“Professor, I believe we have three more for you --” Crowley stood nearby, senior librarian at his side, with a cart loaded with two bound books and a box that contained another one of those flimsily bound diaries Kamele was coming to hate.
    “I'm done for the day.”
    “We'll finish today!” Hafley insisted. “I'll just choose one of these and we can...”
    Kamele pushed herself back from the desk carefully, and turned her face to the the Chair, who went on for a word or two before stumbling to another topic.
    “... just do a quick”, the pause was short, and the continuation, “But of course, if you think your other concerns are that urgent...”
    Kamele looked away, at Crowley, keeping those other concerns below the surface as best she could. Crowley was already gesturing the librarian and cart toward the locker the diary usually resided in
    “We can finish today!” Hafley tried once more.
    Kamele stood, felt the muscles in her legs protest, felt a headache trying to gain her attention, felt her hand begin to fist around her stylus as she tuned to face the woman.
    “Chair, it is the sense of the committee that we cannot 'finish today'. Today has already been quite long enough, don't you think?”
    It was Kamele's turn to gesture, and hers encompassed the room, the librarian and assistants the investigating committee, and the armed guard who was, now that she was up, no longer leaning against the wall insouciantly. It was good that she'd meant it to be broad, for she was sure she was unsteady.   
    “Professor! We have not polled...”
    “It is the sense of the committee, Chair,” Crowley said, and Hafley heard the unsubtle  emphasis as well as she did.
    The chair she'd half considered her prison these hours gone by now was her support as she finished the turn and looked down across the desk with her tidy hand-written notes on paper as well as the recorder that looked so much like Theo's mumu.
    Head high, she turned toward their guide, who was lately returned and disinterested in their conversation...
    “May we leave without visiting the same number of permission desks, friend?”
    The guide, not nearly as alert as the guard, finally realized that she was not looking at a tired scholar but an angry mother. Kamele herself hadn't understood that change was on her, but now that the opportunity to think and react was clearer, she continued “I would like to  see my daughter as soon as possible. Now, in fact!”
   
   
    Kamele recognized that now was not possible this deep within the treasure citadel; still the guide, with some helpful intercession of the guard, who permitted the use of an elevator  the guide's card would not open, managed to have them on the street within sight of the hotel in a remarkably short time.
    This was good, for Hafley's remonstrations with the world about their leaving before they were through had given way to attempts to console Kamele.
    “Oh, Kamele, you poor daughter, I'm sure she must have been as terrified as we were to be threatened like that!”
    The guard glanced at her, and she seemed to understand that the committee was not alone, after all, “but I'm quite sure all is well. Melchiza is a very orderly place, after all.”
    Kamele tried to ignore Hafley and, seeing the hotel, stepped up the pace, nearly running into the guard who'd turned with one of the dance motions...
    He stopped  her with a calm hand motion, allowing Halfley's breathless clatter to overcome the sounds of the street for a moment. 
    “You are delivered to your locale. Recall please that your travel documents permit you to move about within the city only by foot or by certified public transport; you are not to utilize private transportation nor request such transportation. In the event of an emergency recall that you must show your documents at the request of any shield. May you evening be pleasant.”
    He saluted and turned away, with an offhand motion toward their guide, who stepped forward briefly.
    “We are, as pointed out, within the locale you left from this morning. I am on call to your group for a return visit to the library room in the morning, and am promised we shall have no  such delays as we had today. We shall meet in the lobby at day-shift plus two. As my working day ceases in a mater of seconds, I bid you good evening.”
    Kamele glanced about, relieved to be without armed keepers. She relaxed for a moment, then gathered her strength. They'd told her Theo was fine, but ...
    The pace had been hectic, and Hafley seemed more troubled by it than Crowley, who was decades older. Hafley finally caught her breath, and as soon as she did she started again to assert herself.
    “We should meet immediately and determine how to deal with these impertinent ... thugs ... tomorrow. How dare they? To think, keeping a the Chair of the department under guard while....   
    Kamele turned with sudden energy, her mouth opening but words failing. Hafley, unaware, was peering about her as if she'd never seen a city at street level before
    Crowley cleared his throat before Kamele's outrage found voice.
    “Chair, please, as you will ... in fact I will escort you. Kamele will speak with us later...”
    By then Kamele was up to speed, and her key in her hand.

    The key slid home and the small light glowed; before she could press open the door slid quietly aside, startling Kamele.
    A woman stood there, hair held tight to head by an exercise band, expression serious, pose one of readiness...
    “Theo?”
    “Kamele!”
    Kamele rushed forward, relief and awe entwined, and hugged her daughter awkwardly, half shaking her, measuring the height, seeing the face with new light, realizing that she was perhaps looking directly into her daughter's eyes for the first time in months.
    “Theo, are you alright? What happened?”
    Theo looked around the room blankly, and held up the bowli ball.
    “I was exercising and I heard someone at the door...”
    Kamele laughed, and hugged her again.
    “You'll have to tell me more than that, Theo!”
   

    “Professor,” Ella said with uncertain warmth, bothering herself to stand and point toward the only other chair in the office. “Please, come in and be seated. I'm  glad we could meet this early...”
    The office smelled slightly sweet, which it usually didn't, and Jen Sar leaned on his cane rather than approaching the chair indicated, a quirk of eyebrows and a frown giving way to to a blandly suave bow and a gambler's face.
    “Birds?” he said experimentally. “Entrails?  A touch of aeromancy?”
    As he spoke he located the anomaly: flowers. A gaudy display of out of season and ill-mixed shades sat on her fileset...
    Ella leaned forward as if unsure of his words, the tension in her shoulder evident, even at a distance.
    “Birds?”
    Jen Sar shook his head slightly...
    “Ella, I can't think you've called me Professor in that tone these last dozen years. So surely you've a prediction or premonition, or some private insight.  Surely you know something I don't.”
    She raided hand to forehead covering eyes for a moment.
    “I'm sorry,” she said after a pause. Her shoulders shuddered with the effort to relax, and when she looked toward him again her eyes were somewhat softer.
    “I've been spending every available moment here, and I've had visitors,  and perhaps news worth sharing. But since breakfast I've been here trying ... ”
    “Ah, I see! Since breakfast and now it's well past dinner.  Overwork! I've seen it take it's toll many times before! Not one word more! If you are not on schedule for class, I insist that you take a break. Perhaps step outside with me to see the day. I can show you some flowers still growing if you like...”
    As he spoke he looked, quite pointedly, at the inelegant bouquet... and then he walked to the flowers, peering, and even touching one of the petals, plucking at it momentarily.
    “Really, Ella, please don't make me pull my rank as a Department Chair to your Acting Assistant Chair, please!”
    He used his cane to point emphatically at the door with one hand, and swept the bouquet up with  the other.
    “Poor, poor, plants. Look at this!  Seven different flowers, and only one is native.  Two of them give off defensive scents which offend two others when disturbed, and one of them is a night bloomer! At least permit me to find them each proper vases!”
    He tilted the vase in her direction, waving it with some energy.
    “So you'll pull rank as a florist?  There I have no rank, Jen Sar. The flowers came by way of accident and if you have ways to make them happier....”
    “ I do, but hurry! “Time may be on our side – cry friend and come, we may still see a growing thing by natural light if you hurry!”
    Ella laughed despite herself, taking in the energetic arc Jen Sar's cane tip was making from the flowers to the door.  She relaxed even more, then, and nodded.
    “Natural light? Does it still exist? I'll come, but I'll need to return to work soon!”

   
    Jen Sar held cane and finger in front of lips one more time before they got to his car;
    “No, I insist,” he said. I know just the place and it's not far from here...”
    He opened the passenger side door with alacrity, waving Ella in, and then popped the tiny trunk, pulling out a bag.. When he got back in the car he reached for the bouquet and wrapped it tightly. Again he indicated quiet.
    “There now ... in a few moments, we'll be in the country!”
    That's what he said, but instead he drove the car rapidly out of the lot, turned into the parking lot tunnel, and, with application of more acceleration than usual for such a building,
ran the car to the top.
    He waved Ella out, and walked to the edge the building's parapet, where it overlooked the small stream the collegians called Delgado River.
    One more quick glance – this to the camera on the far end – and he dropped the flowers over the edge, gently, and watched them gather a side slip that took them gratifyingly into the largest pool they could see.
    “Really, Jen Sar... I'm not sure they were all that bad!”
    He nodded.
    “They were that bad. And if i get fined for littering, well, I suppose it'll just have to be. Whoever gave you those made sure they were filled with bugs. Cheap bugs at that.”
    Ella closed her eyes and then looked down at the pool, talking in that direction.
    “I see. The flowers came from Lystra Mason, Jen Sar. She was full of hints that you're going to do the honors for Roni's gigneri.  And she was wondering as well if I'd had my eye on the sub-chair slot if the investigating committee had bad news for Hafley.”
    “Oh dear,” Jen Sar said quietly. “She really has no sense of proportion, does she.”
    He shook his head.
    He laughed then, long and hard.
    “I have missed my calling, Ella. Surely I should be in theatre. Not only do I perform convincingly, but I have the gossip to prove it!”
    “Jen Sar! I'm sorry .. it's just that the whole department is in jitters over this thing.”
    “Yes,” he agreed. Jitters. And was anything said that Mason's flowers might hear?”
    “Not said, no. I did get a message from Crowley, but not in voice. He says that Hafley's being so much of a problem that he no longer considers her a neutral investigator. He suggests we may wish to seal her office against their return.”
    Jen Sar shook his head with a sigh.
    “Well, indeed, there's a barn door.”
    He pointed to the car.
    “Now, really, we need to talk. I'll even supply the coffee.  This latest means the natives are restless indeed.”
   
   
    As much as she'd missed Kamele this afternoon, Theo was annoyed with the attention now. Kamele and co-conspirator Crowley had arranged for a room service meal, and though it was billed as a working meal for the group, it was if the menu was only about her. From spiced-egg entree to the cloud-waffle desserts still under-wraps, down to large carafes of genuine Liaden tea...
    Pah!
    Clyburn was there, arriving even before Hafley, which was interesting.  He'd arrived almost quietly, his evening wear this time out of some warm planet where tight shorts and tight shirts were the rage, as well as wide belts and fancy belt buckles. Still he wore those tall bootlets though, and he walked as if they hurt his feet...
    And he'd brought something – a bottle.
    He stretched to put the bottle on the back of the room service table and Theo had to admit that the shorts were certainly a good match, even if the shoes weren't. His moves were neat and tidy, with no wasted energy, and when he spun --
    When  he spun he caught her looking at him, and smiled an unctuous smile and even bowed, a smooth and fluid move.
    “Well hello there, adventurer. I hope you're well...”
    It took her a moment to answer; and she felt like she was seeing two people at once. One was tall and ... attractive, with a touch of grace, even almost pilot grace.  The other was over-insistent, over-loud, and over-shoed. Why someone his height would need tall, misfitting shoes...
    Apparently pleased with admiration, he posed a bit, hip thrust perhaps a bit too much.
    Theo looked to the ceiling. Yes, that was the problem. He wished to look somewhat foolish. It made Halfey happy.
    “Clyburn.” she finally managed, “I'm fine.”
    Then Hafley arrived, and his expression hardened a bit, and dinner began soon thereafter.


    It was with the last course coasting down and dessert on the horizon that Hafley desired the full tale of Theo's day.  Only Theo, and oddly, Clyburn, were still eating the fritario, Theo favoring red-sauce and he slow-gravy.  Hafley was going on and on about the guards insisting on naming her a pilot, and how ridiculous it was for them to be concerned about her as an opponent, everyone knew she had problems with being clumsy...
    Theo held her tongue, with Kamele's stern face a good example.
    “And what could you be thinking, to have a bowli ball in your luggage?” Halfley paused, and got a sudden smile.
    “I know why,” she said suddenly. “I bet it was trophy! Your Liaden was smitten, we could all see it, and the ball was his own private...”
    “It was not a trophy. It was gift!”
    Theo rose from the table to put her last dish aside, and get some more tea.
    Halfley laughed. “Oh, I see. The ball was a gift, and you'd had your trophy?”
    Theo poured her tea, unwilling to let the subject go.
    “I have the bowli ball because I know how to play.”
    “But seriously”, Clyburn said suddenly, “it must be suspicious for them. A simple school girl arrives and in her trunk she carries a toy a professional pilot might have. Surely you can't have expected to go to the park to find another girl to play catch with, did you?”
    She stared at him, hard, and not because he'd made fun of her, but because he'd perfectly mimicked the proper toss of a bowli ball, and now the proper catch on a three-five with a falling arc.
    She closed her eyes against the understanding.
    “Clyburn,” she said hotly, “surely you know about gifts.”
    “Uhmmmm” said Crowley, but Kamele said nothing.
    “I had it because a friend gave it to me, and because I want it and I can use it. Who expects people to rummage through luggage?”
    She was returning to table when Clyburn pointed to the food cart.
    “Is there any more gravy?  Could you toss me some?” he motioned, again with that smooth and easy move.
    She took it to him, seeing him sit at ease. with his hands loose, the way Jen Sar might, or Win Ton or --
    The thought came with the action; the gravy dish was in the air before she could even get “Oops!” to her lips.
    “Watch it!”
    Around the table a chorus of dismay, and people rising suddenly to stave off a disaster...
    “You are clumsy, aren't you!”
    “Sorry, sorry...”
    He stood, shorts, shirt, and belt bucket unsullied, the gravy dish in hand, even his awkward shoes not hiding the ready-pose.
    “Sorry!” she repeated and Hafley guffawed.
    “Clyburn, i told you that outfit might be distracting!”
    They sat for dessert. Clyburn watched her, but they let her finish her story.