“Boss Conrad and his kin, they learned round dancin’ because where they come from it’s what polite people learn to dance. Me, I learned in a piloting seminar because we was bored and needed some legal way to work it off. That being the case, the cues are a little different.

“So, what we’re gonna do is show you a round dance like Boss Conrad learned it, and then a cue dance like I did.”

“Where’d Miri learn how?” somebody—Pat Rin didn’t recognize the voice—called from the back.

“From the Boss’ brother,” Miri sang back. “You?”

The drummer hit the block twice and struck the cymbal hard, to general laughter.

“Any more questions?” Cheever called, and continued without taking a breath. “Fine. We’re ready whenever the band gets around to it.”

Immediately, the omnichora launched six bright notes, like skyrockets, toward the hidden winter sky, the fiddle player spun clear around and enthusiastically put her bow across the strings, the guitarist plucked out a quick pattern of sound and the drummer beat the rim, counting out three, six, twelve.

The music shifted, twisted, slowed...

“Bow to your partner,” Cheever directed, against the mannerly rising of “Tiordia’s Stroll.”

Pat Rin received Nova’s bow, bowing to her in turn. At Cheever’s instruction, they joined hands, crossed, turned, and slid two steps forward, two steps right, three steps backward, three left, crossed, turned, and changed partners. Pat Rin’s left hand slipped out of Nova’s as his right hand met Priscilla’s. He and his new partner stepped together, then apart, changed sides and danced four steps left and five steps back, six steps forward, four steps right...

Relaxed and smiling, Pat Rin performed his part in the dance with ease, warmed and oddly comforted by the familiar movements. He did, in that portion of his mind neither attentive to nor lulled by the dance, own himself astonished to find Cheever McFarland so able a dance master. Truly, he thought, as he and Priscilla crossed and turned; there is no end to the good pilot’s talents....