Free Damia by Anne McCaffrey

broadcasting like that?”
    Afra looked up with a grin. “It certainly puts us on our toes.” There was no way he would admit that he had been stunned by her temperamental display. He had also been more fascinated than disturbed by it.
    Brian gulped. “Is that why she does it?”
    Afra shrugged, opening the little blue bird’s wings. “She’s the Prime. She can do what she pleases.”
    Brian frowned. “She always does,” he said sourly, and went back to sort out the mess of flimsies, pencil files, and wayflippies that littered his desk. “At least it was all cargo.”
    *   *   *
    Busy with unpacking his new possessions, Afra missed the first tentative knock on the door to his quarters. But a mental presence then impinged on his awareness so he heard the second rap.
    “Come,” he called out, “lifting” two cartons away from the door so that it could swing open.
    It did, slowly, and he was astonished to see the Rowan peeking around the door, as if unsure of her welcome.
    “Come in, come in,” he said, “whisking” wrappings and styro packing pellets into an empty box and closing its flaps.
    The Rowan slid in and closed the door behind her, regarding him with gray eyes wide and worried.
    “What’s wrong?” Her color was wrong and her manner a dramatic contrast from the virago who had stormed out of the Tower a scant hour past.
    “I want to apologize to you, Afra,” she said in a muted voice.
    “She’s a lonely, lonely girl.”
Afra quickly hid this recall of Reidinger’s unvoiced assessment.
    “Because I can take downside leave and you can’t?” He couldn’t feel her reading him nor would he breach Talent ethics by attempting to read her—in a remorseful mood or not.
    “I think that was at the bottom of it,” she said, and sighed deeply as she sank into one of the huge lounge pillows that he had just unpacked. Then she shook her head savagely: “No, it wasn’t. I must be honest with you if we’re to continue as a viable team.” She locked her gray eyes on his yellow gaze. “You’ve lost a certain tension. I can’t.” She held up her hand when he opened his mouth. “Reidinger’s approved of you, you know.”
    “I didn’t.”
    She gave a little shrug that was more a twist of her shoulders than a lift. “You wouldn’t have been returned here if he hadn’t.”
    “I thought Primes made their own choices . . .” and Afra grinned at her.
    She managed a weak smile, but her body lost much of its tension. “I didn’t even have to argue with him.”
    “He liked the bull!”
    There was a genuine smile on the Rowan’s narrow face now. She craned her neck up to look at him, and he courteously dropped to a sitting position on the new table he had assembled.
    “He liked the touch of square balls, and
that
,” she pointed her finger at him, “was your idea!”
    “But it was
your
idea to distract him with an origami.”
    Her grin broadened. “But you still had to take the initiative and you did.”
    Afra cocked his head at her. “Were you listening?”
    Eyes wide with denial, she shook her head vigorously, her loose and slightly damp hair clinging to her cheek until she pulled it away and tossed the strands back. “Not me. I suppose if I really
needed
to, I could get into Reidinger’s lair. But I would certainly have to have a very good excuse. I see you put your downtime to good use,” she added, changing the subject as she looked about her with interest in his purchases.
    Afra managed to control a rush of blood to his face, thinking of how he had spent some of that time. “Yes, well,” and he “lifted” over an as yet unopened parcel, “I didn’t bring much with me, you know . . .”
    “I do . . .”
    “And I seem to have all kinds of allowances for the transfer, so . . .” He used his strong hands to fracture the seal and brought out the lamp, crafted like one of his origami herons in a delicate ceramic. “I couldn’t resist this . . .” He held it