She shivered, the bed slipping sideways.
“Aelliana?”
Warm hands caught her and she shook her head, dashing the hateful vision away, looking down into his face, this, her most beloved friend, who shared her heart and her soul.
“Daav!” she cried and bent to kiss him most tenderly indeed.
She opened to him then, willingly, filling herself with him, as the two of them climbed, entangled, to the stars, to ecstasy, crying out with one voice, in fierce celebration of their union.
* * *
“The most beneficial model,” Daav murmured, his cheek resting against her hair. They had adopted the coverlet as the heat of lovemaking began to fade, leaving them shivering in the ship's temperate air. Aelliana had slept for a few minutes, her head on his shoulder and her leg thrown across his hips. Upon waking, she had immediately demanded an analysis of the options open to The Luck as a working ship.
“The most beneficial model for a small ship embarked on trade is a fixed route, with both reliable suppliers and reliable buyers at each port. Er Thom could work out such a route for The Luck, if the pilot-owner wished to embrace that option. Indeed, I would venture to say that we would be hard put to deny Er Thom the considerable pleasure of putting together such a route.”
“Mmm,” she said, “but there is the option of courier. What benefit there?”
“Courier has the advantage of a certain freedom in flight,” he said obligingly, this being the sort of data the child of a house old in both trade and piloting ingested with his porridge. “One need only have a client and a destination. One may set one's price, or refuse a commission altogether. With freedom, of course, comes heightened risk. One cannot be certain that there will be someone in need of the ship's services at the delivery port. Also, one may not know well in advance which port one will raise, or in what condition it will be found.”
“Is it—more dangerous?” she asked. “Courier.”
He considered that. “Not necessarily, no. A known trade loop with published stops holds danger as well— perhaps in equal measure, though there are safeguards built into the loop. If one does not arrive when scheduled, for instance—”
“I'm inclined,” Aelliana interrupted, reaching up to brush his cheek with cool fingertips, “I'm inclined to go for courier. What do you think?”
He smiled, and craned his head to look down into her face, catching a glimpse of shining green eyes among the tangled strands of tawny hair.
“I think that I am inclined to go for courier, too.”
She chewed her lip.
“We will need papers? A registration, or—a license to do business. Is that the Guild?”
“Ultimately, the Guild. However, Mr. dea'Gauss can do much of the ferreting and the filling out for you.”
“He had said he would be pleased to serve me—when I met him in the hallway,” Aelliana said. “At the time, I could scarcely think how he might. I will call upon him tomorrow.”
“Fortunate Mr. dea'Gauss,” he said lightly.
She laughed and sat up, the coverlet falling away to reveal breasts made pert by the cool air.
“We are in accord,” she said, and leaned down to kiss him, her passion striking his from banked to bonfire in a heartbeat.
Gasping, he surrendered to her, and willingly let her have her way.
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Contents
Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Sixteen
Be aware of those actions undertaken in your name . . .
—From the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct
“This is quite sudden, Scholar.” Director Barq went so far as to frown into the screen. “I wonder if you have given any thought to the impact of your decision upon Chonselta Technical College.”
As it happened, she had, and it grieved her. She had taught mathematics at Chonselta Tech for seven Standards, and the advance seminar in practical mathematics, that her Scout pupils had called Math for Survival, for five. Surely, she owed Chonselta Tech much, for having hired her, trembling and timid as she had been; and for having been for so many years a refuge and a sanctuary.
And, yet, she told herself now, as she had told herself several times during a solitary, wakeful night—one had other tasks before one; an entire new life to explore. She had given Chonselta Tech fair measure.
“I regret the inconvenience; I appreciate that my decision seems sudden,” she told Director Barq. Surely it would seem so to him; it having been her custom for so many years to simply reinitial her contract at the beginning of the Long Interval. This year she had put off that simple custom while she considered requesting a reduced teaching schedule, so that she might spend more time with her ship, learning that galaxy of practical detail necessary to a working pilot.
“I believe, however,” she continued, in the face of the director's unremitting frown, “that there are many qualified to teach the mid-level courses. The seminar, of course—”
