Loose Cannon by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Author:Sharon Lee & Steve Miller [Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: bipolar, liad, sharon lee, korval, steve miller, liaden, pinbeam
Publisher: Pinbeam Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THREE DAYS LATER Cyra was not so very pleased.

To begin, Bell had become inspired sometime in the night of their pillow talk and when she awoke alone in the dawn she found him sketching like a madman on her couch, barely willing to drag himself away from his work long enough to share a breakfast with her.

He packed his sketches and walked with her to the shop, his eyes as elsewhere as his mind. Twice she had to repeat herself while she spoke with him, and then he disappeared into the back room to work as soon as they reached the store.

In the afternoon he had rushed out of the back room, complaining that she'd not told him the time, and stormed out, on his way to a lecture he particularly wanted to see. Worse, he stormed back, having left his sketchbook and wallet, and dashed off with nary a backward glance. When he didn't return by closing--he sometimes went to discussion groups after the lectures--she'd not expected him to come by her apartment, and he didn't, which grated mightily.

In the morning he wandered in very late, hung over and exhausted, explaining that he'd met a pack of Scouts at the lecture and talked with them until the barkeep announced shift-change at dawn. He was animated, nearly wildly so, explaining that he might "have a line on" the Scout who had helped him at Djymbolay; that his conversations of the evening had revealed that he owed Balance to that Scout; that he might have an idea for yet another painting; and that when he had more money there was a world he'd have to travel to and--

"I have an appointment, Bell," Cyra said abruptly. "Tell me later!"

She rushed out the door, barely confident--and barely caring--that he'd heed the advent of a customer.

Her appointment was with her tongue--had she stayed and heard more she surely would have said hurtful words.

So she walked, nearly oblivious to the sounds of transports--more this day than others since a portion of the port would be closed late in the afternoon for some final tricksy bit of work for the expansion--and found herself several blocks from her usual streets, in a very old section, where the buildings and the people were barely above tumbledown.

Surprisingly, she saw Debbie-the-pastry-girl hurrying from one of the least kept brick-fronts; Number 83 it was, a regrettable four-story affair sporting ungainly large windows and peeling paint. The peaked, slate roof suggested that the building was several hundred Standards old, and it looked like it had no repair since the day it was built.

Heart falling, she reached into her card case, and removed the slip of paper she had from Bell the day he'd agreed to share his direction with her: Number 83 Corner Four Ave, Room 15.

A shuttle's long rumble began then; she could feel the sidewalk atremble as she watched the pastry girl's blue-and-green hair disappear in the distance. Also on the paper was the pad combination, and with the whine

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