"Adventures in the Liaden Universe. Collaterial Adventures" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee Sharon, Miller Steve)

Certain Symmetry

THE MORNING OF the sixth and final day of Little Festival dawned in pastel perfection, promising another pellucid day of pleasure for festival-goers.

Pat Rin yos’Phelium, Clan Korval, a faithful five-day attendee, had failed through press of pleasure to greet the dawn from the near side—and likewise failed of observing it from the far side, as he was most soundly asleep, and remained so for some hours beyond.

When he did rise and betake himself to his study, he found the day’s letters and packets piled neatly to hand, the screen displaying his preferred news service, and a pot of tea gently steaming next to a porcelain cup.

Pat Rin poured for himself and settled into his chair, rapidly scanning the news summary.

The results of yesterday’s skimmer races at Little Festival were, inevitably, top news. It could not be otherwise, with both the thodelm of yos’Galan and the nadelm of Korval entire in participation.

Pat Rin sighed, gently, and sipped his tea. One’s mother was annoyed, however courteously she had accepted one’s cousin’s instruction in the matter. He sipped again, savoring the blend, and allowed his gaze to wander from the screen for a moment.

One’s cousin had proven… unanticipated. One encountered an edge—and a precision of cut—which had not been noted before cousin Val Con’s departure for the Scouts. It might be that scout training had produced this surprising alteration in the unassuming—even shy—halfling Pat Rin recalled. Or, as one’s mother contended, it might simply be that Val Con was coming into his own, that genes would tell, and by the gods it had seemed for a long and telling moment as if her brother Daav himself had stood before her.

Well.

Pat Rin had some more tea, and set the cup aside. He would need to acquaint himself with this new iteration of Val Con. No doubt this skimmer race victory would bring to him any number of gentle inquiries as to the… availability… of the nadelm. He made a note to speak—unofficially, of course!—to cousin Nova regarding Val Con’s current standing with regard to the marriage mart. In the meanwhile, his own business beckoned.

He brought his attention once more to the news screen, noted that several of his more minor investments were performing with gratifying efficiency; read with bored interest the listing of contract-marriages negotiated and consummated; learned of a brawl in mid-Port between the crews of a Terran freighter and a Liaden tug; scanned the list of performances, contests and displays scheduled for this, the last day of Festival, and—blinked.

Fal Den ter’Antod Clan Imtal had died.

Pat Rin called for more information and quickly learned that Fal Den’s kin had published a suicide to the council of clans and had declined, as was their right, to provide particulars. Business partners and allies of Clan Imtal were advised that the Clan was in full mourning; that the viewing box and pleasure tents held by Imtal would be closed for the remainder of the season, and that those who had been engaged in Balancing accounts with Fal Den should soon find themselves satisfied.

Pat Rin closed his eyes.

He could not name himself a close friend of Fal Den ter’Antod, but he had certainly known the man, and had placed a certain value upon him. Neither a great beauty nor a great intellect, Fal Den possessed charm and an engaging forthrightness of manner that made him an agreeable and even welcome companion. His faults included a belief in the forthrightness of others and a rather thin skin, yet despite these he capably managed both an impeccable melant’i and the not-inconsiderable interests of his family on the Port. To believe that Fal Den was dead, and by his own hand…

Pat Rin opened his eyes, reached out and touched the discreet pearly button set into his desk.

Fal Den dead. He had seen him only three days past, on the arm of Hia Cyn yo’Tonin, which was deplorable of course, and had Fal Den been the sibling Pat Rin did not possess, he would have been moved to whisper a word in his ear…

The door to his office slid open and the excellent pel’Tolian, his general man, stepped within and bowed.

“Good day, Lord Pat Rin.”

“Alas, I must disagree,” Pat Rin returned. “I find it thus far a singularly distressing day.”

“Perhaps matters will improve, as the hours move on,” Mr. pel’Tolian suggested.

“Perhaps they will. Certainly, it is possible. In the meantime, however, I must request you to procure a mourning basket and have it delivered to the House of Imtal. I will write the card myself.”

“Very good, sir.” The man bowed. “Shall you wish to partake of a meal?”

“A light nuncheon. And a glass of the jade.”

“Very good, sir,” Mr. pel’Tolian said again and went away, the door sliding silently shut behind him.

Pat Rin sat with his eyes closed for perhaps the count of twelve, then turned to deal with his mail.

There were four letters and two packets. Two letters were solicitations of funding for ventures so wonderfully risky that to describe them as “speculative” was to overreach the facts by several magnitudes of wishful thinking. Such letters originated with the same sort of person who thought it… fitting… to invite him—as multi-season champion at pistol and short arms at Teydor’s—to join hunting parties on distant outworlds where he might slog through underbrush for days and fire mini-cannons at blameless creatures while enjoying the company of those to whom nothing was more pleasurable…. He dropped both solicitations into the recycler.

Next was an invitation from Eyan yo’Lanna to make one of her house party, proposed for the middle of next relumma. That was good—sufficient time to have the tailor produce something new and appropriate, perhaps involving the yo’Lanna colors. The sudden fashion of declaring a party within hours or even minutes—the “express” mode, as it was called—made it difficult for one to plan ahead even as it made judging the party’s… desirability… all but impossible.

Eyan’s parties, however, were often amusing, correct without being stifling, and always informative. Pat Rin reached into the right hand drawer of the desk, pulled out a stiff ivory card with Korval’s Tree-and-Dragon embossed on the front, opened it and wrote the appropriate graceful acceptance. He slid the card into an envelope, penned the direction with his own hand, affixed one of Korval’s postage coupons, and placed it in the carved wooden tray that served as his outbox.

The fourth letter was from his foster father, Luken bel’Tarda, begging the pleasure of his company that evening for a private dinner at Ongit’s.

Pat Rin smiled. The invitation to Ongit’s was a joke, by which Luken meant to convey that Pat Rin was arrears in visits. In which complaint, he thought, glancing at the calendar, Luken was entirely justified.

He pulled out a sheet of paper bearing only his name, wrote that he would be pleased to dine with his foster father this very evening and begged his pardon for being a light-minded flutter-about-town. He signed himself “Your affectionate son,” sealed, directed, stamped, and placed the completed billet in the wooden tray.

The door of his study opened to admit Mr. pel’Tolian, bearing the requested light nuncheon and glass. This, he disposed upon the small table to Pat Rin’s left, then picked up the completed mail and, cat-footed, departed.

Pat Rin turned his attention to the first of the two packets. The postage was Aragon’s. He had shared several delightful and adventurous Festival hours with a daughter of the House only yesterday. As the adventure had been at the lady’s initiative, Pat Rin assumed the packet to contain a Fairing—a gift of gratitude. He broke the seal, unfolded the box, shook out the silken garment enclosed—and very nearly groaned.

He had expected Shan and Val Con’s escapade to result in a rash of monstrosities aping Val Con’s innovative cloak, the so-called “skimmer” he’d used to such astonishing effect in yesterday’s races. He had simply not expected the fashion to have taken so quickly.

Aragon’s third daughter had sent him a skimmer—blue, where Val Con’s original had been warning light orange—which modification was not, Pat Rin thought, as pleasing as one must have assuredly assumed that it would be. The name of the tailor was impeccable—in fact, his mother’s own tailor—and the material flawless. Nor did it seem at all unlikely that the silk had been chosen to precisely match the color of his earring, of which the lady had been most fond. Ah, youth.

He sighed and folded the wretched thing onto his keyboard, and turned back to the opened box. There was no note, which was proper, and told him that Aragon’s daughter had breeding, if not taste.

He picked up the second packet, frowned at Imtal’s postal mark, broke the seal, and for the second fine in a hour found himself at Point Non Plus.

For the packet contained a leather book no larger than Pat Rin’s hand, stamped with the sigil of Clan Imtal. Foreknowing, he opened the volume to the first page and verified that what he held was indeed Fal Den ter’Antod’s personal debt-book.

There was no note, as of course there would not be, the Code being explicit upon this point. By the act of sending this book, Fal Den had chosen the executor of his will. He, Pat Rin yos’Phelium, was to tend all accounts left unBalanced at the time of Fal Den’s death, paying justly where the fault had been Fal Den’s; collecting fully where the debt was owed. No light task, this, nor deniable.

And he had precisely thirty-six hours in which to complete it, assuming that all debts were on-planet, which seemed likely.

He did not read past the first page. Not yet. With the patience of a true gambler he closed the book and settled back into his chair.

First, something to eat, and some wine. His day would no doubt be full.

IN ANOTHER PART of the city of Solcintra, a second late-rising young gentleman rang for his morning-wine and likewise sat down to review his letters and the news.

His correspondence was sparse—two pieces only. The first was a terse page from his man of business, noting receipt into his lordship’s portfolio of a substantial gift of stocks and other assets.

The second note was scarcely less terse, and its subject remarkably similar. Betea sen’Equa wished to know when the consideration she had earned would be forthcoming. Happily the young gentleman had lately expended some thought upon just this subject, and knew precisely how to answer her.

From the bottom drawer in his desk, he withdrew a blank sheet of thin paper, of the sort provided to the guests of Mid-Port hotels. On it, he scrawled a few lines with his off-hand, not forgetting to omit his name, nor the sixth-cantra required to hold the reservation, sealed it and slid it into his pocket.

That done, he sipped his wine and perused the news.

His preferred service concerned itself not at all with Port news, so he lacked the account of the disagreement between the Terran and Liaden crews; nor was his latest investment, which had done very well indeed, of the sort to make the board at the Exchange.

Fal Den ter’Antod’s suicide, though—that news he did take in common with the other tardy young gentleman. He, too, blinked upon encountering the unexpected headline, for he had lately been at pains to become intimate with Fal Den and would not have wagered upon finding him thus weak-willed. In point of fact, he had erred in precisely the opposite direction.

The young gentleman sighed sharply, vexed; the note he had written to Betea sen’Equa absurdly heavy in his sleeve-pocket. He drank off the rest of his wine and sat in his chair, hands folded beneath his chin, staring sightlessly at the news screen.

Long minutes passed, with the gentleman sunk deep in his thoughts. Eventually, he blinked, and sighed a second time, considerably less vexed, and owned that his plans might go forward, unimpeded. The lack of Fal Den was—naturally!—a blow, but life, after all, went on.

Just so.

Satisfied in his reasoning, the young gentleman cleared the news screen, and filed away the letter from his man of business.

The note from Betea sen’Equa he carried over to the recycler. Reaching into inside pocket he withdrew one of his special sort of cigarillo, and sucked on it twice to light it. He puffed for a moment or two, tasting of the invigorating smoke, until the central embers came to red. Then he touched the tip of the cigarillo gently to one edge of the paper and held it gingerly by the opposite corner, when the quick flames licked toward his fingertips, he dropped the thing into the unit, which extinguished the flames and proceeded to process the carbon.

He puffed again, the sweet smoke rising to join that of the paper and disguise its odor. The cigarillo followed in a few moments; ashes to ashes, to further muddle any trail.

Satisfied with his morning’s work, the young gentleman left his rooms, lightfooted and whistling.

“THAT’S PREPOSTEROUS.” The man who said so was some years Pat Rin’s elder; a tea merchant who owned a comfortable establishment in the High Port. Neither Shan nor Shan’s father, Er Thom yos’Galan—master traders, both—had been strangers in this place, and Bed War tel’Pyton welcomed Pat Rin in the names of his cousins.

“Alas,” Pat Rin said gently, and bowed.

Master tel’Pyton had recourse to his teacup.

“By his own hand? Forgive me, sir, but that’s powerful hard to accommodate, for the Fal Den ter’Antod I knew was no such fool.”

“I understand your perplexity,” Pat Rin murmured. “Indeed, I share it. And yet it is truly said that we cannot know the necessities of another’s secret heart.”

“True,” said the master. “Very true.” He sighed, gustily. “So, doubtless you’ve fallen heir to Fal Den’s debt-book, by which circumstance we find him once again to fail of foolishness. Pray name the price of my transgression.” He tipped his head, apparently considering this. “I suppose it must have been my transgression, though I’ll own there’s nothing in my book under Fal Den’s name. However, I’ll bow to his judgment, for he was nice—very nice—in his measurements.”

Pat Rin inclined his head and brought the book from his inner pocket. Carefully, he opened to the proper page—an early entry—and read out the recorded circumstances.

“In the fourth relumma of the year called Tofset, I misspoke in consultation with Master Tea Merchant Bed War tel’Pyton. This misinformation was the direct cause of the master ordering far too many tins of Morning Sunrise tea, which purchase greatly reduced the profits of his business. This fault is mine, and shall be Balanced at my earliest opportunity.”

Master tel’Pyton blinked.

“Are you certain—I mean no disrespect!—that this is the matter that lies between myself and Fal Den? For I’ll tell you, the incident was trivial when it happened—the tea was stasis sealed for one matter, and for another your cousin Er Thom was trading on port at the time and placed the overbought handily, to his own profit and to mine.”

“This entry is the only time that your name appears within the debt-book,” Pat Rin said delicately.

“Perhaps there is another matter..?”

“Not a bit of it,” the tea merchant said sturdily. Abruptly, he bowed, deep and excruciatingly proper. “Fal Den leaves me in perfect harmony, sir, saving only in the matter of his death itself, which cheats me of a friend and a valued colleague. Pray tell his delm so, on my behalf, and write ‘paid’ to the debt as recorded.”

Pat Rin also bowed, closing the battered little book and slipping it away. “I will do so, sir,” he said, and added the phrase the Code demanded of those who held this particular death-duty: “Balance has been served—and preserved.”

THE SECOND YOUNG gentleman of leisure spent his day profitably in the City, meeting with certain of his business associates, of whom every one was delighted to learn of the increase in the young gentleman’s estate. He was pleased to learn, at a certain, of course impeccable, clerical service that his invitations had been dispatched in accordance with his very explicit instructions. Later in the day, he dined with friends, after which he accompanied them to an exclusive club as their guest, where his luck held at cards and he lost only a very little at dice.

“AND HOW DID you find Little Festival this year, boy-dear? A tedious bore, or a grand adventure?” Luken refilled their glasses from a bottle of Ongit’s superlative red.

Pat Rin tipped his head, considering. From anyone else, the question might have been intended as a barb. From one’s foster father, it surely sprang from a filial interest in himself—and gave one pause. Luken bel’Tarda was not a great intellect, but his melant’i was spotless, and he possessed a sweet, sure subtlety that Pat Rin found he treasured more deeply as the years passed. It behooved one, always, to give serious consideration to Luken’s questions.

So: “I found Little Festival to be… largely agreeable,” Pat Rin said, slowly. “Though I will own to some moments where one’s mind wandered from the pure pursuit of pleasure to matters of business. And of course, some bits were nothing short of terrifying.” He picked up his glass and swirled the wine, idly, eyes on the movement of the dark red liquid. “Of course, you’ve heard of Shan and Val Con’s victory at the skimmer field?”

Luken grinned. “From the newspaper and from your mother, too. She predicts a wastrel lifetime for both, sinking ever further from Code and kin.” He sipped his wine. “No fear there, I think. Young Val Con tells me he’s no intention of continuing along the line of skimmers—too wearing by half! And Shan has put the craft up for sale, now that his point’s been taken.”

He did not say, as one’s mother would assuredly have done, ‘No doubt with his eye already upon some other mad enterprise.’

“You’ve seen Val Con, then?” This was interesting; had the young cousin left the wiles of Festival to do family duty?

“Oh, aye, he was by this morning. We shared a bite of breakfast and a catch-up.” Luken sipped.

Last seen, Val Con had been engaged to attend a piece of business that must assuredly have kept him until very late in the evening, if Pat Rin had read the set of the lady’s face a-right. To have arisen from the double exertions of the race and the pleasure tents early enough to share breakfast with dawn-rising Luken—well. Surely, the young cousin became a paragon.

“He’s a good lad,” Luken said comfortably. “The Scouts agree with him, which was the same with his father.”

“One’s mother swears him the spit of her brother.”

“Does she, now?” Luken paused, doubtless considering the issue from all sides, and finally moved a hand in negation. “I won’t say there isn’t an edge here and there—especially upon an ascent to the boughs, you know—but I do believe Er Thom has achieved other than a facsimile of Daav. No disrespect meant to your mother, dear.”

Pat Rin smiled. “Certainly not.”

The service door opened at that juncture, admitting their waiter, bearing deserts. By the time these were accommodated, and the finishing wine poured, Luken had introduced the subject of Pat Rin’s current projects.

He sighed. “Alas, I’ve been named an instrument of Balance.”

Luken looked at him, glass arrested half-way to his lips. “I wonder that you took the time to dine with me. You could have set another day, boy-dear. Thirty-six hours is little enough to right all the wrongs that might be made in a lifetime.”

“Happily, I’m set to Balance the life of a meticulous man,” Pat Rin said. “There were only four outstanding debts, and I’ve managed to lay three today.” He inclined his head, self-mocking. “Behold me, industrious.”

“I allow that to be tolerably industrious,” Luken said, apparently quite serious. “Most likely you’ll stop on your way home this evening and put paid to the last.”

“Would that I were that fortunate. The fourth is likely to be the end of my own melant’i, if you will have it.”

“As knotty as that?” Luken put his glass aside. “You might honorably consult an elder of your Clan. I happen to be an elder of your Clan, in case you had forgot it.”

“Yes, very likely. In the meanwhile, I’ve no idea how knotty the thing may be, the notation being somewhat… murky. You might say I should simply throw myself upon the honor of the debt-partner, which I might do, had I one idea of who she may be.”

“Surely you’ve checked the Book of Clans—ah!” Luken caught himself up. “Perhaps the lady is Terran, boy-dear. You’ll want the Census.”

“The lady’s name appears to be Liaden,” Pat Rin said, “though I do have a request in to Terran Census, so every wager is covered.” He pulled Fal Den’s debt book from his sleeve pocket and flipped to the page.

“Betea sen’Equa is the person for whom—” He glanced up at a slight sound from Luken, who seemed to have lost color. “Father?”

“For whom do you Balance?” Luken asked, and his tone was much cooler than Pat Rin was wont to hear from his foster father.

“For Fal Den ter’Antod, Clan Imtal, found dead by his own hand last evening. The book arrived in this morning’s mail.”

“Hah.” Luken relaxed visibly. “I had read that. Bad business. And he notes a Balance with sen’Equa? Boy-dear, I must ask if you are certain of the notation.”

Wordlessly, Pat Rin handed him the debt-book.

For several heartbeats, Luken frowned down at the note, then sighed, closed the book and handed it back.

“Betea sen’Equa, certain enough, though how one of Imtal came to—there, it’s none of mine. And distressed I am to find it one of yours, lad.”

“I apprehend that you are familiar with the lady—or at the least, the lady’s kin.”

“Oh, I know who they are— there was a time when everyone knew who they were, though I see that’s no longer the case. They had used to be Terran—I recall being told that the family name is ancient Terran—Seneca. They set up in Port, and carried on just as if they were still on any Terran world you like—which meant they married oddly, mostly of Terrans, you see, and took no care to establish their Clan.”

“Which is why I don’t find them in the Book of Clans.”

“Nor in Terran Census, either.” Luken sighed. “In anywise, boy-dear, if it’s sen’Equa you want, it’s to Low Port you’ll go.”

“Ah, will I? How delightful.” Pat Rin slipped Fal Den’s debt book into his sleeve and absently took up his wine glass. “I wonder what trade it is that Family sen’Equa follows?”

Luken moved his shoulders. “Why, they began in mechanical and electronics repair, with a side in the gaming business. The repair work led them to vending machines, you see, and an exclusive contract with dea’Linea. Then, when dea’Linea incepted that tedious scandal and got ruined by way of it, sen’Equa sued for such holdings as remained—in payment of their contract. I was myself involved as a trustee of the dissolution, and saw the paperwork. Sen’equa received only the most meager of settlements—well, they had no one to speak for them. So, unless they have moved far forward—or backward—sen’Equa owns properties in Mid-Port and in Low-Port, in the form of several small gambling houses.”

“Oh,” Pat Rin said, and very nearly smiled. “Do they?”

SHE HAD READ the letter thrice, more alarmed each time. A party, here, at House of Chance? Worse, a party composed, or so he would have her understand, entirely of those who made High Port—aye, and the city beyond it—their home? All very well and good to bring in one or three at a time, filling the private rooms, to her profit. But, a party of three to four dozen lord-and-ladyships? It was…

… frightening.

Betea sen’Equa was not a woman of fragile nerve, nor was hers an imaginative nature. Yet this latest letter from Hia Cyn—this proposed—engaged—event—felt wrong. Gods’ mercy that her grandmother was dead, and Betea did not have to go before her with such feeble misgivings in her heart.

“Hitch your fortune to the High Port,” that redoubtable old lady had been wont to say, “and the cantra will flow into your pocket.”

Which had doubtless been true in the old days, when her grandmother, with the assistance of various patrons, added three houses to the sen’Equa holdings—one in High Port itself.

Grandmother’s wisdom had likewise served Betea’s mother, who had added another Mid-Port house to the chain before a drunken quarrel with her latest patron left her dead.

After that came Betea’s aunt, who decreed that sen’Equa had no need of patrons; that sen’Equa houses would henceforth pay for themselves, with no dependence on those who sat high.

It had been a worthy dream, Betea thought so even now. But her aunt in her grief over the loss of her sister had reckoned without worldly realities. Sen’equa had no standing among the Clan-bound, nor ever had. Oh, they paid taxes, in return of which they were guaranteed the protections and services of the Port. But they had no social standing, and no one was obliged to either sell, or treat with them at fair cost.

Or pay a death-price, for kin who were murdered.

It had been fair market prices and rent that the names of the wealthy patrons had purchased for sen’Equa, and by the time her aunt realized that, the house in High Port had faltered and was closed.

Her aunt then did what no other of their family had done—she left the Port and went into the city, to apply for a Name from the Council of Clans.

But to become a Name, there must be a Name willing to sponsor the applicant to the Council. A patron, in fact—and Betea’s aunt would have none of patrons.

So, now it was Betea and two houses left—their starting place in Low Port, where uncle Tawm ruled, and the House of Chance in the Terran section of Mid-Port. Terrans scarce cared what your name was—or if you had a name at all, so long as your cantra was good. They sold to Betea as they would to any other business on the street—yes, and came by in the evening or ahead of their morning shifts, to wager a bit on the wheel, perhaps, or buy into a game of cards.

She’d been doing well enough, or so she told herself now, and had no need to return to the patron model. Only that the loss of those two houses in her aunt’s time and another on her aunt’s death—had eaten at Betea and made her dream, too, dream of the days when sen’Equa held five houses and there was talk of building a sixth…

Betea sighed, dropped the letter to her desk for the fourth time, slipped the sixth-piece into her pocket, and, restless, went down the ramp into the main room, to see how the play went on.

Which is how she came to be there when he walked in the door: High Port, sure enough, with his pretty brown hair and a blue gemstone in one ear; dressed in a sober, expensive jacket and shiny boots. She saw the hint of the pistol beneath the jacket and approved his good sense, even as she went forward to intercept him.

“May I assist you, lordship?” she inquired, coming up on him from the right, her hands plainly in sight, out of respect for the pistol.

Velvet brown eyes considered her at some length, and then he inclined his head, very slightly.

“Do you know, perhaps you can?” he said, and his voice was pleasant on the ear. “I am looking for Betea sen’Equa."

Her stomach clenched, but she put the silly start of fear aside and bowed deeply, which the high ones cared about.

“You have found her,” she said. “How may I assist you?”

“I am here on a matter of Balance,” the pretty man told her, “which stands between yourself and Fal Den ter’Antod.”

Betea felt the blood drain from her face. She might have known that the game would fold someday, and one who was perhaps a little bolder than the others would send his man of business, or his delm, or his elder kinsman to Balance the matter—with her. She touched her tongue to lips suddenly gone dry.

“Why does he not come himself?” she asked.

“Because he is dead,” the other said, and moved a hand, showing her the ramp up to the office in her own establishment. “Perhaps this is not a discussion you wish to continue on the open floor?”

Dead? But… Betea clutched at her disintegrating courage, straightened her back and looked boldly into the man’s dark eyes.

“Please come with me,” she said, and turned away without looking to see if he followed. Somehow, she didn’t doubt that he would.

THE OFFICE WAS comfortably appointed, the screens that monitored the playing floor set into the wall above the manager’s cluttered desk.

A quick and subtle glance at the clutter revealed to Pat Rin the sorts of papers one might find on the desk of any manager, high port or low—invoices, bills of lading, lists, and the various correspondence of business. A handwritten letter on plain paper lay askew in the center of the desk, as if it had been flung down in haste. A blank comm screen sat to the right of the general disorder, the keyboard shoved away beneath.

At the center of the room, Betea sen’Equa turned to face him. She was tall, Pat Rin noted—a little above his own height, though nothing near Shan’s—and lithe, with a girl’s pretty, soft face. Her eyes were as blue and as ungiving as sapphire—and it was to the woman who had earned those eyes that he made his bow.

“I am Pat Rin yos’Phelium Clan Korval. I come to you as the instrument of Fal Den ter’Antod’s will. Your name is written in his debt-book. It falls to us to Balance that which lies between you.”

The hard blue eyes considered him, emotionless; the round, girl’s face betrayed only youth.

“Please tell me how Fal Den came to die,” she said, and her voice did waver, just a little. “I saw him only days ago…”

“He died by his own hand,” Pat Rin told her and used his chin to point at the dark screen. “If you permit, I will call up the report from news service.”

She glanced at the screen, and stepped to one side. “If you please.”

He moved to the desk, tapped the power key, called up the public archive, and stood aside.

Betea sen’Equa came forward, frowned at the synopsis, reached down and called for more information, then stood looking at it for far longer than it should have taken her to read it. Eventually, however, she recalled herself and turned to Pat Rin, her face somewhat paler than it had been.

“What is written next to my name,” she asked steadily, “in Fal Den’s debt-book?”

She had offered him neither a chair nor refreshment, which discourtesy was irritating. Pat Rin discovered himself more inclined to believe the debt lay on the lady’s side, which did no honor to his duty. If Fal Den himself had not known which of the two of them was owing and owed…

Pat Rin inclined his head. “I regret, only your name appears. It is the very last notation in the book, written on the day of his death, and it is very possible that the process that ended with his self-murder was even then at work.”

She stared at him, eyes and face without expression.

Pat Rin sighed. “Perhaps if we speak together of your dealings with Fal Den on the occasion of your last meeting, we may discover between us both the fault and the Balance owed.”

Still she stared at him, and she was not, by Pat Rin’s judgment, either a half-wit or a fool…

“Self-murder,” she said abruptly. “Are they certain of that?”

He frowned. “It is what his kin has sworn to the Council. Have you reason to believe that Fal Den came by his death in another fashion?”

“Perhaps. I don’t…” She spun aside, rudely, and paced to the far end of the room, where she stood for the slow count of six heartbeats, facing the wall, showing him her back.

At last, she took a deep breath, turned and walked back to the center of the room, she stopped several paces away and looked boldly into his eyes.

“I know why my name is written in Fal Den’s book,” she said, and her voice was as hard as her eyes. “I know who owes and who is owing. I will tell you these things. For a price.”

“A price?” Pat Rin raised his eyebrows. “Madam, your name is written in a dead man’s book. You do not bargain price with me.”

“But I do,” she said sharply. “You may be bound to play by High Port rules, lordship, but I am not. My mother died at the hand of a High Port lord. She had no book nor no other high friends to call in her debt, and the lord himself said the thing was outside of lawful Balance, for she had no Name to protect her.” She crossed her arms under her breasts and now the bold gaze was a glare. “I am selling the information you need. You will buy it, or you will not.” She inclined her head, brusquely. “Your throw, lordship.”

It was on the end of his tongue to tell her that he had no need to buy anything from her—but that was only pique, such as would make Luken laugh and bid him to climb down from the high branches.

Mastering his irritation, he looked at her, standing tall and stern before him.

The lady has the winning hand, he told himself, wryly, which rubbed ill against his pride as a gamester. And he was not come here, he reminded himself, as a gamester, but as the agent of Fal Den’s will, upon which the petty prides and irritations of Pat Rin yos’Phelium had no right to intrude.

He bowed to the lady, very slightly.

“What is your price?”

VIEWED CORRECTLY, Pat Rin thought, shaking his lace into order and frowning at his reflection in the dressing-glass, the situation was piquant. Indeed, one was persuaded that ore’s deplorable cousin Shan would find it rich in hilarity. And, to be just, had it been Shan dressing just now to attend, of all things, an express, Pat Rin might have found himself more inclined toward laughter.

His partner in this evening’s enterprise could not be dislodged from her conviction that he attended such affairs as a matter of course on every quarter-day, nor from the equally demented belief that his very presence held her proof against whatever predations she imagined that Hia Cyn yo’Tonin intended to visit upon her.

Though, Pat Rin allowed, fixing the sapphire in his ear, to be wary of Hia Cyn yo’Tonin proved Betea sen’Equa to be a woman of sense, however late in her life.

It had taken all of his powers of persuasion, and not a little High House hauteur, to wring the information he required from Betea after he had given his word to attend this evening’s festivities.

The tale she had told was a simple one, nor was Fal Den the first to come away from an acquaintance with Betea sen’Equa lighter by certain equities and certificates of stock.

It would have seemed simple thievery, and the lady herself the final culprit, yet there was another player in the game, whose presence muddied the score considerably.

As Betea told it, her first meeting with Hia Cyn yo’Tonin was mere chance. Pat Rin, who knew the man, doubted this, but had not thought it appropriate to interrupt the lady’s account with his private speculations.

In any case, Hia Cyn, through design or mischance, came into the orbit of Betea sen’Equa and very quickly showed her how she might increase profits. Betea had ambitions, Pat Rin learned, but not much understanding of the ways of what she termed ‘the high world’.

Hia Cyn brought to her young people—mostly young men—who were slightly in awe of the gaming world, and slightly in awe of her, she who was tall and exotic, and who held modest court within her own houses.

The games were—initially—honest, with small friendly wagers. But after a time, the stakes would alter, in the private parlors, the victims would play for small sums until some point of melant’i or other would be brought into the conversation and slowly the net would be drawn about them. Carefully, then, while served sympathetic portions of wine, or perhaps one of Hia Cyn’s special cigarillos, the mark would be brought to promise against their quartershare, or against their inheritance. Especially, Hia Cyn liked them to promise something that would come to them only when the person immediately before them in their Clan’s line of succession came to die.

Thus the stakes were things like quitclaims to islands, access codes to small and private lodges, the desperately secret formula of some proprietary process.

This, she learned later; she had delivered the first few keywords and certificate numbers to Hia Cyn without ever knowing what they were, earning thereby what he was pleased to call a “finder’s fee”. In cash.

No one ever came back to her and confronted her with their loss, which for a time fed the comforting illusion that what she dealt in were “might-happens” of no value.

Alas, she was not a lady who allowed herself to repose long in ignorance. If what she gained for Hia Cyn was worthless, she reasoned, why then was she paid to procure it?

And so she finally learned that these items promised at late night in the heat of play were more than a gambler’s losses. They became the very evidence of a threat—perhaps a mortal threat!—to a person of melant’i. As such, they were bought back with ridiculous ease, often with items or in amounts the victims themselves suggested—things that were in one way or another extremely liquid and little prone to tracking.

Knowledge should have set her free, for surely even Nameless Port-folk might report larceny to the Proctors. However, Betea weighed the risk of being implicated along with Hia Cyn and the all-too-probable outcome of being found the sole offender, and did not call the Proctors. In any wise, she said, the trade was slowing down. Indeed, for several relumma, Hia Cyn introduced her to no one new.

And then, at the beginning of the present relumma, he had brought Fal Den ter’Antod to her attention.

“And now he has died,” Betea had said, stone-faced in the office above her modest gambling house. “None of the others cared so much.”

She had named those others in the course of her narration and Pat Rin had taken those names to the redoubtable dea’Gauss, Clan Korval’s man of business, who was even now in the process of checking accounts with various of the masters of the Accountants Guild.

Which left Pat Rin free to attend a party in the deplored and deplorable express mode, with only six hours left him to correctly place and Balance the error that had brought Fal Den to his death.

It was well here to reflect upon Fal Den, Pat Rin thought, and the nicety of his honor, which had not allowed him to place a debt of which he was uncertain.

Pat Rin sighed and gave his lace a last, unnecessary, shake. Time and past time to get on with the pursuit of pleasure.

Express, indeed.

THE ADDRESS WAS in Solcintra Mid-Port, on a street well-known to a certain set of self-styled adventurers and high rollers. An adventurer he was not, but in the course of learning to be a high roller, it had sometimes been necessary for Pat Rin to attend parties on this street. Now an acknowledged player, he still received invitations to such parties, but of late he had more and more often discovered himself, regretfully, with a conflicting engagement. To be seen in the area during a business day was unexceptional, of course, but to be seen here in the evening, dressed in all his finery….

At least he was not alone. He saw several vaguely familiar faces in the distance, all of them younger than he, each carrying their sealed red packet inscribed with the legend, “To Be Opened Expressly at the House of Chance.”

He bowed distantly in the direction of a young lady whose name escaped him—her face notable in that Pat Rin had witnessed the end of a match at Teydor’s in which this gentle became the dozen dozenth of the current year’s list. Pat Rin sighed—no doubt he would be singled out during the Express to give hints and best wishes, if not to lend countenance to the rather interesting costume that the lady had found appropriate to wear to an event that might turn out to be nothing more than an evening of light play.

Indeed, she gained his side as he came up to the gaudily painted doorway, and just in time he recalled her name—Dela bel’Urik, Clan Shelart.

Together, they entered the sen’Equa’s House of Chance, he in his evening lace, and she as she might appear for an evening among friends to her house; or even friends to her bed. Assuredly, someone ought to speak to the lady regarding the attire generally held to be proper for public outings — but it would not be he.

A servant, bland-faced, admitted them to the house, and waved them to a small room to the right of the entranceway.

“You may open your envelopes and don your accessories in this chamber,” he said. “After you have appropriately adorned yourselves, you may find the rest of the guests in the larger room. Buffets will be laid in the private parlors at mid-revel.”

It was at this point that Betea sen’Equa herself appeared, slightly breathless, as if she had run down from her office the moment the monitor showed his arrival. Immediately was Dela bel’Urik’s costume discovered to be mere commonplace, quite cast into the shade by Betea’s choice of flame red shirt, cut low across her breasts, form-fitting leather trousers, and soft-soled leather house-boots.

Nor was the young bel’Urik’s address sufficient to assure her place at Pat Rin’s side. Betea swept forward, using her height much as he sometimes used his, to clear a path through a crowd and arrive at his destination unrumpled and unimpeded.

“He has not yet arrived,” she said, leading the way into the accessory chamber. Pat Rin followed, but not without a wistful thought to the bel’Urik.

“I have been through our records,” she said, pulling what appeared to be a small square of leather from between her breasts. “Never has the House of Chance hosted such an event. Why must it be here—”

“… Is something that we shall perhaps discover of Hia Cyn, when we have an opportunity to speak,” Pat Rin interrupted, striving for patience. He was here, he reminded himself, as an instrument of Balance. His personal pets and peeves had no brief here. Looking down, he broke the seal on his Express packet, and, wonderingly, pulled out a folded bit of leather, much like the one Betea had…

The leather unfolded, revealing its form: A half-mask in supple black leather, with ribands of the same color.

Betea’s mask was flame red. As he watched, she tied it into place and let the ribands fall over one shoulder, the tasseled ends kissing the swell of her breast.

Pat Rin’s uncle, Daav yos’Phelium—Val Con’s very father—had once told Pat Rin a story about a world where all went masked and revealed themselves only to their most intimate kin. The story had turned upon a man with whom Uncle Daav had sworn to be acquainted, who had one day formed a desire to go about his daily business unmasked, and the unlooked-for and increasingly distressful situations that arose from taking that single, seemingly correct, decision.

The story had a lesson at its heart, of course—a scout lesson, with which one’s mother most emphatically disagreed. The lesson was that custom was arbitrary and oft-times nonsensical, and that the superior person was one who was not shackled by the custom of his homeworld, but moved freely from one set of traditions to another, without offense to any.

To wear a mask on Liad was, of course, to be very wicked. Masks were erotic, intoxicating and entirely outside of Code.

“Well?” Betea sen’Equa asked, not a little snappish. “Are you going to put that on, or are you not?”

THE HOUR WAS growing late.

Not that the young gentleman of leisure was at all concerned for the final outcome of the evening, he only wished that Betea would approach him so that the matter could be settled, finally and for all. She oversaw for a time the room’s small spin-wheel, and joined a party at cards, making certain that the money and the drink flowed, as a proper hostess must do.

Indeed, he would quite miss Betea, and where he would find another cat’s paw so perfectly situated, he could not predict. However, he was a young man of an optimistic cast of mind and rarely allowed the problems of tomorrow to oppress him today. He did not doubt for a moment that Betea would find herself able to accommodate the arrangements he had made for her. After all, what could it matter to a Clanless where she lived or to whom she owed duty?

If only she would she would stop circulating and come within his orbit so the evening could go forward…

IT WAS… DISCONCERTING… to enter a room filled with people dressed with entire propriety, saving only that their features were masked. Pat Rin, master of any social situation described in the Code, felt ill-at-ease, which sensation he found unsatisfactory in the extreme.

By contrast, Betea strolled into the room as if she had gone masked all her life, moving among people whose motives and desires were hidden from her. Which, Pat Rin thought, the echoes of Uncle Daav’s old story suddenly ringing in his ears, perhaps she had.

He raised his head and moved into the room, ignoring, as best as he was able, the supple caress of leather against his cheeks. A masked servant offered him wine from a tray, which he accepted, and, sipping, moved even further into the room.

Betea, he saw, was well advanced of him, her crimson shirt a beacon among the pastel evening colors of the Festival season.

Strolling through the room, Pat Rin recovered somewhat of his equilibrium. He had a good ear for voices, and he found that he recognized the accents of more than one social acquaintance in conversation, mask to mask.

So acclimated did he become, in fact, that, when hailed by a yellow-haired lady in an emerald green mask, he inclined his head gravely and murmured, “Good evening, Eyan. I hope I find you well?”

The lady gave a startled laugh and moved forward to lay her hand on his arm.

“Quick, my friend. Very quick. A word in your ear, however: We name no names here.”

Pat Rin sipped his wine. “Whyever not?”

“Oh, it adds to the mystery, the intrigue, the naughtiness! Is it not absurd?”

“Perhaps. But it is possible that you will change my mind. I am not accustomed to finding you engaged in the absurd."

“Prettily said,” smiled the lady. “Alas, I am here at the whim of a friend, who had heard of such affairs being all the rage from her cha’leket. I must seek her soon, to find if the telling matches reality, or if we may go and find a less… melant’i challenging… gathering.” She had recourse to her own glass, eyes quizzing him over the crystal rim. “But how do I find you present at such an exercise? Pay-off on a wager? Never say that you lost!”

Pat Rin inclined his head. “I find my situation similar to your own; and am here at the necessity of another.” He swept a glance across the room, looking for the crimson shirt—and failing to find it.

“Pat Rin?” Her hand was on his sleeve once more. “What’s amiss?”

“I—am not certain,” he replied, and turned sharply on his heel. “Perhaps nothing is amiss. Your pardon, Eyan…” He moved off into the crowded room, leaving her frowning behind him.

IT HAD BEEN absurdly easy. Betea had all but literally walked into his arms, and it had been simplicity itself to guide her into the parlor where his business associate awaited them.

“This is she?” The man behind the table asked, while Hia Cyn held Betea firmly by her arm.

“It is,” he said, adroitly avoiding the kick she aimed at his shins.

“And you have the right to sell her into indenture?”

“Sir, I have,” said Hia Cyn. “There is a debt between us of long standing, which she makes not the slightest push to settle. I certainly—”

“That,” snarled Betea, twisting against his grip, “is a lie! I owe you nothing!”

“Yes, well…” Hia Cyn shifted his grip and got her arm up behind her, hand between her shoulder-blades, which quietened her quick enough. “I have the papers, sir, which you’ve seen. The Council itself acknowledges my right to redeem my money through the sale of this woman’s work for a period of seven standard years.”

“He’s a wizard with papers, this one!” Betea snarled. “Look twice at any signatures he shows you, lordship—Ah!”

“Respect for your betters, Betea,” Hia Cyn said pleasantly, but the man behind the table frowned.

“She’s worth less to me with a broken arm,” he said, sternly. “Nor do I wish to buy at hazard.”

“Sir—”

“You are wise,” came a cool voice from behind. “Sir, release that woman. She is neither your chattel nor your debtor.”

The man behind the table moved a hand, beckoning. “Who are you, sir?”

Pat Rin yos’Phelium stepped into the room, impeccable in high-town lace; his face covered by a supple black mask; blue gem blazing in his right ear.

“I was told we name no names here, sir,” he said calmly. “However, I have business and a name for the man who has attempted to sell you that which does not belong to him.” He turned and raised his hand, pointing.

“Hia Cyn yo’Tonin, release that person, and prepare to answer me in a matter of Balance.”

“Balance?” Hia Cyn’s grip loosened, from pure amaze, so Betea thought, though she was quick to take advantage of his lapse. “We are in the midst of social pleasure,” Hia Cyn protested. “How may Balance go forth here?”

“Balance goes forth in the name of Fal Den ter’Antod, whom your actions slew. Do you deny that you are Hia Cyn yo’Tonin?”

“I neither deny nor acknowledge! You, sir, are not anonymous. I know your voice. I know that ear-stone—as who does not? I’ve seen you deep in the cards—and shooting, at Teydor’s!”

Betea, forgotten in the argument, moved swiftly to the side, raised her hand and pulled the bright ribands.

“What!” Hia Cyn raised his hand too late. The mask had slipped, fallen, and was held useless in his left hand. He stood revealed, his face seeming curiously naked, the skin slightly damp where the leather had cuddled his cheeks.

Pat Rin raised a hand, showing the battered debt-book, Imtal’s sigil to the fore.

“I have a book from the hand of a dead man, Hia Cyn yo’Tonin. Balance goes forth, here and now. What Balance is just, for the loss of a life?”

“I repudiate this. I will not accept Balance from a masked robber.”

“But do you know,” said a feminine voice from the door, “I think you will?” A smallish lady with gray hair, and wearing a mauve mask stepped into the room, closely followed by Eyan yo’Lanna’s emerald. The mauve mask inclined her head to Pat Rin.

“I have only this afternoon had a message from dea’Gauss, sir. I believe I am in your debt for the very welcome information he imparted.” She raised a hand. “Your duty takes precedence over my own. Pray continue. I believe we may be in a situation where witnesses may be… appropriate.”

Pat Rin inclined his head. “Ma’am.” He looked again to Hia Cyn yo’Tonin, and it was anger he felt. Anger, that this man lived where Fal Den ter’Antod—twelve dozen times more worthy!—had died. Died for the cause of this man’s greed. And he was to Balance this wrong? There was no Balance fitting. Even death…

The man behind the table cleared his throat.

“I do not wish to trespass into a private affair,” he said calmly. “However, I think it relevant to point out to those concerned that I came here to buy seven years’ of hard labor in my company’s mine. It matters not at all to me whose labor I buy, so long as the contract is valid.”

Pat Rin turned and looked at the man behind the table.

“Seven?”

The man inclined his head. “The contract can, of course, be renewed, at seller’s option. I am limited to the purchase of seven year blocks.”

“I see.” Pat Rin held looked again at Hia Cyn yo’Tonin, pale and sweating. “Let us say seven years initially, renewal to depend upon Fal Den ter’Antod’s delm.”

“The Council!” yelped Hia Cyn.

“I don’t think that the Council will find it difficult to name you beholden,” the lady in the mauve mask said. “And if Imtal does not impose additional terms of service, you may warm yourself by the certainty that you will have pel’Varn to reckon with on the day your indenture is done.”

It was too much. Hia Cyn spun, knocking Eyan aside, and vaulted into the main room, Betea in hot pursuit.

“Card-sharp!” she cried. “Stop him!”

The pleasure-seekers—gamesters and High Houselings alike—turned to stare at the one so hideously accused; several young gentlemen were seen to cast down their dice or their cards and move in pursuit.

Hia Cyn slammed to a halt, staring at the room full of masks, the avid eyes focused on him. He glanced down at his left hand, fingers still uselessly clutching his mask. Revealed, he thought. Revealed and ruined.

“Do not run from the lordship’s Balance, Hia Cyn,” Betea’s voice was quite near. He jerked his head up and stared at her. “It was wrong, what we did. And now a man has died of it.”

“A fool has died of it,” he snarled, snatching his hidden pistol free. “And not the only one.”

He raised the weapon and pulled the trigger.

Betea fell, someone in the crowd of pleasure-seekers screamed; someone else shouted. And Hia Cyn turned, seeking the way out—

And found instead a tall man dressed all in evening lace and jewels, the blue stone in his ear blazing. He was showing empty hands, which marked him a third fool.

“Put the gun aside,” Pat Rin said, pitching his voice for gentleness. “Put the gun aside and stand away. Hia Cyn. You hold no winning cards here.”

“No?” The gun came around, the eyes wild and the face aflame with some fever of madness.

There was no time to warn the crowd, no time to think. Pat Rin brought his right hand down, felt the little gun slide into his palm. The target…

Hia Cyn fired as he fell; the pellet from Pat Rin’s palm gun had already shattered his heart.

There was silence among the pleasure-seekers, and Pat Rin, shaking, slipped his weapon away. Several of the young gentlemen were bending over what was left of Hia Cyn yo’Tonin. He went to kneel beside Betea sen’Equa, discovering a heartbeat, and a wound to the upper arm. She opened her eyes as he bent over her.

“Lord,” she said breathily to Pat Rin as he stooped near her, “the masks!”

“Yes.”

It was absurdly difficult to untie the ribands that held his own mask in place. If only his fingers wouldn’t shake so…

Finally, the thing was done and he stood, raising his hand for silence against the sudden storm of chatter: “yos’Phelium!” “Suicide to draw against a yos’Phelium!” “He must have been in his cups!” “Card-sharp! The hostess herself accused him!”

Someone—he thought it was Dela bel’Urik—called, stridently, for silence.

It fell, and Pat Rin cleared his throat.

“If someone would be so good as to call the Port Proctors? Also, it would be well to remove your masks.”

These things were done, and when the Proctors did arrive, in goodly time, since they also knew the street, the only mask in the room was held in the death grip of Hia Cyn yo’Tonin.

IMTAL HERSELF RECEIVED the debt-book from his hands, riffled the pages, and read the four accountings, lingering over the fourth. She lay the book aside.

“Our House is honored,” she said, bowing.

“It was an honor to serve,” Pat Rin replied, properly, and bowed even lower.

“Hah.” She considered him out of tired brown eyes. “And what else do you bring me, child of Korval?”

Pat Rin moved his hand and Betea came forward, bowing as he had shown her.

“This is Betea sen’Equa; her name appears in the last entry in the book. Alas, Fal Den wrote neither a plus nor minus beside her name, nor any other elaboration; and I am unable to precisely reconstruct his will regarding her.”

The brown eyes narrowed. “I have read the last entry, and found it unilluminating. ‘In consideration of the melant’i of all involved, all debts in this pairing must be considered satisfied, pending the delm’s acceptance of the matter’.”

Pat Rin bowed acknowledgment. “Just so. Betea took part in the scheme which caused Fal Den’s death; it was something in which I feel she was also a victim. Your kinsman could not himself squarely place the debt, nor can I. The best Balance I may craft is to suggest that you speak with this person, candidly and at length, and that a new Balance be struck if need be, to Balance the loss of Fal Den’s worth.” He paused, then added, with utmost delicacy.

“I also suggest that you consult most closely with your business advisors about the matters this woman may reveal before setting that worth. Had it not been for the unfortunate public suicide of Hia Cyn…”

“Yo’Tonin. I have heard the news of that, and I have—as you may understand—heard other news of that. I would not have had such a necessity forced upon you.”

“The necessity was mine, Imtal. I could hardly have refused to serve Fal Den’s wishes.”

There was a short silence, then an inclination of the head. “As you say. I assume that this is the young person who was wounded in the service our House?”

“Imtal, it is.”

“Hah.” The brown eyes now frankly swept Betea. “My father knew your Grandmother. Well.”

Betea managed a strong voice: “My grandmother knew many people. Well.”

It was the correct response. Imtal smiled. “Assuredly, we shall need to talk—candidly and at length.”

To Pat Rin and inclined her head. “My thanks for your service to our House."

That was a dismissal. Pat Rin bowed. “My thanks for the forbearance of the House. I grieve for your loss, as well as my own.”

That said, and most properly, he allowed himself to be ushered from the room.