Alliance of Equals

by Sharon Lee

  “Very proper,” Father said. “There’s no need to exhaust yourself at the beginning of a busy day. You called ahead. If he knew his schedule was too full to accommodate you, he might have refused the appointment then, or asked you to come to him at a more convenient hour.” He paused, then spoke again, very seriously.

  “I do not think it is at all necessary, but I will mention that you have the option of asking Vanner to proceed you around the corner.”

  As if she couldn’t take care of herself! she thought with a flare of temper. Then she thought again and her temper cooled.

  It was a simple melant’i frame; Mr. Higgs was ship security; it was, therefore, his duty to proceed people around dangerous corners. She was not here as Quin’s copilot; there were no babies to shield from heartless enemies. At Langlastport, her melant’i was trader. A peaceable enough thing, or so she wished it to be.

  The corner was scarcely six of her slower steps ahead. The broker anticipated something, did he? Perhaps he anticipated her overreaction, or her scream when he leapt out from the corner and cried Boo!

  Well, perhaps she might spoil his game for him, in Balance for his rudeness.

  “I think that I will not impose upon Mr. Higgs,” she said. Father nodded and dropped a step behind her.

  Padi rounded the corner.

  —•—

  Shan considered the broker’s pattern: anticipation, yes. Some mischief, perhaps; some determination, perhaps to prove a point? Very occasionally, he wished that he were a true telepath, rather than a mere empath. Deciphering emotions was rather a nebulous business, never entirely accurate, and often raising more questions than were answered.

  On the other hand, one imagined a true telepath would need to go heavily shielded at all times. Also, it was likely true that making sense of thought and the processes thereof, might not be quite so simple as running one’s eye down a printed page.

  Linked to Padi as he was, he felt her very clearly indeed. Now that her little burst of temper had burned away, she was admirably cool. That was good. A cool head was a useful commodity in trade, as it was in life.

  He walked around the corner in her wake, Vanner behind him—alert, but not alarmed.

  The space between the two bins was a short cul-de-sac, with a single bin at the far end, sealed, rather than open, with wares on display. It seemed an odd state and an odder location for a specialty bin, but, then, Broker Plishet himself seemed to be rather odd. The brokerage did well, according to its publicly available financials, but, then, Plishet would surely not be the only broker. Perhaps he was kin, or some other person who required oversight and occupation, while being kept out of harm’s way.

  “Trader yos’Galan, there you are!” the man said as Padi approached. “It was on me that you’d decided the walk was too far and had given up on me and my goods.”

  “I am curious to see what you have on offer,” Padi said. “However, I am not so long-legged as you, sir.”

  Her voice, Shan noted with approval, was calm. It also carried a chill edge, which he approved of less. A bit of humor might play better here, but…the child would learn. And calmness was most important.

  “That’s right; a slim slip of a girl is what you are,” the broker said, and something sharp flicked against Shan’s Healer senses.

  Ah, was this it? Had Padi’s “sass” at yesterday’s reception not amused him so very much, after all?

  “But, here, now that we’re all together, let’s take a look at what I have for you, Trader. Tell me you can resist this!”

  He flung the bin’s cover wide and stepped back, both arms sweeping toward the goods on display, which were—

  Oh, dear, Shan thought, holding himself very still.

  One would need to do a hand-inspection to be positive, but upon first glance the rugs hanging limply on the display rods were the rankest imitation Visrathans he had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. He could only thank the gods that Luken was not present; he might have gone blind on the spot.

  Padi…

  When she was younger, Padi had trained with Luken, at his shop on Solcintra Port, as had Quin; as he, himself, had done, and all of his generation of Korval, too.

  Padi knew the difference between a good rug and a bad rug, never mind between a genuine rug and an…imitation.

  Padi also knew when she had been insulted. He felt her outrage as if it were his own. Nor ought Broker Plishet be in doubt regarding the trader’s state of mind, given the tight shoulders, and the head held just so.

  Oh, dear, Shan thought again. Not that he blamed her in the least.

  He looked to the links that bound them, with an especial care for any glimpses of stone, or violent eruption of power.

  He found temper, which was expectable. He tasted grit, which was sadly not unusual in this linkage, but there seemed to be no increase, nor did he have any sense of walls atrembling.

  Very well, then. The trader had the floor.

  He remanded himself to silence, and awaited developments.

  —•—

  Oh, so that was the game, was it? A test, for the slim slip of a girl? For the stranger on the port, who had, perhaps, been a little too forward in pointing out the errors of his thought? She was to be exposed as a fraud—no!—as a child, who had apparently never seen a proper rug in all her life, much less received the tutoring of a master.

  She drew in a deep breath, and deliberately relaxed, as if she were about to sit her boards.

  “Sadly, sir, I can resist it easily, if this is your special offering,” she said coolly, and saw his face change, the broad, false smile becoming a little rigid. Good. Let him feel insulted.

  She walked forward, to the bin itself. The broker stood fast at the side, watching her. Gently, because she really did fear for the weave, she took the closest rug between her hands.

  The nap was gritty and unpleasant against her palms, while the underside was flat and hard—innocent of even the most rudimentary knotting. Despite what her fingers told her, she flipped the rug over. If this were a test, then let the man see she knew where to look, what to look for, and how. Let him, in fact, wonder if she believed the business to be in earnest.

  She sighed at the slight shine on the flat underside of the rug—resin. Or glue.

  The fringe…

  The fringe as stiff as straw. Had this…dreadful farce…been a real Visrathan carpet, the fringe would have flowed through her fingers like water.

  But, there. No one was pretending that these were real Visrathan carpets, or even very good imitations.

  She licked the fingertips of her right hand, and rubbed them gently over the nap. They came away smeared purple, and she sighed. Neither the red nor the blue dyes were stable, and the gods alone knew what sort of fabric they’d used. A blend, if she was required to produce a guess: a blend of recycled plastics and waste wool. The wool would hold the dyes, but a high percentage of plastic to fabric would give the dye no purchase.

  Padi dropped the rug, and turned to face Broker Plishet.

  She raised her hand, showing him the stained fingertips, and shook her head.

  “Surely, sir, there are local haulers who can remove this for you far more cheaply than I.”

  “Do you insult my wares, Trader?” He sounded curious, not angry, and his face was calm.

  She reached into her pocket for a cloth, and used it leisurely to clean her fingers.

  “I think rather that the case is otherwise, Broker,” she said, tucking the cloth away, and looking him squarely in the face. “If I were inclined to be pricklish, I might assume that you were seeking to discredit me.”

  His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.

  “However,” she continued, trying for Father’s tone of gentle idiocy, and doubtless missing, “since I am not pricklish, I incline toward the belief that you were testing me, to find if I was worthy of handling your…actual goods. May I suggest that the master trader’s schedule is very tight, and that we would all benefit fro
m a speedy showing of those goods that you in fact wish to bring to my attention?”

  Silence stretched so long that she thought the stupid broker would refuse the saving of face she offered him. Then, abruptly, he smiled, closed the bin, and moved his arm, indicating that she should proceed him out of the cul-de-sac.

  “Please, Trader, after you. The true goods are close by.”

  —•—

  The “true goods” were revealed to be honest and serviceable cotton rugs hand-painted with vegetable dyes that had been fixed, and then washed, to take out the fixative and any extra dye. They were large, and light, and pleasant, with agreeable designs ranging from abstracts to quite realistic paintings of gardens and what seemed to be the very same mountains they could see from their suite.

  Padi purchased a gross, which was modest enough, at a price that was not, perhaps, absolutely as low as she might have gotten, but certainly low enough to ensure a reasonable profit—unless, Shan thought wryly, the whole lot of them melted during transit.

  He took careful note of Broker Plishet’s emotions. The man had apparently been certain that he would catch the upstart young trader with those terrible rugs. He seemed…not quite as irritated with the fact that he had not caught her as Shan might have expected, but perhaps he was not a naturally warm man.

  The real question was why Broker Plishet had even made the attempt to discredit Trader yos’Galan. Certainly, he might have found it necessary to preserve his dignity at the reception, in the midst of his peers, many of whom had been witnesses to the exchange.

  But there had been no reason at all to agree to meet with the cause of his embarrassment when she called to propose a meeting. Surely, his discomfort could just as easily be assuaged by refusing to meet with her, and therefore withholding his wares, and her profit?

  Shan sighed. Well. Perhaps he had assumed that he would dine out on the story.

  Padi had comported herself well throughout; managing her temper and Broker Plishet with equal skill. He owned himself pleased, as her master, and as her father, while admitting, in the privacy of his own head, that he might not have let the broker off quite so easily.

  “Now, then, Trader, your goods will be delivered to your ship’s cargo holding area. More than that, a master infokey and a catalog of samples will be sent directly to you at your lodgings. You’ll be able to make as many keys as you’d like to off the master.”

  “Thank you,” Padi said, standing up from the signing table. “Now, I know you will forgive me for rushing away. I am, as I said, at service of the master trader, who has a very full schedule.”

  “Of course you are. No need to tarry, with our business concluded, now is there? Thank you, Trader, Master Trader, for taking the time out of those busy schedules to visit with me. Here now, let me show you the door. We hope to see you often trading here on Langlastport!”

  That last was an utter lie, which left Shan to wonder why the man bothered. It would be interesting, he thought, as they were ushered toward the entranceway, to find if all the merchants of Langlastport felt the same way.

  —•—

  During his early contacts with Jeeves, the elder AI had encouraged Admiral Bunter to avail himself of fiction.

  “Fiction will illuminate behavior with an intensity and a veracity that research texts and facts alone cannot convey. Neither is a substitute for the other, but taken together, they enhance understanding.”

  Alone in his shredding environments, Admiral Bunter had not had the leisure to take his elder’s advice.

  Now, he had leisure. And he had need.

  And he had a vast library, which had been part of the cranium’s furnishings.

  He accessed the fiction module, using the keywords melant’i, Balance, honor, and necessity, which returned results—many more results than he had, in his ignorance of the form, anticipated. There were, indeed, many volumes entitled “melant’i plays.”

  A play was a fictional form which was told in physical movement and spoken word by humans, for the enjoyment of other humans, so much he knew. There were tapes in the archives of such performances, if he cared to view them.

  Under the orders of Protocol to find a way other than the…traditional…to allow Tolly Jones to answer questions, the Admiral rather thought that he ought to view at least some of these so-called melant’i plays.

  However, he had discovered that nonfiction was tiered—some was informative, the supporting research strong and the conclusions solidly constructed. Other nonfiction—he was beginning to form the opinion that this could be stated as most nonfiction—was less than informative, or it was derivative, or the research was shoddy, or the conclusions ill-drawn.

  It was therefore necessary to crossref, and in some cases cross-check sources and conclusions, reading several papers on a particular subject before forming an opinion of one’s own.

  The Admiral supposed that fiction was no different from nonfiction in this regard, and he did not wish to waste time—of which he had not much, before Tolly Jones debarked and Admiral Bunter was…alone.

  Therefore, faced with the plentitude of melant’i plays on offer, he turned again to nonfiction, looking for a source, a key, to those plays that were most illuminating of the human condition.

  Nor did research fail him. He found it almost at once: Square Truth: The One Hundred Forty-Four Most Influential Melant’i Plays, written by Patrick S. Bagley, Professor of Exotic Art Forms, who was, according to the information in the file, an expert in the field of melant’i plays, having devoted his life to their study, for which he had won acclaim from other scholars of the field.

  This, then, was his source book. He would choose his plays based on this illustrious expert’s advice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Langlastport

  Shan stepped into the shower, turned his face up into the spray of cool, fragrant water and closed his eyes. Langlastport was open to the weather, which had turned quite warm toward the end of their day. He sighed in satisfaction at the sweet-smelling coolness, and imagined dust swirling away down the drain.

  They had accomplished rather more today than he had hoped for. If tomorrow went as well, they might return to the Passage the day after.

  He found, perhaps not surprisingly, that he wished to return to the Passage—very much. Langlastport could, without fear of overstating the case, be judged a successful encounter. Certainly, it was worthy of being incorporated into the developing route as a primary port, and the proximity of those Jump points clearly argued that it be placed on several secondary routes. He would need to do some redesigning, but that was, in the larger dance of the universe, a small thing.

  Sighing in sheer pleasure, he began to soap his hair. The shampoo smelled even sweeter than the water; he would exit the shower as redolent as a garden in bloom.

  He took a deep breath of damp, floral air, seeking for a moment at least to mitigate the taste of stone.

  Memory flickered, and he abruptly recalled standing at the edge of Trealla Fantrol’s gardens, gazing up at the house, which had been emptied of all that yos’Galan cared to keep. He was not alone in the blue evening: his sisters were with him, Nova and Anthora; Priscilla, of course; and Ren Zel; Val Con, too, who had been raised as a brother to his yos’Galan cousins, inside the clan’s fortress, Trealla Fantrol.

  The evening breeze, damp from traveling over the stream, sweet from tumbling the flowers, played about them, a seventh in their circle.

  They joined hands there in the shadows, power flowing between them like water, while the breeze gamboled, sweet and chill.

  Nova was a Rememberer, and it was she who led the way. Priscilla helped her step into a trance, whereupon she opened her eyes on the past, when there had been no house in this place at the mouth of Korval’s valley. Her vision flowed with the power around the linked circle, until they saw it, all and each of them: a meadowland innocent of man’s hand, the breeze combing out its silky grasses.

  Holding the vision firm, togethe
r they desired that it become truth. Anthora and Val Con led here, strong-willed and stubborn, forcing the vision into a reality, while Shan and Priscilla ensured that the flow of energy remained constant, and the clarity of vision did not falter until the moment that—it became real.

  The grassy meadow and the tall house existed simultaneously, each wrapt in glowing strands. In that moment of duality, when they stood equally within two realities, Ren Zel extended his will—and broke the strand about the house.

  The shock of that unmaking knocked the six of them to their knees; even the breeze faltered.

  Dazed, they knelt in the grass, their accord broken, until, one by one, they gathered themselves, looking up at last to see…

  A grassy meadowland, surrounded by formal gardens, and the moon just rising above Solcintra Spaceport.

  —•—

  Aboard the Passage, Priscilla woke all at once, and swung out of bed, pulling her robe around her as she crossed the room.

  The comm chimed even as she put her hand on it. She smiled slightly and touched the switch. “Mendoza.”

  “Master Trader yos’Galan for you, ma’am,” said Comm Tech Triloff. “Private channel.”

  “Thank you, Sally. Please put him through.”

  —•—

  “Hello, love.”

  Her voice was as clear as if she stood next to him. Warmth filled him—and perhaps heat, though that was a route laid through frustration.

  Really, Shan, he told himself. Do try for some control.

  “I miss you, too,” Priscilla said in his ear, her voice suddenly sultry.

  “That’s a score on a wounded man, my lady,” he said, with what dignity he could bring to bear. “And to think that I called you for comfort.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Happened?” He smiled. “In fact, nothing has happened. Padi failed to murder a textile broker this morning, though I swear as her master trader that she would have been perfectly justified to have done so. The third master of the technology exchange is a very pleasant fellow, besides being fascinating on his topic, and eager to teach both an ignorant master and an eager apprentice. He produced a sane and sound scheme for mutual profit, and we signed the contracts quickly. The account is formally under the master trader, because I had made first contact, but I believe I will assign it to Padi, as she seems to have an aptitude. Certainly, Master Seirt was charmed by her questions.”