Free Dream Dancer by Janet Morris Page B

the part about learning to be in actuality what you were never meant to be in more than name. That surprised me. But I suppose I owe you the chance, since you are bearing the difficulties therefrom. The last, however, I did not hear, did I?” This moment tested the girl: would she back away from what she must know would evoke his displeasure and perhaps lose her all he was allowing her to think she had gained? His eyes skipped briefly down the graphed results of her aptitude tests. There it was, in red while all but one other entry was the acceptable green: Pilot, spongespace . Well, if the computer had prophesied it as third choice, there was little possibility that the girl would be unaware of her own predilection. The first-choice entry, also glaring balefully in red, unconcerned about the censure it was sure to elicit from any human eye that read its scarlet message, held his gaze a little longer. If he allowed the lesser evil, would he be spared the greater? And if not, what then? Dream dancer , the red letters spelled smugly, uncaring.
    Parma Alexander Kerrion’s hands snapped the stylus they held into two equal parts, which he lay carefully side by side upon the desk.
    “You do know,” he asked softly, “that such an occupation as pilotry is no fit vocation for a member of a consular house?”
    “I have heard it said. But Marada—”
    “Marada’s talents were so few and so unfortunately spread that no amount of pressure could keep him from it. As with his appointment as ‘arbiter-at-large,’ it was on my part more a ploy to keep him from shattering the very structure of Law and throwing his life away in the bargain than any choice of mine. As you are well aware, he nearly managed both, despite all my precautions to the contrary. Surely you do not wish to similarly reward me for my kindness to you?”
    “Kindness?” tittered Shebat in an uncanny imitation of her stepmother’s most scathing repartee.
    Parma Kerrion raised both hands palm up in a gesture of defeat. “Come to Draconis, if you will. It seems I must get you out from under Ashera’s tutelage before I find myself with two such doppelgangers under my very roof.”
    Shebat Kerrion did not burst forth in grateful tears or vociferous praise. She merely nodded regally, content.
    Parma shuddered, and eyed the results of the girl’s psychometric examination one more time. “There are conditions appended to this favor I do you,” he warned.
    “Of course,” Shebat agreed complacently.
    Parma Alexander Kerrion wondered if perhaps sending Marada a copy of the report greenly glaring up at him would steal from his son some percentage of the sleep he, Parma, would doubtless lose over the creation of the masterpiece Shebat Kerrion—he must remember to have a middle name entered for her: Alexandra, as she would soon enough deserve—was destined to become. Would the quiet coincidence of genetic relatedness between black sheep son and foster daughter bite at Marada’s heart as inexorably as that son had eaten away the father’s? Or was it unnecessary: did Marada even now suffer over the meeting and subsequent loss of what might be, out of all the women in the Consortium, his most auspicious mate?
    No matter, after all. The boy was well out of the way doing husbandly duties for the daughter Selim Labaya had despaired of ever getting wed to an acceptable candidate. Both houses were profiting thereby. Rather than mooning over her rescuer’s precipitate departure from life and ken, the girl had evidently taken up an interest in Chaeron, Lords of Cosmic Jest only knowing why.
    “This is the first time I have heard you speak of Marada since his wedding. It is remarkable, considering the degree of affection you initially displayed.” Parma met the tilted head’s gray stare and held it, but learned nothing except that the girl’s glance betrayed her in no way. Whatever emotions rode behind that challenging visage stayed hidden.
    “Is it my place to speak