Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  The examples set out were seemingly made of porcelain, badly shaped, with unexpected angles and rough-looking finish. Nothing about them invited the hand, or delighted the eye or engaged the mind, in the way that something billed as a toy ought.

  Jethri picked up one of the pieces--in outline, it looked something like an old fin ship. It felt as gritty as it looked, and was slightly heavier than he had anticipated. Uncle Paitor had taught him that it sometimes helped to get a sense for a thing by holding it in the palm and getting comfortable with the shape and the weight of--

  The thing in his hand was buzzing, slightly reminiscent of Flinx, setting up a nice fuzzy feeling between his ears. The buzzing grew louder and it was almost as if he could hear words inside of it--words in a language not quite Terran and not quite Liaden, but close--so close. He screwed his eyes shut, straining to hear--and gasped awake as pain flared, disrupting the trance.

  Quickly, he replaced the toy among its fellows, and glanced down at his hand. There was a brand of red across the palm, already starting to blister. The...toy... had malfunctioned.

  Or not.

  He bit his lip, fingers curled over his burned palm. That the so-called toys were Befores of a type he had personally never seen was obvious. Befores being specifically disallowed on Irikwae at least, it seemed that his duty was to alert the Master of Exhibits to the problem.

  And then, he thought, grimacing as he slipped his wounded hand into his pocket, he would go down to one of the philter shops on the main way and get a dressing for his burn.

  As it happened, somebody else had been dutiful sooner. He hadn't got half-way to the offices in the back of the big hall when he met a crowd heading in the opposite direction.

  Two grim-faced port proctors, a woman in the leather clothing of a Scout, and the Master of Exhibits himself, walking arm in arm with a slightly wide-eyed trader not much older, Jethri thought, than he was. Nathlyr was fancy-stitched across the right breast of the trader's ship jacket.

  Respectfully, Jethri stepped aside to let them pass, though he doubted any of the bunch saw him, except the Scout, then changed course for the exit. His hand was hurting bad.

  * * *

  "Certainly! Certainly!" The philterman took one look at the angry wound across Jethri's palm and ran to the back of the shop. By the time Jethri had arranged himself on the short stool and put his hand on the counter, the man was back, clutching a kit to his chest.

  "First, we cleanse," he murmured, breaking the seal on an envelope bearing the symbol for "medical supply," and shaking out an antiseptic wipe.

  Jethri braced himself, and it was well he did; the pressure of the wipe across his skin was painful, and the cleaning solution added another level of burn to his discomfort.

  "Ow!" He clamped his mouth tight on the rest of it, ears hot with embarrassment. The philterman looked up, briefly.

  "It is uncomfortable, I know, but with such a wound we must be certain that the area is clean. Now..." He pulled out a second envelope and snapped the seal, shaking out another wipe. "This, I think, you will find a bit more pleasant."

  The pressure still hurt--and then it didn't, as his skin cooled and the pain eased back to something merely annoying.

  Jethri sighed, his relief so great that he forgot to be embarrassed.

  "Yes, that is better, eh?" The philterman murmured, reaching again into his kit. "Now, we will dress it and you may continue your day, Trader. Remember to have the hall physician re-examine you this evening. Burns have a difficult nature and require close observation."

  The dressing was an expandable fingerless glove that had a layer of all-purpose antibiotic against the skin. The largest in stock stretched to fit Jethri's hand.

  "Else," the philterman said, "we should have had to wrap it in treated gauze, with an over wrap of sterile tape. So." He gathered up the spent wipes and broken envelopes and fed them into the countertop recycler.

  "If I might suggest a portable kit, Trader?" he murmured. "It fits easily into a pocket, and includes three each of cleansing and pain alleviation wipes, and a small roll of antibiotic-treated gauze and wrapping tape. Two dex, only."

  And cheap insurance at that, Jethri thought, glancing down at his gloved hand. Who expected toys to bite, anyway?

  "An excellent suggestion," he said to the philterman. "I will have one of your kits. Also--" he said, suddenly remembering another item that might be found in such a shop. "I wonder if you have a sort of cream which is commonly sold to Terrans, which dissolves facial hair and keeps the face pleasing."

  "Ah!" The man looked up at him interestedly. "Is there such a thing? I had no notion. We do not, you understand, much deal with Terrans at Irikwae. But hold..."

  He bustled to the back and returned with a flat plastic pack prominently marked with the symbol for medical supplies. Slipping a finger under the seal, he unfolded the pack to display its contents--three each, cleaning wipes and painkiller wipes; one small roll of antibiotic gauze, one small roll of tape. Check.

  "I thank you," Jethri murmured, slipping two dex from his public pocket and putting them on the counter.

  "It is my pleasure to serve," the man said, folding the kit and resealing it. Jethri picked it up; it fit into one of the smaller of his jacket's numerous inner pockets, with room to spare.

  "Of this other product," the philterman murmured. "There is a shop at the bottom of the street which does from time to time have specialty items on offer. It may be that you will find what you are seeking there. The shop is the last on the left side of the street. It has a green-striped awning."

  "I thank you," Jethri said again and got himself disentangled from the stool and on his feet, heading for the door.

  * * *

  "Dissolves hair?" The woman behind the counter at the philtershop at the bottom of the street stared at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses. "Nothing like that here, young trader--nor likely to be! We offer oddities from time to time, but nothing--well. Perhaps you want the Ruby Club? The director has been known to keep ...exotic items on hand."

  "Perhaps I do," Jethri said, by no means certain. "My thanks to you." He departed the shop of the green awning, feeling the woman's eyes on his back as he paused, looking up and down the street for a public map.

  The Ruby Club was somewhat behind and at a angle to the warehouse district, not quite adjacent to the salvage yards. Well. The toys having fallen through, he figured he had an hour or two at liberty and, while Meicha's handiwork had so far stood up, he didn't know how long that would be so, or if his first warning of its failure would be on the morning he woke up to find he'd overnight gown a beard down to his knees.

  Prepared is better'n scared, he thought, which was something his father used to say, and Grig, too--and pushed the button on the bottom of the map to summon a taxi to him.

  * * *

  "You are certain that this is the location to which you were directed?" The taxi driver actually sounded worried, and Jethri didn't know as how he particularly blamed her.

  The Ruby Club itself was kept up and lighted; with a red carpet extending from its carved red door right across the walkway to the curb. The surrounding buildings, though, were dark, not in repair, and in some cases overgrown with plants that Jethri's time in the vineyards had taught him were weeds.

  "Is there another Ruby Club on the port?" he asked, half-hoping to hear that there was, and that it stood next to the Irikwae Trade Bar.

  To his surprise, the driver leaned forward and tapped a command into her on-board map. After a moment, he heard her sigh, lightly.

  "There is only this one."

  "Then this is my location," Jethri said, with more certainty than he felt. He wasn't liking the looks of this street, at all. On the other hand, he thought, given the general feeling that Terrans were pretty good zoo material, maybe it wasn't surprising that a place known for carrying exotic Terran items was situated well away from the main port. He pushed open the door.

  "Wait for me," he said t
o the cabbie. She looked over the seat at him.

  "How long?"

  Good question. "I shouldn't be above twelve minutes," he said, hoping for less.

  She inclined her head. "I will wait twelve minutes."

  "My thanks."

  He left the cab and walked briskly down the red carpeting. Seen close, the red door was carved; the carving showing a lot of naked people having sex with each other, and maybe some things that weren't exactly sex--or if so, not the kind that had been covered in either his hygiene courses or the bits of the Code the twins' tutor had marked out for him to read.

  It did come to him that he was not prepared to deal with the consequences of that door, and he began to turn away, to go back to the cab and uptown and his quarters at the trade hall--The door opened.

  He glanced back, and down, into a pair of jade green eyes, slightly tip-tilted in a soft, oval face. Jade-colored flowers were painted along the ridge of ...the person's... cheekbones, and their lips were also painted jade. They were dressed in a deep red tunic and matching trousers, beneath which red boots gleamed.

  "Service, Trader," the doorkeeper said huskily, and the voice gave no clue to gender. Jethri bowed, slightly. "I was sent here by a merchant uptown," he said, keeping his voice stringently in the mercantile mode. "It was thought that there might be depilatory for sale here."

  "Why, perhaps there is," the doorkeeper said, standing back, and opening the door wide. "Please, honor our house by entering. I will summon the master to your aid."

  It was either go in or cut and run. He didn't especially want to go in, but found his pride wouldn't support cut and run. Inclining his head, he stepped into the house.

  * * *

  The doorkeeper installed him in a parlor just off the main entryway and left him. Jethri looked about him, eyes slightly narrowed in protest of the decorating. A deep napped crimson carpet covered the floor from crimson wall to crimson wall. A couch in crimson brocade and two crimson brocade chairs were grouped 'round a low table covered with a crimson cloth. A black wooden bookshelf along one short wall held volumes uniformly bound in red leather, titles outline in gilt.

  Jethri was starting to feel a little uneasy in the stomach by the time the hall door opened and the master of the house joined him.

  This was an older man, entirely bald, dressed in a lounging robe of simple white linen. His face was finely lined and unpainted, though a row of tiny golden hoops pierced the skin and followed the curve of his right cheekbone from the inner corner of his eye out to the ear.

  Two paces into the room, he paused to bow, low, and to Jethri's eye, with irony.

  "Trader. How may our humble house be of service?"

  "House Master." Jethri inclined his head. "Pray forgive this unseemly disturbance of your peace. I had been told at a shop in the main port that perhaps I might find a certain cream here--it is often used by Terrans such as myself to remove hair and to condition the face."

  "Ah." The man raised a hand and touched his shining bald head. "Yes, we sometimes have such a commodity in the house."

  Jethri blinked. The amount of cream necessary to unhair a whole head would be considerable.

  Once the head in question was bald, it would take less cream to keep it that way, but the supply would need to be steady. The woman at the second philtershop had not sent him astray.

  "I wonder," he said to the house master, "if I might purchase a small quantity of this cream from you. Perhaps, a vial--no more than two."

  "Purchase? Let me consider...." The man ran his forefinger, slowly, along the line of tiny hoops, his eyes narrowed, as if it were pleasant to feel the gold slide against his cheek.

  "No," he said softly. "I really do not think we can sell you any of our supply, Trader."

  Well, there was a disappointment, Jethri thought. He took a breath, preparatory to thanking the man for his time....

  "But we will trade for it," the house master said.

  "Trade for it?" Jethri repeated, blankly.

  "Indeed." Again, the slow slide of the forefinger along the row of piercings and the long look of narrow-eyed pleasure. "You are a trader, are you not?"

  When I'm not busy being what Lady Maarilex calls a moonling, well yes, Jethri thought, I am. He inclined his head.

  "I am a trader, sir, and willing to undertake a trade for the item under discussion. However, it is so small a transaction that I am somewhat at a loss to know what might be fair value."

  "There, I can provide guidance," the man said, turning his hand palm up in the gesture that meant, roughly, 'service'. "I understand, as you do, that the item under discussion is a rarity upon this port, as much as it might be commonplace upon other ports. We receive, as I am sure you have surmised, a small but steady supply, from a source that I am really not at liberty to share with you. This source also provides other ...specialties... to the house. However, we have not been able to procure formal masks. In trade for two tubes of the cream, I will accept four half-face masks made from crimson leather, or two whole-face masks."

  Red leather masks?

  "Forgive me, sir, but the trade is uneven," Jethri said, which was sheer reflex, rather than any real knowledge of how costly red leather masks were likely to be. "Two half-masks for two tubes achieves symmetry."

  The house master blinked--and bowed.

  "Of course," he said smoothly, "you are correct, Trader. Two half-masks in red leather for two tubes of Terran depilatory cream. It is done." Straightening, he motioned to the door.

  "When you acquire the masks, return, and we will make the exchange."

  "Certainly, sir."

  Jethri inclined his head, and took the hint. At the outside door, the person with the flower-painted face bowed him out.

  "Fair profit, Trader. Come again."

  "Joy to the house," he answered and went down the red carpet to the taxicab, waiting at the curb. He sealed into the back seat with an audible sigh.

  "I thank you for waiting above the twelve minutes," he said to the cabbie.

  She slammed the car into gear and pulled away from the curb more sharply than she should have. "Are all Terrans fools?" she asked, sounding merely interested in his answer.

  "Only the ones that apprentice to master traders and take certification at the Irikwae Trade Hall," he answered, feeling like she'd earned honesty from him-and a good sized tip, too.

  "Hah," she said, and nothing more. Jethri leaned back as well as he could in the short seat and looked out the window at the unkempt streets.

  The cab glided through an intersection, Jethri glanced down the cross-street--and jerked forward, hand on the door release.

  "Stop the cab!" he shouted.

  The driver braked and he was out, running back toward the scene he had glimpsed: four people, one on his knees, and all four showing fists.

  Jethri had size and surprise, if not speed or sense. He grabbed a handful of jacket and yanked one of the attackers back from the victim, putting him down hard on his ass. The other two shouted, confused by the arrival of reinforcements, while the lone defender seized the opportunity and the room to leap to his feet and land a nice, solid punch on the jaw of the man nearest. In the meantime, Jethri faced off with the third attacker, his body curling into the crouch Pen Rel had drilled him on, knees bent, hands ready.

  The man yelled and swung, putting himself off-balance. Jethri ducked, gabbed the man's wrist and elbow, twisted--and shouted with joy as the attacker flew over his shoulder to land hard and flat on his back on the street.

  His victory was short-lived. The first man was back on his feet, and moving in fast. This one had a cooler head--and maybe some training in Pen Rel's preferred style of brawl. Jethri dropped back, turning, caught sight of the yellow-haired victim, face cut and jacket torn, having heavy going with his man.

  The guy stalking Jethri kicked. He sank back--but not quick enough. The edge of the man's boot caught his knee.

  This time, the shout was pain, but he kept his feet, and ther
e was a roaring in the street, growing louder, and then the blare of a klaxon, and it was the taxicab accelerating toward them, the cabbie's face implacable behind the windscreen.

  The three attackers yelled and scrambled for the safety of the rotting sidewalk.

  The taxi slammed to a halt, back door snapping open.

  "In!" Jethri pushed the other man, and the two of them tumbled into the back seat, legs and arms tangled as the cab roared off, back door swinging. It slammed itself into place a few seconds later, when the cabbie took the next corner on two screaming wheels.

  Fighting inertia, Jethri and the erstwhile victim slowly sorted out which legs and arms belonged to who and got themselves upright in the seats.

  The yellow-haired man sank back on his seat with an audible sigh, and sat for a second, eyes closed. Jethri, blowing hard, leaned his head back, considering his rescue. It came to him that the man looked familiar, and he frowned, trying to bring the memory closer.

  Across from him, the other opened his eyes a slit--and then considerably wider as he snapped straight upright.

  "You! Jeth Ree Gobelyn, is it not?"

  The voice rang the memory right up to the top of the brain. Jethri stared.

  "Tan Sim?" he heard himself say, in a mode insultingly close to the one he used when talking with the twins. "What are you doing here?"

  Tan Sim grinned, widely, then winced. "I could ask the same of you! Never tell me that the ven'Deelin sends you to the low port unguarded."

  "That one," the taxi driver said over her shoulder, "should not be let to roam the high port alone. Where shall I have the extreme pleasure of dropping the two of you off?"

  * * *

  Patched and well-scolded by the hall physician, it occurred to them in a simultaneous way that they were hungry. Accordingly, they adjourned to the Trade Bar, where they were fortunate to find a booth open.

  "Bread," Jethri said to the waiter. "And two of whatever the day meal is. Fresh fruit."