarcely blame
the child. Theo had grown up in a sensation-rich
environment; Wall quarters must appear...stark and inhospitable to
her. In fact, she admitted, their new apartment seemed a bit
comfortless to her, who had been a Mouse for her first thirty years.
"Life would have been much simpler," she said to the
empty office, "if I hadn't gone to the dean's reception."
But that was nonsense. She had gone to the reception, all those years ago; she had
met Jen Sar Kiladi, then newly come to Delgado to take the Gallowglass
Chair, been fascinated by him, and eventually accepted him as
onagrata.
And the fact was -- the truth was -- that her
life would have been simpler, yes, and also much poorer. Leaving
aside the mental, and physical, stimulation that came with his
companionship, Jen Sar was a good friend -- to her, and to Theo.
The years she had spent in his company had been neither wasted nor
extravagant.
Her mumu chimed again, warning her of the approach
of ninebells. She stood, slid the device away into its pocket,
turned off the lights and headed for home.
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Fledgling in serialized format is a draft. This
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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 March 5, 2007
technical revision posted April 7, 2007
Update March 15, 2008, 12:23 p.m. EDT
copyright © 2006-2007 by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
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