- Prologue

There were access ports on the walls, too, some raised, and airlocks in what seemed to be the oddest places. There were lots of doors, some numbered, some lettered, some anonymous, some color-coded, and even guards—live people—on duty outside some of them, which was surprising, on a space station, where people were surely expensive.

One bright blue door—no numbers, and the only one of that color she'd seen—had two guards flanking it, one with her hand on a holstered weapon. Of course, that was the door Theo needed to go through to pick up the Pilots Guild application in person.

yos'Senchul had been clear on this: she was to go herself, with all her ID, just to pick up the application.

'Given the mood on Eylot, applications are traveling by trusted hand and are kept in trusted hands, Pilot; you may carry with you my letter of reference, which is already on file, since I have this day proposed you for membership, also in person.'

'Does this mean that untrustworthy people have been applying for Guild membership?'

He'd paused, looking down as if examining his new hand. She realized that he may well have been examining his hand—it was new, after all.

'It means, Pilot,' he said slowly, 'that the usual rules apply. We spoke of this earlier: don't trust anyone just because they appear to belong to a particular group. Have a contingency plan. Know as many back ways as you can to your ship and to another ship you can call on if there is need. Don't tell anyone about all of your weapons, nor all of your plans. I might go on at length, but they expect you at the Guild office shortly.

'You will want this token; have it in hand at the door, this glowing side up or forward.' yos'Senchul pulled something from inside his jacket.

This 'token' was a stubby rod with a handgrip, barely longer than her palm, looking for all the world like the top of a hand-stick for an aircraft; yos'Senchul tapped it several times on the instrument panel and handed it to her hilt first.

She took it, and weighed it, finding it heavier than she'd expected. She might be able to use it to clunk someone on the head with it if she needed to—and wasn't that an antisocial thought! It immediately felt molded to her hand, with the supposed top glowing a dim green.

'Here's a map; as I say, they're expecting you, and the token.'

He began to bow—stopping as Theo danced a kink out of her shoulder, and abruptly asked:

'How do I know the people there are who you say they are? Can I carry a key to the Cherpa with me? Will the Cherpa be here when I leave the office? Will they check me for weapons?'

He smiled, bowed fully this time, and held a key set out to her.

'Please, check that the hatch answers this key on the way out. I expect you will not be overlong, and as your copilot I will do everything in my power to have the Cherpa here and operable when you return. If it is not, I suggest that you yell for Bringo, who is boss of yard dogs this quarter moon. As to your other questions, the place I send you to is the most secure on Codrescu as far as I know. If they'll do a weapons check depends on how they view the threat level, both of yourself and of the universe.'

The air pressure on Codrescu was space normal, which meant low but with a little more oxygen than she was used to on Eylot. The extra oxygen was a good thing, Theo thought, since her walk, even with the map, was more stressful than she had expected, especially when she'd turned the last corner and found the guards, one looking eager for an excuse to use her sparker.

Theo'd been using the token as if it was a piloting stick, holding it in front of her and zoommming down straight, banking into turns. She hadn't realized that the Guild office was quite so close to that last kink in the corridor.

The guard with the gun glanced at Theo's hands even before Theo could recover a properly serious aspect; and with that glance removed her hand from the weapon and nodded, perhaps toward the token, which now was clearly emitting a green glow.

'Pilot, first time in?'

'Yes, Pilot,' Theo replied serenely as she glided to a stop in front of the door, 'my first time to the Guild. I'm told I am expected; I'm Theo Waitley.'

* * *

The guy at the front desk, like the guards outside, was a pilot. She hadn't noticed him at first, since she was overwhelmed by the sheer and unexpected luxuriousness of the room. It wasn't a big room, but the walls were paneled in what appeared to be wild-grown wood, and part of the floor was covered with carpets that made her own fine rug at home look shabby. There was artwork on the wall—like the wood, things that looked like they were real—intentional art and not simply office art meant to soothe or set a mood.

One wall display might be showing text of the messages she'd been hearing by speaker, but this place was quiet, overgrown and—a nice change from the stark halls.

The part of the floor that wasn't carpeted was covered in green plants, some showing flowers, some not. The room was filled with scents she associated with being outside, and something smelled like grass or bushes she might find at Leafydale Place. A small, carefully encased rock-lined waterfall with a tiny open pool with its own arm-thick mini-tree occupied that end of the room, and oh! A norbear!

The norbear was sitting quietly on a mat of vegetation beside the pool, gently chewing a long green plant with a bulb at the end. She looked shyly up at Theo and made a sort of chuckling noise, its thick brown-and-orange fur almost matching the rocks of the waterfall.

'Hello,' Theo told the norbear, and the guy at the desk said, 'Hello, Pilot, how may we assist you?'

She laughed, hand-flashing see you Pilot, and then said, 'Excuse me, I—oh there's someone else! But I'm Theo Waitley. Here to apply . . .'

Tucked behind the tree in a very hard-to-see nest was a nearly colorless norbear, with wizened visage and slitted sleepy eyes. The color of her eyebrows—there was a touch of rust there, and the skin of her face showed clearly through the facial fur, as if the creature was so old it was—like Veradantha!

The old one stretched, slowly and thoroughly, as if it needed to recall exactly how it was done. Theo heard a