Shadows and Shades (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®) Read Free

song.
      "Voice." He looked away, as he always did, embarrassed by her notice.
      "Will you rest here, Voice? Or return to temple?" That was Lietta, who danced, and was doubtless herself in need of rest.
      Truth told, rest was what Panopele wanted. She was weary; drained, as the song sometimes drained one; and dismayed in her heart. She wanted to sleep, here and now among the dewy evening. To sleep and awake believing that the blot she had detected was no more than a woman's fallible imagining.
      The Voice of Naratha is not allowed the luxury of self-deceit. And the blot had been growing larger.
      Weary, Panopele placed her hands on the carven arms of the chair that dwarfed all present but herself and gathered her strength. Her eyes sought the blue star Alyedon: The blot approached from that direction. That knowledge fed her strength and resolve. Slowly she leaned forward and, as the chair creaked with her efforts, pushed herself onto her feet.
      "Let us return," she said to those who served her.
      Lietta bowed, and picked up the chair. Fanor bent to gather the remaining water jugs; Panopele stopped him with a gesture.
      "One approaches," she told him. "You are swiftest. Run ahead, and be ready to offer welcome."
      One glance he dared, full into her eyes, then passed the jug he held to Darl and ran away across the starlit grass.
      "So." Panopele motioned and Zan stepped forward to offer an arm, her face still wet with tears.
      "My willing support, Voice," she said, as ritual demanded, though her own voice was soft and troubled.
      "Blessings on you," Panopele replied, and proceeded across the grass in Fanor's wake, leaning heavily upon the arm of her escort.
     
    * * *
     
    THERE WAS OF COURSE nothing resembling a spaceport on-world, and the only reason the place had escaped Interdiction, in Montet's opinion, was that no Scout had yet penetrated this far into the benighted outback of the galaxy.
      That the gentle agrarian planet below her could not possibly contain the technology necessary to unravel the puzzle of the thing sealed and seething in its stasis box, failed to delight her. Even the knowledge that she had deciphered legend with such skill that she had actually raised a planet at the coordinates she had half-intuited did not warm her.
      Frowning, omnipresent ache centered over her eyes, Montet brought the Scout ship down. Her orbital scans had identified two large clusters of life and industry—cities, perhaps—and a third, smaller, cluster, which nonetheless put forth more energy than either of its larger cousins.
      Likely, it was a manufactory of some kind, Montet thought, and home of such technology as the planet might muster. She made it her first target, by no means inclined to believe it her last.
      She came to ground in a gold and green field a short distance from her target. She tended her utility belt while the hull cooled, then rolled out into a crisp, clear morning.
      The target was just ahead, on the far side of a slight rise. Montet swung into a walk, the grass parting silently before her. She drew a deep lungful of fragrant air, verifying her scan's description of an atmosphere slightly lower in oxygen than Liad's. Checking her stride, she bounced, verifying the scan's assertion of a gravity field somewhat lighter than that generated by the homeworld.
      Topping the rise, she looked down at the target, which was not a manufactory at all, but only a large building, and various outbuildings, clustered companionably together. To her right hand, fields were laid out. To her left, the grassland continued until it met a line of silvery trees, brilliant in the brilliant day.
      And of the source of the energy reported by her scans, there was no sign whatsoever.
      Montet sighed, gustily. Legend.
      She went