Free Fledgling by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

equitably. "Show me."
    Both well-marked brows rose, and he lifted his hand, the twisted silver ring on the smallest finger catching the light.
    "Scholar, you must forgive an old man his—"
    He paused, his expression arrested, seeming scarcely to breathe. Concerned, Kamele dared to touch his deeply braided sleeve.
    "Professor Kiladi, are you all right?"
    He blinked as if he were bringing her back into focus and gave her a smile that seemed . . . less genuine than his other smiles.
    "A consultation with my muse; I did not mean to alarm you." He glanced down into his half-full glass, then up into her face.
    "If you wish it, I will be pleased to show you a sunset, Scholar Waitley. We merely need to find a time when our schedules—and the planet's rotation—align."
     
    "Thank you," Kamele breathed, her eyes still on the violet-drenched horizon. "That was . . ." Words failed her; she smiled and turned to face him. "Thank you," she said again.
    He returned her smile.
    "It was no effort of mine, I assure you," he said. "You might experience a sunset yourself every day, if you wished to do so."
    "Not every day," she said wistfully. "You saw my schedule!"
    "So I did," he acknowledged. "But the fact that you are here proves that there is at least one evening when you may partake of this pleasure."
    She nodded, her eyes drawn again to the horizon, where the gaudy display was deepening to black.
    "And this is only one of those pleasures you told me of," she said. "Is watching the stars as . . . glorious?"
    "The stars impart a different, but I find, equally satisfying pleasure," he said softly.
    "I imagine that it would be difficult to time that particular pleasure," she murmured. "Night Eyes open at tenbell."
    "Surely the monitors would not consider someone quietly sitting and looking at the sky a danger?"
    "It would be . . . odd behavior, even if it wasn't specifically on the danger list," she pointed out. "For the purpose of public safety, odd is dangerous."
    There was a small pause, and a light sight. "I do keep forgetting," Professor Kiladi said ruefully. "Delgado is a Safe World."
    "You say that as if it were . . . unsavory," Kamele said, turning to look into his face.
    He raised an eyebrow. "Unsavory . . . no. Far different from other worlds? That . . . yes." He looked out though the final light had faded into night, and was silent long enough that Kamele dared a question.
    "What are you thinking?"
    "Eh?" He blinked and raised his head, offering her an absentminded smile.
    "I was thinking that perhaps I should acquire quarters outside of the Wall."
    She turned to stare at him. " Outside of the Wall?" she repeated, shocked to the core of her Mouse's heart.
    "Indeed," he said coolly, as if there were nothing remarkable in the plan at all. "A small house, perhaps, down there—" He pointed downhill from their shared seat on the bench in the faculty green.
    "In Nonactown?"
    "Not, I think, in Efraim itself," he murmured; "the lights would spoil the stars. No . . . perhaps over there, to the right of town. A small house, with a walled garden, so that I might sit out all night if the fancy takes me, without embarrassment to the Directors."
    "Would you do that?" Kamele looked at him doubtfully. His sense of humor was so dry that it was sometimes difficult to know when Professor Kiladi was joking. On this instance, however, he did appear to be serious.
    He smiled at her. "I have, alas, been known to take odd fancies. Shall I escort you inside now?"
    "Not . . . just yet," she said, looking down at the lights of the town. She struggled to understand him. To want to live outside of the Wall; distant by choice from one's intellectual colleagues. How odd. And yet—a sunset every day? That might tempt, she thought.
    "Will you grow . . . crops in your garden?" she asked, as if it were the most usual thing imaginable.
    He laughed. "Flowers, I assure you! Perhaps some shrubs. A tree . . ." He took a