Duty Bound Read Free Page A

somewhat in advance of his skill level.
    The screen flashed a familiar
pattern--Daav's own particular nemesis, as it happened--and he
leaned forward, watching as Er Thom adroitly--one might say,
casually--fed in the proper course for an avoid, and the
simultaneous adjustment to ship's pressure. Quietly, Daav sighed,
leaned back in his chair--and jerked forward the next moment as the
screen flared and Er Thom's elegant choreography degenerated into a
near random slap at the Jump button, which was entirely wrong and
too late besides.
    Using the exercise he had been taught by the
Scouts, Daav released the tension in his muscles, then put his hand
on his brother's shoulder.
    "A good run, darling. Don't repine."
    Er Thom looked up, blue eyes flashing a
frustration of his own ineptitude that Daav understood all too
well.
    "It can't quite be a good run, can it," he
snapped, "when the ship is destroyed around one?"
    "Well--no," Daav admitted. "On the other
face, you flew further than I have yet to fly."
    "Truly?" Er Thom looked so startled that
Daav laughed.
    "Yes, truly, you lout! Remember me, the
ten-thumbed junior brother?"
    "All too well, thank you!" Er Thom replied
with a gratifying flash of brotherly scorn. He sobered almost
immediately. "You have changed, you know. Even in so short a time.
I--do you find it at all ...odd or, or ...lonely, to, to--" He
floundered.
    "Do I find it disquieting to be away from
all that was usual in my life, and made to stand singleton before
the world, when I have no memory but of being half of the whole we
two made between us?" Daav said in a serious and quite adult voice.
Er Thom took a breath and met bleak black eyes straightly.
    "Yes," said Daav, "I do."
    "So do I," Er Thom murmured, relieved, in an
odd way, that at least this much had not changed--that he found his
brother and himself at one on this matter of importance to them
both. "One's ...mother... assures one that these feelings will
pass. Do you think -- "
    The door to the control room opened and
Petrella yos'Galan strode within.
    "Of course I would find you both here," she
snapped, but Er Thom thought her face was--not
entirely--displeased.
    "Good shift, Aunt Petrella," Daav said
politely. "Er Thom has just been having a run at the general-flight
masters sim."
    Petrella's eyebrows rose. "Oh, indeed? And
how did he fare, I wonder?"
    "Poorly enough." Er Thom spun his chair to
face her. "My ship was destroyed two-point-eight minutes into the
flight."
    Astonishingly, his mother grinned. "No, do
you say so? Well I recall that dicey bit of action! Forty-four
times, I lost my ship exactly there. The forty-fifth--well, say I
survived another minute."
    "And I," Daav said mournfully, "am doomed to
forever lose my wings at two-point-three."
    "There?" Er Thom turned to stare at him.
"But that was a mere nothing!"
    "So you say!"
    "No, but, Daav, all one need do --"
    His brother raised a hand. "Yes, yes, I saw
you. Perhaps my wretched fingers will have learned their lesson,
now I've seen it can be done." He looked up to Petrella, a wry grin
on his face. "Fifty-two times."
    She smiled back. "I will hear that you've
mastered the whole tape soon enough."
    Daav inclined his head. "Your certainty
gives me courage. Aunt Petrella."
    "Now, that, neither of you lacks." She
paused, her sharp blue eyes flashing from Er Thom back to Daav. "We
raise Venture within the hour, nephew, and tomorrow is the
appointed day of your departure. Exert yourself to comfort one who
was ever acknowledged as the timid twin: Are your arrangements in
order and satisfactory to yourself? Better--would your mother my
sister express her satisfaction with your arrangements?"
    Daav raised his hand. "She and I discussed
the scheme in detail before I had her aye. Scout Academy provided a
list of pilots who might be receptive to allowing a first class
provisional to gain flight time as their second--a list Mother
studied with some interest before declaring that it would do."
    "So." Petrella