Chapter Seven
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
Miri Robertson Tiazan Clan Korval, mercenary captain, retired; personal bodyguard, retired; half-a-delm—and not the best half, either—hurried down the back stairs, pushing the sleeves of her sweater up on her arms. She was just a smidge late for meeting Val Con, her lifemate and the delm’s better half, in the morning parlor for breakfast. Not that she sensed any impatience from him. In fact, he was prolly having a doze in the window seat, and well-deserved too. Her, all she had for an excuse was that she’d let her exercise session go a little too long this morning. Felt good to push the exercise again.
The door to the parlor was open. She slipped inside, and there was Val Con in the window seat all right, angled into the corner made by glass and wall.
“Not napping,” he said, looking up at her with a smile in his green eyes.
The reason for that was cuddled against his shoulder, and she was napping, eyes screwed tight with effort.
“You’re gonna spoil that kid,” Miri told him.
He glanced down at his passenger, then back up, brows pulled together. “Do you think so? She seems quite fresh.”
“Just wait,” Miri said darkly.
“You terrify me.”
“Good thing if true. You want tea?”
“If you please.”
She went to the buffet, drew one cup of smoky morning tea, and another, of well-brewed coffee, and carried both to the window seat. Val Con had lain their daughter on the cushion next to him. Miri handed him his tea and settled with her back against the wall, one leg up to make a rolling baby barricade.
“What I don’t get is why you ain’t out on your feet,” Miri said, after they had both sampled their beverages. “Do we still need to be on all-shift call for the Scouts?”
Val Con sighed and settled his shoulders against his corner.
“There are certain exercises known to pilots and Scouts which will keep one alert for quite some time,” he murmured. “As for receiving Scouts at all hours…I think that we must do so for some while longer. Even when, as this morning, is was decided to allow the situation to develop.” He sipped his tea. “Scouts are our eyes and ears, and our defense against the remnants of the Department of the Interior.”
The Department of the Interior being the exact reason that Clan Korval had blown a hole in the homeworld, which had gotten them thrown out by the Council of Clans, which had chosen peevishness over gratitude; and their subsequent happy displacement to Surebleak, Miri’s birth-world, and not anyplace she’d ever planned on coming back to.
“Exit,” she muttered, sipping her coffee, “pursued by demons.”
“By hydras, I thought?”
“Not seeing much difference between ’em, myself.”
The Department of the Interior had taken a bad hit during the action that had gotten Korval banished from Liad, but the sorry truth was that it hadn’t been killed. There were still pieces and bits and functioning units, and Agents of Change with their missions where their hearts oughta be, all running around and making the galaxy more or less unsafe for everybody, but especially for anybody associated with Clan Korval.
It was, Miri acknowledged with a sigh, a right mess. Clan Korval wasn’t about to hunker down and fortify, either. Clan Korval, in the persons of its strong-willed and stubborn adults, was picking up bidness as usual, and the DOI could meet ’em in hell.
That being exactly the decision Miri would’ve made herself, for herself, it was still more than a little worrisome when it was other lives—lives she was responsible for—going on the line. Not to mention that Korval’s change of address sort of endangered the whole planet of Surebleak.
“Surebleak stands to gain much,” Val Con murmured, like he’d heard her thinking—which he prolly had. “It need only stay in motion. And we…” He turned his head and smiled at her, a little sleepy now despite the tea. “Korval is pilots.”
“And pilots like nothing better than being in danger,” Miri finished grumpily.
Val Con laughed. “It is sometimes good to find a safe port and relax among kin. But not for too long, else one grows bored.” He sat up. “Shall I bring you a plate, cha’trez?”
“That’d be good, thanks.”
* * *
Lizzie started fretting as they finished up breakfast. Miri put her empty plate down on the sill and carefully picked the small body up, cradling it against her shoulder like Val Con had taught her.
“Such care,” he murmured. “Will she explode?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, given the lineage.”
He gathered up her plate with his, carried them to the buffet—and turned, head cocked slightly to the left.
Miri heard it, too, the subdued thunder of wheels along the wooden hallway—and so did Lizzie, who gave a sharp squeal and swung a fist out with enthusiasm, if not precision.
The rumbling grew closer, and ceased altogether, as Korval’s butler turned into the morning parlor, stopping just inside the door.
His escort, which was this morning only the cat known as Kiefer, continued onward, his eye on the buffet.
“Jeeves, good morning to you,” said Val Con, giving a slight bow to the man-high cylinder topped by a opaque head-ball that was at the moment showing a pale orange.
“Good morning, Master Val Con. Miri. Young Talizea.”
“’mornin’, Jeeves,” Miri said politely. Lizzie gurgled.
“I fear that I come bearing…distressful tidings,” the AI said, slowly—you might say, Miri thought, reluctantly.
She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the sudden bite of double anticipation—hers and Val Con’s, too, and kept an easy and relaxed grip on her daughter.
“Best we hear it quickly, then,” said Val Con, extending a casual hand and scooping Kiefer out of the air just before he landed among the breakfast dishes.
“Yes.” The head ball flashed between dull and bright orange.
“I had previously reported that Daav yos’Phelium had apparently been successful in decommissioning Pod 78. This had been deduced, as the artifact went off-grid, and the deadline for its self-destruction passed without incident.”
Miri drew another breath, her stomach suddenly not too happy with having been fed breakfast. It had been her—acting as full delm, in Val Con’s absence—who had sent Val Con’s father, and, coincidentally, his mother, on a desperately chancy, mission to pull Pod 78 off-line before it exploded and caused the deaths of countless numbers of civilians. And yes, he was long coming home, and, no he hadn’t—
“In the absence of a message from Pilot yos’Phelium,” Jeeves continued, “and the continued absence of himself, I attempted contact with Ride the Luck, only to find that Pilot yos’Phelium’s ship, like Pod 78, is off the grid.”
There was a pause. Val Con stood so quietly that he was very nearly invisible, the offending Kiefer draped, forgotten, over one arm. Miri shivered—his fear, hers; no matter.
“I very much fear that a mishap has occurred,” Jeeves said, very softly indeed. “And I must recommend that a ship be sent to the last known coordinates of Ride the Luck in order to ascertain what has occurred.”