Free Fledgling by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page A

breath, and shook his head slightly, as if amused by his own plans.
    "Is that another—Outside pleasure?" she asked. "Growing flowers?"
    "I fear that it may be," he confessed.
    Lights were coming up in the town below. A garden, Kamele thought, with . . . flowers.
    "I would like to see that," she said finally.
    "I would be delighted to invite you, once all is accomplished," he answered gallantly.
    "And I'd be delighted to accept the invitation." She smiled and rose. "I have to go in and grade papers," she said. She held out a hand and he placed his palm against hers. "Thank you again, Professor Kiladi."
    "Please," he said, his rough voice serious, "let me be Jen Sar."
    That was another shock, but a pleasant one. She smiled.
    "And let me be Kamele," she said.
    "Assuredly," he murmured. He stood and offered his arm. Together they strolled back toward the Wall.
     

Eight
     
    University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two
    Theo's mumu sang its you're-this-close-to-trouble tune as the bus pulled into the Wall terminal. She threw herself down the exit ramp and ran across the plaza for the entrance.
    "Chaos and destruction!" Night Eyes opened at tenbell, but Mice who hadn't had their Gigneri were supposed to be inside by ninebells, or they'd better have a bluekey to show the Safeties at the entrance. Being Outside after curfew without a bluekey— that was a trip to the Safety Office, Kamele and Marjene called in for an instant meeting with a Safety Liaison, and herself presented with a Plan of Behavior. At least, Theo thought, running as fast as she could, that kind of trouble wouldn't pull down the Team average.
    "You didn't get enough notes in your file for one day?" she muttered as she slapped her palm against the scan plate and waited in an agony of impatience for the main door to open.
    Open it did, painfully slow. She slid through when the gap was wide enough to admit her skinny self, took a breath and walked— calmly —past the Safety station and the Eye, toward the belt platform.
    Her mumu thweeped ninebells as she stepped onto the belt for Quadeight Twobuild. Theo sighed in relief—then shook her head. She'd managed to dodge trouble with the Safeties, but she still had her mother to face.
    "The bus was late," she said experimentally. While this was actually true, it sounded like an excuse. Kamele—and Father too, if it mattered—would say that it was her responsibility to be sure of the timetable before she traveled, and to plan in advance. She had just assumed that the evening bus would run the same route, and take the same time, as the morning commuter bus—and she'd been wrong.
    Unlike the daytime commuter, the late bus wandered the streets of Nonactown, picking up and setting down an astonishing variety of passengers, most of whom stared at her coveralls and sweater like they'd never seen a student before, and two who were definitely the kind of people that Father Looked At . People Father Looked At inevitably looked—and often moved—away. Without Father there, they stared, and then they'd moved, all right. They came over to sit in the seat behind her, whispering loud enough for her to hear.
    "Fluffy-headed dacky girls shouldn't be on the bus all alone, should they, Vinter?" the first whispered.
    "Dacky girls think the whole world's safe," the second, presumably Vinter, whispered back. "Dacky girls think the Eyes never close."
    "The Eyes don't watch everything—even we know that!"
    "Got another maybe," Vinter said.
    "What's that?"
    Vinter's voice sank, though it was still perfectly intelligible to Theo, where she sat very still, with her head turned toward the side screen, pretending hard not to notice them.
    "Maybe not a dacky girl at all," he whispered.
    There was a moment's silence, then the first one whispered hoarsely. "You mean—a Specialty? Down here?" As near as Theo could tell, he sounded genuinely awed.
    "Happens," his friend said sagely. "Knew a techie saved up a