Theo read the text-note for just the second time today. She'd answered it, of course, but lacked a reply, these many shifts gone.

    Dear Sweet Mystery,
    It appears circumstances and opportunities conspire to place us on opposing schedules. It is just as well; your destination shows it to nearly share the ship's schedule you are familiar with, which is probably not an accident. My new schedule will put me in sync with the shift schedules expectable when we arrive to retrieve the waiting ship.  Accident or not, this change also puts within grasp one of my goals, which has been to be Officer in Charge of a ship so large there need be a lost-and-found not only for objects but for persons.
    “Do not fear! My Captain promises me I will be Officer In Charge for no more than a dozen beats at mid-shift while back-up pilots change seats and test boards; I feel it likely if they know I am the one sitting oversight the changeover will happen in three beats!”
    “I intend to see you before our orbits diverge; you have helped make what might have been an ordinary transit into a memorable passage indeed.
    “I remain your humble servant, and your friend,
    Pilot and Scout Trainee Win Ton yo'Vala

    Reluctantly, she pulled the mem-stick from the stateroom's coneck and tapped random reload. One of the really stupid “How to behave on Melchiza” thingies popped up on the vid, with the grating “Remember, anyone with a blue shirt or a blue arm band may require you to halt, state your business, produce your ID, and prove you have sufficient credits in the form of cash sufficient to eat for three days.  You may not carry another adult person's ID for them and cash on your person will not be considered as available to another member of your party.  Public displays of affection on Melchiza are forbidden, with detention and fines certain for all infractions. All public areas are subject to monitoring by camera, radar, and visual inspectors;  infractions will be dealt with as discovered.”
    “Yah, yah, yah...” she said at the screen, wondering if she could write a new mercial for them. Certainly she knew the key points: don't touch anything or anyone, don't be where you aren't supposed to be, always listen to anything blue, and always be a target for roving bands of youth by carrying cash. Also, she couldn't wear some of the clothes she'd brought because they were blue, and blue was reserved....
    Kamele had returned with news of the Win Ton's change-over and required her to search out the “Tips for Travelers” channel, so she'd heard a half dozen of the warnings then, and now it seemed the closer she got, the more they filled the screen.
    She turned her back on the vid, busy enough not to need to write the mercial, really, and unwilling to fiddle with stuff anymore. She blushed at recalling Kamele returning to the stateroom to find her trying to tune the coneck's text-reader to sound like Win Ton, which it would simply not do. 
    The thing was, she was packing as Kamele suggested, leaving but the last day's clothes and necessities out. It was amazing how much stuff she'd managed to bring when she'd felt like she hadn't brought anything... but there, it was almost time for her to leave for her last lesson with The Captain. 
    She took the mem-stick and resolutely tucked it into the packed for landing bag. If she really need to see the note again she could key it herself, after all.

   
    Kamele glared at Crowley, then sighed. Hafley tittered unkindly, nodding with her usual overemphasis.  The others hung back, not sure what to say.
    “Perhaps you might rephrase that,” Kamele suggested gently, “so a mother might answer.”
    Crowley's smile passed quickly, and he waved hands in placation.
    “Yes, yes, I know. Many years have passed since the direct care of a child was any of my concern. I was not attempting to impugn your daughter or her motives. Still, it seems that we were to some extent misled about the study condition's we'll be facing and your daughter's recent freedom to come and go as she pleases will surely be curtailed on Melchiza. For that matter, I gather we'll all not be as pleased with the arrangements as we would like.  Melchiza sounds like the Wall writ large and nasty...”
    “Yes,” Kamele agreed, “it does appear that we'll be working under some constraints.  I'm not sure that Theo's ability to make friends ought, however, to be considered as a downside.”
    “Fraternization is clearly looked at askance, my dear Kamele!”
    Trust Hafley, thought Kamele acidly.
    “Short of dumping Theo on her own on Melchiza Station for the duration, or perhaps entering her as a member of the Visitor's League, I see nothing for it. Theo will be with us.”
    Halfey energetically enlarged on her concerns:
    “Yes, but Theo does have a tendency to stand out.  No matter if it's dance contests on ship, or knocking innocents over on a slideway, or being involved in rowdyism in class...”
    Kamele briefly closed her eyes, managing to bite her lip firmly enough not to issue the intended utterance that “rowdyism may well run in the family, after all...”
    Deftly into the breech stepped Crowley.
    “Indeed, indeed!  A young person of energy and wit will always flirt with a boundary or two – this is what helps set apart the achieving scholar from the ordinary student, after all. And have we not all been improved by the attention of the young pilot and his Captain, after all.  A youth of accomplishment – and if Theo were able on Melchiza to be among such exemplars we would all be improved again...”
    Here he waved voluminously.
    “However, the good Captain was quite right about the changes in the social order on planet, as we were able to ferret out even before the damned annoying announcements were issued by the ship.  And Theo's decided ability to stand out is exactly the kind of issue we wish not have distracting us as we work.”
    Kamele began to raise a hand in gesture to preface her ...
    “No, you needn't defend your daughter,” he ran on “who will provide us with the perfect way to be scholars and investigators. Recall that scholarship without teaching or dissemination is fraught with the danger of hubris.  Thus, we shall be prepared to schedule a full course – indeed an overfull course! -- that she may learn, that we may be saved from our own surety, and that our observers will have no reason to rush at us with blue banners!”
    “Debate team, or perhaps rhetoric class?” Kamele suggested when he was finally quiet.
    “Yes, I'm afraid so”, he admitted with a wry smile “and I've hardly recovered to this day.  I took a first for a scholarship, in fact.  But that was seventy standards ago.”
    “Idle hands,” Kamele said, regretting it immediately. That was one of Jen Sar's often ironic sayings, and she was sorely wishing she had his counsel at the moment...”
    Crowley got the reference if no one else did.
    “That's it exactly. If none of us are idle, then all of us will be productive.”


    The whole ship seemed crowded and busy, and Theo felt under-dressed with so many people in finery. She knew the Visitors were having a part for one of their many reasons to party, but this seemed to infect so many... of course! The ship would make port tomorrow, so tonight would be goodbye for many people.
    The little cafe was crowded with merrymakers and she almost couldn't see the back table she'd come to think of as her special spot... but there, behind the loudest part of the  crowd, was  Cho,  already seated.
    She approached the table carefully around the busy people, reading hand-motion as best she could.
    Food appears rapidly, fine usual welcome, was the smooth response, as near as Theo caught it, table held against noise rushers; good crew recalls schedule ours! Sit faster do!
    It took a very quick hand and a little bit of attitude to hold the chair against someone bent on spiriting it away; he looked as if he'd argue but Theo felt herself step into the first pose of the dance Win Ton had showed her more of... and the other hand slipped away from the chair and went to a sweaty forehead along with a fast nod and some sound that might have been “Forgive!” 
    Cho smiled widely and motioned something Theo couldn't quite read. She felt like she had the emphasis and  mood ... but...
    A loud clapping broke out behind her as she sat, and a large person with a large bottle in her hand and a crowning blob of yellow hair on her head waved the crowd quiet...
    “Four down and only fifteen more bars to hit before Melchiza! Next is Deck Five's Low End Night Shift that is opening... right now! Allie Allie In Free!”
    There were cheers and hoots and hugs all about, with the pair barely avoiding being swept along as fully three quarters of the cafe emptied in one fell swoop,
    Theo's voice said “Geesh!” while her hands indicated Batch bad noise bad connected head computers, gone is good...
    Moment, came the response, two pilots leave also look.
    Theo glanced up, saw the pair, one with a leather jacket on and one without, mumbling at each other by hand as they reluctantly followed the crowd...
    Big plan better do us us need good long something double roll talky bright skin.
    The others reply was was hidden by their movement, but Theo heard Cho snicker.
    Theo's hands formed query?
    Making sure the pilots were gone Cho started to form something that looked like out-duty shop talk but the rest of the information was squashed into meaningless motion as the Liaden put up a palm for stop-talk when the snacks arrived.
    And what snacks! Not just the ordinary tea-and-biscuits, this time there was a choice of small breads and some cheese and ...
    No alarm – (smooth face!) budget mine!
    Theo shrugged her shoulders and indicated Your course, Captain before digging into the soft cheese with a will.

    “And so,” said Cho suddenly, pulling Theo's eyes away from the slender man balancing five cups and a package of pastry --
    “What have we learned, my student?  Aside from the fact that one cannot read hand-talk while in full admiration of a view?”
    Cho had her hands wrapped comfortably around her cup so Theo suppressed her urge to use fingers and spoke around what was probably a sheepish grin.
    “A question, Captain. That man's a pilot, isn't he?  It seems there are a lot of pilots out tonight...”
    Cho glanced casually at the departing figure, her eyes narrowing a moment in calculation.
    “Indeed,” she said finally, “he may well be. But what makes you ask? He wears no jump-jacket, he...”
    Theo shrugged briefly, sipped a drink, weighed her words as well as her pastry.
    “I think I see pilots, if that's not silly.”
    “Oh, indeed? Who beside myself ...”
    “Not right now... now that that one's gone. But I can look at people walking, or sometimes even standing, and you know, just tell they're pilots. Now that I know what I'm seeing – Win Ton has it, you do, the man who left now... the pilots chasing the the party... the pilots I played bowli ball with.”
    “Hah!” said Cho, taking a sip.
    “It may well be in your training to see such. Some have eyes that see more than others, after all...”
    “But I never could before... or maybe I didn't know to look!”
    Cho smiled lightly, taking another sip.
    “It may well be that you have very few pilots among your classmates, after all... and Delgado is perhaps not the best place to see pilots on each walkway...”
    Theo took a bite of the pastry she'd been waving about about, pleased with the light fruity undertones.
    “I suppose most teachers are not pilots,” she agreed, “and there's no piloting school on Delgado – is there?”
    This last she said with a sudden rush of hope. She did like pilots after all, it seemed, and it would be good to meet others, even if they were not Win Ton or Cho...
    Cho used the Terran shake of head and followed it up with the hand motion not! before she too pulled another pastry from the plate. She held the pastry though, and used it to emphasize as she spoke.
    “Pilots are very often to be found on spaceships, or space stations, or on port, and not as often to be found among those in pursuit of mundane lives.  It does happen of course...
which makes me think of a thing I have for you.”
    The pastry left beside the tea, Cho reached into a slip pocket on her belt, briefly flashing a creamy card.
    “This, actually, is for you and also for the pilot who trained you. If you will hand deliver this to that pilot... I would be appreciative.”
    Theo took the paper-like card with curiosity, and bit of bewilderment. The front held the seal of the Liaden Scouts, which she recognized, and was written elsewise in Liaden. On the back, in Terran transliteration, was neat lettering:
    Captain Cho sig Radia, Piloting Liaison
    That was followed by a a series of letters and numbers.
    “My address with the Scouts is there, my friend, but also... the pilot will know.”
    “But youare the pilot who trained me, or maybe Win Ton. I have not been in the company of pilots!”
    Cho sighed at her, hands fluttering something she couldn't read.
    “I don't know that one.  Hand talk is ... good, but you can't say everything in it, can you?”
    Cho smiled. “Perhaps it is just as well.. but no, read this if done slowly.”
    The motion was repeated.. and
    The forms were still compressed but it looked like Lack of seeing lack of knowledge Look now!
    The hand motion was smooth, the process clean, reminding her of ... Jen Sar. Maybe it was the Liaden voice, after all, for Jen Sar was Liaden. Jen Sar moved as if he'd danced menfriat, and suggested that she dance, Jen Sar quizzed......
    Theo sat bolt upright, hand to mouth.  There! Jen Sar ready to use his cane against the Simple... Jen Sar, driving the little car at speed... Jen Sar, seeming unsurprised that she'd managed to break curfew. His stretches, his ... his pilot walk!
    Theo bowed, awkwardly, sure she'd got it wrong. But still, who else could it be?
    “My Captain, I will.”
    Cho fluttered her hands.
    “Bah.  I am not your Captain, after all, but Cho who shares hand-talk with you. Now, this other question you ask is urgent.  Hand-talk developed for speed and clarity in ... radical environments.  Call it a survival tool.  Still, pilots are inventive, and there are some who discuss philosophy in it, and those who use it to ..
    “Philosophy?”
    “Why yes.  You may find a translation or transliteration of the Dialogs of The Hospice, where two rescued pilots were for some years among a sect forbidding writing and speech.  After a second rescue, this to a more civilized world, they transcribed their discussions, verbatim as it were.  Do not think that hand-talk is so limited. But of course, the more used among friends, the more it becomes personal.”
    Theo thought about that...
    “So everyone who hand-talks has their own accent?”
    “Yes, that's a good way to see it. Terran pilots have a different accent from Scouts, but we can emergency talk, even if neither knows the other's spoken words.”
    “And this”, said Theo, “this means....?”
    Here she made an effort to repeat the signs Cho had flashed earlier, when Theo had saved the chair from the partier.
    “Ah!”
    Cho repeated the phrase, with overtones of extrafine best ready complete perfection ...
    “That is a phrase mostly of use among Scouts, I think. The phrase out loud is pronounced binjali. Consider it to mean ... well, it can mean ready or excellent or all-set or things are fine and good.
    “So that's a Liaden word? Binjali?” Theo reached for her drink thoughtfully.
    “No,” Cho admitted slowly. “Many Liadens will not know this word, which has only accidentally become a Scout word and thus hand-talk. You might use it better with pilots than Liadens!”
    Theo paused a moment. “Well, earlier you asked what I've learned.”
    She put down her drink and nodded toward Cho in preparation.
    Captain, this spaceship voyage binjali!