Certain Symmetry by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Read Free Book Online

House of Chance in the Terran section of Mid-Port. Terrans
scarce cared what your name was--or if you had a name at all, so
long as your cantra was good. They sold to Betea as they would to
any other business on the street--yes, and came by in the evening
or ahead of their morning shifts, to wager a bit on the wheel,
perhaps, or buy into a game of cards.
    She'd been doing well enough, or so she told
herself now, and had no need to return to the patron model. Only
that the loss of those two houses in her aunt's time and another on
her aunt's death--had eaten at Betea and made her dream, too, dream
of the days when sen'Equa held five houses and there was talk of
building a sixth...
    Betea sighed, dropped the letter to her desk
for the fourth time, slipped the sixth-piece into her pocket, and,
restless, went down the ramp into the main room, to see how the
play went on.
    Which is how she came to be there when he
walked in the door: High Port, sure enough, with his pretty brown
hair and a blue gemstone in one ear; dressed in a sober, expensive
jacket and shiny boots. She saw the hint of the pistol beneath the
jacket and approved his good sense, even as she went forward to
intercept him.
    "May I assist you, lordship?" she inquired,
coming up on him from the right, her hands plainly in sight, out of
respect for the pistol.
    Velvet brown eyes considered her at some
length, and then he inclined his head, very slightly.
    "Do you know, perhaps you can?" he said, and
his voice was pleasant on the ear. "I am looking for Betea
sen'Equa."
    Her stomach clenched, but she put the silly
start of fear aside and bowed deeply, which the high ones cared
about.
    "You have found her," she said. "How may I
assist you?"
    "I am here on a matter of Balance," the
pretty man told her, "which stands between yourself and Fal Den
ter'Antod."
    Betea felt the blood drain from her face.
She might have known that the game would fold someday, and one who
was perhaps a little bolder than the others would send his man of
business, or his delm, or his elder kinsman to Balance the
matter--with her. She touched her tongue to lips suddenly gone
dry.
    "Why does he not come himself?" she
asked.
    "Because he is dead," the other said, and
moved a hand, showing her the ramp up to the office in her own
establishment.
    "Perhaps this is not a discussion you wish
to continue on the open floor?"
    Dead? But... Betea clutched at her
disintegrating courage, straightened her back and looked boldly
into the man's dark eyes.
    "Please come with me," she said, and turned
away without looking to see if he followed. Somehow, she didn't
doubt that he would.
    * * *
    THE OFFICE WAS comfortably appointed, the
screens that monitored the playing floor set into the wall above
the manager's cluttered desk.
    A quick and subtle glance at the clutter
revealed to Pat Rin the sorts of papers one might find on the desk
of any manager, high port or low--invoices, bills of lading, lists,
and the various correspondence of business. A handwritten letter on
plain paper lay askew in the center of the desk, as if it had been
flung down in haste. A blank comm screen sat to the right of the
general disorder, the keyboard shoved away beneath.
    At the center of the room, Betea sen'Equa
turned to face him. She was tall, Pat Rin noted--a little above his
own height, though nothing near Shan's--and lithe, with a girl's
pretty, soft face. Her eyes were as blue and as ungiving as
sapphire--and it was to the woman who had earned those eyes that he
made his bow.
    "I am Pat Rin yos'Phelium Clan Korval. I
come to you as the instrument of Fal Den ter'Antod's will. Your
name is written in his debt-book. It falls to us to Balance that
which lies between you."
    The hard blue eyes considered him,
emotionless; the round, girl's face betrayed only youth.
    "Please tell me how Fal Den came to die,"
she said, and her voice did waver, just a little. "I saw him only
days ago..."
    "He died by his own hand," Pat Rin told her
and used