FREE STORIES 2012(46)

“No problem,” the king said in relief. He was amazed he was getting off so easily.

“However did you figure out how to defeat the terrible sea serpent?” Isabella asked, breathlessly. She still wasn’t sure if she should be insulted that the hero…ine didn’t want her as a bride.

“Well, girly,” Conella said, patting her on the head. “It takes a real woman to defeat a one-eyed wonder-worm.”





Landed Alien

by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller





Pool Pilot and Tech Kara ven'Arith sat in the Station Master's office, on an uncomfortable, and cold, steel chair.

She sat alone, hands folded tightly in her lap, face under rigid control. Waiting. . .

A man was dead. A pilot was dead.

By her hand.

She turned her head to the left, and stared for a long moment at the door to the outer hallway and the rest of Codrescu Station. She turned her head to the right, and gave the door to the Station Master's inner office similar close study. Neither door was locked. Why would they be?

There was no place to go, and nothing, really, for her to do.

Save wait.

Wait on the verdict of those now discussing her and her actions, there in the inner office. Would she live? Would she die? Would she be banished to the planet's surface, to take her chances there?

They would decide: the Station Master, the Guild Master, her immediate supervisor, the head Tugwhomper, and the associate supervisor of the pilot pool.

Kara took a deep breath, and wished they would decide soon.





* * *





It was silent in the common room as the graduation list scrolled across the community screen. They were all seniors in this dorm; and each a deal more solemn than even the suspense of the scrolling list might account for.

At the back of the room, Kara ven'Arith stood alone, and hopefully out of the eye of the dorm's loyalty monitor. That one had been dogging her steps for the last semester, trying to catch her in a "subversive" act. The monitor had been at great pains to explain Kara's precarious situation to her -- the lack of three black marks was all that stood between Kara and the fate of her very good friend, Expelled Student Waitley.

The monitor had stared at her in what Kara supposed was intended to be a sad-but-stern manner, and which had been so ludicrous that she had been hard-put not to giggle. Worse, the thought of what Theo might say upon hearing her new title of honor was almost enough to send her into whoops.

It being fairly certain that she would earn one, if not two, of those missing black marks immediately for a failure to show proper respect, Kara had bitten the inside of her cheek and bowed her head, striving to give the impression of one too cowed by authority to speak.

The monitor hrummphed.

"You'd do better to sit up and meet my eye," she had snapped. "Sneaking alien ways won't improve your record."

Well, and that had almost brought her to join Theo. Kara had taken a deep breath, and lifted her head deliberately to meet the other woman's eyes.

"I am not an alien," she said calmly, in the Eylot dialect of Terran. "My family has held land on this planet for ninety-eight Standards."

The monitor, whose name was Peline Graf, frowned.

"And you think that makes you Eylotian?" she asked.

It was on the edge of Kara's tongue to say that she had been born on Eylot -- but, after all, that did not make her Eylotian -- even her delm taught so. They of Clan Menlark were Liaden, though based upon Eylot.

"You're nothing but a landed alien," Monitor Graf added, in a tone that made plain that she found this Eylotian legal reality not in the least amusing.

Kara folded her lips together and held the monitor's gaze until the other woman waved her hand in abrupt dismissal.

"I'm required to warn students who are in danger of expulsion. This has been your warning, ven'Arith. Watch yourself."

It had been, Kara had admitted to herself, after a long walk, a long shower, and a long, sleepless night, a fair warning, of its kind, and worth taking to heart. She had so much hanging, as the Terran phrase went, in Balance. Very nearly a Liaden meaning to Balance, there.

Well. She had seen what had happened to Theo, who had committed the dual crimes of not being Eylotian, and excelling beyond those who were. For those crimes, she had been targeted, trapped, and expelled. She, Kara ven'Arith, was the designated instrument of Theo's will in that matter. As such, she was honor-bound to keep all and any doors open through which Balance might enter.

That -- and there was her family to consider. To be expelled so near to the completion of her course and flight-work, even if she could show political malice as the cause? That would scarcely please her mother or her delm. Indeed, it was very likely that she would be roundly scolded for having been so maladroit as to allow her enemies to prevail against her. Clan Menlark had not prospered as pilots and as mechanics on a culturally diverse world known for its effervescent politics because its children were either maladroit or stupid.