Duty Bound by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Page B

they
clung, cheek to cheek, arms each about the other. Er Thom stepped
back first.
    "But, truly, Daav,
how did you get
here?"
    "To the Passage you mean?" He moved his
shoulders. "I cast myself at the feet of an elder Scout, who was
bound for this quadrant." Mischief glinted again. "Surely you don't
think I walked?"
    "But, the Academy..." Er
Thom gasped, suddenly struck with a thought almost too horrible to
contemplate. "You haven't--they never rusticated you?"
    "Rusticated me?" Daav
looked properly outraged. Which of course proved nothing.
"Certainly they did not rusticate me! Of all the notions! I suppose you've never
heard of term break?
    "Term..." Er Thom blinked, counting the
relumma backward, and sighed. "I never thought of it," he
confessed. "But, surely, our mother..."
    "Gave her leave, saving only that I find my
own way out and back and that I arrive early to my first class at
break-end." Suddenly, Daav stretched, and put a hand on his lean
middle. "What's the nearest hour for a meal, brother? I'm not
halfway hungry."
    Well, and that was no surprise. Er Thom
sighed and tried to look stern.
    "As it happens, I'm scheduled for dinner
this hour. Perhaps I can convince the cook to give you a few dry
crackers and a glass of water."
    "A feast!" Daav proclaimed gaily, and slid
his arm through Er Thom's, turning them both toward the door.
"Come, let us test your powers of persuasion!"
    * * *
    "TOOK YOUR LICENSE?" Daav stared, soup spoon
halfway to his mouth. It was his second plate of soup. The first
had vanished with an alacrity unusual even by Daav's standards, and
Er Thom suspected that the elder Scout had not been over-generous
with rations, "Pray, what profit comes of taking your license?"
    Er Thom moved his shoulders and looked down
at his plate. He had made some inroads into his own meal--at least
he would not be called to book for neglecting his duty to stay
healthy.
    "Master ven'Ducci feels my proper rating is
provisional second," he told his plate. "One ...understands... him
to believe that the--the strain of carrying a full second class is
...interfering... with one's studies."
    "Rot," Daav said comprehensively. "Does he
think you're to finish at second class? We're both for master,
darling--unless you believe our mother will allow us anything
less?"
    "No, of course not," Er Thom replied. Chi
yos'Phelium had never held shy of telling her sons exactly what she
expected them to accomplish on behalf of clan and kin, and neither
Er Thom nor Daav could conceive of failing her.
    Daav had another sip of soup. "Do you fly
live?"
    "Live?" Er Thom blinked. "I fly the dummy
board on the inner bridge."
    "A second class pilot, practicing at a dummy
board?" Daav demanded. "What nonsense!"
    "Oh, I suppose you practice live!" Er Thom
retorted, stung.
    "Of course I do," his brother answered, with
a surprising lack of heat. "It's required."
    "In fact," he said after swallowing the last
bit of soup, "I sat second board to the elder Scout on the trip
out. I don't doubt but I'll make the same trade with another pilot
for the ride back." He lifted his eyebrows, from which Er Thom
deduced that he had allowed his astonishment to show.
    "Surely you can't think that the
ever-amiable Lieutenant tel'Iquin would lift extra mass where there
was no profit to herself?"
    "As I have not had the pleasure of the
Lieutenant's acquaintance--" Er Thom began, and broke off as a
shadow fell across the table between them.
    "So," said Captain Petrella yos'Galan, and
there was a hard shine in her blue eyes that Er Thom had learned
meant the entire opposite of his foster-mother's twinkle. "Nephew.
Well I had a beam from your mother my sister, desiring me to expect
you. When did you think you would come and register your presence
with the Captain?" She inclined her head, in mock courtesy. "Or
perhaps you believe the ship will feed you for free?"
    "Aunt Petrella, my mother sends her love,"
Daav said with a calm Er Thom envied. "I regret that the desire to
see my