Fledgling by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

Street. Father had taken her there—if not often , then at least several times. He'd introduced her to the proprietor, too. While that didn't exactly put her or the shop on the Safe List, Theo felt sure that Father wouldn't have taken her anyplace dangerous .
    Despite the bus being a Direct, transit time to Merchant Street this evening was slightly longer than she had estimated. The Chapelia de-bussed ahead of her, en masse and in step, going right while she would be going left, and she breathed a sigh of relief to see them go.
    Her feet had barely touched the street when her mumu sang sevenbells. Still, she thought as she walked down the pathway—no belts in Nonactown—or in the suburbs where her—where Father's—house was, either—it shouldn't take that long to buy a rug.
    The evening breeze made her glad she had her sweater and reminded her that walking within the Wall, or in its shadow, made both time-keeping and weather-minding by sight difficult. Father did that—used the position of the sun in the sky to tell the time, and the type of clouds and wind-direction to predict coming weather—he said it "kept him close to the world"—and he'd taught Theo the way of it, to Kamele's amusement.
    "We have devices called clocks, Jen Sar," she'd said, from her seat on the garden bench. "Which tell us the time when we're inside, too."
    "Indeed," Father had answered gravely. "And yet sometimes—we are outside. And in some circumstances—rare, I allow!—devices fail."
    Kamele had shaken her head with a small smile and returned to her book; and Father had continued Theo's lesson.
    Speaking of time, Theo thought, shaking herself out of her memory, it was passing, and the clouds were moving from the west, on the back of the brisk evening breeze.
    The street was busy this evening, light spilling out into the dusk from unshuttered shop windows and doors. Theo walked carefully, her stomach grumbling as the breeze brought the scent of frying spice bread to her. Almost, she crossed the street to buy a slice, but the recollection that there were only twenty-four creds left on her card moved her on past.
    First, she told herself, she'd buy the rug. Then, she'd have a piece of fried bread.
    The door to Gently Used stood open; on the walk outside, Gorna Dail was talking vivaciously to an old man with an electronic zither strapped to his back.
    Theo slipped past the animated conversationalists and into the store. She passed the low counter with its light-guarded displays of rings, fobs, bracelets, and dangles with only a cursory glance. Father wore jewelry—a twisted silver ring on the smallest finger of his right hand—but Kamele said that honors were decoration enough.
    The rugs were in the back of the store, piled together by size. Theo located the pile she wanted and knelt beside it, her fingers busy over the fabric.
    "Is there something in particular you're looking for, young student?"
    Theo gasped, and blinked up into the worn face and smiling eyes of Gorna Dail.
    "Such concentration," the shopkeeper said, and the smile moved from her eyes to her lips. "Theo Waitley, that's your name, isn't it? Has the housefather commissioned you for solo flight?"
    Theo looked down, and rubbed her hand over the nap of the rug she'd dragged across her knees. It felt good, springy and soft at the same time. Like Coyster.
    "My mother and I have . . . relocated to the Wall," she said to the rug.
    There was a small silence, then a neutral, "I see." Gorna Dail hunkered down next to Theo and ran her hand over the rug, like she was considering its merits, too.
    "It's good to have something to break up all the white," she said, "inside the Wall."
    Theo looked at her in surprise. "You've been inside?"
    Gorna Dail laughed. "Long ago—and only for a semester. I was a Visiting Expert, so they gave me an apartment on—Three?—no, I'm wrong. Topthree . It was well enough. By the standards of fourth-class ship quarters, it was spacious. But I remember