Part 1 (1/2)

Conflict of Honors.

by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee.

MAIDENSTAIRS PLAZA.

LOCAL YEAR 1O02.

STANDARD 1375.

Eight Chants past Midsong: twilight.

In the plaza around Maidenstairs a crowd began to gather: men and women in brightly colored work clothes; here and there the sapphire or silver flutter of Circle robes.

The last echo of Eighthchant faded from the blank walls of Circle House, and the crowd quieted expectantly.

In a thin pa.s.s-street halfway down the plaza, a slim figure stirred. She adjusted the cord of the bag over her shoulder, but her eyes were fixed on Maidenstairs, where two of the Inmost Circle stood.

The shorter of the two raised her arms, calling for silence. The crowd held its breath, while across the plaza a dust devil swirled to life. The watcher in the by-street s.h.i.+vered, hunching closer to the wall.

”We are gathered,” cried the larger of the two upon the stairs, ”to commend to the Mother the spirit of our sister, our daughter, our friend. For there is gone from us this day the one called Moonhawk.” He raised his arms as the other lowered hers to intone the second part of the ritual.

”Do not grieve, for Moonhawk is gathered into the care of She who is Mother of us all, who will instruct and make her ready for her next stay among us. Rejoice, indeed, and be made glad by the fortune of our sister Moonhawk, called so soon to the Mother's side.”

The crowd spoke a faint ”Ollee,” and the shorter Witch continued, her voice taking on the mesmerizing quality appropriate to the speaking of strong magic.

”Gone to the Mother, to learn and to grow, Moonhawk walks among us no more. For the span of a full lifetime shall she sit at the feet of the Mother, absorbing the glory, seen by us no more. In this Wheel-turn none shall see Moonhawk again. She is gone. So mote it be.”

”So mote it be,” echoed the larger speaker.

”So mote it be,” the crowd cried, full-voiced and on familiar ground.

The slim watcher said nothing at all, though she ducked a little farther back into the byway. The dust devil found her there and made momentary sport of her newly shorn hair before going in search of otheramus.e.m.e.nts.

A tall woman at the edge of the crowd made a sharp movement, quickly arrested. The watcher leaned forward, lips shaping a word: Mother. She dropped back, the word unspoken.

It was useless. Moonhawk was dead, by order of she who was Moonhawk's mother during this turn of the Wheel. The funeral pyre of her possessions had been ignited at Midsong while the mother looked on with icy face and sand-dry eyes. The watcher had been there, too. She had cried-perhaps enough for the mother, as well. But there were no tears now.

In the bag over her shoulder were such belongings as she had been able to bring away from her cell in the Maiden's wing of Circle House. The clothes she wore were bought in a secondhand store near the river a dark, soft s.h.i.+rt with too-long sleeves that chafed nipples unused to confinement; skintight leggings, also dark, except for the light patch at the right knee; and out-worlder boots with worn heels. The earrings were her own, set in place years ago by old hands trembling with pride of her. The seven silver bracelets in the pack were not hers. In the s.h.i.+rt's sleeve pocket was a single coin: a Terran tenbit.

The two of the Inmost Circle left the stairs; the crowd fragmented and grew louder. The watcher quietly faded down the skinny by-street, trying to form some less desperate plan for the future.

Moonhawk is dead. So mote it be.

At the end of the by-street the watcher turned left, toward a distant reddish glow.

You might, she thought to herself diffidently, go to the Silent Sisters at Caleitha. They won't ask your name, or where you're from, or why you've come. You can stay with them, never speaking, never leaving the Sisterhouse, never touching another human being...

”I'd rather be dead!” she snapped at the night, at herself-and began to laugh.

The sound was horrible in her ears: jagged, unnatural. She knotted her fingers in the ridiculous mop of curls, yanking until tears came to replace the awful laughter. Then she continued on her way, the rosy glow ever brighter before her.

s.h.i.+PYEAR 32.

TRIPDAY 148.

SECOND s.h.i.+FT.

10.30 HOURS.

”Liadens! G.o.ds-benighted, smooth-faced lying sons and daughters of curs!”

A crumpled wad of clothing was thrown toward the gapemouthed duffel with more pa.s.sion than accuracy. From her station by the cot, Priscilla fielded it and gently dropped it in the bag. This act failed to draw Sh.e.l.ly's usual comments about Priscilla's wasted speed and talent.

”Miserable, stinking half bit of a s.h.i.+p!” Sh.e.l.ly continued at the top of her range, which was considerable.

”One s.h.i.+ft on, one s.h.i.+ft off; Terrans to the back, please. and mind your words when you're speaking to a Liaden! Fines for this, fines for that... no d.a.m.n sh.o.r.e leave, no d.a.m.n privacy, nothing to do but work your s.h.i.+ft, sleep your s.h.i.+ft, work your s.h.i.+ft... h.e.l.l!”She shoved the last of her clothing ruthlessly into the duffel, slammed a box of booktapes on top, and sealed the carryall with a violence that made Priscilla wince.

”First mate's a crook; second mate's a rounder... here!” She slapped a thick buff envelope into Priscilla's hand.

The younger woman blinked. ”What's this?”

”Copy of my contract and the buy-out fee-in cantra, as specified. Think I'm gonna let either the first or the second get their paws on it? Cleaned me out good and proper, it has. But no savings and no job is better than one more port o' call on this tub, and that I'll swear to!” She paused and leaned toward the other woman, punctuating her points with stabs of a long forefinger. ”You give that envelope to the Trader, girl-o, and let Mm know I'm gone. You got the sense I think you got, you'll hand in your own with it.”

Priscilla shook her head. ”I don't have the buy-out, Sh.e.l.ly.”

”But you'd go if you did, eh?” The big woman sighed. ”Well, you're forewarned, at least. Can you last till the run's over, girl?”

”It's only another six months, Standard.” She touched the other woman's arm. ”I'll be fine.”

”Hmmph.” Sh.e.l.ly shouldered her bag and took the two strides necessary to get her from cot to door. In the hall, she turned again. ”Take care of yourself, then, girl-o. Sorry we didn't meet in better times.”

”Take care: Sh.e.l.ly,” Priscilla responded. It seemed that she was hovering on the edge of something else, but the other woman had turned and was stomping off, shoulders rounded and head bent in mute protest at the short ceiling.

Priscilla turned in the opposite direction-toward the Trader's room-her own head slightly bent. She was not tall as Terrans went, and the ceiling was a good three inches above her curls; there just seemed something about Daxflan that demanded bowed heads.

Nonsense, she told herself firmly, rounding the corner by the shuttlebay.

But it wasn't nonsense. All that Sh.e.l.ly had said was true-and more. To be Terran was to be a second-cla.s.s citizen on Daxflan, with quarters beyond the cargo holds and meals served half-cold in a cafeteria rigged out of what had once been a storage pod. The Trader didn't speak Terran at all, though the captain had a few words, and issued his orders in abrupt Trade unburdened with such niceties as ”please” and ”thank you.”

Priscilla sighed. She had served with Liadens on other trade s.h.i.+ps, though never on a Liaden s.h.i.+p. She wondered if conditions were the same on all of them. Her thoughts went back to Sh.e.l.ly, who had sworn she would never serve on another Liaden s.h.i.+p; though Sh.e.l.ly had done okay until the Healer had left two ports ago, to be replaced by a simple robotic medkit. That move had been called temporary. ”More Liaden lies!” She had said. ”They're liars. All liars!”

The first mate was a crook and the second a rounder-whatever, Priscilla amended, a rounder was.

Liaden and Terran, respectively, and as alike as if the same mother had borne them.