by Sharon Lee
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Dutiful Passage Langlast Departure
Tarona Rusk Langlast Departure
Civilization
Dutiful Passage Approaching Jump
Off-Grid
Tarona Rusk Auxiliary Services
Millsapport
Off-Grid
Dutiful Passage Millsap Orbit
Civilization
Dutiful Passage
Off-Grid
Dutiful Passage Pommierport
Off-Grid
Dutiful Passage
Tarona Rusk Meeting Space
Dutiful Passage
Tarona Rusk Her Proper Business
Dutiful Passage
Off-Grid
Dutiful Passage En Route to Volmer
Tarona Rusk Her Proper Business
Dutiful Passage Private Meeting Room
Volmer
Civilization
Tarona Rusk Daglyte Seam
Dutiful Passage Rostermin Breakout
Civilization
Dutiful Passage Colemeno Orbit
Colemeno Portmaster’s Office
Dutiful Passage Colemeno Orbit
Colemeno Port Great Hall
Tarona Rusk Her Proper Business
Ribbon Dance Hill
Healspace
Ribbon Dance Hill
Colemeno Port
Off-Grid
TRADER’S LEAP
A New
Liaden Universe®
Novel
SHARON LEE &
STEVE MILLER
Baen
Trader’s Leap
Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
The only bridge between past and future is a leap of faith.
Pursued by enemies, exiled Liaden clan Korval is settling into a new base on backworld Surebleak. Moving is expensive, as is war, and Korval is strapped for cash. Delm Korval has therefore instructed Master Trader Shan yos’Galan to design and implement new trade routes, quickly.
But this is no easy task. Dutiful Passage is targeted by Korval’s enemies, denied docking at respectable ports, and cheated at those less respectable. Struggling to recuperate from an attack on his life, while managing daughter Padi’s emerging psychic talents, Shan is running out of options—and time. His quest to establish the all-important trade route puts him at odds with his lifemate, while doubting crew desert the ship. Facing the prospect of failure, Shan accepts the assistance of chancy allies and turns the Passage toward a port only just emerging from Rostov’s Dust and awash with strange energies.
Without trade, Clan Korval will starve. Will a trader’s leap of faith save everything—or doom all?
BAEN BOOKS by SHARON LEE & STEVE MILLER
THE LIADEN UNIVERSE®
Fledgling
Saltation
Mouse and Dragon
Ghost Ship
Dragon Ship
Necessity’s Child
Trade Secret
Dragon in Exile
Alliance of Equals
The Gathering Edge
Neogenesis
Accepting the Lance
Trader’s Leap
THIRTIETH-ANNIVERSARY EDITIONS
Agent of Change
Conflict of Honors
Carpe Diem
OMNIBUS VOLUMES
The Dragon Variation
The Agent Gambit
Korval’s Game
The Crystal Variation
STORY COLLECTIONS
A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 1
A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 2
A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 3
A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 4
THE FEY DUOLOGY
Duainfey
Longeye
BY SHARON LEE
Carousel Tides
Carousel Sun
Carousel Seas
Trader’s Leap
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright ©2020 by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Liaden Universe® is a registered trademark.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2501-1
EISBN: 978-1-62579-799-5
Cover art by David Mattingly
First Baen printing, December 2020
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lee, Sharon, 1952– author. | Miller, Steve, 1950 July 31– author.
Title: Trader’s leap / Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.
Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen, [2020] | Series: Liaden universe ;
volume 23
Identifiers: LCCN 2020031318 | ISBN 9781982125011 (hardcover)
Subjects: GSAFD: Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3562.E3629 T74 2020 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020031318
Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
Dedication
Dedicated to all the men and women of NASA who are using science, blood, sweat, and tears to push our boundaries to the stars.
Thanks to . . .
Alexei Panshin for Wu and Fabricant’s Guidebooks
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for The Little Prince
Andre Norton for The Zero Stone
For everyone who participates in the Scavenger Hunts—you guys rock!
•
TThe Authors Also Thank Mighty Tyop Hunters:
Lori Altmann, Laura Arlov, Sally Barto, Bev Brown, Teresa Carrigan, Nickola Cooper, Andy Funk, S. J. Gum, Rich Hanson, Irene Harrison, Julia Hart, Suzanne Hediger, Chris Huning, Wolfram Jahn, Hope Johnston, Amy Josephson, Melita Kennedy, Berry Kercheval, Kathryn Kramer, Butler Lampson, Evelyn Mellone, Bex O, David Picon, Maurita Plouff, Marni Rachmiel, Kate Reynolds, Sheila in Texas, Phyllis Shute, Lucian Stacy, Sarah Stapleton, Julia Steinberg, Rob VandenBrink, Sidney Whitaker, Ruth Woodgate, Leanne Wu, and Anne Young for taking part in the Great Trader’s Leap Tyop Hunt!
Your grace, humor, and hunting skills are very much appreciated!
Prologue
* * *
Aviz panerVekin sat straight up in her bed, gasping aloud.
For a moment, she sat quiet in the dark, breath rasping in her ears, too disordered to reach for an illumination—
“Aviz?”
The room light snapped on, chasing every shadow.
“Are you ill?” asked Kawli, her sister. She stood in the doorway, one hand on the wall plate, the other holding a reader against her hip.
“No . . . ” Aviz said slowly. She squinted ’round the room, her breathing back to normal now, chilly with the memory of the touch . . .
“No,” she said again. “It was a dream.”
“A dream,” Kawli repeated, her tone neutral.
“I was being . . . stalked,” Aviz said, feeling after the dream, though already it was beginning to fade. “Most unsettling.”
She turned to meet her sister’s eyes. “I beg
pardon, for disturbing you at your studies.”
“I had just finished the chapter,” Kawli said, considering her out of shrewd brown eyes.
“Come downstairs, why not? I’ll start the kettle for tea.”
“Yes,” Aviz said, throwing back the blankets and reaching for her robe. “A cup of tea will do me good.”
Nersing carnYllum got up from behind his desk and crossed the room to the balcony door. He pushed it open, stepped out—and snatched the metal rail to steady himself. Eight stories below him the midday commuter had stopped at the station. The debarking passengers looked very small.
Nersing bit his lip, and glanced over his shoulder, into his office.
He had been writing the synopsis of the feasibility study for a proposed new train line out from Arthenton Vane in the warehouse district, to Peck’s Market, at the edge of the Grid.
The project fairly crackled with political tension, as did any project or program that hinted at collaboration between Wilderness and Civilization. It had taken his office three years just to get approval and funding for the feasibility study. Now the results were in and it was his task to present them clearly and without bias, all the while he fervently hoped that the project would be approved at last.
He had left strict instructions at the front desk that he not be disturbed for anyone, be it the Warden himself. All such system alerts and rail-traffic memos that would normally come to him had been put on hold, so that he could concentrate.
And he had been concentrating. To the exclusion of everything else, his mind wholly on his task, until he had come to himself, one step onto a three-step-wide balcony and walking briskly forward.
Once more, he looked down at the trains, the traffic, the pedestrians and shops so far below his vantage. Then, he turned, and carefully walked back into his office.
He locked the balcony door, crossed to the comm, and called building maintenance. Then, feeling somewhat foolish, he called Security.
While he waited for the two individuals he had summoned to arrive, he reviewed the . . . incident.
It would require an in-depth reading from Security, but he thought—he was very nearly certain—that he had heard . . . something. Nothing so unsubtle as a voice, but . . . something, a whisper that had acted directly upon his muscles, bypassing his busy brain.
That, he thought, was . . . worrisome.
Uneasy, he went over to his desk, filed the report he’d been writing and blanked the screen. He was just straightening up when a buzzer sounded. He touched the intercom switch.
“Security Chief calpakVernil is here to see you, sir,” his secretary said, somewhat breathlessly. “At your request.”
“Thank you,” he said, his own voice not quite steady. “Please send the chief in.”
Geritsi slentAlin sat on the damp sward, her knees drawn up under her chin; Dosent, her sokyum, stretched beside her, thoroughly asleep. Overhead, the stars were a scattering of blazing pinheads, visible where the brilliant swirling arms of The Ribbons thinned in the progress of their eternal dance with the void.
Geritsi sighed gently, listening to the music of the dance. Tonight, too, the ambient glittered and sang, though they were still more than a month from the Festival of the Seedlings. If it kept on like this, she thought, the festival would be one for the ages.
She closed her eyes, the better to listen—and that was when she heard . . . something—else. Not the music of the stars or the mutter of systemic rubbish. Not the self-satisfied humming of the ambient.
No, this was a . . . voice, and it was talking . . . not to her, not to the brilliant night. Perhaps, it spoke to itself. Perhaps, she thought, straining to hear more clearly, it was speaking into a note taker—it had that kind of flatness about it. Beside her, Dosent growled, flexed her claws, and raised her head.
Teeth grit, Geritsi leaned into the ambient, allowing the voice to flow directly into her memory, bypassing her understanding altogether. Someone would have to sift them out, which might be embarrassing, but she felt instinctively that these words—these intentions—were of vital importance to the Haosa.
The voice paused; there was a sense, as of attention sharpening. Geritsi made herself as small and insignificant as possible, curling up inside her own shadow; shivering as she felt the cold regard pass over her—and linger . . .
. . . on Dosent.
Geritsi gritted her teeth even as the cat’s growl deepened.
There came a flutter of what might have been—amusement.
An animalΩ.
The words were quite clear—and quite clearly dismissive. Contemptuous.
Then, the sense of another presence was gone, leaving Geritsi and Dosent alone on the hillside. Above them, The Ribbons danced, obscuring the stars; the ambient hummed no longer, as if it, too, were trying to escape the attention of . . . whatever—whoever—was overlooking them.
She’d best tell someone, she thought, even though she’d get in trouble for being out so late by herself.
Rising, she made a small light and, Dosent at her side, walked up the hill. She paused at the summit, gazing down at the village, noting the unusual number of lighted windows in this hour of the night. Had the voice woken everybody in the Off-Grid?
From below came a shout—another—and the sudden sound of youngers, crying. More windows brightened; doors slammed; an illumination bloomed over the square, back-lighting the shapes of the projectors, dashing across the square to the news-tree.
Geritsi and Dosent began to run.
Dutiful Passage
Langlast Departure
* * *
I
It started with a walk in the rain, himself and his oathsworn, across a dim port plaza. Rounded paving stones made for treacherous footing, and he was preoccupied; impatient, his thoughts on the end of the mission, on the next day’s joyous reunion with his lifemate and his ship.
Mincing across the wet stones, he knew how this would end; knew that the rain, the plaza, the man at his shoulder, were all part of a terrible memory, replayed as a dream, now that one of them was safe. Knowing that he dreamed, he tried to wake; felt the piercing agony of a headache behind his eyes, and redoubled his efforts.
“Right here, isn’t it, sir?”
The voice pulled him back into the dream; he glanced up at the mosaic flower above the shop door.
“Thank you, Vanner,” he heard himself say. “I think I must be more tired than I know.”
He took a breath, and turned toward the door.
He panicked then, and threw himself wholesale into the effort of trying to alter the future—shouting aloud at his dream-self to turn away, to run, to grab Vanner’s arm and—
But it was no use. The dream rolled on, inexorable, toward its foreknown tragedy.
He opened the door, as he had done, awake, and was doomed to do, again, asleep: walking down the aisle lined by gem-filled cases, to the back of the store, where the proprietor awaited him.
Spirit and soul afire, he fell, though that had been the least of the things that had happened in that place—and lost consciousness.
He tried to shout himself into sense, but the dream rolled on, crushing his feeble attempts to wake back into a world where this was the past, and not the living present.
He did not scream when Vanner died, murdered by his own hand, though he surely did so when the links he had cut rebounded against his soul, and the lash struck—struck, and struck again.
“Shan.”
Even as he felt his life ebbing, and the frail flutter of wings inside his chest . . . Even as another power, glittering dark and diamond-sharp, harried him toward defeat—even then, he heard her voice; grasped it and held to it with all of his remaining strength.
“Shan. Wake now, love.”
So simple a thing, he thought, as a cool hand cupped his cheek. With her touch, the dream unraveled, and he was free.
Free to open his eyes; free to draw a deep, shuddering breath, as he looked up into her face. He had
fallen asleep in his chair. Foolish thing to have done.
“Priscilla,” he said, his voice raw. “I do beg your pardon.”
“Because you had a nightmare?” she asked, slim eyebrows arching over black eyes.
He blew out a breath, nothing so humorous as a laugh.
“Because I had a nightmare, again,” he told her. “Really, of all the bad habits you might have expected me to adopt, screaming in my sleep cannot have been among the first dozen.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted you to adopt any more bad habits at all,” his lifemate said meditatively. “I’m perfectly satisfied with those that came with.”
He did manage something nearer a laugh this time.
“Wretch.”
She smiled, and he was struck to the heart.
It was a weary thing, that smile, filigreed with worry he could See clearly even in his diminished state. He raised a hand to touch her face.
“Do not overspend yourself, Priscilla,” he said gently.
“Now, how would I do that?” she asked, with almost credible lightness. “I’ll have you know that no less a person than the first mate has informed me that my melant’i as dramliza and Healer stands before my melant’i as captain.”
“There’s an impertinence,” he murmured, sliding his fingers into the storm-cloud curls over her ear.
“Well, yes; but she’s right. For the moment. She’s a perfectly competent officer, and an excellent pilot. I don’t expect that anything very terrible will happen before we make the Jump point, do you? And she does have Lonan and Dil Nem as backup.”