She sighed again, ran her hands through her rain-sticky hair, and wrinkled her nose, feeling grubby.
“Van'chela, you cannot deny the galaxy the gift of Scholar Kiladi's thought,” she said slowly. “You are . . . Daav, you are”—she waved her hand hopelessly at the screen, brilliant, radical, original—“a jewel.”
He shook his head. “Not I, lady of my heart.”
“Is it not you, at base?”
“It may be,” he said slowly. “I consider Kiladi to be—other than myself. We have points of similarity, and I read his papers, among dozens of others, with interest, for we overlap in our areas of expertise. Daav yos'Phelium does not write papers, nor hold any degrees, saving his survival of Scout Academy and ascendancy to the rank of captain. But, melant'i teaches us, does it not, that we must tailor ourselves to fit the role in which we stand?”
Aelliana felt a slight, not entirely pleasant thrill, recalling the man he had become out on Staederport; the man who was so definitely, to the eye of the admiring student, not his beloved professor. It had been stance, she thought, and a dozen subtleties that had remolded Daav, her copilot, her lover, her lifemate—remolded him into a rough pilot, perhaps a little chancy in his temper, perhaps, even, just a tiny bit the worse for his wine . . .
“You have never seen me stand fully as Korval,” Daav murmured. “It is necessary from time to time, and one must be . . . convincing. It comforts me, that I feel less in common with the delm than I do with Kiladi.”
“I want to see him,” she said abruptly. She spun the chair around, her hands gripping the armrests. “Scholar Kiladi.”
Daav lifted an eyebrow, and drew in a long breath. He unfolded his legs and stood, closed his eyes and let his breath go.
Aelliana leaned forward in the chair.
It was not so marked a translation as that in the port, yet she had the uncanny certainty that she was beholding a man similar in form to her lifemate, yet undeniably someone . . . other.
Like Daav, Scholar Kiladi was an upright man, proud without being prideful. It seemed that he was not quite so tall as Daav, nor, when he opened his eyes, so bold or ascertaining in his glances. He looked into her face, then courteously looked aside, as would a newly acknowledged colleague. He seemed younger than Daav, or perhaps, Aelliana thought, it was the lack of Korval's weight burdening his melant'i. A mere scholar, no matter how many times an expert, was a simple thing, compared to Daav yos'Phelium.
“Walk,” she whispered. “If you please, Scholar.”
“Scholar,” he murmured, and turned, walking from the copilot's chair across the chamber, toward the hall.
His step was light, but by no means silent; his carriage easy, even graceful, but it did not cry out “Pilot!” nor even whisper “Scout.”
“Stop,” Aelliana said, wrenching herself out of the chair. She approached him, and looked boldly into his eyes. The gaze that returned hers was intelligent, polite, inquisitive. The eyes and the face of a stranger.
“You can support this?” she asked. “For how long?”
An eyebrow twitched. “Your pardon, Scholar?”
She took a breath, recalled herself and bowed. “Forgive me, Scholar; I misspoke. I met one of your students today on the port. He spoke of you warmly and with genuine regard. The message he sends is that he has recently received great news, and that it was the influence of your teaching upon his life which had brought him to this happy circumstance. His name is Chames Dobson, though he doubted you would remember him, as indifferent a scholar as he had been.”
He smiled with unfeigned pleasure, and inclined his head. “My thanks to you, Scholar. Chames was—an earnest student. One is gratified to hear of his success, unspecified as it is. To have one's teaching credited with so much, must of course bring joy to a teacher's day.”
“Exactly,” she murmured, and stepped back, suddenly exhausted, and of no further mind to have a stranger on her ship.
“Daav.”
Jen Sar Kiladi melted; she could not have pointed to the moment when he was gone entirely and Daav yos'Phelium stood before her, his face etched in an exhaustion that echoed hers.
“I can support it more easily at length,” he said softly. “It becomes worn in, like a favorite sweater.”
She nodded, and sighed, and raised her hands again to her sticky hair.
“I am going to have a shower,” she announced. “If you please, find us a meal and some tea. While we eat, we shall plan our best return to Liad.”
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Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Twenty-Three
The most dangerous phrase in High Liaden is coab minshak'a: “Necessity exists.”
—From “A Terran's Guide to Liad”
“Uncle Daav!”
A missile hurtled out of the branches of the decorative tree they strolled past. Aelliana twisted sideways, heart in her mouth, the outcome of the child's trajectory as obvious to her as if he had already struck his head and snapped his neck. She was too far away to catch him!
