. . .from Sharon and Steve, and from Toni Weisskopf at Baen, who agreed that this had to be done.

Here is your Very First Taste of Alliance of Equals, the 19th novel set in the Liaden Universe®, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Chapter One
Dutiful Passage

He rushed her, a tall Terran male, overtopping and outmassing her. Padi dropped back one step, flat-footed and centered, knees flexed — and he was on her, keeping himself tight, seeking to overturn her with his speed, and flatten her under his weight. She ducked inside his reach, snatching at belt and elbow, twisting her upper body, letting him lift himself over her shoulder. Momentum, it was all his own momentum, and, in the last instant before she let him go, she straightened, adding her motion to his, throwing him with every ounce of strength she possessed before she released him — and continued the spin, completing the move and dissipating unused energy.

Her late opponent hit the floor some number of his own body lengths down the room. Hit, rolled, and leapt to his feet; turned. . .

. . .and bowed, vanquished to victor.

“Your follow, having thrown your attacker far away?” he inquired in Terran.

Padi’s bow was from student to teacher.

“I would have run, sir, and been many blocks distant before he regained his feet.”

“And if he had a partner at the top of the street?”

“I would have shot her,” she said coolly, “and run on.”

“I see.”

Arms Master Schneider looked around the practice room, as if he were seeing something other than the padded walls and floor.

Padi folded her hands and waited. Arms Master Schneider took time with his words, and there was no speeding the man up, no matter how much one might wish it. Padi supposed it another sort of practice, and did her best to recruit herself to patience.

“I wonder,” he said eventually, walking toward her, his posture soft, and his hands unthreatening. Padi remained at center, and allowed her hands to unfold into neutral positions at her sides.

Her instructor did not seem to notice; he continued to walk gently forward; his eyes on her face.

“It’s very natural,” he said, resuming speech without giving voice to what it was he had wondered; “to want to throw an enemy as far from yourself as possible, gaining the opportunity to run. But it seems to me, Padi, that your solution to a rush is invariably to throw.” He smiled, and added, “Even if you are able to throw impressively far.”

He paused, well inside Padi’s defense space, and settled deliberately, hooking his thumbs in his belt.

“We’re fortunate to have such ample practice space, but I wonder what you would do, if you were on-port, and had to counter an attack in, let’s say, a small space. An alley, a vestibule, even a ‘fresher? What, for instance, if the person standing peaceably next to you suddenly — lunged?”

He did so, far too close for mercy. There was only one imperative, here: survive to protect her pilot, and her passengers — a little boy with two infants in his charge.

She knew the answer; she had drilled the answer until it was reflex.

Ducking, she stepped into his lunge, raised a hand and snapped into a short, savage jump. The extended palm should have caught him under the chin, but Arms Master Schneider was far too canny for that. He arched into a backflip, using the space he had only just been scolding her for utilizing. Padi landed lightly in place, shaking her arms to release the energy she had withheld. Delivered with full force, the strike to the chin would have snapped her attacker’s head back and broken his neck.

It was of course very bad form to kill one’s instructor; besides, she liked Arms Master Schneider — and it was practice. Even if the blow had landed, he would have been in no danger, though he might have had a headache, after.

“Your reasoning?” he asked, from two body lengths away.

Padi bowed.

“You had posited cramped quarters and an assailant well within my space. The only sure answer in such a case is a kill. I cannot risk a deflection; I might find myself snatched and immobilized, unable even to call a warning. I cannot risk a prolonged engagement, if indeed, as you had also offered, the first attacker was one of a team. I am alone, and I must prevail quickly, if I am to survive.”

There was a long silence while Arms Master Schneider told over his store of words.

“Let’s try another scenario, in that same small space, in a confusion of wind and darkness, let’s say. A person is grabbing for you, and crying out. What’s your answer?”

Padi frowned, and paused to consider the question twice, suspecting a trick. But, a second examination revealed nothing that might change her answer.

“It is the same,” she said, calmly. “I must take definitive action.”

“And if it’s later found that the person who reached for you was asking for your assistance — or warning you of danger? Your answer would kill an innocent — even an ally — no differently than a villain.”

But this is play-acting! Padi thought irritably.

“The only intent I can be certain of is my own,” she said, which was straight from the training tapes they had Learned on the Rock. “Others depend upon me. I cannot risk myself.”

“What do you risk, by dancing an avoid before the kill?”

“Time,” she said promptly; “tempo. Opportunity.”

Arms Master Schneider pressed his lips together, which he did when he was considering something especially difficult.

“We have a few minutes left,” he said eventually. “Let’s practice some of the common avoids. Particularly, we should pay attention to how much time is lost to the move, and if tempo can be preserved — or even created. You will take the part of the attacker.”

He bowed, and she did. Both centered themselves.

“At will,” he said, and Padi launched into action.

* * *

There was no new correspondence in his mail queue.

There was, for instance, no letter from the Terran Trade Commission confirming the committee’s decision to upgrade Surebleak Port from Local to Regional. Such confirmation had been promised to him by the committee chair no later than the end of the relumma. Which was fast approaching.

Additionally, there was no letter from Lomar Fasholt, which he had been expecting daily, if not hourly, since Theo had reported that his former trade partner had broken with her Temple, and subsequently disappeared from her homeworld.

Nor, for that matter, was there a message from Theo, acknowledging receipt of his pinbeam, and reporting that she, her ship, and her crew were enroute to Surebleak and the safety of Korval’s clanhouse.

Shan glared at the empty in-box. It hardly seemed fair or fitting that a circumstance which ought to have afforded real, if fleeting, pleasure should instead generate strong feelings of frustration.

He felt his fingers moving in a soothing, familiar rhythm, glanced down and saw a chipped red gaming counter, its edges showing naked wood, moving across the knuckles of his left hand. The token crossed the last knuckle, his hand turned, palm up, to catch the thing before once again setting it on its journey.

He sighed.

He had acquired the gaming token, and the fingering exercise, elsewhere, and some little while ago. In fact, he had lately considered himself quit of both, having gone so many days undisturbed by either. Only to find them manifesting again, and with the Passage barely out of the homeport. Simple sleight-of-hand, that was all. Completely unremarkable, save for the manner of its. . .acquisition.

Three times, while he watched, the token walked across his knuckles. At the end of the fourth journey across the back of his hand, it did not fall into his waiting palm, but seemed instead to vanish into plain air. That would, perhaps, have been comforting, if he did not know with a certainty that had nothing to do with logic, or even understanding how the trick was done, that the token was, now, in his right front trouser pocket.

Blast the thing.

He took a deep breath to cool his irritation, and looked back to the screen.

Certainly he had other work to fill his idle hours, even if he had no mail.

The touch of a key banished his unsatisfying inbox and brought the sketch of the new trade route onto the screen.

It was, truth told, a malformed and unbalanced thing, hardly worthy of a novice trader, much less a master. He knew how to build routes, of course, but the sad truth was that most of his work as Korval’s master trader had been the maintenance and modification of long-established routes built by the master traders who had gone before him.

He hadn’t built a major new route since. . .well. Since the Bestwell-Kessel-La’Quontis Route, the year that Padi was born.

“Admit it, Shan,” he said aloud, “you’ve gotten soft.”

There being no argument forthcoming from himself, he reached for his wine glass and sipped, eyes on the inelegant shambles adorning his screen.

He might, he thought, putting the glass aside, be somewhat kinder to himself. The route as described revealed not so much a master trader whose skills had atrophied, as a master trader who was required to feel his way, combining discovery with design.

The first part of the route — that had been well enough, with six stops of light trade, all at ports known to Korval ships, if not to Dutiful Passage herself. At each of those six ports, in addition to the trade, he and Priscilla had met with allies and business partners, to strengthen old ties, and to build new ones, where necessary, the two of them empowered by the delm to speak with Their Voice.

They were now embarking upon the second phase, wherein they would be on the search for new trade partners, allies, and business associates. They would also, in this phase as in the former, be demonstrating to the universe that Clan Korval, doing business as Tree-and-Dragon Family, was doing business; that it was not afraid of its enemies; nor ashamed of its past actions. Miri had dubbed the plan playing chicken with the universe, but she had agreed with him, Priscilla, and with Val Con, that the demonstration was required.

Though the actions that had seen Korval banished from Liad had been justified, not to say necessary, they had — people, rumor, and politics being what they were — their character to redeem, and the sooner they began that work, the sooner they would succeed.

Also, they labored under another piquant truth: the clan’s purse was. . .less than plump. Oh, they were by no means destitute, and Ms. dea’Gauss was hard at work establishing new income streams and researching new investments.

Still, there had been a cost in removing themselves, and their finances, from Liaden society, and Liaden economy. In the long term, Liad would pay the larger portion of that invoice, which, while satisfying to contemplate, did nothing to mitigate the necessity of Korval’s holding household while establishing a firm base of operations on a rather backward planet, and seeking to expand their resources.

Historically, the clan had expanded resources through trade. And it was his duty, as Korval’s master trader, to build new routes — strong, viable, profitable routes — and build them quickly.

Which adventure, he had best be about.

So. Their first new stop on the route they were simultaneously discovering and building was Andiree in the Kinsa Sector. According to the Guild Quick Guide, Andiree was a solid port, rated Safe, for whatever comfort that might lend to the naive, or those who made it their business to be unsafe. It declared itself Terran, yet had included in its colonizing population a small number of Liaden artisan clans.

That was of interest, being something like the situation in which Korval now discovered itself. The Liaden artists of Andiree, rather than forming an enclave from which the greater planetary society was excluded, as Liadens had done on other worlds where they were the minority population. . .the artists had embraced the local culture, first on the level of craft, as they joined with those who shared their passions for pottery, sculpture, painting, paper-making, carving, and weaving, and from that base spreading out, into, and finally joining with, the planetary society.

According to the anthropologists who had studied the place, what had occurred over time was not the assimilation of one population, with its customs, into the other, but a melding that had produced a separate-but-equal third society with entirely new customs. The primary unit of personal allegiance, for instance, was neither clan nor family, but guild. Contract marriage existed, but between guildmasters only, as a political tool, rather than for progeny. Balance existed, administered formally through the guilds, while Balance between individuals was socially unacceptable.

Shan sighed. Andiree was perhaps a glimpse of Korval’s future, though it was difficult to imagine Surebleak’s blunt and rugged culture allowing itself to accept anything of Liaden sensibilities — or even Korval House custom.

It was. . .profoundly disturbing, to think that they — that who they were, and had been since the Great Migration itself, would be lost within a generation, or two. . .

The door to his office hissed slightly as it opened and he spun from his screen, coming to his feet as his lifemate entered.

She paused, brows knit, as the door closed quietly behind her.

“Shan? What’s wrong?”

In addition to her melant’is as lifemate to the thodelm of yos’Galan, and captain of the Dutiful Passage, Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza was a Witch — or, according to Liadens, a dramliza. She would have read his emotions even as he now read hers, thereby learning that she was tired, and slightly irritable. A meeting with the third mate, then, he thought, moving around the desk.

“Nothing so much as wrong,” he said, opening his arms. “I was only reflecting on Korval’s future, and how we will soon become strangers to ourselves.”

Priscilla stepped willingly into the offered hug, her arms going ’round his waist. She sighed, deeply, and dropped her head to his shoulder. He lay his cheek against her soft curls, and breathed in her fragrance.

“He’s a bit stiff in the honor, the third mate,” he murmured.

Priscilla hiccuped a small laugh.

“He is, isn’t he?”

She sighed again, and he tasted the particular tang of a relaxation exercise, even as her body softened against his.

“I ordered a tray brought to us here,” she said, straightening slowly out of the embrace. “I hope you’ll join me.”

“Breakfast or supper?” he asked, lightly.

“Both — or neither. Or perhaps a midnight snack, before I seek my bed.” She smiled at him, and added, “My lonely bed.”

He laughed.

“Underhanded play, Priscilla!”

“Nothing more than the truth.” She tipped her head. “The change in Korval’s estate worries you.”

“Not our estate so much as our future,” he said, moving toward the cabinet. “May I pour you a glass of wine?”

“Please.”

Priscilla preferred white wine. He poured generously.

“Val Con was pleased to leave Liad, though not,” she added thoughtfully, “necessarily with the manner of it.”

“Val Con is yos’Phelium, and a scout. He’s obliged to find the — former homeworld tiresome.” He sighed, and shook his head. “It may be that I refine too much. After all, if we’re to become something else, it was Father who began it, with his Terran lifemate. Only see what came of that!”

“Even more Terran lifemates?” Priscilla asked, taking the glass from his hand with a smile.

“Three, so far, in the following generation,” he agreed, turning toward the desk to retrieve his own glass. “The gods alone know what — or whom — Nova may embrace.”

“If anyone,” Priscilla said, and glanced toward the desk an instant before the incoming message chime sounded from the comm.

Shan stepped ’round the desk and tapped a key.

The letter in-queue was from James Abrofinda.

Shan smiled. He was fond of James Abrofinda, and met him too seldom. He’d been a Tree-and-Dragon contractor for at least twenty Standards, and —

Notice of Buy-Out

Shan blinked, and sat down, carefully, in his chair.

Immediately after Korval’s action against the Department of the Interior base beneath Liad’s surface, which had, regrettably, left a crater in Solcintra City — he had received quite a number of buy-out notices, most from Liadens, as would be expected. He had by this time rather thought he was done with buy-out notices. To receive one now, and from such a source — a Terran small trader running a long, stable route; open to trying new, or slightly outrageous, cargoes; quick to communicate what worked and what didn’t. . .

But, wait, there was a letter, too. Shan tapped a key, and felt a light hand settle on his shoulder.

“I thought we’d seen the last buy-out,” Priscilla said.

“As I did, but here — James has done us the kindness of explaining himself. . .”

A quick scan put him in possession of the facts. James had come in to Capenport, where he was not only well-known, but expected. Before the hull was cool, the port had slapped him with a fine equal to half his cargo —

“Because he’s our contractor?” Priscilla said, reading along with him.

“And because Capenport decided that Korval committed crimes against a planet and is therefore outlawed,” Shan read the next bit aloud.

I’d been hearing some muttering here and there about Tree-and-Dragon turning bad, but I put it down to the usual. This, though — I’m a small shipper; I can’t afford another fine like this one.

Outcome is that I dumped the cargo, next port up, and cleared the logos and call-signs off the hull and out of my landing packet. I never thought I’d do this, but there’s no other way; I’m buying the contract out. The deposit’s been made to my usual account. I’m sorry for it, there’s no acrimony in it, except for the pinheads at Capenport. You and me, and the Dragon, we’re in Balance, but we can’t do business.

Here’s my advice: Change the trade-name, if you want to keep on with the family business. I don’t like to think about what might have happened if Pale Wing or the Passage had come onto Capenport, considering what they felt was just punishment for a contractor.

Be careful, Shan.

He sighed, and leaned his head back into Priscilla’s hip.

“A rational man, James. Of course, change our name is just what we can’t do, the delm being adamant in their opinion that we have comported ourselves with impeccable melant’i and are in no way ashamed of our actions.”

“Korval revealed and weakened a hidden enemy of Liad and its people,” Priscilla said, her fingers quietly kneading his shoulders. “Not only have we done nothing wrong; Korval is a hero.”

“Not to hear the Council of Clans tell it. And various of the news sources. But I agree — Korval’s honor is unscathed, and our melant’i in the matter of the Department of the Interior is pure.” He sighed.

“Poor James. A two cantra buy-out on top of that fine? And he’ll have dumped the cargo at salvage rates.”

“Send the money back. Tell him it’s compensation for his loss; that Tree-and-Dragon doesn’t expect its contractors to bear the expense of false accusations.”

Shan laughed.

“Priscilla, that’s reasoned like a Liaden.”

“No,” she said, seriously; “it’s reasoned like an honorable person, who wants to do well by those who have done well for him.”

A chill froze him for a moment before he shook his head.

“Yes, I am going to have to become accustomed, aren’t I?”

“It’ll come,” Priscilla said, and he felt the brush of her emotions — amusement and concern, with concern the greater part of the mixture.

“I suppose it will,” he said. “Padi’s generation will be the last, I think, to consider themselves Liaden. Those who follow will be Bleakers.” He sighed. “Who names a planet Surebleak?”

Priscilla laughed.

“It was descriptive, surely?”

“Oh, surely; and still is. Until Mr. Brunner gets those weather satellites up and tuned, and even then, I fear we’ll only have graduated to Halfbleak.”

“Our house will be there,” she murmured, which was perhaps an attempt to give his thoughts a more cheerful direction, in which she was partly successful.

“Our house will be there if ever Architect vin’Zeller will finish with the plans and send them to us! I’d hoped to break ground during the current year’s summer. If we need to wait through another winter –“

A chime sounded, sweet and high: the door annunciator.

“Your midnight snack arrives,” Shan said to Priscilla, and raised his voice slightly. “Come!”

The door whisked aside, and Arms Master Schneider brought his tall and muscled self into the office. He paused and inclined slightly from the waist, his compromise between a bow and a Terran nod.

“I hope I’m not inconvenient,” he said.

“Not in the least,” Shan assured him, considering the swirl of the man’s emotions. “What may I be honored to do for you, Jon?”

Jon came another step into the office, and gave them each a solemn glance, in turn.

“Well, sir — ma’am — I’d like to talk to you about Padi’s defense training.”

Alliance of Equals
A Liaden Universe® Adventure
©2015 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Publication Date: July 5, 2016, Baen Books