Bechimo
Dock A
According to the file Val Con had sent, Jen Sin yos’Phelium had been only days short of his forty-first Name Day when he went missing during a courier run after sending a coded message warning his clan to stay clear of the space at Tinsori Light.
The delm had waited the traditional twelve years before writing as a fact in Korval’s records that Jen Sin was dead, another victim of the “unsettled times,” that came into history as “the clan wars.” Val Con had sent a file about that, too. All of it had happened right around two hundred Standards ago.
So, even given the habit of Tinsori Light to not always be wholly inside the universe, and, maybe, not completely subject to the rules of time while it was elsewhere, Theo had expected someone…much…older.
It had been something of a shock to be greeted by a pilot at the height of his powers, slim as a stiletto and every bit as sharp, wearing well-used, well-kept leathers. He had the clan face, as she did herself, but thinner—stern. His hair was very dark and cropped close. Clarence would say that he looked a likely lad to have on your side in a brawl.
“Cousin,” he said, speaking Low Liaden, his voice deep but mannered. “I am Jen Sin.”
For a moment, Theo just stood there, hearing the echoes of Father’s deep voice, and not able to get her tongue around any Liaden greeting—and there it was, a family quirk—one black eyebrow rose, and the hard face briefly softened into whimsy, as he murmured.
“Or perhaps not?”
He wasn’t Father; he wasn’t Val Con or Pat Rin, or herself—absolutely, he was his own person, but he was also recognizable in a way she wouldn’t have understood before she’d met the rest of her family. She grinned in sheer relief.
She could feel Bechimo in bond-space, offering her the neutral phrase, “Greetings, Cousin,” in Low Liaden, but what she said instead was, “I have no reason to doubt you, and no excuse to stare, only—you bear a marked resemblance to my father.”
His reaction to the seed pod had been soothing too, in its way. He had certainly known what it was, and was glad to have it. He put it in his pocket, by which she guessed it wasn’t ready to eat, and conducted her, Chernak, and Stost through the doors and into the station proper.