Fledgling Read Free Page B

uncomfortable events, Theo guessed that it would be.
    She cleared her throat, suddenly wanting to be by herself to think, even in that nasty little den of a room. Pushing back from the table, she barely remembered to say, "Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Kamele."
    "Of course," her mother said. "You're not a child anymore, Theo. It's time you began to ask these questions and to plan how you'll manage your own career." She waved an unsteady hand.
    "I'll deal with the clean-up. Go and get your rest. Tomorrow's a school day."
    Like she didn't know that, Theo thought, but she slid off the stool without any other comment than, "Good-night, Kamele."
    "Good-night, Daughter," her mother murmured, but she was looking down at the tabletop, her brows drawn together in a frown.
    * * *
    "Who knew that two people could make such a noise," Jen Sar Kiladi murmured, "that the house is so silent in their absence?"
    He put his palm against the door to Theo's room, and paused on the threshold as the lights came up.
    "Thorough," he noted. "We can hope that she spent most of her angst in turning off her room, and has none left over for her mother."
    She is , the voice that only he could hear commented, right to be upset. And she will ask questions.
    "Agreed," he murmured, crossing the room to pick up a fallen book. "Only they might, might they not, be gentle questions?"
    He sighed down at the book: Sam Tim's Ugly Day . An unfortunate translation, but a useful conceit that had delighted a much-younger Theo. Though she appeared, he thought, stretching to put the book up with its fellows, to have outgrown the conceit, yet she might still recall the lesson.
    "An awkward time for a separation," he said, perhaps to himself; "with the child dancing on the edge."
    Yet Kamele's reasons are sound, countered the voice inside his head. You, yourself, encouraged her to do what was needful.
    "Oh, indeed! Every bit of it—and more." He shook his head at the bare room, and turned to retrace his steps.
    "Does it seem to you, Aelliana," he asked as he stepped out into the hallway, "that I may have become—just a thought!—meddlesome?"
    His answer was a peal of laughter.
    * * *
    The 'fresher was at the end of the hall. Theo showered and returned to her room, closing the door and unfolding the bed. It didn't take up quite as much room as she had feared, which was a blessing in a space where centimeters mattered.
    Having put the bed down, though, she didn't immediately retire. The glare off the floor and walls set her teeth on edge. She went over to the desk to check the ambiset. If she could get some pictures—or at least some color!—into the walls; put a mosaic into the floor, it would make the place seem more like home, cramped as it was.
    Except—there was no ambiset to be found. Theo went out into the hall, but there was no ambiset there, either. She actually compressed the closet, thinking that she must have placed it in front of the control center—but the only thing behind was more featureless, white wall.
    "I do not believe this," she said loudly, her voice sliding off the walls and tumbling into the glare. She ran her hands through her hair and stared around the tiny room, even casting a not-exactly-hopeful look at the ceiling.
    No ambiset.
    "And this is supposed to focus my mind?" Theo asked the air.
    The air didn't bother to answer.
    All right. She took a deep breath. At least she knew what to do to about the jitters. She needed some handwork, that was all. Her needles and thread were in the cube. She'd lay down a couple lines of lace. In fact, there was that idea she'd had about making a lace flower like the new ones Father had planted in their garden.
    She knelt by the cube, unsnapped it and lifted the lid, looking down into a dark maw lined with numerous needle-sharp teeth.
    "Hey!" She dropped the top, caught it before it hit the floor and laid it gently down. Inside the cube, Coyster yawned again.
    Theo sat back on her heels and shook her