Surebleak Port
Scout Headquarters
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Shivering with adrenaline as she was, Aelliana made a slow and careful business of walking down the long hall to the cafeteria where she had been directed to await Master Clonak’s pleasure. It had been too long since she had sat a board, she thought, even a sim board. It had been…exhilarating, terrifying, absolutely correct, and horrifyingly wrong…and if she had not scored at least first class, her heart would surely break.
She considered that last thought as she entered the cafeteria and placed herself at the end of the modest queue.
No, she decided. Oddly enough, her heart would not be broken should she prove to be less than first class in this new body the Uncle had provided her. She was no Daav yos’Phelium, who had been born with wings, and flying its own reward.
It had taken a threat to her very life to induce her to embrace her pilot nature. Once she had done so, she had seen it as a tool to gain her freedom. It had taken others—pilots and comrades—to teach her the joy of flight. And once she had tasted the life of a courier, she had embraced her wings willingly.
Still, she had been a mathematician before she had been a pilot, and one does not simply stop being a mathematician because one has found a second vocation. She had written several scholarly papers while she had been discorporate. Now, she would be able to see them published, assuming Jeeves was able to produce a compelling narrative which made Daaneka tey’Doshi Aelliana Caylon’s prime student, best suited to carry on her work.
The line moved, and she with it, automatically gathering a cup of tea and a muffin as she passed along.
At the finish, she stood for a moment, tray in hand, looking about her.
Daav was not in the cafeteria.
Well.
She carried her tray to an empty table, sipped her tea, and sighed, her thoughts returning to their previous round.
All of their plans had been built on the supposition that they would take up again as courier pilots. That plan died stillborn should only one of them test as first class, though it might be managed if the other tested second. There was also history in play. Despite the many years they had spent together, Daav had met her as a beginning pilot, and it had been his very great pleasure to introduce to her the joys of her new estate. Should she be found to be nothing more than a scholar…
“If you wish to eschew courier work for scholarship,” he said, his voice sounding perfectly good-humored inside her head, “then we may make a plan that will see you pursuing your study. Recall that I have been a scholar these last twenty Standards as well. Courier pilot is a young person’s game.”
“We are young people,” Aelliana said.
“I submit that we are hybrid people, but we may have that argument at our leisure. I am in the sim room with Clonak, reviewing the results of our testing. Would you care to join us?”
“Yes.” She stood, pocketing the muffin and taking the cup in hand.
“I am coming.”
* * *
“Clearly, you are both in need of more board time,” Clonak said, moving aside so that she might see the screen from her perch on the arm of Daav’s chair. “That, however, is easy to remedy—in fact, the scheme I have in mind for you to prove your tickets will provide ample opportunity for practice at live boards in real space.”
Aelliana ran her eye down the screen, seeing a pattern of hesitation in her scores.
“I have forgotten much,” she said.
“No, Goddess; you remember much. Merely, you are no longer at the level where you might choose correct action without thought. This can be remedied. Note that your times are well within tolerances. Jump is easily within your reach. You simply need practice.
“Here”—the screen now displayed Daav’s scores—“here, you see such sluggard times as I am astonished to learn were produced by one of Korval, though they are entirely acceptable for mere mortals. Again, what we learn is that the pilot has lately been concerned with matters other than piloting, and must needs refresh his skills.
“Live boards, live flight, and the uncertainty of real-time will mend”—he leaned back in his chair and swept a hand up and out, as if freeing the scores into flight—“all of it.”
“And you have a scheme for providing us with these benefits,” Aelliana said, sipping her tea. “What is it?”
“Odd that you should ask. I propose to foist the pair of you off onto my good friend, Scout Strategist yo’Vremil, who is tasked with overseeing a rather delicate decommissioning. He professes himself delighted to have two such bright new pilots profit from the journey, while he hides in his quarters with his paperwork.”
Aelliana considered him.
“Are we called upon to do anything other than pilot?”
“You will be pilots. yo’Vremil has agreed to having the recording module activated on his ship, so that your performances may be evaluated by your sponsoring master pilot—that would be me.”
He paused. “There is, however,” he said, looking to her and then to Daav, “a catch.”
“There always is,” Daav said resignedly. “What is it this time?”
“yo’Vremil leaves in two hours, Surebleak time.”
“I see you mean this to be a test indeed,” Daav said. “We will have just enough time to inspect our ship…”
“And to contact Korval with our plans,” Aelliana added.
“Yes,” Daav agreed. “That would be mannerly.”
Clonak leaned toward the board and toggled a switch.
“Do I have an official agreement from Pilots tey’Doshi and yos’Phelium that they accept, as part of their certification process, sitting as pilots to Scout Strategist yo’Vremil, bearing him to his assigned destination in the manner set forth by him. As this is a test flight, there will be no remuneration for the pilots’ labor; they will be fed and kept as crew. Scout yo’Vremil stands as their immediate supervisor, and may declare the testing done at any time.”
“I, Daaneka tey’Doshi, agree to these terms,” said Aelliana.
“I, Kor Vid yos’Phelium, agree to these terms,” said Daav.
Clonak thumbed off the recorder and rose.
“Well, Pilots! Allow me to conduct you to your ship!”