Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

refuge in Runig’s Rock had exerted strange pressures on Syl Vor. She had hoped that a return to normalcy—but, there. Nothing about Korval’s current situation approached normalcy. Even the nursery must know that.
    “Mother?” His voice was uncertain, as if he feared that he had made a misstep.
    “Forgive me, my son; I was thinking. I wonder—might this discussion of your schedule wait until we are face to face? Some planning is done better, thus, and I would rather that we give ourselves the best opportunity to plan well.”
    “Y-yes,” he said, audibly disappointed.
    “That is what we shall do, then,” she said, with another glance at the clock. “And now, young sir, it is time for you to seek your bed. Chiat’a bei kruzon .”
    “Yes,” he said again. “Sleep sweetly, Mother.”
    * * *
    Nova flipped the comm off, and sat back in her chair, abruptly aware of a presence in the doorway—Michael Golden, tea tray in hand.
    “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not hear you.”
    “No problem,” he answered, coming forward and depositing the tray on the corner of her desk. It had become their custom, to take tea and some small snack together at the end of the day, comparing notes before each sought their rest.
    Nova poured as he settled himself into the desk-side chair.
    “That was the boy calling? Everything going aces for him, up under Tree?”
    Nova picked up her cup and sighed.
    “I fear that he is feeling . . . somewhat isolated. He has no age-mates, and had lately been accustomed to the companionship of his elder cousins, who are now called to duty. His hours hang on his hands, and he asks after other occupation.”
    “Nobody to play with—that’s tough,” Michael Golden said, with an air of knowing something about the topic on which he discoursed. “Kids’ve gotta play.”
    This was true. Children ought to play. Especially serious children ought to play. She had herself been a serious child, though she had shared the nursery with Shan and Val Con, neither of whom had been serious in the least. It had not seemed so at the time, but in hindsight she had been well served by her brothers’ shatterbrained companionship. She shook her head, as her mother had used to do, a gesture of not knowing, rather than denial.
    “At ho— on Liad, Syl Vor had been accustomed to spending time with the children of yo’Lanna, a—an old friend of our family. The delm willing, he would by now have been fostered into the house of an ally with near-aged children,” she said. “I had considered that, perhaps we might—But, no. It is ineligible.” She sighed again.
    Michael Golden sipped his tea. She did the same.
    “Word’s come in that the school site’s been left alone six nights in a row,” he said eventually.
    Nova raised her eyebrows. “That . . . is almost wonderful, Mr. Golden. To what do you attribute this sudden lack of popularity?”
    “Well, now, there’s the thing. I can’t pin it on any particular something. Could be the folks behind it just got worn out. Could be they’re gathering themselves together for a big surprise, and they don’t wanna risk being caught at the small stuff.”
    “Could it be that those who have been taken up in the sweep were the decision-makers, and those they leave behind are without orders?”
    Michael Golden frowned, his nose wrinkling slightly with the intensity of his thought. Nova, who by this time knew his ways, warmed his cup, and hers . . . and waited.
    “ Could be,” he said at last, “but I can’t say that’s for sure the case. ’Less you got something from the Road Boss?”
    She shook her head. “Merely speculation.”
    He picked up his cup with an appreciative nod to her. “Thanks. I don’t say it wouldn’t be convenient if that was the case, but I’m thinking we’d better not count on convenience.”
    “I agree. What do you suggest?”
    “Seems to me we got enough watchers on-site, now, and as reliable as we can make ’em. What we wanna