- Prologue

conversations, the galaxy-portrait end walls giving back echoes and the knots of noise moving and coagulating. Theo'd never seen the group so animated. It was almost as if they'd won something, despite Yberna's difficulties.

Freck was almost bouncing.

'Did you see that? Theo was going to take them out big time. Think they can run up here from their silly club and take all of DCCT with one trick? I think this planet loyalty stuff is way overrated for pilots!'

Theo hadn't recognized them but enough of the crew had: two of the Young Pilots of Eylot, membership restricted to those born on Eylot of Terran descent.

The sudden holiday mood was helped by Bova and assorted helpers rushing around with sweet rolls, served with creamy topping and an accompanying hit of oxygen.

Theo took the roll, and spurned the oxy, frustrated that so many conversations were going on at once that she couldn't get more than the gist of things. She gathered that the Young Pilots had a complaint—DCCT got first shot at the break jobs at Hugglelans. That, they claimed, was a right of the planet-born.

Trying to follow the discussion got more frustrating as Bova played wrong-side advocate and took up the Young Pilots' argument, which felt a lot like a Simple sermon to Theo.

'I should have gone with her! I got in the game to let her drop out!'

Theo turned and touched her friend's shoulder.

'Two problems: no room for a copilot on the sled—and she was already asleep. You'd have slowed the ship.'

Kara closed her eyes, and maybe she did a dance move in her head, because Theo saw some of the tension flow out of her. Eyes open, she moved her hands: truth.

'How did you figure out what was wrong with the ball? I saw—and felt!—that it was moving strangely, but I couldn't understand it. You just grabbed it and went, like you knew exactly what was going to happen!'

Theo shrugged.

'I didn't know, exactly; I was just reacting to what the ball was really doing, and not what it should have been doing. It's like dance competition stuff—at some point something's got to vary, so you have to be patient, and alert, and when the vary comes, deal with it. I did know that we were getting acceleration in there, and I'm afraid I was already running with a lot of energy when I came looking for you, so I was primed to run the numbers, and that's the course I saw. I didn't have time to calculate all of the variables, just that I could return it to him with spin and velocity he couldn't handle. Mostly I wanted to stop the game long enough to be sure you were just winded.'

'Just winded? I wish I could say that. I was going to half measures, to just keep the ball in play. You were right on top of it compared to the rest of us.'

Theo sighed, held out a hand. It was absolutely steady. Kara held out her hand, holding it still, and laughed as she rippled those fingers into some kind of nonsense rhyme about pilot's choice copilot's bad dream.

Kara lifted her hand toward her face, then made a fist and forced it down to her side.

'Guess they didn't give me a full numb on this thing. Is it awful?'

Theo leaned in closer, shook her head.

'Looks raw, but not drippy or anything. It ought to hurt, I'd say.'

'Itches.' She chewed her lip, then took a deep, deliberate breath, like she was putting something aside to worry about later.

'You said you were coming to see me?'

'I was,' Theo admitted. 'I had to get out of the dorm, and I wanted to . . . check custom. You're looking pretty shook, though. Maybe you should lie down.'

'No,' Kara said definitively. 'I should not lie down. Come on, let's find someplace where we can hear each other speak.'

The language room was vacant. They shut the door and sat on one of the tables, Theo cross-legged, and Kara swinging her feet, like she still had excess energy to burn.

Kara listened, her face far more serious than usual, quite in what Theo thought of now as Liaden face: bland and careful. It reminded her of Father's face when he was being particularly himself: almost a mask without a hint of what he was thinking. She'd always thought of it as something personal, belonging only to him; discovering that he shared it, not only with Kara, but with yos'Senchul, and apparently the whole race of Liadens had been . . . strange, at first. Also familiar, and obscurely comforting, was the slight tilt of Kara's head, indicating attention to Theo's concern.

Theo finished in a rush.

'But this gift—is it too much? What do I promise by accepting it?'

Kara moved her shoulders, her gaze focused maybe on her alternating boot tips, maybe on lessons so deep- learned it took effort to pull them out where they could be explained.

'The Code,' she said slowly. 'The Code lists many occasions upon which the giving of a gift is either appropriate or required. There is another list, matching gift to occasion, so that one neither presumes by too much generosity, nor insults by too little. The occasions: an evening visit, to seal a contract marriage, to end an affair of pleasure—there are, as I say, many such.' She paused, and looked to Theo.

'Your Win Ton being a Scout, it is perhaps wrong of us to expect him to hold entirely by Code, especially in matters concerning one who is outside of Liaden custom. He would, being a Scout, wish to deal rightly with you according to your own custom. So I ask—is there a custom of Delgado that might make sense of this gift?'

Theo nodded. 'A keepsake; sort of a reminder—like keeping pics of family and favored friends.'