Theo chewed her lip. The sound of an air breather taking off came to them on the wind. Somebody was having fun in the sky today.
"My mother's Terran," Theo said eventually. "My father's Liaden."
"That would explain much," Kara said, solemnly. "You speak to one who stands in a comparable situation. My family is Liaden, but most of our associates are Terran. I would advise you in your present state to give Liad itself wide berth."
"Stuck-up?" asked Theo, amused by her new acquaintance's busyness.
"One might say. Not long since, I visited my uncle at Chonselta City—allow me to say that I was compelled! Still, kin counts, and it was thought that my uncle might see me established in a piloting school upon Liad, where the politics are—somewhat less effervescent than we have here at home. It was no use, however; I am tainted from my contact with Terrans, and the distressful fact that my House is situated upon an outworld. It was worth my life to bow—and I have, I assure you, been taught the forms!"
"So you came back and took your scholarship here."
"My uncle could not buy me a passage quickly enough!" Kara laughed, shook her head—and laughed again. "There! You see? A properly brought up Liaden woman does not shake her head. Alas, the habit is altogether too easy to pick up and far too difficult to put down!"
"Your family are all pilots?" Theo asked, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house full of Win Tons and Captain Chos.
"Pilots for hire, the lot of us! Which is what I shall be in my turn, though perhaps," she said, suddenly sounding wistful, "I can convince my mother to allow me to 'prentice at Hugglelans repair yard when I am done here."
"I used to like helping my father work on his cars," Theo said, slowly. "It was fun, but I think I'd rather be a pilot than a techneer."
"Oh, I'll be a pilot, never fear it! But a mechanic who can also jockey ships—that is worth a premium fee! But stay—your father is a mechanic?"
Theo laughed. "My father's a scholar. He teaches cultural genetics. His—I guess you'd say his hobby is cars. He races. There aren't that many techs who know the engines on Delgado, so he fixes his own." She hesitated, then added. "My father's considered a little odd."
"What, because he does his own repairs?"
"No-o. Because he lives outside the Wall in his own house, with a garden, surrounded by things that are—distractions to true scholarship!" She grinned, remembering what Father's answer had been to that bit of high-nosed criticism.
"Pah! That has the feel of a quote! Of course, your father heeded this well-meaning advice to conform himself?"
"Not exactly," Theo told her.
Kara grinned. "Your father's classes are well attended, perhaps?"
"Oh, there's a waiting list!" Theo said, remembering. "Students travel to Delgado just to take his courses."
"I see. Thus, he has melant'i out his ears, and may safely do as he pleases."
"It does seem to work out that way," Theo agreed.
Kara sent her a sidelong glance. "Your father did not teach you to be a Liaden, did he?"
"Why would he?" Theo asked reasonably. "Delgado's Terran."
"True if you say so, Theo Waitley." Kara raised her hand. "I fear that our ways part here. Come find me the next time you want a game of bowli ball—Kara ven'Arith. I'm in Belgraid."
"I'll do that," Theo said, and meant it.
Ten
Erkes Dormitory, Suite 302
Anlingdin Piloting Academy
Theo's work screen was three deep in reference chapters, each detailing some aspect of the ven'Tura Tables. Her hands were busy with needle and thread.
The Tables—the original ven'Tura Tables—were just lists: numbered lists of numbers, lettered lists of numbers, cross-listed lists of numbers and dates, and more lists of numbers. They weren't nearly as interesting as their history, and for once Theo was glad she'd been more than a little attentive during some of her mother's informal get-togethers where the always-fluid topic of "the history of history" was under discussion. You could always count on someone saying that "you can't judge past actions by the standards of today; you have to look at things from the perspective of the times." "And," Father would add if he was there, "the culture."
Still smarting under Johansen's scorn, she was determined to produce an analysis that did justice to the topic, and placed the Tables into their proper historical context. Culture didn't seem to matter, unless you thought of piloting as a culture, but the times . . . The original Tables had been developed during a time of trade expansion, coupled with a radical improvement in Jump drives. Those two conditions had created an urgent need for clarifying gravity effects and string constants as tradeships began to travel more than a few hundred light-years from home.
Ships had begun to go missing—lost, or found far too late for the crew to be rescued, because no one had formalized the new conditions. One ship in a thousand was lost, routinely. And all people said—even pilots!—was that piloting was dangerous. Which it was. But what nobody looked at was why it was dangerous, and if the odds couldn't be leveled a little, in favor of pilots surviving and ships winning through.
Nobody, that was, until Master Pilot ven'Tura had dared not only to log, but to share with all pilots—even Terrans, which was considered antisocial in his culture—the information that he and his clan had gathered over dozens of years.
Eventually, Master ven'Tura had become the clearing house and editor for the monumental and necessary task, and his Tables became rote companion to thousands of pilots over generations.
Then, over time, the loss of pilots and ships trended upward again. Most assumed it was because there were more ships and more pilots, less training, and . . . all kinds of things. It had taken someone with keen insight to see that there were tiny and fundamental flaws in the way the ven'Tura Tables were being applied, in the way they were being read by modern equipment . . .
And so, the Tables had been revised. Recently, within the lifetime of pilots still flying. Again, they were making a difference. Had already made a difference. The number of ships lost was down again, in a statistically meaningful way. The person who had done the revision had been a Scholar Caylon, also a Liaden, though not, it seemed, a pilot.
Theo flicked a footnote to access the next level of information.
Well. It seemed that Scholar Caylon was Pilot-Scholar Caylon, though she had come to piloting late, and after her revised Tables had been adopted by pilotkind. She'd been a statistician of a sort, an expert in Sub-rational Mathematics. The text noted that her later work was . . . esoteric—notably a lengthy proof for pseudorandom tridimensional subspaces that, while illuminating her genuis, was of little practical use to working pilots.
The text also noted that her scholarly output had lessened after her affiliation with Clan Korval—
Theo blinked; shook her head.
"Spend your whole life thinking something's made-up and then it starts showing up everywhere," she muttered, and tapped the screen again, calling back the problem she'd set up to help her think.
Trouble was, it wasn't particularly helping her think. She glared at the screen, looked down at the work in hand, and shook her head again.
She pressed the process button, importing the familiar "standard cluster" that the class, indeed, the whole school seemed to depend on for training, into the second set of assumptions. How concrete were the numbers when applied to a tiny, sanitary, best-case situation?
But there, the work in her hands was concrete, while space, which the numbers were trying to describe . . .
A noise sounded in the hall, a thump—she shook her head. The kids—she felt like she could call them that even though some were several years older than her—the local kids had been all revved up over a sporting event; charging around the building cheering since early morning, though the game didn't start 'til afternoon. Even Asu had gone out to view the victory, leis woven in layers around her neck.
The noise repeated, and resolved: someone was at her door. Theo sighed, locked the screen, and gathered her lace into one hand.
The click came before she was on her feet, and a tired-looking Chelly smiled up at her as he lifted several large bags into the entry, where they thunked solidly on the floor.
"Chelly, they let you come back!"
She felt her face warm slightly—it sounded like she was pleased to see him, after all . . .
"Treat to see you, too, First Bunk!"