- Prologue

spate of clicking from the back seat, he was again signing, albeit in a more subdued manner.

The amended flight plan the King Six followed put it over the continent's largest lake, where the venerated and light-spangled Thirty Islands could be paralleled but not directly flown over. The sky was clear enough that she could see lights below and stars above, and if she'd wished she could easily have flown entirely by eye, ignoring the track line on GPS as each island's distinctive shape showed clearly. This part was fun as she threaded the needle in several places, making sure the while she was both above minimum attitude and between the noisier flight modes, enjoying the comfortable g-forces of the banking turns.

Approaching the last of the islands, though, the plane gained altitude suddenly, and a column of cloud leapt out of the darkness, enveloping them, as the sigh of air passing around them changed timbre.

The King Six bounced. She brought it level and began descending very gradually, the while keeping the variometer a focus. The plane behaved itself really well when they hit a quick burst of rain and hail that clattered on the skin, startling her, then they were through, the ship on course but tending downward . . .

Veradantha spoke, gently, from her place: 'We often forget, when we fly, that valleys and channels well below us are mirrored in the sky. You have flown through what some call 'the smoker.' You will look it up and send me your reaction in the morning, if you please.'

The variometer telling tales, Theo nodded, and increased throttle, watching the crosswind which threatened to bring the ship uncomfortably close to the no-fly zone.

Advertency won out—just. Then it was time to run a check of the backup instruments, and the flight resumed the comfortable silence, enlivened until the end with near random bursts of hand-talk and the low clicks of Veradantha's fingers on her notepad.

They filed through the small terminal, yos'Senchul's, 'Follow me if you will, Waitley,' recognized as more of an order than a request.

Passing by the Ops desk, they went down a short hall. yos'Senchul used a swipe key and bowed Veradantha and Theo into a brightly lit conference room.

Theo shivered, belatedly recognizing that it was cool and damp outside, something she'd not noticed when leaving the plane. Maybe it was the hour, too, or concern about this sudden change of course.

Veradantha sat at the table, pulling out her ubiquitous timer. Without looking up, she patted the place next to her, so Theo sat, too.

yos'Senchul paced, his hand describing gestures that were not quite signs, his shoulders moving with a rhythm and beat—with a shock of recognition she realized that this was a calming routine, a tension reliever. Father sometimes—

'The thing is, Waitley, that you are dangerous.' The words were spoken gently, which concerned her greatly.

Theo sat forward and steeled herself, admitting, 'I don't understand.'

He used his hand for emphasis and said again, 'You are dangerous. We, between us, have seen you tonight to be an adequate and more than adequate pilot for one of your flight time, background, and training. At flying, you are precocious, as your flight in the sailplane showed. That isn't dangerous, that's good.'

Theo sat back a little, unmollified.

'Precocity has pitfalls, Theo Waitley,' said Veradantha from beside her, 'which I know myself from myself, and which I have agreed with Orn Ald we know for you.'

The old woman tapped the table twice and went on, speaking as much to the wall as to Theo or the flight instructor. Theo watched her face, drawn to the precise way Veradantha was moving, as if she were recalling and acting out something rather than merely talking.

'You see, when unfettered, you walk as a pilot of experience does. With confidence. With power. With, let us say, the air of one infinitely able to cope.'

Theo sat straighter, trying to marshal her thoughts and words.

Crack!

She snapped to her feet, twisting up and out of the chair, turning toward the danger, hand up, muscles ready —

yos'Senchul slapped his hand flat against the table again, all the while watching her.

Veradantha continued as if nothing at all had happened.

'And you react so quickly, as if you are threatened. Part of this is because you are fast, and you are strong, and you are young. Part, I do not know. It may be that your genes are at work, or your hormones are balanced in such a way. Perhaps you are, pardon me, frightened. As calm as you are dealing with your flying, as alert and accurate, you are not quite calm among quite ordinary circumstances.'

Her hand motion was barely perceptible, but yos'Senchul began speaking immediately.

'This is why you are dangerous, Theo Waitley, because your presentation is often one of being prepared at all times to escalate discussion to disagreement, disagreement to confrontation.'

Theo stiffened. 'But I don't mean to . . .'

He held up his hand, wait signed as well as intimated.

'Yes, that is a problem. You don't mean to be fast, but you do mean to walk as if you are infinite. This problem will need to be addressed quickly, because the course of your learning will put you on flight decks where people will misjudge you to be arrogant, to be pushing, to be trying to provoke. Why seem you to have this attitude . . . is something you will need to work on . . . have you an idea?'

Theo sat back, eyes glancing here and there around the room as she searched her mind for an answer, overturning mental bookcases and tables, allowing the instructor to perhaps be right before . . .

She sighed, eventually, and settled back into the chair, letting it support her back.

'Delgado,' she said with an air of finality. 'Delgado is a bully. And on Melchiza, at the Transit School, they wanted pilots to be—strong.'