Korval's Game Read Free

hereditary.”
    “Yeah, all you do is believe it.” She stretched suddenly and sat up, face abruptly serious. “Tell you what, boss: I think I’m cured.”
    He rolled over onto his back, crossed his arms behind his head and considered the other thing inside his head—a precious gift, balancing the Loop’s distasteful, inevitable presence.
    Legend said that lifemates had often been linked this way, soul to soul, not quite sharing thought, but rather sharing intent; joying in a knowledge of each other that went deeper than any kin-tie. That he and Miri should be so linked, now, when Liad’s wizards were on the wane and lifemates were merely in love, was wonderful past belief.
    “Boss?”
    “Eh?” He started and smiled at the ripples in the song that was Miri in his head; smiled at the frown of concern on her face. “Forgive me, cha’trez. I was thinking.” He stretched and sat up next to her. “I believe your estimation is correct, however: you certainly fight as if you are cured.”
    “Huh.” She shook her head. “You need somebody around can really give you a workout.”
    “So? You very nearly had me. Twice,” he added thoughtfully. “Miri.”
    “Yo.”
    “Where did you learn the response to that Clutch move?”
    “The second one?” She shrugged. “Seemed the only logical way to go, given how you shifted . . .” Her shoulders dipped, upper body sketching the essence of the move. “Yeah . . .”
    “Ah.”
    She glanced at him suspiciously. “Ah, is it? What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Nothing, Miri,” he said meekly; and grinned in shared joy when she laughed.
    “So, partner, seeing as we both agree I’m cured, how ‘bout you bust this tub outta orbit and we get a move on.”
    “It must certainly be my first wish to please my lady and my lifemate,” Val Con said, coming to his feet and offering her a hand in graceful Liaden courtesy. “But I wonder if you can suggest where it is we should get a move on to ?”
    “Had to ask, didn’t you?” She rose lightly, gripping his fingers for the pleasure of contact rather than because she required assistance. “Let’s go up front and get some tea.” She led the way, hand stretched behind her to his as they moved through the narrow corridor to the control cabin.
    “Family of yours is on the lam, right? When’s this Plan B thing go outta force?”
    He hesitated. Miri considered herself Terran, though she carried a Liaden house-badge among her dearest treasures, and had agreed, perhaps too hastily, to share life with a Liaden. She had not been raised to the tradition of clan-and-kin, and the first eight months of their mating had been spent on an Interdicted World, learning to survive and prosper in a culture alien to them both.
    “Plan B,” he began slowly, feeling his way along thoughts that seemed to shift nuance and urgency as he tried to convey them in Terran. “Plan B may be called into effect by delm or first speaker in the instance of—imminent catastrophic damage to the clan. It is thus not established lightly, nor do I think it—goes out of force—until the dangerous situation has been resolved. I believe this may be its first use.”
    “Imminent catastrophic damage to the clan,” Miri repeated, gray eyes sharp on his face. “What’s that mean? Who’s the enemy? And how do we get past them and connect with your family?” She frowned, chewing her lower lip. “I take it you want to connect up?”
    “I—yes.” Such clear knowledge of his own will was still unsettling to him, who had only shaken off the mind-twisting Agent training with the help of Miri and the luck. “It is possible that the danger is the Department of Interior,” he said. “After all—” He waved a slender hand at the neat little ship enclosing them, “the Department managed to locate us and send an agent after, and we were most wonderfully lost.”
    “Much good it did them,” Miri commented, meaning the Agent, dead at the Winterfair on the