Maeve Read Free Page A

creeping progress of the Dylaw’s pack train. Aleytys shook her hair out of her eyes and dug her heels into the kaffa’s sides.
    The animal had an odd, loose-kneed gait that she found disconcerting, the dip and heave close to making her trail-sick. When she glanced for the last time into the canyon, then up at the sky, the ship had vanished, cutting off her retreat. She felt awash, disoriented, even a little frightened. She pinched her lips together, then sighed. Ahead, the boy’s slumped shoulders were eloquent of his troubled dislike for this expedition. Aleytys caught wisps of anger and fear blown back to her like snatches of smoke torn apart by a restless wind. The silence was heavy between them, broken only by the sweeping moan of the wind, the schlupp schlupp of the kaffa pads, the creak of saddle leather.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” she called to the boy.
    He glanced back briefly, his round face clenched in a scowl, then swung forward again without answering her.
    Aleytys prodded the beast into a brief jolting run until she was riding beside the cerdd boy. “What’s your name? It’s awkward not knowing.”
    Grudgingly the boy muttered, “Gwynnor.” Then had to repeat it louder, as the wind snatched the word away.
    â€œSuch anger, Gwynnor. Why?”
    He stared sullenly at her.
    â€œDon’t try to tell me I’m mistaken. Look. My name is Aleytys.” A corner of her mouth flicked up. “Means wanderer. Appropriate, don’t you think?”
    â€œSo?” He shrugged and turned his shoulders until his back was to her. “I don’t want to talk.”
    â€œYou mean you don’t want to talk to me.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDon’t be a fool. You can’t ignore me. I won’t let you. I refuse to ride beside a lump.”
    â€œDuyffawd!”
    Her eyebrows rose. “Most impolite.”
    â€œYou laugh? Ah, Mannh! What do you want on our world?”
    â€œNothing.” She sighed and tried for a more stable position on the kaffa’s limber back. “Nothing but to quit it as fast as possible.”
    Disbelief hung in a fog around him. “You’re here.”
    â€œA waystop. That’s all.”
    Against his will he found himself responding to her calm, friendly tone. “Why didn’t you go on with the smuggler?”
    â€œThis world is as far on my way as the Captain goes. At Maeve, he circles back on the other wing of his route.”
    â€œOh.” Gwynnor starred thoughtfully at the bobbing, swaying neck of his mount. “How’re you going to get off Maeve?”
    She shrugged. “Bribe my way onto a starship, I suppose.”
    For several minutes they rode along in silence. Aleytys could feel the boy struggling to assimilate her words.
    He looked back at her, his dark-green eyes open wide, the pupils narrowed in the brilliant afternoon light. “Then you’re going to the city.”
    â€œI have to.” She caught the sharp scent of suspicion. “Gwynnor, look! If I told the Company men I came here on a smuggler’s ship, I’d be sticking my head in a shark’s mouth. They’d have to sponge up what was left of me. No, I won’t betray you. Couldn’t if I wanted to. What the hell do I know that I could tell them?”
    â€œAbout the place.” He jerked a head at the dark line that marked the position of the canyon.
    â€œDammit, Gwynnor, Captain Arel’s my friend. You think I want him killed?”
    â€œOh.”
    Aleytys shifted again to relieve the ache in her thighs. “It’s been too long since I rode anything with four legs. Why hate all starmen?”
    His head swung around and he stared at her, startled. Then his young face pinched into an angry scowl. “They come. Take. Take.” He ran his left hand over the top of his head repeatedly. “Take and kill. Kill gentle people …” His shoulders slumped suddenly as he