Spider saw that one of the women wore an old quilted jacket like Keylinn’s. It was hard for him to imagine Keylinn here, even so. It was hard to imagine her anywhere but the Diamond, but as they were all making very clear, she had had a life before she came to them.
Now a little boy came out of the doorway where Tal and the Dean had disappeared. He was light-haired, only about seven or eight years old, and he carried a hat that was too big for him. He went up to one of the waltzing couples, tugged at the man’s sleeve, and the man bent to speak with him. Then the man bowed to his partner and walked out of the room. The boy went to another couple; this time both heads bent low, and the woman gathered her skirts and accompanied her partner from the room. The boy went on through the dancers. All in all he stopped about a dozen couples, and although men and women of all ages were in the throng Spider noted that all those the boy called on were quite young.
Those left without partners quickly hooked up with others in the same position, or went to find food and drink. In a few moments the laws of the dance saw to it that the hall looked no different than it had before. Spider leaned thoughtfully against the railing and sipped his drink.
“These are your choices,” said Akiba. He motioned to the twelve young men and women sitting in the plain wooden chairs in this empty classroom. They wore their dancing clothes, flamboyant scarves and heavy gold and silver earrings. But they all sat with a straight primness that hinted at other things.
Tal examined them; there wasn’t one who was over the age of twenty. All of them were human—that was something he paid attention to. “They’re young for humans,” he said to the Dean.
Akiba said, “They’re all cadets, all within weeks of graduation. They’re practically first-rank Graykey now; all they need is contract experience. Keylinn was no older when she left us.”
“How many ranks do you have?” He paced around the semicircle of chairs.
“The highest is seventh-rank. Only three people on the planet have that. You’ve met one—Chief Judge O’Malley.”
“Yet you’re only offering me first-rank.”
Aaron Akiba’s voice was cold and empty of mercy as a northern tundra. “You must take what you can get, stranger. I’m the Dean of this school; I hold student-contracts on all these folk. I don’t hold contracts on any other Graykey.” He paused. “Nor could you afford what they would require from you.”
Tal said, “I’ve brought a good supply of gems with me. And I have access to other forms of currency.”
“Yes, I know.”
Tal stopped by the chair of a young woman with a dark green fringed shawl. Her hair was close to the shade of Keylinn’s. He said to the Dean, “How long would I have them?”
“You say your ship can bring you to the City of Opal in four days. You may have diem for five days. They know how to return here on their own.”
“If they can do that without a ship, they must be remarkable.” Tal walked around the last of the chairs and returned to the Dean. “Only five days?”
The Dean met his eyes squarely. “I will leave them no longer in the hands of a gathrid. With all due respect.”
The gray eyes dropped, then came up again. “Keylinn doesn’t mind what I am.”
“How do you know what Keylinn minds? And as you point out,” said the Dean calmly, “she may be dead in your service even now.”
Spider was dancing with a woman whose hair was the color of light coffee. She showed him the steps and laughed when he forgot. Spider, too, was shy around strangers; but she’d come up to him and spoken in some far-fetched but lilting jargon, and Sefill had told her to speak Standard.
“Beautiful stranger,” she said to him when he apologized for the ninth time, “dancing experience is not necessary.”
“You talk differently from Sefill,” he said, executing a combination successfully—rather to his surprise. “Is it just because he’s from off-planet?”
“I’m translating from the Old Tongue as I speak to you. It’s the proper language for romance.”
“Is it?” he said, pleased at the implication.
“And as we’re in the mood for instruction,” she said, “note how I knot my scarf, like so. That’s how a lady tells her partner to meet her afterward outside.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Spider, straight-faced. “Maybe one of the other ladies will—” and he had to stop because she’d stumbled against him in the dance and knocked the wind out of him.
“Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry at all. She grinned. “What were you saying?”
“Not a thing.” And then the little light-haired boy came to him and tugged at his elbow. Spider looked down at him. “I think you’ve got the wrong person, sonny.”
“Will you please go to the front door and wait there?” The voice was high and serious.
“Are you sure you want me? Who sent you?”
But the boy simply said, “Front door, please, and wait.” And he turned and left.
Spider tried to take his partner’s hands again, but she looked at him in surprise. “It’s the Dean’s messenger. You must go.”
“Must I?”
She withdrew her hands. Spider sighed. “I’m not likely to be coming back, you know. Not ever.”
Her wide green eyes were serious. “Fate can do that, sometimes.”
On certain very rare occasions Spider felt the force of impulses that seemed to come from some very alien spot; certainly they had little to do with his normal life. He felt himself surrendering to one now. He took hold of his partner, whose name he never learned, and walked her backward a few steps until she was against the wall of the room. Then he put his hands on either end of the gold scarf, pulled her head
