Free Dream Dancer by Janet Morris

the Labayan flagship, say nothing at all!”
    “But how do you know he will—?”
    “When will you learn never to interrupt people capable of thinking before they speak when you yourself are not?” Spittle sprayed his cheek, but when he turned away from Marada and the slight Earth girl, Ashera was smiling pleasantly. “Have I your attention now? Good. It is as important that you do not en courage, as that you do not dis courage. Go with them. And bring me back word of what is said. But covet not the Hassid . You will have a ship of your own and a pilot soon enough.”
    “But, why—?”
    “Your brother has a love for that particular craft, a matter of his pilot’s gift. That is more than you need to know. If you cannot answer your own questions henceforth, then perhaps I am wasting my time with you. . . . After all, your brother, Julian, comes of age next month. . . . Ah ha ha ,” she laughed, “you should see your face. Go on now. Little Pestilence. I must arrange for bodyservants and suitable quarters, not to say tutors, that will make a Kerrion out of that piece of ground-dwelling rubbish.”

 
    Chapter Four
     
     
    It was on the day that Shebat turned sixteen (as well as she could reckon the date) that Ashera—with an enigmatic smile—said to her that she, Ashera, had done her best, and now all was up to Shebat.
    There followed immediately an interview with Parma which Shebat had petitioned for while still she did not understand what was happening to her, three months before; and which by the day of its occurrence she had given up hope of ever being granted.
    Until today, she had had the opportunity to call Parma “father” only at those once-weekly breakfasts attended by the most intimate Kerrion family: Ashera and her sons and daughter, herself and the consul general.
    “You look a far cry from the knobby-kneed waif Marada brought us,” said Parma, raising eyes but not head from the screen on his desk to greet her. “Sit.”
    She sat opposite him in the old-style armchair before a venerable antique of a desk made from real wood. Like so many things Kerrion, its harkening back to hallowed days of antiquity and the superiority of both taste and breeding thereby implied would have been lost on her when first she came to study in Lorelie. As the quaint custom still observed among the platforms of numbering time in days, weeks, months and years A.D. had been unnoticeable to her because of its familiarity, so the presence of wood and leather and carpet of hand-tied silk might have seemed comforting, but not the arrogant statement of wealth and breeding her accultured perceptions now knew it to be.
    “You wanted to see me?” prompted the mountain seated behind the desk.
    “Three months ago, when my bodyguards suffered to a man from the flux and I finally realized both the dangers inherent in the position to which you so offhandedly elevated me, and the reason behind it. Then, I wanted to see you.”
    “Your command of Consulese is quite impressive. Is your insight equally so?”
    “I am the wild card in your hand; the random factor that makes you unpredictable to the minds of your fellow men and their computers alike,” accused Shebat, unaware of the pout that pushed forward her lips when she had said her say.
    “Guilty as charged,” chuckled Parma. “Surely there was more to this ‘life-and-death matter’ which your own handwriting affirms must needs be discussed in private than to accuse me of ulterior motives, without which a Kerrion would feel naked as a newborn babe?”
    “Since then, I have learned many things. I have studied survival as it is taught in Lorelie; both by your intelligence officers in principle, and by your wife in application. Having withstood Ashera’s kindnesses this long, I need not ask for your protection from them.”
    “Complacency is a tripware on a sheer-sided path. Watch your steps the more carefully, the surer you are of them.”
    “Then keep that old snake away