With Stars Underfoot (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®) Read Online Free PDF Page A

clever of you to think of a dance!"
      Audrey laughed. "Wish I could say it was all my idea! Miri was the one put the seed in my head, if you want the truth. Said she had too much energy and no place to spend it, which I'll say between the three of us ain't the usual complaint of new-birthed mothers."
      "Miri is an example to us all," Pat Rin murmured, which pleasantry Audrey greeted with another laugh.
      "Ain't she just—and your brother's another one! When I invite a man to a dance and I don't expect him to bring his keyboard and set up with the band. That's just what he's done, though—take a look!" She pointed down the room, where was collected a fiddle, a guitar, a drum set, a portable omnichora—and several musicians wearing what passed for stage finery on Surebleak, clustered about a slender man in a ruffled white shirt and formal slacks that would have been unexceptional at any evening gather in Solcintra.
      It had been ...disconcerting... to find that Audrey, with the rest of Pat Rin's acquaintance on Surebleak, assumed that Val Con, his cousin and his Delm, was in fact his younger brother, brought in to care for the transplanted family business while the Boss undertook the important task of putting the streets in order.
      As the misapprehension only amused Miri, and Val Con's sole comment on the matter was a slightly elevated eyebrow, Pat Rin gave over attempting to explain their actual relationship and resigned himself to having at his advanced age acquired a sibling.
      "For a time, he and Miri sang for their suppers," he said now to Audrey. "Perhaps he misses the work."
      "Could be," she answered, as the sound of footsteps and voices grew louder in the hall behind them. She sent a look over his shoulder, extended a hand and patted his sleeve lightly.
      "The two of you go on in and circulate. Dancing ought to be starting up soon."
      Thus dismissed, Pat Rin followed Natesa deeper into the parlor.
    * * *
    MS. AUDREY'S BIG PARLOR, already crowded, grew more so. Deep in a discussion with Etienne Borden and Andy Mack, which involved free-standing solar batteries, and the benefits of light level meters over mechanical timers, Pat Rin still registered an abrupt lowering of the ambient noise and looked around, thinking that the promised music was at last about to begin. But no.
      It was his mother entering the room, on the arm of no one less than Scout Commander ter'Meulen, dressed for the occasion in High House best, his face oh-so-politely bland, and his mustache positively non-committal.
      Pat Rin, who had all his life known Scout ter'Meulen, could only wonder at the reasons behind such a display—not to mention the why and wherefore of Lady Kareen accepting his arm for anything at all. They were neither one a friend of the other, though it had always seemed to Pat Rin that the greater amusement was on Clonak's side and the greater dislike on his mother's. Surely—
      Audrey bustled forward to welcome these newest arrivals, her high, sweet voice easily rising above the other conversations in the room.
      "I knew you'd turn the trick, Mister Clonak!" she said gaily, patting him kindly on the shoulder. This was apparently a dismissal, as Clonak adroitly disengaged himself from the lady's arm, took two steps into the parlor and was lost in the general crush.
      Audrey turned to face Kareen squarely, and Pat Rin's stomach tightened, as he contemplated disaster. Even had he not counted Audrey a friend, he thought, it was surely no more than his duty to stand between her and Lady Kareen yos'Phelium, in the same way that it was his duty as Boss to stand between the residents of his streets and mayhem.
      He murmured something quick and doubtless unintelligible to the Colonel and the assistant portmaster, and slipped through the press of bodies, moving as quickly as he was