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Station Day 52
Light Keeper’s Meeting Room


His cousin Val Con was a yos’Phelium pilot on the classic model—tall, wiry, and quick, with surprising green eyes under decided dark brows.

His cousin Miri was shorter than her tall lifemate, slender in her leathers, her face a study in angles, dominated by a pair of seeing grey eyes.

They embraced him, both, cheek to cheek, and then stepped away, Val Con keeping a grip on his shoulders.

“Well, Cousin?” he asked.

Jen Sin smiled.

“In fact, much better than I had dared hope, for a very long time,” he said. “Cousin.”

A sharp green gaze scored his face before Val Con released him with a nod.

Jen Sin half turned, moving a hand to show them the table and chairs, teapot and cups set decently ready.

“Please. We have amenities.”

“So I see.”

Val Con smiled, and swept Miri ahead of him to a chair. Jen Sin took charge of the pot, and poured, by which time the blue bird had landed on the table before Miri.

She smiled at it, and accepted her cup.

They sipped, and set the cups aside. The blue bird maintained its position, head turning first this way, then that, studying Miri from each eye in turn.

“Let us speak together as cousins,” Val Con said. “There are things that must be said.”

Jen Sin glanced to Miri, who gave him an easy grin.

“The delm’ll get here soon enough,” she said. “Enjoy us while we’re unofficial.”

“Indeed,” Val Con murmured. “Now that the Uncle has come in, the delm will rise very soon, bearing paperwork. The delm will also need to speak with Catalinc Station. But, for now let us be cousins ’round the table.”

He raised his cup and sipped, put it down with a sigh.

“The first thing I ought to say is—forgive us. We ought to have come sooner.”

Jen Sin raised an eyebrow.

“With the clan as thin as I have seen, it is a wonder that you came at all. Still, you know, you’re in good time for Catie’s Name Day party, to which you are of course invited.”

“Name Day party?”

“Indeed. We—that is she, as herself, and I as station master—have jointly filed to update the charts, routes, and market lists to remove the errors of, variously, Tinsori Light and Ghost Station, and register Catalinc Station as the proper name of this location.”

“I see. Thus the Name Day party. Has confirmation been received? You must have sent very quickly.”

“The light keepers and the station have quite agreed that in this case filing equals confirmation.”

Val Con’s lips twitched.

“I would have done the same. Cha’trez? Shall we attend Catie’s Name Day party?”

“Don’t see how we could come all this way, and not,” Miri said, offering her forefinger. The blue bird hopped on, and she carefully raised finger and bird to eye level.

“This is fine work,” she murmured. “Do they sing?”

“Perhaps they can be taught.”

“There’s a challenge.”

She looked away from the bird, into his eyes, hers grey and appraising.

“You still hold with that letter you sent?”

Jen Sin stared at her, not quite—

And then he remembered.

“I believe that I have changed my mind, Cousin, if you will be kind enough to tell the delm so.”

“Still,” Val Con murmured, “one can leave a location and a position without it becoming fatal.”

“That is true,” Jen Sin admitted. “But I have lately come to understand that choice matters. Anthora tells me that I bear no taint such as denied me the space beyond Tinsori Light. In fact, I am free to choose.

“And I choose to stay, for the station I fought for, and the comrades who have stood with me. I wish to see what may happen, going forward.”

“I understand,” Val Con said. “You must remind us to tell you about our narrow escape from the homeworld.”

Miri laughed softly. The blue bird left her finger, and joined its fellows, perched on the back of an unused chair.

“There is one more thing,” Jen Sin said, reaching into his jacket. He brought out the stained courier packet and put it in the center of the table.

“Treachery prevented its delivery. I hope the clan—” The clan held so few now, and it had begun to haunt him, that Korval had fallen so far, for the failure of that packet to properly enter the game.

“Ah.”

Val Con looked at the stained envelope, his mouth tightening, then looked into Jen Sin’s face.

“I will be sure that the delm receives that. You should know, Cousin Jen Sin, that it has come to be thought, by the succeeding delms of Korval, that it was fortunate this packet was never delivered. The scheme outlined would have destroyed Korval, and Delium itself. As it was, Sinan was wiped from the board in the aftermath of treachery, and Rinork, too. Korval and Vaazemir survived.”

Jen Sin stared at him.

“Fortunate,” he repeated.

And began to laugh.


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