Changeling Read Online Free PDF Page B

slapped the toggle.
The cabin lights flickered as Ren Zel's board came live, and there
was a short, snapped-off scream.
    Poised over the board, he fought--fought the
ship, fought the wind, fought his own velocity. The wind tossed the
ship like so many flower petals, and they tumbled again. Ren Zel
fought, steadied his craft and passed out of the storm, into a
dazzle of sunlight and the realization that the ground was much too
close.
    He slapped toggles, got the nose up, rose,
rose--
    His board snapped and fizzed--desperately, he
slapped the toggle for the secondary back-up.
    There was none.
    The ship screamed like a live thing when it
slammed into the ground.
    * * *
    ON THE MORNING OF his third day out of the
healing unit and his second day at home, his sister Eba brought him
fresh clothes, all neatly folded and smelling of sunshine. Her face
was strained, her eyes red with weeping.
    "You are called to the meeting between Obrelt
and Jabun next hour, brother," she said, her voice husky and low.
"Aunt Chane will come for you."
    Ren Zel went forward a step, hand
outstretched to the first of his kin he had seen or spoken to since
the accident. "Eba?"
    But she would not take his hand, she turned
her face from him and all but ran from the room. The door closed
behind her with the wearisome, too-familiar sound of the lock
snapping to.
    Next hour. In a very short
time, he would know the outcome of Jabun's pursuit of Balance,
though what Balance they might reasonably take remained, after
three full days of thought on the matter, a mystery to him. The
Guild would surely have recovered the flight box. They would have
run the tape, built a sim, proven that it had been an accident, with no malice
attached. A tragedy, surely, for Jabun to lose a daughter. A double
tragedy, that she should die while in Obrelt's keeping. There would
be the life-price to pay, but--Balance?
    He considered the computer in its alcove near
the window. Perhaps today he would be allowed to access the nets,
to find what the world knew of this?
    But no, he was a pilot and a pilot's
understanding was quicker than that. He knew well enough the
conditions of his tenure here. All praise to Terran poetry, he even
knew the proper name for it.
    House
arrest .
    Escorted by med techs, he'd arrived home from
the Medical Center, and brought not to his own rooms, but to the
Quiet Suite, where those who mourned, who were desperately ill--or
dying--were housed. There was a med tech on-call. It was he who
showed Ren Zel the computer, the call button, the bed; he who
locked the door behind him when he left.
    There was entertainment available if one
wished to sit and watch, but the communit reached only the med tech
and the computer accessed only neutral information--no news, no
pilot-net; the standard piloting drills did not open to his code,
nor had anyone brought his books, or asked if he wished to have
them. This was not how kin cared for kin.
    Slowly, Ren Zel went over to the pile of
clean clothes. He slipped off the silver-and-indigo robe, and
slowly, carefully, put on the modest white shirt and dark trousers.
He sat down to pull his boots on and sat a little longer, listening
to the blood singing in his ears. He was yet low of energy. It
would take some time, so the med tech told him--perhaps as long as
a relumma--to fully regain his strength. He had been advised to
take frequent naps, and not to overtire himself.
    Yes, very good.
    He pushed himself to his feet and went back
to the table. His jacket was there. Wonderingly, he shook it out,
fingering the places where the leather had been mended, pieced
together by the hand of a master. As he had been.
    The touch and smell of the leather was a
reassuring and personal commonplace among the bland and antiseptic
ambiance of the quiet suite. He swung the jacket up and on,
settling it on his shoulders, and looked at the remaining items on
the table.
    His piloting license went into its secret
pocket. For a moment, he simply stared at