Part 7 (1/2)
The first rock caught Priscilla on the thigh as Dagmar brought a fist across her face.
The second rock slammed solidly into her right arm, breaking it with an audible crack.
The third took a rib, and she screamed, rolling into a ball on the filthy alley floor, trying to protect her head while the rocks struck with greater and greater force, and the crowd cried out her names: Liar!
Coward! Unperson!
”Priscilla!”
She felt hands on her, and she struggled.”Priscilla! No, denubia, you must not...” The voice was familiar, concerned.
”Lina?” She lay still, hardly daring to believe it.
”Of course, Lina. Who else?” The hands were soft on her face, her hair. ”Open your eyes, denubia. Are you afraid to see me?”
”No, I...” She achieved it and beheld her friend's serious face. ”I'm sorry, Lina.”
”And I. Such terror, my friend. What was it?” The kind hands continued their caress; comfort like a healing warmth enclosed her. Priscilla sighed and shook her head.
”It was nothing. A bad dream.”
”Yes?” Lina ran light fingers along Priscilla's jaw and down the slim throat, then laid her hand flat between rose-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”A very bad dream, I think. Your heart pounds.”
”I dreamt-I dreamt I was being stoned.” She s.h.i.+vered, drew a breath, and tried to recapture inner peace.
”Stoned?” Lina frowned. ”I do not think-”
”It is the custom on my-on the world I'm from-to throw rocks at a criminal until she-until she dies.”
”Qua'lechi!” The smaller woman sat up sharply and reached to trace the line of her friend's brow. ”No wonder you were frightened.” She tipped her head. ”But this thing was not truly done to you?”
Priscilla managed a smile. ”No, of course not.”
There, she had found the well-worn way to serenity and set her spirit feet upon it. ”I'm not very brave,”
she told Lina softly.
As Priscilla's lashes drooped and her breathing evened, the Liaden woman frowned. Tentatively she unfurled a mental tendril, as one might with a fellow Healer, extended it along the least dangerous of the lines-and nearly cried out as Priscilla reached the place she had been seeking and firmly closed the door.
The library door slid open, and a tall, broad-shouldered person ambled to the center of the room and stood sipping from his gla.s.s, quietly regarding the figure hunched over the master terminal. It was perhaps five minutes before she sat back with a sharp sigh and spoke with the ease of long acquaintance. ”Are there Healers among Terrans, old friend?”
He considered it, coming forward. ”Not formally, I believe.” He bent over her screen, frowning at the upside-down characters. ”You want 'empath,' my precious. It's listed under 'paranormal.'”
”Paranormal!” Lina's head was up, eyes flas.h.i.+ng.
”I didn't put it there,” Shan pointed out mildly. ”I only offer information. That's where it was when I searched it.”
And, Lina realized, he would have done just such a search a few years ago. She smiled. ”Forgive me.
There was hard work done, if little accomplished. I am-edgy.”
He bowed slightly. ”I might offer aid.””So you might.” She smiled again and reached to touch his stark cheek. ”I thank you, bed-friend and colleague. Grant me grace and offer another time.”
”So I will.” He drank wine. ”Don't stay up all s.h.i.+ft, please, Lina.”
”Bah! And what of you! Or does the captain never sleep?” She chuckled, then sobered abruptly. ”Kayzin was complaining to me that Priscilla is a.s.signed where she has no right to be.”
”I heard.” Shan shook his head. ”What did she want me to do? First she tells me this is her last trip and I must not ask her for decisions concerning future trips, then she takes me to severe task for daring to follow her instructions! I tell you, Lina, it's a hard life the captain lives!”
”Alas,” she managed around a mouthful of laughter.
He grinned and raised his gla.s.s. ”Search well, Master Librarian. Sleep well, too.”
”Sleep well, Shan.”
But he was already gone.
s.h.i.+PYEAR 65.
TRIPDAY 139.
THIRD s.h.i.+FT.
16.00 HOURS.
The Dutiful Pa.s.sage broke orbit smoothly and proceeded down the carefully calculated normal s.p.a.ce lane to the Jump point and pa.s.sed without a quiver into hypers.p.a.ce.
Priscilla ran through the last check, reaffirmed destination and time of arrival, locked the board, and leaned back, barely conquering her grin.
”Not too bad, Mendoza,” Janice Weatherbee said from the copilot's seat. She glanced at the chronometer set in the board. ”Quittin” time. See you ”round.”
”Okay,” Priscilla said absently, still watching the grayed screen. It was not the simulation screen this time-it was the prime piloting screen on the main bridge, and she had done it all. She, Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza, had plotted the course, worked the equations, chosen the coords-done everything, out of her own knowledge and ability.
She closed her eyes against the screen, cheris.h.i.+ng the solid wedge of belief in her own ability. For this little time, at least, it seemed not to matter that she was outcast and lawfully nameless, with no more right to call herself Mendoza than Rusty Morganton had.
”Sleeping, Ms. Mendoza? It's a very comfortable chair, I grant, but someone else might wish to use it.”
She opened her eyes and grinned at the captain, who stood with one hip braced against the ledge and a gla.s.s of wine in his hand.
”Sorry, Captain. I was indulging in vulgar self-congratulation.”
”Well, that's encouraging,” he said, grinning back. ”I was prepared to believe you had no faults at all. Butnow that you admit to gloating, I'm sure we'll get along very well together. Janice is a bit laconic, is she?”
”Maybe she's trying to make up for you,” Priscilla suggested, then bit her lip in horror.
Shan yos'Galan laughed. ”Could be. Could be. Someone should, I guess. Are you working a double s.h.i.+ft? Even so, you're allowed an hour to eat-s.h.i.+p's policy. And there's really not much to do here now, is there?” He glanced vaguely at the gray screen. ”Seems to be in hand. Why not take a s.h.i.+ft or two for yourself T ”Thank you, Captain,” she said. ”I will. Good s.h.i.+ft.”
”Good s.h.i.+ft, Ms. Mendoza.” He raised his gla.s.s to her.
She was to meet Lina and Rusty for prime at Seventeenth Hour. Priscilla turned left, away from the lift.