quick and soft. Aelliana had very nearly acquired Scout steps.
He put the trowel down, set the basket back, and turned to face the path, kneeling as he was. No sooner was he settled then his small son burst 'round the corner, shirttail flying and a tear in the knee of his pants.
“Father!” Val Con cried excitedly, hurtling into Daav's arms. “Father, we saw Clonak!”
Hugging the small, wiry body tight, Daav felt his heart constrict. Clonak had returned to the homeworld several times since the Deluthia affair had relinquished him, unscathed. To all appearances, his sojourn among danger had mended his wounds, and opened for him a new career path. One for which, he said, with true Clonak style, he even possessed a talent.
“How did you find Clonak, denubia?”
“Funny!” Val Con wriggled and Daav loosed him, setting him carefully on his feet and keeping a hand beneath a sharp elbow.
The small face turned up to his, green eyes trimmed with long dark lashes, the low sun striking red from the depths of the dark brown hair. Daav sighed. He was going to be a beauty, this one. All his mother, there.
“He is also,” Aelliana said, and dropping easily to her knee at Daav's side, “at liberty for an entire relumma. I would not let him go until he had agreed to come to us for Prime.”
“Now I understand what kept you,” he said, returning her smile.
“No, what kept me was the young gentleman you see before you. He wished to insist that he accompany us, when next we lift out.”
“Oh, indeed?” Daav looked down into his son's face. “Has he anything to recommend him?”
“Do we allow willfulness to count?”
Daav kept lips straight with an effort. “Only to a point, I think.”
“I know my numbers,” Val Con told him earnestly. “I can help.”
“Doubtless you could. However, the pilot had denied you, in which case there is no more to be said. The pilot decides first and best for her ship.”
“I want to go,” Val Con said, lower lip becoming prominent.
“That is a different pot of tea,” Daav said. “We do not always get what we want.”
“Unless the luck is kind,” Aelliana added, settling on the grass beside Daav. “Have you forgotten your promise, Val Con?”
Green eyes opened wide, and he was seen to rummage in his pocket, from which he eventually withdrew three seedpods.
“The Tree gave them, when we stopped to say good-day,” he explained, holding them out on an only slightly grubby palm.
“That was kind of the Tree, to be sure,” Daav murmured, eying the offerings. “But which belongs to whom?”
Val Con looked down at his palm, brows pulled together, then suddenly smiled and put a finger on a pod.
“This one,” he said triumphantly, “is for me.”
“Very well, then, have it off the table! Which is your mother's?”
Val Con bit his lip, and looked up. “I don't know,” he admitted.
“Ah,” Daav considered the two pods yet on offer, and shook his head. “I confess that I don't know, either. However, I do know mine.”
He plucked it up, feeling it fair vibrate with pleasure against his skin, while Aelliana took the pod remaining, and handed it to him.
“If you please.”
“It is,” he assured her, “my very great pleasure.” He opened the pod and gave her the pieces.
“Val Con-son?” he asked.
The boy sighed and handed over his pod, too.
“I want to be able to open my own,” he commented.
“Then you will want to grow stronger,” Daav told him, returning the pieces.
“Yes,” Val Con said. He sat down without ceremony on the grass and began to eat his treat.
Daav looked to Aelliana, who had disposed of hers while he had labored, and smiled.
“How was Clonak?” he asked, breaking his own pod, and taking up a bit of kernel.
She tipped her head, considering.
“I find him changed, but cannot say precisely how,” she said slowly. “I believe that security must suit him. He spoke of standing captain of a team.”
“Good,” Daav said. “Having folk to care for is a tonic.”
“I would wish him more than a tonic,” Aelliana said.
“Clonak said I looked just like you, Father,” Val Con stated.
Daav lifted an eyebrow. “Much as it must pain me to say so, it seems that the Scout's eyesight has betrayed
