In Transit
No matter what else came out of this trip from the surface of the planet into the space where the Ribbons danced, being allowed to observe Padi yos’Galan as she piloted their small vessel was a privilege Tekelia would never forget.
As brilliant and as bold as her pattern was, it sharpened into something Tekelia could only call ordered chaos the moment she took her place at the control board.
In a word, she was riveting. Tekelia occupied the small seat behind and between the pilots—Dil Nem sitting co-pilot—and Watched the process of her art, ignoring the screens that displayed the dwindling homeworld, until there was a moment—a cusp—when every thread and thought aligned, her fingers moved—and stopped.
“Check, please, Co-pilot,” she murmured.
“Check, Pilot. All numbers align.”
“Now,” she said, “we wait.”
“For what?” Tekelia asked.
“For the Passage to be in position for an approach. Here.”
She nodded at the screen before her—one large, with four smaller images tiled down the right side.
“In the upper right tile—that’s the Passage, do you see?”
Tekelia leaned to look—blinked and looked again.
Tekelia had only before seen ships at dock—ships like this shuttle.
Dutiful Passage, however—was difficult to make out against a background that provided no scale. Surely, though, Tekelia thought, it was larger—in every way—than the Wardian, the largest building in Haven City. It seemed…somewhat…like a tree, though nothing could have been further from a tree in shape and complexity. But there was an…organic feel to it, as if there were no other possible way for it to have taken form.
“That’s why the Passage can’t come to dock at Colemeno,” Tekelia said softly.
“Which reminds me,” Dil Nem said suddenly, “that I’ll be wanting to talk with Moji—Yard Master tineMena—about mooring capacities. We ought to add some big ship docking.”
Padi glanced at him.
“Oughtn’t that go to the portmaster?”
Dil Nem moved a shoulder. “Surely. But the yard master has to bring it, not the contractor.”
“Yes, of course.”
Dil Nem turned his head to give Tekelia a nod.
“Well-observed.”
“One could scarcely not observe,” Tekelia protested, and Dil Nem laughed.
“Accustomed eyes see home,” he said. “New eyes see what’s there.”
“Passage Control to approaching shuttle.” A firm voice issued from the board. “ID?”
“Dutiful Passage shuttle number three. Padi yos’Galan pilot-in-charge; Dil Nem Tiazan second. Arriving on the word of the master trader.”
“Very good, Pilot. You are cleared for the reception dock.”
Tekelia felt Padi’s surprise flicker through their link.
“The reception dock?” she repeated.
“Yes, Pilot. I was to say that the Speaker for the Haosa will be fitly received.”
Another jolt of surprise, closely followed by irritation.
“Thank you, Control,” Padi said, her voice cooler than her pattern. “Shuttle number three for the reception dock.”
She and Dil Nem were busy at their boards for some few minutes. Eventually, there came a sensation of…gripping, as if the vessel they were on had been a thrown ball, arrested in flight.
“Fairly caught,” Dil Nem murmured, taking his hands from the board. Padi nodded, and leaned back in her chair with a sigh.
When it seemed certain that the pilots were for the moment at rest, Tekelia put the question, “What is the reception dock?”
“The formal entry, that opens into the salon where important visitors are received,” Padi said slowly. “We occasionally host leaders of planetary governments, ambassadors, heads of trade missions…”
“And Speakers for the Haosa?”
“Indeed,” she said, still uneasy in her pattern.
“Am I to be schooled?” That did not match what Tekelia knew of Master Trader yos’Galan, but—
Padi threw a smile over her shoulder.
“No,” she said, slowly. “The master trader might wish to honor your melant’i as a leader of your people. You had, after all, spoken to him about the possibility of the Haosa seeking work among the ships.”
Tekelia waited, feeling her dismay deepen. When she said nothing more, Tekelia murmured.
“Something else worries you.”
Padi took a sharp breath.
“Melant’i knots,” she murmured. “The master trader loses nothing by allowing a quiet arrival and time for a guest to adjust to strange conditions. In fact, he might come out a little to the good in such a transaction. The thodelm, however, may require a display…”
She was becoming agitated. Tekelia offered a line of calmness, and marked the flare of gratitude as she accepted it.
“Apparently,” Padi said, more moderately, “Thodelm yos’Galan wishes to impress the Speaker for the Haosa with yos’Galan’s luster, and our worth.”
Dil Nem was heard to laugh, very quietly.
“It is not funny,” Padi said severely.
“Yes, Pilot,” he replied.
“So I am to be schooled,” Tekelia said. “Or at least put in awe. Will there be a great many people present?”
“Gods. I hope not. No, surely not a full reception.”
Her thoughts were heavy enough to weigh on their link, so perhaps a full reception was still a possibility. Tekelia thought about formal receptions, and worth. Business attire was what Tekelia had chosen to wear; that had seemed respectful for a meeting with the master trader.
For a full formal reception, however, perhaps something…more would be appropriate.
Tekelia reached for the ambient—
And found—nothing.
There was no sparkle in the blood as the ambient rose to one’s thought, no flow from thought to reality, and especially, no change in the garments one wore.
Padi glanced over her shoulder again, apparently having felt…something through their link.
“Your dress is unexceptionable. You would wear that to—to call upon the Warden in the city, would you not?”
“Yes.”
“Then it will do. It is honest and does not seek to establish you in an unaccustomed mode. If the thodelm wishes to give himself airs, that is of course his privilege.”
“Are you angry with your father?” Tekelia asked, to keep from thinking about that lack of response, of the stillness—of the silence—outside one’s own core.
“At Father? No, of course not. Nor at the master trader. The thodelm is another matter entirely, though I suppose he must—and as I said, we very rarely see him.”
“So you don’t know what it’s possible for him to do.”
“It is possible for Thodelm yos’Galan to do anything,” Padi said with feeling. “It’s parsing which limits he will choose to honor that vexes me. Ah.”
Drawn by her thought, Tekelia looked up at the screens, seeing a door rolling aside as they approached, and their little ship slipped inside the belly of the giant.