Certain Symmetry Read Online Free PDF

new and appropriate, perhaps involving the yo'Lanna
colors. The sudden fashion of declaring a party within hours or
even minutes--the "express" mode, as it was called--made it
difficult for one to plan ahead even as it made judging the party's
...desirability... all but impossible.
    Eyan's parties, however, were often amusing,
correct without being stifling, and always informative. Pat Rin
reached into the right hand drawer of the desk, pulled out a stiff
ivory card with Korval's Tree-and-Dragon embossed on the front,
opened it and wrote the appropriate graceful acceptance. He slid
the card into an envelope, penned the direction with his own hand,
affixed one of Korval's postage coupons, and placed it in the
carved wooden tray that served as his outbox.
    The fourth letter was from his foster
father, Luken bel'Tarda, begging the pleasure of his company that
evening for a private dinner at Ongit's.
    Pat Rin smiled. The invitation to Ongit's
was a joke, by which Luken meant to convey that Pat Rin was arrears
in visits. In which complaint, he thought, glancing at the
calendar, Luken was entirely justified.
    He pulled out a sheet of paper bearing only
his name, wrote that he would be pleased to dine with his foster
father this very evening and begged his pardon for being a
light-minded flutter-about-town. He signed himself "Your
affectionate son," sealed, directed, stamped, and placed the
completed billet in the wooden tray.
    The door of his study opened to admit Mr.
pel'Tolian, bearing the requested light nuncheon and glass. This,
he disposed upon the small table to Pat Rin's left, then picked up
the completed mail and, cat-footed, departed,
    Pat Rin turned his attention to the first of
the two packets. The postage was Aragon's. He had shared several
delightful and adventurous Festival hours with a daughter of the
House only yesterday. As the adventure had been at the lady's
initiative, Pat Rin assumed the packet to contain a Fairing--a gift
of gratitude. He broke the seal, unfolded the box, shook out the
silken garment enclosed--and very nearly groaned.
    He had expected Shan and Val Con's escapade
to result in a rash of monstrosities aping Val Con's innovative
cloak, the so-called "skimmer" he'd used to such astonishing effect
in yesterday's races. He had simply not expected the fashion to
have taken so quickly.
    Aragon's third daughter had sent him a
skimmer--blue, where Val Con's original had been warning light
orange--which modification was not, Pat Rin thought, as pleasing as
one must have assuredly assumed that it would be. The name of the
tailor was impeccable--in fact, his mother's own tailor--and the
material flawless. Nor did it seem at all unlikely that the silk
had been chosen to precisely match the color of his earring, of
which the lady had been most fond. Ah, youth.
    He sighed and folded the wretched thing onto
his keyboard, and turned back to the opened box. There was no note,
which was proper, and told him that Aragon's daughter had breeding,
if not taste.
    He picked up the second packet, frowned at
Imtal's postal mark, broke the seal, and for the second time in a
hour found himself at Point Non Plus.
    For the packet contained a leather book no
larger than Pat Rin's hand, stamped with the sigil of Clan Imtal.
Foreknowing, he opened the volume to the first page and verified
that what he held was indeed Fal Den ter'Antod's personal
debt-book.
    There was no note, as of course there would
not be, the Code being explicit upon this point. By the act of
sending this book, Fal Den had chosen the executor of his will. He,
Pat Rin yos'Phelium, was to tend all accounts left unBalanced at
the time of Fal Den's death, paying justly where the fault had been
Fal Den's; collecting fully where the debt was owed. No light task,
this, nor deniable.
    And he had precisely thirty-six hours in
which to complete it, assuming that all debts were on-planet, which
seemed likely.
    He did not read past the first page. Not
yet. With the