- Prologue

'Which one of you is Waitley?' he demanded. 'You owe me a dinner and suit!'

Theo was on her feet, standing between Kara and the man. There was commotion around but she was focused on his face and posture, not quite sure how she'd gotten there.

'I'm Batzer,' the man snarled, pushing closer. 'You called me from my dinner and look at this! Look at this! How did you dare? Why didn't you check them earlier? They were fine!'

The Indigo Speedster! Theo thought, remembering the warning sounds yeeping toward the clouds. No, those ties had hardly been fine.

He shook his arms, splashing Theo and probably soaking half of the room.

He pressed forward. Theo willed herself to relax, fought to change her stance from prepared to aware, marshaling her thoughts to speak. If he noticed the stance change he didn't react properly, now leaning toward her, crowding her. It should have calmed him, that move, she thought.

She gave ground a half step; aware of the touch on the elbow that was Kara.

'Answer me! I'm Brine Batzer,' he yelled, 'and you owe me a . . .'

Theo raised both hands slightly, settled her feet flat, prepared to speak or defend.

'Batzer, you are intruding on a private function. Stand down and leave.'

The waiter. He came up loudly behind Theo, backing her at first, then standing at her side.

'I'm Batzer. This day laborer of yours called me to tie down my plane and she owes me . . .'

A rumble of thunder drifted over the proceedings as the waiter took a quarter step forward, insinuating his arm between Theo and the angry man, a surprising twitch of hand fluently suggesting mine now.

'I repeat. You are interrupting a private function. This person is an employee and we will not brook this behavior from anyone.'

Theo felt Kara's hand tug lightly on her shoulder and took another careful half step back.

'I keep five ships here and you aren't going to threaten me! I'll go right to Hugglelans and have them toss both of you. She's going to apologize, and pay for my dinner!'

The waiter looked across the room, and raised an unhurried hand. The irate figure before them looked, too, and wilted visibly as six uniformed security guards moved in slowly.

'Hugglelans Security will be pleased to escort you to a public area, Brine Batzer. You may leave a note with them and this problem will be looked into.'

The man's face whitened and his hands shook.

'I'm Batzer, do you hear? I'll speak to a Hugglelans before I move.'

The waiter gave a half nod and shifted the way a fighter or dancer might, tapping his badge, rimmed in solid orange. He looked larger now, and formidable rather than merely respectable.

'Yes, sir,' he said, but his voice too, had changed slightly, as if he'd stepped in behind his badge and made it boom. 'I am Third Son of the house. You may call me Aito. I will personally look into this matter, Brine Batzer, and take care of it appropriately. You may leave now, and let my people eat.'

Twenty-Two

Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302

Anlingdin Piloting Academy

The light flashed on Theo's message queue.

If she ignored it, she could relax until her tutoring assignment.

It might, of course, be a message from Asu asking if they needed anything for the larder, or explaining that she might be late again tonight. Maybe it was that, finally, Asu topped the shuttle queue and would be orbiting until tomorrow. That would ease the tension in the room.

Stretching into a flat-footed centering pose she closed her eyes, trying to absorb the energy instead of sighing it away. Those inner calm routines worked really well for some people, but the idea that sighing wasted relaxation was one proposed by her latest martial arts partner, and she doubted it.

The light still blinked when she opened her eyes. She sighed anyway.

Asu's schedules and hers diverged more and more now, with Asu concentrating on the basic licensing course —and being a social whirlwind—while Theo's mirrored, according to Chelly, the hard-core tradeship course he'd audited while summering as the school's exchange student.

Maybe she should ignore the message. On the other hand, she hadn't ignored a message since break had morphed into school. While that had happened all too fast according to her workmates it had hardly been fast enough for Theo, who enjoyed the company and the stipends of break but missed the school constant of hands-on flying.

Break over, she'd looked toward the time she'd be a flight deckhand, and get her own chance to sit first seat on the shuttle. That staffing notice was one she'd waited for, fully aware that each flashing message light might signal her listing on that queue.

Theo did the hand stretch thing that was supposed to be a good antidote to muscle loss if you were in zero g for a long time.

Asu might make flight deckhand this year, half a Standard after Theo's first of three deckhand runs and first as PIC. Most recently she'd subbed for Freck the day he broke his thumb at bowli ball. The shuttle was all work and no fun, as far as she was concerned, in part because you had to watch the crew as much as the craft.

She stood down from the stretching, shaking her head. For all that Asu tried to rag her about her math, which was up to snuff, these days, Asu was clearly not looking toward being a professional.