“You will walk with us, and not lead us, if you please.”
    Theo stuffed her laugh and waited for them to catch up. Certainly she knew which way they'd come...but she had started off quickly, glad to be getting back to the group.
    They did not turn for the left right left sequence she expected, which put her off speed and she found herself trailing rather than leading. She caught up, incensed that the return-to-start technique she'd perfected on the ship wasn't going to work this time. Rather than three elevators they took steps down, up, down again. Rather than long hallways they favored short. The halls here were numbered and lettered, and some had other symbols which she...
    “You need not leave breadcrumbs, pilot,” said the leader, “for surely you'll have no need, and certainly no desire, to return to my office. One is best served by following, which is a rule well known on Melchiza!”
    Theo considered that, found her hands begin to answer, and suppressed that urge. No need to talk hand-talk where this one would have one more reason to doubt her status as simple student...
    The walk continued, and she wondered if she'd misjudged the speed and lift of the elevators, something she rarely did.  The walk was also at quite a good pace, making her glad that she'd not been to spend all of her time cooped up in her stateroom on ship the way Hafley had. She was event gladder as they turned a sudden corner and hurried down a set of half-height stairs that she'd taken the opportunity to continue in the station's staff menfria't sessions even after her patron there, Win Ton, had changed schedules.  She wasn't going to see her look tired out from a little walking...
    Unexpectedly they arrived at a surface level street, and crossed briefly into the daylight. The air was calm and not too cold; she looked around...
    The leader slowed down to match her pace, and with a little hand-motion indicating attention he began to speak, quietly, and not exactly at her.
    “As you walk with me, please do not spend your time seeking locations of sensors or cameras. If your progress becomes noted by another branch, division, or office, they too may wish to interview you, and may not be as gentle or as convinced. Simply follow.”
    She flipped the  I comply  unthinkingly. If he noticed, he said nothing, and then
they turned down an unmarked flight of stairs, and she needed to hurry.
   
    The guards delivered her not to the treasure room but to the hotel; and her entrance there caused not a little concern, with the day-manager regarding the approaching vanguard with a look of some concern, which apparently deepened as they paused at the desk, perforce requiring several passersby to step aside.
    “It is of no consequence,” her interviewer told the manager; “your young traveler has merely become separated  from her group and rather than attempting match schedules and locations in transit, it seemed best to return her to her lodgings directly.”Why it might take four armed guards to deliver one young traveler was a question left unasked.    
    The manager nodded in what might be agreement, or might simply have been acknowledging being spoken to.
    Theo noticed how carefully the others in the lobby area – including those casually swept aside by their entrance -- were not to notice, and not to stare.
    “Have you your key to hand, Theo Waitely?”
    Theo glanced up at his face to make sure he wasn't mocking her; but his his eyes betrayed no mirth and his  outreached hand was steady.
    He nodded, took the key, with the wide yellow band and check-in date in green, and handed it to the manager.
    “This is a Priority C; please issue the same room as a Priority  B.  Meanwhile,” here he pulled out a sheaf of keys, “you may hold this one this one – let me sign, and these others remain with me.”
    Theo watched intently as keys were shuffled; the ones he held had yellow bands and their familiar arrival date. Theo's mouth lips squinched together, so it was her hands that said how obvious?
    The manager turned, and did something below the top of the counter, then held out a key. The guard motioned for Theo to take it directly. 
    She did, and though the check-in date was the same the band at the end of it was now a bright green.
    Her guard did something with his mouth that was almost a smile, and then made a hand motion toward her.
    “There. This key will open your room as well as the hotel doors at all hours; feel free to walk within several blocks, perhaps as many as four within any direction, there is a nice park within range -- for your exercise. If anyone official requests your ID please hand them the key along with the ID.  Beyond that range, go only in the company of your group – but you are not to become involved again in the research and should not go there.  Have you understood?”
    She clenched her fist against the budding yes and nodded.
    He shook his head.
    “I am recording, please answer verbally.”
    Theo nodded but managed to get the words out at the same time.
    “Yes, I have heard you. I am permitted to walk locally by myself. Beyond that range I may travel only in my group.”
    “Excellent pilot. I'm sure you will do well. Enjoy your stay on Melchiza. And do not forget to eat lunch, you mother will be concerned for you.”
    Theo grimaced and began a retort that was cut off by what she thought must be an official salute.
    To an unseen command all four of the guards turned heels and marched out, leaving Theo standing with her key in hand.
    The manager, no longer facing the uniforms, smiled mechanically at Theo.
    “Lunch is served in the Quiet Dining Room, pilot.”
                        * *
    She felt like she was vibrating so hard she couldn't possibly be hungry, but she knew she urgently needed to be doing something. Following the wave of the manager's hand she discovered the Quiet Dining Room was not the one they'd been eating in.  They'd been eating in the room with the --
    Yellow Doors. The Minor Dining Room.
    The doors to this room were green, a green that matched her card. She'd still been putting that card away when she entered and the attendant, seeing it, ushered her to a table  set austerely on the polished stone floor, but with flowers, toward the back of the room. There were several other tables with patrons, but well away.
    She took the proffered chair and the menu but almost as soon as her guide left she stood and stretched, straight out of dance class, to damp the energy she felt. Resolved to act as if all was normal, she stretched once more and noticed across the room a pair of men, one of whom flashed a good flight, query in her direction...
    She continued her turn and re-sat as if she'd not seen the motion, and felt herself redden as she'd read the motion the man executed to his companion, which looked very much like  fun all night party that, yes query.  Perhaps it was the stretch-released tension, or maybe it was what he'd said. Their laughter drifted lightly to her.
    How long, she thought to herself, have people been talking around you – maybe even about you? Without you noticing?
    She flushed for certain this time, and hurriedly opened the menu.  She really shouldn't have stretched like that.  There, she'd make an advertent note not to mislead people, or be center of attention.  Hafley hated it, after all, and her Mentor had thought it wrong, and the safeties...
    Threatening to vibrate again, she actually looked at the menu.
    This restaurant's offerings  were more plentiful, and the prices –  were perhaps lower.
    Something grabbed her attention from across the room – the sound of chairs scraping? The motion?
    Perhaps the noise was on purpose, because both of them watched her and one half-bowed as the other signed, in very large and exaggerated fashion Good lift, night dream mine before the other echoed him. She barely held her hands from replying, rapidly looking down as their laughter echoed.  Suppose they insisted on talking to her?
    She half peeked above the menu... but there, they walked like pilots, quietly, smoothly and with an admirable elegance and ... she blushed.
    Pilots! She sighed, momentarily prepared to forget about pilots, but there on the menu were several of Win Ton's avowed favorites.       
    An attentive young man in a uniform served her; he wore a small shield on his arm that mimicked the official shields of the guards, but was in green. He remarked on her choices of entree and desert as some of the the house specialties, and offered her wine, which she declined.
    Feeling much better after the meal, she attempted to pay, card and cash in hand...
    “No, pilot, you may not.  The gentlemen who left, the pilots, they paid for you.”
    She managed a thank you, and a smile, and then left noiseless on the stone floor.
    Vibrating again, she stormed toward her room. At least they hadn't called her sweet mystery!   

    He knew it was not seemly, perhaps, for Professor Jen Sar Kiladi to be seen quite so much in the company of a student not yet matriculated; on the other hand since that student was in the company of another faculty member – and one who happened to be her mother – it was not surprising.    
    If anyone commented that Kiladi  had been seen at breakfast with the pair every other day of late, the comments had not reached epic proportion, and none had commented to him.
    If any wondered publicly, well yes, of course they did, for  Roni's attention was overt, if not pandering. Who could blame a man, after all when ... ... well, there were plenty of options available to a man recently turned from onagrata, were there not? 
    Things were very ready.
    “Roni, another round, please? And perhaps some of the patties as well, if they're moist and hot!”
    Mason touched the now empty maize button plate while Roni was still ingesting the last of the first round of buttons. Having managed to quite coat the thing in soft-cheese, her answer came out muffled, but she rose with alacrity and a display of thigh that was quite adept for one so young.
    Jen Sar, for his part, managed not to raise his eyebrow at the girl or her mother, and though following Roni's paces several moments for the sake of verisimilitude he leaned toward Mason with a conspiratorial haste.
    “Excellent,” he said, making a show of pulling his eyes away from the daughter's progress, “Lystra, I think it is nearly time to insure that your contacts in the library are secure. Understand that ...”
    He paused while she choked on her drink.
    “Library?” she muttered, a little defensively.
    “Oh,” he said dismissively.  “Of course, library!  Please, Lystra, you must understand that the change in rank is already proceeding.  You will need to inform your contact in the library that, given the fact of the trip in progress, library records all the way back to the start of Hafley's term are sure to be studied...”
    Jen Sar knew this to be a fact, having surreptitiously pulled those records himself and then setting Ella on the same task through channels, a task confirmed as finished just before he'd started toward the dining hall.
    “But they won't...”
    “Of course they will! And we know what they will find, don't we?  The department allowing certain faculty to go over-budget in some areas of ordering, the department chair being interested in the concerns of certain faculty that out-of-date editions were being maintained as prime resources .... just the kind of thing a chair might intervene in once in awhile.”
    “But that would show my...”
    Jen Sar tapped on the head of his can, in its accustomed place beside him on the table.
    “Lystra, show what? You have had simple requests. Your budget, I know, barely over. But Hafley's favorite, her advisee, her friend – she who is now gone from us in disgrace – why she surely had multiple over-rides, and just as surely actively requiring extra back-ups and restores of files from her personally annotated records.”
    He smiled.
    “You, Lystra, will be demonstrated to be an advertent scholar. Your contact can make sure that the offending records are more easily found.  You must insist. That will make it a simple search after all, and avoid complexity.”
    She looked at him with determination.
    “Yes, I see your point. The committee will return soon and it would be best to have Hafley done as soon as she returns!”
    He grinned and nodded. “Yes, a simple plan!”
    She nodded with him a moment, then swept a glance about the hall. Roni was stopped at a table barely away from the counter.
    “This other issue, Jen Sar,” she said with import.  “Roni, she is young and full of energy.  One might say she is very... impatient to commit to her gigneri.  If you have interest in that direction...”
    “Ah, an eager mother.”  He said it lightly, and slowly stroked the top of the cane as if thinking about his reply.
    “Do you know, I would think the best impact for such an announcement, such an interesting announcement for all concerned ... would be one that would coincide with the return of the committee.  Think of how simple that would be, and how people would understand exactly what had occurred in the department.”
    Mason bit her lip lightly, as if gathering an argument. Could she be preparing to offer a  sample to whet his appetite?
    “Lystra, truly. A Gigneri here in the Wall is usually announced in the classroom and to the net at the same time. Would you take the opportunity for Roni to share that with all of her classmates away? Could that not wait until young Waitley is returned to the fold?”
    Her eyes lit up and she nodded. For his part, he looked toward the approaching Roni as if savoring the sight.
    “We will do it this way,” Jen Sar said. “And I, for one, will be pleased. When you are confirmed chair, then you and Roni shall announce your decision on gigneri!”   


         Running note from the authors:
    This one's a tough spot – we have two mutually exclusive ways to go with the next chapter and the decision isn't clear yet.  One precludes the other time-wise,  both offer opportunity for insight which we need later in the book (or later), and both have connections to previously installed hooks in other books and stories, which need to be connected at some point. Gah! Off planet RSN, yes!

    Meanwhile perhaps an alternate ending for the restaurant scene:
        She managed a thank you, and a smile, and then left, shoes noiseless on the stone floor.

    Needed next editorial go round : more sound in-world on Melchiza