Trade Secret

by Sharon Lee

  “Doubtless,” Jethri said, dryly and so they parted at the hall’s end, the Scout going right toward the pilot’s lounge, and Jethri, left, joining a goodly crowd of people on route for the great hall.

  Jethri’s tickets—two, one for him and one for “Guest of Trader ven’Deelin,” which had immediately gone to ter’Astin— had come to him in a fine paper envelope marked with his name, and bearing a shiny red embossed message: “The Carresens Welcome You.” A note had been tucked in with the tickets: Trade dress is recommended for our quiet after-dinner reception and the Sternako Memorial Trade-off, in Gallery 770.

  Jethri’s last few steps toward the hall were given over to comprehending the size of the place he was to eat in. The passageway had split into an atrium with levels towering above him; he’d seen starships small enough to cruise through the doorway he was entering!

  There was an awning over the massive door, which puzzled him until he understood that it was part of an emergency sealing system. He’d nearly forgotten that he wasn’t on planet, so vast was this place.

  Dinner was a badged walk-in party two hundred paces long with serving tables and booths on both sides and grab-plates everywhere, occupying only one side of the hall. His ID and ticket netted him yet another ID at the door, where smartly dressed door dragons of both sexes smiled and asked permission before attaching the name bars.

  “Honored Trader, the adhesive evaporates entirely in twenty-four hours; if you need it removed before then, please stop by and we’ll use the sonic to clear it.

  “Also,” the server said, diffidently, “with your badge you may sit anywhere you like: you’ll see the overhead color-coding if you prefer to sit with your own!”

  Jethri’s badge said jethri g. ven’deelin in Trade lettering, and beneath that, a fairly accurate rendering of the same, in Liaden script. Three faintly glowing color bars depended from it, which was something not everybody had— for example the young man dealing with him had a badge saying Folly Smelkin, that supported a single deep purple bar, the same color he saw flashing on the others handling door duty.

  Jethri’s bar colors were green, bright blue, and a red reminding him very much of Gaenor’s drai’vaina. Looking around he saw a good sprinkling of people with the green bar—green bars must be the color for traders, he decided, recognizing fellow lecture attendees from the day’s work. There were a few folks with the bright blue and there was one he recognized—the pilot he’d seen with Blinda! He had that bar and no other. So either blue was for loopers or for pilots, which made him shake his head. Not likely for loopers, so must be pilots. Well, who was he to deny the organizers one more pilot for their shindig?

  The red bar . . . that wasn’t so obvious as to meaning, and rather than holding up progress at the door he moved on, prepared to ask in case he couldn’t figure it out.

  The noise was louder than Jethri’d expected, but part of that was the music permeating the future trade hall. Careful spot speakers aimed hymns, dance music, classics, tonal stuff—each booth offering their own choice of volume, with the music fading away and replaced by a new tune or rhythm as he entered the next zone. It felt fine—and then it didn’t.

  A touch of dread worked itself on him, and he felt as if he were here under false pretenses—Master Trader Norn ven’Deelin should be here, not he, he who was not a pilot, and not really able to support the “Honored Trader” he’d been given at the door. Too, a glance around showed him a room filling with individuals dressed not quite at the height of fashion, ordinary folks wearing what might be the best of their day clothes instead of being dressed and polished and ready to trade, as he was.

  Jethri jerked where he stood, as if run into, stiffened so hard he could hear the snap of his shoulder. He backed away from the table carefully, aware that he’d need to start again, but needing focus. The sound, the people all around, the motion. He caught a ragged breath, offered a half bow to someone he’d come too close to, took another half breath. He glanced down, trying to focus on something, and saw his boots with their multiple inlays of colored leather forming patterns that a careful observer might note as variations on Ixin’s own moon-and-rabbit. He glanced down at his hands. Yes, he was overdressed, with his trade ring on one hand and the challenge of the firegem wonder on the other. Why did he think he, lowly beginning trader Jethri, could pull off wearing such a monstrosity in public?

  The firegem said nothing, flashing the myriad of overhead lights back to him in a way the trade ring never could. Someone in a kilt wandered by, humming loud enough that Jethri could hear him, a reminder that he was not alone—

  He swept a quick look around, taking a quieting breath, and another. If anyone had noticed him standing as still as an extra support pillar, they weren’t staring at him now. Air is good, Jethri, he told himself. Breathe!

  Standing in the very center of the aisle he let the echo from the half-dozen booths wash over him, the aural competition momentarily eclipsing the other assault on his senses: the smells.

  Yes, that was it, the dislocating touch of panic had come not only from the scale of the place, but from the sensory overload. The hall vibrated with voices, music, and just plain noise, and the air was redolent with the powerful, enchanting, and puzzling scents of too much food!

  He was, he knew, extra-sensitive to smells. His years on nonstop stinks duty made him all too conscious of the difficulty of overcoming even pleasant odors in a closed environment, and here was the kind of thing he might have expected at an extravagant outdoor affair on Irikwae. So much food and so much of it cooking, now, was . . . unexpected.

  Eyes momentarily closed, he sniffed as he might have on Gobelyn’s Market. Yes, his nose was well trained, and he got his breathing back into rhythm as he opened his eyes, concentrating, knowing he couldn’t decode the whole place at once, which he’d figured was the problem with his world-side panics. To concentrate he might as well start with his trained olfactory, so he sniffed again.

  The aroma of bread and baked goods was all around him, and the scent of fruits and flowers. Under it all and magnifying it, were the oil and greases. Vincza prided itself on the vegetable oils it produced, and in this place they were being used extravagantly. He wondered how the filters and stinks crews would be able to clear the place . . ..

  Professional interest kicked in—which stinks would be hardest to deal with? Did they need special filters? What about cleanup?

  He’d come to eat and to mingle and to consider how Elthoria—and truth told, how Gobelyn’s Market—might best make use of Tradedesk when it went full open the next couple of Standards. A little concentration now—starting with the food choices once again—would be a good beginning. Then he’d find someplace to sit. He really needn’t be concerned that he was an imposter. He carried with him the ID he had from Dorster, he wore the badge he’d been given, he . . . why yes, patting the appropriate pocket for reassurance, he even had a printed copy of the file Norn ven’Deelin had sent, with his invitation information from the Casehardens Coordinating Committee. It had been signed by someone, who he guessed he should be on the lookout for. The name tickled at his brain without result. He could check if need be, but . . .

  “It’s quite too much to eat, isn’t it, young man? I’m having a difficult time choosing where to start! Do you know all of the dishes or could you use pointers? I know the layout by heart!”

  * * *

  Grandma Doricky Gellman DeNobli did know the layout by heart—she’d designed the original, as she was more than glad to tell him, forty-two local years before. In the interval she’d helped with the “food suite” at the Carresens trade fair fourteen times . . . that was each of the previous times it had been held.

  “Consultant,” she said with a snark, “that’s what they made me this time, on account of they’re making the big push to bring Tradedesk online and I”—she pinched her eyes shut for a second—“managed to get myself crushed by an icefall at a cheese plant just after the last one.”

  “C
rushed?” While she was tiny, and had moved slowly among the dishes, Jethri had ascribed her pace to her age, for surely she was the oldest functional human he’d ever met. Her eyes were as strong as her voice, but her hair was so gray it was bordering on transparent, and her skin was fine-wrinkled. She was as small as the smallest adult Liaden he’d ever met.

  “Oh, I know, and don’t you think I’m exaggerating. Crushed. Took me a long while to get all these parts working, and I’m only good for a twenty-hour day if I have a nap or two any more, when used-to-was I’d work forty straight if I needed to. Thing is, I used to be a lot bigger.

  “That dish,” she said, pointing with wrinkled fingers, “is for purists. Can’t suggest it to anyone not raised on-world. You need triple fermented vinegar to make it proper, and even then you need to be right comfortable with your crawling yeast, ’cause if it isn’t able to crawl some while you swallow it then it’s off and can make you sick for a two-day. There’s some that’re just plain allergic, anyhow.”

  “DeNobli,” he’d managed as he walked by the dish—and in fact it did seem to be . . . wriggly.

  He averted his eyes, and continued, “. . . are you cousins to . . .”

  “Seven,” she said, “right now seven lines of loopers and then us on planetside that don’t make lines the same way, but we’re a bunch. So if you know a DeNobli, likely is a cousin or was . . .”

  “Balrog . . .”

  “Yah, all of ’em. Cousins they’d be, but I think I only met Brabham—he married in, you know!—the rest of ’em are strange to me.”

  She paused, delicately placing two small dark-brown balls on a plate before wheeling on him.

  “You’re big enough for five or six of these. Gobelyn, eh? What was that, Gobelyn’s Market?”

  He waited for the inevitable . . .

  “Is that smart-mouth Iza still about?”

  Not what he’d expected.

  He nodded, managed, “Yes, she is. Still captain there. What are these—it looks like candy and I don’t much . . .”

  “Captain? Hah, well, that’d be why a smart one like you is wearing Elthoria’s flag, I have to say. I got stuck in a transfer room with her when she was just getting her rating and I’m glad I never met her again.”

  He waited, still expecting Arin’s name to come running into the equation . . .

  “Bloosharie,” she said then, “that’s what they are. I used to think it must be a waste, but it sure isn’t—got darkcho around a filling made mostly of bloosharie.”

  She looked up at him, popped one of the two from the plate into her mouth. She sighed in what looked to be pure pleasure, then looked up at him.

  “I’m not kin, but here, eat this . . .”

  She reached up, the candy in her hand, and he allowed her to put it in his mouth . . .

  It was startling, with a shell of thin darkcho giving way to a soft filling that was indeed . . .

  “Bloosharie!”

  She laughed, nodded. “Been brought up right, I see.”

  She took another for herself.

  “Really fine with a good cheese. Suggest it, cheese and these and you’re good for a day. Cheese about did me in—but one of the reasons I’m still around after the crushing, you know—we have ourselves some really potent cavern cheese.

  “There,” she said, “you’re still growing; take a bowl of that soup there with the red-striped shrooms. Another planet trick. Daysoup.”

  Jethri did as instructed, and eventually arrived under the red banner with names of a dozen new foods and more plates and bowls than he thought he could empty in a three-day.

  “If it looks interesting, try it. Need more of something go back and get it. That’ll give you more reason to come back next time. And I hope I didn’t mess up any orbits back there about Iza—I mean she’s not a favorite of yours, I hope. I’m old enough to share my opinions but sometimes I forget folks have got to live together. So—not a favorite?”

  He sighed, very gently, found a Liaden blandness suddenly in his face, and bowed.

  “I enjoy being a trader on Elthoria,” he admitted, “an opportunity arising from the natural aging and growth of the crew. The captain, of course, was alert to the necessities of the ship, ma’am.”

  She snorted as she sat down, motioning him to sit across from her.

  “That’s clear as a thundercloud. Looks like you’ve come away fine, though, and so we’ll talk about other stuff, and eat. After that, if nobody joins us, I’ll walk you to the Gallery where I can talk to some of my used-to-was friends while you get to the good stuff.”

  Jethri was settling; he had spork to mouth when his meal-mate spoke again, sharply enough to make him jump in his seat.

  “One more thing!”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You can call me Doricky or Ricky, or you can call me Grandma. Don’t need the rest of my names here—everyone will know who you mean. Now eat!”

  He bowed to wisdom, and ate.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tradedesk, Gallery 770

  Gallery 770 was a low-ceilinged, comfortable cave, offering the intimate feel of a guild club, with carpeting on the floor, low-key lighting, paneling that might have been real wood, and off to one side, even a stone mantle framing a wood-fed fireplace.

  Fire was something he’d had to get used to on Irikwae since he’d stayed in a house with lots of windows and working fireplaces in many of the bedrooms.

  The idea that you’d want a fire for anything beside combusting rocket fuels had rocked him when he first faced it. It had taken a cat’s calm assurance that tame fire was a good idea for him to begin to come to terms with.

  He approached the fireplace immediately he saw it, to assure himself that it was in fact not burning real wood and producing extravagant heat. It was, he was pleased to find, artifice. Still, it gave off quiet sounds and, with the rugs, and the groupings of leather-looking chairs about it, did impart a sense of calm and comfort.

  Doricky had escorted him to the door, down a casually marked hallway at the end of the main hall, where she’d left him in favor of three very mature women dressed nearly identically in ship livery.

  “Just through there, Jethri. I’ll introduce you around later, but go in and make yourself at home. Act like you live here—you have my permission! Now get!”

  He’d taken her “permission” to heart, to the point of not seeking to determine who might be in charge of seating, nor even of immediately taking a seat.

  He wandered the room a bit. There was art casually available—statues and sculpture, paintings, ceramics—and several discreet 3D touramas of plays he didn’t recognize. He might watch a play, then, if the reception got slow, though maybe the plays were just to entertain until the reception really got under way. He’d seen a small stage on the other side of the fireplace, so there might be music later; and he’d glimpsed what he thought might be a bar.

  He moved in the direction of his glimpse, finding not one bar, but two. The first was staffed by a pair of attentive servers about his own age, done up in fancy vests and three-cornered hats, each with purple flags on their badges.

  The second bar was only an open table; there seemed to be no one in charge of the various open bottles, jars and dishes of what might be candy or something stronger, and lots of little trays of edemups.

  Informed as to the precise location of refreshments, Jethri moved on, working the room as he’d seen Norn do. He had nothing like her easy skill in starting conversations with little-to-unknown colleagues, but she assured him that it would come with practice.

  So—practice.

  Here, he felt his dress was unexceptionable, maybe even a little too conservative. In this group, the essence of trade and its sometimes attendant showmanship were seen: rings, jewelry, quality textiles. Almost everyone had something distinctive about their dress, even if it were only subtle refinement or outrageous extravagance. His boots were fine, but not outlandish, his rings merely what the trader had chosen to wear
.

  He kept up his slow stroll as the room filled, exchanging nods, bows, and greetings with traders he’d seen in the tours and seminars. He smiled, shook hands when required, repeating names—his and theirs as appropriate—

  “Be here at the launch, will you? Only two Standards once the move starts! I for one want to be here for the start of the final orbit!”

  Jethri started to answer this pronouncement, only to find the trader from which it had issued turn somewhat unsteadily to another, asking the same question with the same inflection. It dawned on Jethri then that the trader was likely drunk—which seemed a bad plan so early in an evening.

  Yet there was something to the idea of a drink—Norn ven’Deelin’s teaching there had been exquisite: always carry your own drink, and if possible, make it something unlikely to be easily refreshed by an overeager host or a sly competitor.

  Thus, to the staffed bar he went, canny enough to avoid the bloosharie that came to mind after his earlier sweet, and canny enough to request good Liaden wine, like those from Tarnia’s own vines . . .

  He requested three of the premier wines, each in turn, and was greatly disappointed that they had none, though Ranny Suki—the female of the serving pair—made careful note of the label names and promised to see if there were any onworld which might be brought for the next day. In particular he had wished for a glass of the exquisite Felinada . . .

  Lacking Tarnia’s wines, and seeking still something that was neither an unknown beer or an unknown local vintage, he asked, “Would you have anything Altanian?”

  She bit her lip in thought, shook her head.

  “I don’t know all the wines by source, Trader. A brand or style?”

  “Yes, of course. Misravon, it might be labeled, or possibly the finer, which is Misravot.”

  Her eyes widened, and the smile returned.

  “Indeed, sir, we do! A moment though, since it is kept properly stored out of light. Please stay.”