Colemenoport
Wayfarer
Padi woke all at once, and flopped over onto her back, staring up at the pale pink ceiling while she took stock.
She felt . . . better, and doubtless would feel more improvement, once she had taken a shower. Intending to do just that, she threw the blanket back, noting as she did so that she was hungry.
Rising, she turned toward the ’fresher, paused, and went, instead, to the comm.
“Service, Trader?” came the easy query from the kitchen.
“Would you send a—restorative tray to my room, please?”
“Right away, Trader.” That was considerably sharper.
“Thank you,” Padi said, and tapped the connection off.
She had scarcely gone two steps back toward the ’fresher when the delivery bell chimed.
At least eat a muffin before you shower, she told herself, changing course yet again. After all, Trader Padi, no one wants an incident.
* * *
When at last she had showered, and dressed in ship’s casual, she carried what was left on the tray across the room. Lady Selph was waiting for her by the door to her enclosure. Padi set the tray down, took up a cross-legged seat on the floor, and pressed her finger against the release.
Lady Selph strolled out onto the table, and accepted the piece of fruit Padi offered her with regal grace.
Padi chose a piece of fruit for herself, and they ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. The nuance Padi received from the elderly norbear was pensive consideration, which suited her own mood.
When the fruit was gone, Lady Selph posed a question. Padi blinked, and looked again. It took a moment to realize that what she was looking at was herself, asleep, hair flung about the pillow every which way, and one arm outside the blankets, resting on her stomach.
“Well you might ask,” she said to Lady Selph. “It happens that my meetings were very trying, and I failed to eat appropriately.”
Lady Selph allowed it to be known that eating was very important.
Padi laughed.
“Yes, so I am learning. But you remind me that I have faces for you. Here—”
She lifted the norbear to her knee, and carefully visualized Merchant vellaTon. When she felt Lady’s Selph’s acceptance, she formed an equally careful image of Merchant zerKilin, which was likewise accepted.
When it came to Zandir kezlBlythe, however, matters went askew. Padi found an unexpected difficulty in providing what might be termed a “fair copy” of Luzant kezlBlythe.
She struggled to be accurate, but the image would not come right. When there finally came a pressure of paw against her wrist, she had produced a severely sharp-faced woman with narrow, avaricious eyes, the whole image sticky, as if it had been made out of honey.
She felt Lady Selph put her attention on this travesty for a long moment. Then came the query.
“Well, she was the last,” Padi told her, “and I expect that I was already feeling the effects of not having eaten a sufficiency of cake. I had quite the headache by the time she was done with me.”
She paused, frowning down into Lady Selph’s furry face.
“I think she tried to push me,” she said slowly. “The most peculiar sensation, and—and I thought I heard a sound, like a rock bouncing off a hull.”
Lady Selph allowed it to be known that pushing people was rude.
“Indeed it is. My shields—I suppose I will have to ask Father to look at them for me, or perhaps—”
Lady Selph wondered why Padi could not tend her own shields.
Padi glared at her.
“Because I’m an idiot and don’t know how to see them,” she said, hearing the snap in her voice. “It’s quite ridiculous. All I need is a mirror, only—”
She stopped, and took a deep breath, her attention focused inward, where the oddest fancy had formed . . .
Lady Selph allowed it to be known that she wished to return to her apartment.
Padi saw her safely inside before rising, and going across the room to the full-length mirror next to the closet.
She paused, looking at herself, hair loose along her shoulders, eyebrows pulled, mouth straight.
“All I need,” she said aloud, “is a mirror.”
She opened her Inner Eyes.
Sparkling ribbons of color filled the surface before her. The reflection of the frowning woman faded under their assault, until they, too, faded, giving place—and for the second time, she Saw her own shields.
Pewter they were, not silver, but for all their lack of shine, they put forth a steady, lambent glow. The shape suggested dragon wings, with a fretwork that evoked knots of flowering lavender. There was a dent in the upper right quadrant—damage from a previous attack—which her shields had turned.
Slightly to the left of the old scar, was a new one. Padi leaned closer. The old scar looked as if someone had thrown a boulder against her shields, with considerable force.
The new scar—looked as it had sounded, Padi realized. As if a stone had forcibly struck her shields, and bounced away. There was a dent, and a black smear around it, like carbon.
It would, Padi thought, be quite enough to give one a headache, to be hit with a stone thrown with such force.
Of course, it would need to be repaired, Padi thought, staring at the reflection. As if the thought were the action, she saw the dent fill and smooth, though the black stain remained.
That will need to be polished clean, she thought, very carefully. Color swirled in the mirror.
When it faded, Padi beheld her shields once more, repaired and glowing from within.
Carefully, she considered the scar from the first encounter. Her reason for leaving it . . . apparent to those who had the proper eyes to See it, had been that it would serve as a warn-away. Who would attempt a person whose shields had held against such an impact?
But it would seem that Zandir kezlBlythe hadn’t even Looked, but merely let fly with her malicious pebble. Perhaps she had only wanted to give Padi a headache, in punishment for not being the master trader. If so, she had succeeded.
Padi stepped back and gave her shields one more inspection, finding them as strong as ever.
Satisfied, she closed her Inner Eyes. This time there were no colors in the mirror before the reflection of the woman in ship’s casual appeared, her face relaxed and her frown retired.
Padi sighed—and sighed again.
She was hungry.