“I think I can walk so far—unless you're chilled?”
“My legs are long, and walking keeps the chill away.”
“Then we are in accord. Lead on, sir.”
He smiled and led them back across the square.
“I remember when you insisted on sir,” he said.
Aelliana chuckled. “And I remember when you insisted on 'Daav'—or 'pilot,' if I must.” She slipped her hand into his pocket and curled her fingers 'round his. “Each as stubborn as the other—even then. I wonder . . . ” She paused.
“Wonder?”
“The boy to whom we delivered the dulciharp. I wonder how he will go on, in his changed life. If he will be happy, or become a master, or if his delm will bid him stay . . . ”
“Ah, but it is the fate of couriers never to know the end of the tale. We fly in, deliver our package, take up our cargo—and fly out. We are agents of change only insofar as we have adhered to the terms of our contract. Those things that we set in motion go on to their fruition, without our knowledge and beyond our aid.”
They crossed a boulevard that must, Aelliana thought, be very busy by day, and turned down a street sparsely illuminated by the spill of night lights from sleepy shop windows. The snow had stopped again, leaving glittering arabesques around darkened signs, icy scallops at the edges of windows.
“Asleep, Pilot?” Daav murmured, when they had traversed the block in companionable silence.
“Merely content. It's very quiet, isn't—”
“No!” The cry shattered the crystalline quiet, like a knife thrown through glass. “No, give it back!”
She felt a jolt of adrenaline, a shock of necessity, and she was running, hot on Daav's heels, toward the scream, which was, one small, rational part of her mind pointed out, surely unsafe. They ought to be running away, to find a call box, or a proctor—
“Don't let it get loose!” That was another voice, angry and perhaps a little afraid.
She rounded the corner, swinging out so that she not slam into Daav, who had frozen into near invisibility, watching.
Halfway down the thin alley, a pilot was on his knees in a drift of snow, arms raised, hands reaching, every line etched with desperation. Before him were ranged five port toughs, their ranks opening to receive a sixth, carrying a bag that had surely been reft from the downed pilot.
“Give it back!” If words could bleed, these did. “I have money . . . ” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a pouch, his hand shaking so that the coins jangled clearly.
“Take it—the jacket, my boots—take what you like, but return—”
A rock smashed into the wall just beyond the pilot's shoulder. He cowered, throwing his hands up, a small, broken sound escaping from his throat.
“Please . . . ”
“Please . . . ” One of the six sobbed, mockingly. “We saw what you have in this bag and we know how to deal with it!”
“No! Give it back! I'll take it offworld!”
Another rock came out of the cluster of tormentors.
The pilot gasped when it struck his arm.
“Stop that!” someone shouted, her voice strong in the Command mode. Aelliana was standing at the downed pilot's side before she realized that the voice was hers, and that her position was unsafe in the extreme.
“Another one!” “Is she holding another?” “Search her!” “Take them both down!”
A rock flew toward them, its trajectory flat and purposeful. Aelliana saw its course unwind inside her head, saw that it would strike the pilot's unprotected head, and danced sideways. She snatched the missile out of the air as if it were a bowli ball, allowing the energy to spin her, releasing as she came back around, sending the rock back, low and fast, into the crowd, directly to the one who had thrown it—
Bone broke with an audible crunch, followed by a scream and a disturbance among the crowd.
“My ankle! She broke my ankle!”
“Enough!”
That voice brooked no disobedience; the crowd froze, the screams subsiding to moans. Aelliana maintained her position between the wounded pilot and harm, as Daav strode toward the crowd.
“You!” he snapped. “Surrender the pilot's case!”
“Oh, no you don't!” came the returning snarl. “It's a norbear in here, and it's bound for the river with a rock in the bottom of the bag to keep it company.”
Behind her, Aelliana heard the pilot whisper a scream.
“Give me the bag,” Daav repeated. “I am a Scout captain. I hereby take possession of the contraband item and will dispose of it in the prescribed manner.” He paused, his hand extended. “Which is not throwing it in the river.”
“It'll take over your mind,” someone else in the crowd shouted. “Scout captain or not!”
“If he is a Scout captain!”
“Am I not?” Daav demanded and flowed forward, swift and silent, his hand suddenly on the bag holder's shoulder.
“Surrender the norbear,” he said softly. “You do not wish to incite my pilot to further violence against you.”
There was a general mutter, a moan of “My ankle . . . ” and that quickly the bag was in Daav's hand and five of them backing away.
“But what about him?” demanded a voice from the rear. “The proctors will have business with him, bringing that perversion here!”
“We will take care of the pilot,” Aelliana heard her voice assert. She bit her lip.
“I suggest,” Daav said, stepping to her side, “that you disperse. One of your number has injured herself and requires medical attention. That is your first order of business and your closest concern. These other matters will be taken care of appropriately.”
Perhaps it was the absolute certainty of Daav's voice; perhaps it was the continued whimpering of their downed comrade. Whichever, the crowd faded away, and very shortly they were alone in the alley with the wounded pilot.
“Thank you, Scouts, thank you . . . I am in your debts . . . ”
The pilot thrust clumsily to his feet, slamming his uninjured arm against the wall with no regard for bruises. He extended an unsteady hand.
“I'll be off now. I swear, we will be off-planet before dawn, and never come back here. Just be good enough to hand me the case—”
“You're wounded!” Aelliana protested. “Daav, we must find him a medic!”
There was a small pause, then Daav went to one knee on the alley floor. He opened the top of the case, just a little, and peered inside. A furry hand crept over the edge, and gripped his finger.
The wounded pilot whined, high and futile in the back of his throat.
Daav sighed.
“You're quite safe,” he told the bag, at his most matter-of-fact. “Recruit yourself now and allow us to do what must be done.”
He closed the bag and swept gracefully to his feet. The glance he spared for wounded pilot was . . . not kind.
“My pilot and I will escort you to the Healers,” he said, which, Aelliana thought, was sensible. The Healers would have an autodoc, and it was plain that the pilot had sustained other, less visible injuries. He shook where he stood, and his posture was of one who expected a blow to fall at any moment. Aelliana swallowed against a sudden surge of tears. So had she been, and look what wonders the Healers had wrought for her.
“There is sense in what the Scout says,” she said gently. “Come, let us go to the top of the street and hail a cab.”
The Healers kept a small house in the port; barely larger than the bakery at which she and Daav had eaten their lemon squares, hours or days ago. What they lacked in scope, however, they more than made up for in action. Scarcely had the door opened to them than the wounded pilot was whisked away upstairs, while they and the case were left to stand in a chilly parlor considerably less spacious than The Luck's piloting chamber.
“Perhaps,” Aelliana said, when half a glass had fallen and no one had yet come to speak with them. “We should simply leave the . . . case, van'chela, and return to our ship.”