by Sharon Lee
His eye was caught now by a series that intrigued him. A couple, hand in hand, moved across several images, walking along the sandscape by the roiling, splashing waves, each wearing a suit (if something covering only a very small part of the anatomy could really be called a suit!). Both suits had decorations on them, shapes very much like his lucky fractin. The woman’s suit was basically white, with the fractins arrayed in several fetching patterns, but they were blue, with the lettering in yellow. Her partner’s suit was blue, the fractins white and the lettering black, which was like no fractin he’d ever seen—not that he thought he’d seen them all.
The distraction of the woman’s shape and beauty, and the way she moved, made it hard for him to pay attention to the old tape. He sighed, so loud he might have been heard in the companionway if anyone was there to listen.
He had work to do. They were set to put in at a Liaden port right soon, and now was time to study, not indulge high-oxy dreams of walking hand-held with a lady ‘way too pretty to notice a ship-kid . . .
Teeth chewing lower lip, he punched the button on the recorder, backing up to the last sentence he remembered hearing.
This set of notes was old: recorded by Great-Grand-Captain Larance Gobelyn more than forty Standard years ago, dubbed to ship’s library twenty Standards later from the original deteriorating tape. Jethri fiddled with the feed on the audio board, but only succeeded in lowering the old man’s voice. Sighing, he upped the gain again, squinting in protest of the scratchy, uneven sound.
“Liaden honor is—active. Insult—any insult—is punished. Immediately. An individual’s name is his most important possession and—”
“Jethri?” Uncle Paitor’s voice broke across Cap’n Larance’s recitation. Jethri sighed and thumbed ‘pause’.
“Yessir,” he said, turning his head toward the intercom grid set in the wall.
“Come on down to the trade room, will you? We need to talk over a couple things.”
Jethri slipped the remote out of his ear. As senior trader, Paitor was specifically in charge of the senior apprentice trader’s time and education.
“Yessir,” Jethri repeated. Two quick fingertaps marked his place in the old notes file. He left at a brisk walk, his thoughts half on honor, and only slightly less than half on the image of the woman on the poster.
HIS UNCLE NODDED him into a chair and eased back in his. They were coming in on Ynsolt’i and next hour Paitor Gobelyn would have time for nothing but the feed from the port trade center. Now, his screen was dark, the desk-top barren. Paitor cleared his throat.
“Got a couple things,” he said, folding his hands over his belt buckle. “On-Port roster: Dyk an’ me’ll be escorting the payload to the central trade hall and seeing it safe with the highest bidder. Khat’s data, Grig’s eatables, Mel’s on tech, Cris’ll stay ship-side. You . . .”
Paitor paused and Jethri gripped his hands together tight on his lap, willing his face into a trader’s expression of courteous disinterest. They had textile on board—half a dozen bolts of cellosilk that Cris had taken on two stops back, with Ynsolt’i very much in his mind. Was it possible, Jethri wondered, that Uncle Paitor was going to allow. . .
“Yourself—you’ll be handling the silk lot. I expect to see a kais out of the lot. If I was you, I’d call on Honored Sir bin’Flora first.”
Jethri remembered to breathe. “Yes, sir. Thank you.” He gripped his hands together so hard they hurt. His own trade. His own, very first, solo trade with no Senior standing by, ready to take over if the thing looked like going awry.
His uncle waved a hand. “Time you were selling small stuff on your own. Now.” He leaned forward abruptly, folded his arms on the desk and looked at Jethri seriously. “You know we got a lot riding on this trip.”
Indeed they did—more than a quarter of the Market’s speculation capital was tied up in eighteen Terran pounds of vya, a spice most commonly sold in five gram lots. Jethri’s research had revealed that vya was the active ingredient in fa’vya, a Liaden drink ship’s library classified as a potent aphrodisiac. Ynsolt’i was a Liaden port and the spice should bring a substantial profit to the ship. Not, Jethri reminded himself, that profit was ever guaranteed.
“We do well with the spice here,” Paitor was saying, “and the captain’s going to take us across to Kinaveral, do that refit we’d been banking for now, rather than two Standards from now.”
This was the news that might have had Dyk baking a cake. Jethri sat up straighter, rubbing the palms of his hands down the rough fabric of his work pants.
“Refit’ll keep us world-bound ‘bout a Standard, near’s we can figure. Captain wants that engine upgrade bad and trade-side’s gonna need two more cargo pods to balance the expense.” He grinned suddenly. “Three, if I can get ‘em.”
Jethri smiled politely, thinking that his uncle didn’t look as pleased with that as he might have and wondering what the down-side of the trade was.
“While refit’s doing, we figured—the captain and me—that it’d be optimum to re-structure crew. So, we’ve signed you as senior ‘prentice with Gold Digger.”
It was said so smoothly that Jethri didn’t quite catch the sense of it.
“Gold Digger?” he repeated blankly, that much having gotten through, by reason of him and Mac Gold having traded blows on last sighting—more to Jethri’s discomfort than Mac’s. He hadn’t exactly told anyone on the Market the full details of the incident, Gold Digger’s crew being cousins of his mother, and his mother making a point more’n once about how she’d nearly ended up being part of that ship instead of this.
Jethri came forward in his chair, hearing the rest of it play back inside the whorlings of his ears.
“You signed me onto Gold Digger?” he demanded. “For how long?”
His voice echoed into the hall, he’d asked that loud, but he didn’t apologize.
Paitor raised a hand. “Ease down, boy. One loop through the mines. Time they’re back in port, you’ll be twenty—full adult and able to find your own berth.” He nodded. “You make yourself useful like you and me both know you can and you’ll come off Digger a full trader with experience under your belt—”
“Three Standards?” Jethri’s voice broke, but for once he didn’t cringe in shame. He was too busy thinking about a converted ore ship smaller than the Market, its purely male crew crammed all six into a common sleeping room, and the trade nothing more than foodstuffs and ore, ore and mining tools, oxy tanks and ore . . .
“Ore,” he said, staring at his uncle. “Not even rough gem. Industrial ore.” He took a breath, knowing his dismay showed and not caring about that, either. “Uncle Paitor, I’ve been studying. If there’s something else I—”
Paitor showed him palm again. “Nothing to do with your studying. You been doing real good. I’ll tell you—better than the captain supposed you would. Little more interested in the Liaden side of things than I thought reasonable, there at first, but you always took after Arin, anyhow. No harm in learning the lingo, and I will say the Liadens seem to take positive note of you.” He shook his head. “Course, you don’t have your full growth yet, which puts you nearer their level.”
Liadens were a short, slight people, measured against Terran averages. Jethri wasn’t as short as a Liaden, but he was, he thought bitterly, a damn’ sight shorter than Mac Gold.
“What it is,” Paitor said slowly. “We’re out of room. It’s hard for us, too, Jethri. If we were a bigger ship, we’d keep you on. But you’re youngest, none of the others’re inclined to change berth, and, well—Ship’s Option. Captain’s cleared it. Ben Gold states himself willing to have you.” He leaned back, looking stern. “And ore needs study, too, ‘prentice. Nothing’s as simple as it looks.”
Thrown off, thought Jethri. I’m being thrown off of my ship. He thought that he could have borne it better, if he was simply being cast out to make his own way. But the arranged berth on Gold Digger added an edge of fury to his disbelief. He opened his mouth
to protest further and was forestalled by a ping! from Paitor’s terminal.
The senior trader snapped forward in his chair, flipping the switch that accepted the first of the trade feeds from Ynsolt’i Port. He glanced over at Jethri.
“You get me a kais for that silk, now. If the spice sells good for us, I’ll OK that Combine key you been wanting. You’ll have earned it.”
That was dismissal. Jethri stood. “Yessir,” he said, calm as a dry mouth would let him, and left the trade room.
DAY 33
Standard Year 1118
Ynsolt’i Port
Textile Hal
“PREMIUM GRADE, honored sir,” Jethri murmured, keeping his eyes modestly lowered, as befit a young person in discourse with a person of lineage and honor.
Honored Sir bin’Flora moved his shoulders and flipped an edge of the fabric up, frowning at the underweave. Jethri ground his teeth against an impulse to add more in praise of the hand-loomed Gindoree cellosilk.
Don’t oversell! he could hear Uncle Paitor snap from memory. The Trader is in control of the trade.
“Eight tor the six-bolt,” the buyer stated, tossing the sample cloth back across the spindle. Jethri sighed gently and spread his hands.
“The honored buyer is, of course, distrustful of goods offered by one so many years his inferior in wisdom. I assure you that I am instructed by an elder of my ship, who bade me accept not a breath less than two kais.”
“Two?” The Liaden’s shoulders moved again—not a shrug, but expressive of some emotion. Amusement, Jethri thought. Or anger.
“Your elder mis-instructs you, young sir. Perhaps it is a testing.” The buyer tipped his head slightly to one side, as if considering. “I will offer an additional pair of tor,” he said at last, accent rounding the edges of the trade-tongue, “in kindness of a student’s diligence.”
Wrong, Jethri thought. Not to say that Honored bin’Flora wasn’t the heart of kindness, which he very likely was, on his off-days. A trade was something else again.
Respectful, Jethri bowed, and, respectful, brought his eyes to the buyer’s face. “Sir, I value your generosity. However, the distance between ten tor and two kais is so vast that I feel certain my elder would counsel me to forgo the trade. Perhaps you had not noticed—” he caught himself on the edge of insult and smoothly changed course— “the light is poor, just here . . .”
Pulling the bolt forward, he again showed the fineness of the cloth, the precious irregularities of weave, which proved it hand woven, spoke rapturously of the pure crimson dye.
The buyer moved his hand. “Enough. One kais. A last offer.”
Gotcha, thought Jethri, making a serious effort to keep his face neutral. One kais, just like Uncle Paitor had wanted. In retrospect, it had been an easy sell.
Too easy? he wondered then, looking down at the Liaden’s smooth face and disinterested brown eyes. Was there, just maybe, additional profit to be made here?
Trade is study, Uncle Paitor said from memory. Study the goods, and study the market. And after you prepare as much as you can, there’s still nothing says that a ship didn’t land yesterday with three holds full of something you’re carrying as a luxury sell.
Nor was there any law, thought Jethri, against Honored Buyer bin’Flora being critically short on crimson cellosilk, this Port-day. He took a cautious breath and made his decision.
“Of course,” he told the buyer, gathering the sample bolt gently into his arms, “I am desolate not to have closed trade in this instance. A kais . . .It is generous, respected sir, but—alas. My elder will be distressed—he had instructed me most carefully to offer the lot first to yourself and to make every accommodation . . .But a single kais, when his word was two? I do not . . .” He fancied he caught a gleam along the edge of the Liaden’s bland face, a flicker in the depths of the careful eyes, and bit his lip, hoping he wasn’t about to blow the whole deal.
“I don’t suppose,” he said, voice edging disastrously toward a squeak, “—my elder spoke of you so highly. . . I don’t suppose you might go a kais-six?”
“Ah.” Honored Sir bin’Flora’s shoulders rippled and this time Jethri was sure the gesture expressed amusement. “One kais, six tor it is.” He bowed and Jethri did, clumsily, because of the bolt he still cradled.
“Done,” he said.
“Very good,” returned the buyer. “Set the bolt down, young sir. You are quite correct regarding that crimson. Remarkably pure. If your elder instructed you to hold at anything less than four kais, he was testing you in good earnest.”
Jethri stared, then, with an effort, he straightened his face, trying to make it as bland and ungiving as the buyer’s.
He needn’t have bothered. The Liaden had pulled a pouch from his belt and was intent on counting out coins. He placed them on the trade table and stepped back, sweeping the sample bolt up as he did.
“Delivery may be made to our warehouse within the twelve-hour.” He bowed, fluid and unstrained, despite the bolt.
“Be you well, young sir. Fair trading, safe lift.”
Jethri gave his best bow, which was nowhere near as pretty as the buyer’s. “Thank you, respected sir. Fair trading, fair profit.”
“Indeed,” said the buyer and was gone.
BY RIGHTS, he should have walked a straight line from Textile Hall to the Market and put himself at the disposal of the captain.
Say he was disinclined just yet to talk with Captain Iza Gobelyn, coincidentally his mother, on the subject of his upcoming change of berth. Or say he was coming off his first true solo trade and wanted time to turn the thing over in his mind. Which he was doing, merebeer to hand at the Zeroground Pub, on the corner of the bar he’d staked as his own.
He fingered his fractin, a slow whiling motion—that had been his thinking pattern for most of his life. No matter the captain had told him time and time that he was too old for such fidgets and foolishness. On board ship, some habits were worse than others, and the fractin was let to pass.
As to thinking, he had a lot to do.
He palmed the smooth ivory square, took a sip of the tangy local brew.
Buyer bin’Flora, now—that wanted chewing on. Liadens were fiercely competitive, and, in his experience, tight-fisted of data. Jethri had lately formed the theory that this reluctance to offer information was not what a Terran would call spitefulness, but courtesy. It would be—an insult, if his reading of the tapes was right, to assume that another person was ignorant of any particular something.
Which theory made Honored Sir bin’Flora’s extemporaneous lecture on the appropriate price of crimson cellosilk—interesting.
Jethri sipped his beer, considering whether or not he’d been insulted. This was a delicate question, since it was also OK, as far as his own observations and the crewtapes went, for an elder to instruct a junior. He had another sip of beer, frowning absently at the plain ship-board above the bar. Strictly no-key, that board, listing ship name, departure, arrival, and short on finer info. Jethri sighed. If the vya did good, he’d one day soon be able to get a direct line to the trade nets, just by slipping his key into a high-info terminal. ‘Course, by then, he’d be shipping on Digger, and no use for a Combine key at all . . .
“‘nother brew, kid?” The bartender’s voice penetrated his abstraction. He set the glass down, seeing with surprise that it was nearly empty. He fingered a Terran bit out of his public pocket and put it on the bar.
“Merebeer, please.”
“Coming up,” she said, skating the coin from the bar to her palm. Her pale blue eyes moved to the next customer and she grinned.
“Hey, Sirge! Ain’t seen you for a Port-year.”
The dark-haired man in modest trading clothes leaned his elbows on the counter and smiled. “That long?” He shook his head, smile going toward a grin. “I lose track of time, when there’s business to be done.”
She laughed. “What’ll it be?”
“Franses Ale?” he asked, wistfully.
> “Coming up,” she said and he grinned and put five-bit in her hand.
“The extra’s for you—a reward for saving my life.”
The barkeeper laughed again and moved off down-bar, collecting orders and coins as she went. Jethri finished the last of his beer. When he put the glass down, he found the barkeeper’s friend—Sirge—looking at him quizzically.
“Don’t mean to pry into what’s none of my business, but I noticed you looking at the board, there, a bit distracted. Wouldn’t be you had business with Stork?”
Jethri blinked, then smiled and shook his head. “I was thinking of—something else,” he said, with cautious truth. “Didn’t really see the board at all.”
“Man with business on his mind,” said Sirge good naturedly. “Well, just thought I’d ask. Misery loves company, my mam used to say—Thanks, Nance.” This last as the barkeeper set a tall glass filled with dark liquid before him.
“No trouble,” she assured him and put Jethri’s schooner down. “Merebeer, Trader.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, wondering if she was making fun of him or really thought him old enough to be a full trader. He raised the mug and shot a look at the ship-board. Stork was there, right enough, showing departed on an amended flight plan.
“Damnedest thing,” said the man next to him, ruefully. “Can’t blame them for lifting when they got rush cargo and a bonus at the far end, but I sure could wish they waited lift a quarter-hour longer.”
Jethri felt a stir of morbid curiosity. “They didn’t—leave you, did they, sir?”
The man laughed. “Gods, no, none of that! I’ve got a berth promised on Ringfelder’s Halcyon, end of next Port-week. No, this was a matter of buy-in—had half the paperwork filled out, happened to look up at the board there in the Trade Bar and they’re already lifting.” He took a healthy swallow of his ale.
“Sent a message to my lodgings, of course, but I wasn’t at the lodgings, I was out making paper, like we’d agreed.” He sighed. “Well, no use crying over spilled wine, eh?” He extended a thin, calloused hand. “Sirge Milton, trader at leisure, damn’ the luck.”