Trade Secret

by Sharon Lee

  * * *

  In retrospect, they might as well have broken up the beverage shop. That was Khat’s first take on it, but Paitor sensibly pointed out they’d have had local damages to pay, and local injuries, too, within the city’s jurisdiction. That might not only have been expensive, but fatal.

  “They’re coming off a coup, Khat—any excuse to show how well they keep order and discipline. They could have sent in a squad and shot the lot of you, claiming you were fomenting revolution.”

  “What you should have done was not talk to them at all,” Iza said bluntly. “Is that what I’ve raised? Is this how I run my ship? Not enough sense to see a trap on the way? You, Grig? We sent you because you’re supposed to have sense!”

  “My call, Iza,” Khat insisted. “It was my call from the first word they gave us. We needed to hear . . .”

  “Jethri. Jethri! Damned if that’s not what you heard, isn’t it? They said Jethri and the both of you were all ears!”

  Khat took a deep breath and dove into the argument. “What we heard was a couple of things. To start off, we heard Gobelyn’s Market. Sound familiar? Gob-e-lyn’s Mar-ket! They’d announced us in the exam room, so anyone there could have heard of us. So yes, that got our attention. Then they said another name you might have heard of. They said Khat-e-lane Gob-e-lyn. You know, the name on all my licenses and certifications. Same last name as your brother has. Same one you have, right? Go-ba-lin one said, but the other got it right.”

  Paitor tried to break in, but Khat wasn’t giving up the floor, and Iza started and Khat still didn’t give way.

  “So yes, then they said Jethri’s name. They did, and we both heard it, right, Grig?”

  Grig nodded and signed yes, but in the flow of things Khat kept going, not giving an edgewise for anyone else’s words quite yet.

  “They also said another name you might have heard of, right after. Tell me if you remember this name, will you, because sometimes I think you don’t. They told us they wanted to talk to us about ‘dead Arin.’”

  Into the ensuing silence came Grig’s voice, very low. “They told us they wanted to talk about Balance and Arin, too. The exact phrase they used was ‘This Arin who is dead.’”

  Iza glared at them all, the piloting crew, Paitor and Khat up front, with Grig half behind, and Cris too. The kids had been left out, and Seeli and Dyk. They’d get a report later, but for the moment the ship was on port lockdown, sitting at a perpetual ten minutes to lift on a hotpad they were paying premium rates for, all the pilots on the flight deck.

  “Arin has nothing to do with this ship,” she finally said, “and hasn’t for more than a decade. Arin’s nothing to this ship. What does dead Arin have to do with Gobelyn’s Market, do they think? What could they . . .”

  Iza raised her hands to shoulder height and flung her arms out as if pushing a heavy weight away, turning away from the lot of them before grimacing behind a hand held over her mouth. Her gaze focused somewhere else—maybe through the deck itself and the planet and out into space—and then she closed her eyes and raised them again, open to the group.

  “Can’t let this get in the way of the ship, can we?” she said.

  Khat agreed with a quick, “Right,” nodding and gently adding, “but that’s why we had to see what they were on about. Liadens have these feuds and Balances they do. We all know it, and we needed to know if it was Jethri they were mad at, or me, or if Arin had crossed someone thirty years ago and left a Balance against the ship that was just coming forward. Liadens are like that.”

  Iza nodded at Khat, and then at Grig, and then spun back to Khat with an exasperated sigh.

  “So, you were PIC on this trip and you had to do a pilot’s choice. Grig was running second and backed up the Pilot in Charge, like he’s supposed to. The fact is that once you were in that tea parlor, problems were going to happen. I’ll accept that. Now explain how we got from a tea parlor in the middle of the city to a taxi battle in front of the damn ship?”

  * * *

  Khat went over the day again, glossing over the trip in and omitting this time the amount of general fees, service fees, taxes, route certification charges, and suggested facilitation payments required to get them into and out of the routing permit meeting.

  “Once we were out of the building and got to the taxi stand, a Liaden was in a spot to get in our way—he had a comm, and was trying to raise someone when we got there. He didn’t want a taxi, but I guess he was under orders to make sure we didn’t take one, so he tried to block the door. Grig just went around to the other side, and then he tried to block Grig so I ducked in my side and he stood in Grig’s way. Another taxi pulled up then—”

  Here she shook her head. “And that’s how it started, because then the rest of Therinfel’s crew was running up and I told the driver to launch, and Grig ducked into the second taxi—it was all orange stripes—and the guy with the comm tried to get in and Grig let him . . . and I lost track of his course.

  “At the next light there was Grig right behind me grinning like a fool but in a red stripe and signing what looked like he was going the long way home, with the orange stripe right behind him. My driver asked me if there was a problem and I told her, since she knew I was going to the port, that the orange stripe was trying to beat me out of a deal and I needed to get to the ship first. So she looked at me in that mirror and asked, ‘Lady own deal?’”

  Grig laughed then. “So, what I see is that little blue stripe on afterburner and I asked my driver to lose the orange stripe. She’d seen me signal to Khat and laughed, and took a suicide turn at the next corner, and another—I shoulda had a brew!”

  Khat shrugged. “Didn’t do all that much good, I guess, because when I got out here the field customs crew were out, checking every single cab in line, in single file. I came in first—but my driver told me she saw Grig’s cab down the queue, and while I paid her off there he was, but in front of him came this bel’Mora and the apprentice, with bel’Mora jumping out and yelling that I’d insulted their melant’i and sullied their name.

  “That’s where the taxi drove between them and me. And their driver tried to push her out of the way, and then Grig’s driver . . . got him out and got out of the cab herself, I guess . . .

  “And that’s when the other Liaden showed up finally and he tried to wade in . . .”

  Grig tried to say something but Iza held her hand up.

  “Traffic violations. Inciting to violate public propriety. Evading building security.” She threw the sheaf of hardcopy on the desk, shaking her head. “I admit it ain’t assaulting an officer of the law, but the pair of you better never talk to me about world-side decorum again, if you get my drift? You better never talk to me too hard about keeping the ship’s name clean.”

  Paitor broke in then, “Iza, you know the port’s seen worse than this. Only a mark on the record, and we’re not even—”

  “Look, brother, did we see it or not? It wasn’t until the proctors were standing ’bout right beside them that they really started throwing punches. And it isn’t date night at the bar stuff. I mean look at this one!” Here she reached into the pile and pulled out a fluttery white sheet.

  “Impersonation of an inebriate!” She waved her hands about, “Whoever heard of impersonation of a drunk?”

  Paitor held up his hands then. “So far, that’s what we have for our investment at the station, sister. Every violation they saw had to be answered. They were all dropped as far as they could. May I?”

  Iza handed the paper over and he gathered the rest from the desk.

  “Here, it is noted, our first time on port, unfamiliar with local custom; here it is reduced to six days’ restraint reduced to cash fine; here it is—”

  Iza waved him silent.

  “So we got a break. A very expensive break. But what made you try to deck the guy, Khat, with the proctor right there?”

  Khat looked to Grig, which Iza didn’t miss. She didn’t miss the direct line hand-signal, eith
er.

  Khat nodded at both of them.

  “Needed to do something before he said something in Terran—he wasn’t doing a good job with Trade, but I needed to interrupt, just in case. But we gotta be sure to tell Dyk and I guess the youngers, too, so they’ll be wary.”

  Iza shook her head.

  “So what he do? Call you a looper?”

  Khat grimaced and gathered some breath in case she’d need to shout over Iza. When Iza just made a face, Khat went on.

  “He threatened me. He threatened all of us, and the ship too. First he said we’d better be willing to deal with him or a go-between—actually that you better be willing to deal better than Grig and me—because even he was willing to share the rumors that were going round, the rumors that might get us banned from one end of the galaxy to the other. And he told me it wasn’t even a tight rumor, so if he started, people could check up on the rumor and we’d be in trouble because some Terrans are saying the same thing about Gobelyn’s Market,”

  “What’s he saying? If he’s talking about Old Tech, I can let anyone come on board and search, right? Right, Grig?”

  “I already promised Seeli I don’t have any Old Tech, Iza, and I told you I don’t. So unless you got something left over from Arin yourself—I bet Paitor don’t!—there’s no Old Tech here. I’m not happy, I’ll tell you, that you had to ask me.”

  “Stand down, Grig!” Khat realized she’d said it, and had everyone’s attention.

  “Look—he said something in Liaden, and then he said it in Trade. He was getting louder, like he was going call it to the proctor. He said ‘Clone,’ dammit, he’s going to call us all clones!”

  Grig snorted, but it didn’t override Iza’s strained laughter.

  “Clones, is it? Gonna get us locked out of ports ’cause we’re all clones? Well we don’t need to worry about that ’cause I got that problem outta here. And Grig, the way I figure, didn’t give Seeli a clone, and ain’t none of us is going to be matches. They can gene test me all they want.”

  Khat made a noise like a spit.

  “I’m doing my best to get us thrown out, Iza. I expect to be captain on this ship one day and I don’t want to have clone tests over my head all my life!”

  * * *

  The throwing-out part of Khat’s plan worked well enough, with Therinfel’s crew already shuttled out to their orbiting ship before the Market’s final judgments were paid. The Market’s lift out was a vicious polar trajectory meant to fit them between ordinary traffic in a direct-to-Jump injection pattern that would have been fine if they were going to Liad but else wasn’t a good solution for any of the destinations a working family ship of dedicated Terran loopers was likely to go. Grig cajoled Iza for a dispensation, getting Cris to sit backup to Khat on the lift, seeing that they were pressing the envelope on Travit’s cradle’s comfort levels and he had the medical certificates no one else had.

  Khat reported in and as PIC did the lift itself, with Cris effectively Second Board while Iza kept busy with the problem of turning the polar orbit into a transfer orbit to a decent Jump point. That meant Cris and Khat side-monitored Seeli’s ongoing readouts of Travit’s condition as well as her ongoing and voluble discussion of Grig’s lamentable lack of contrition for putting Travit, the ship, Dyk, Khat, Cris, “the kids,” Grig, herself, and Iza—listed in that order of importance—into a collection of dangers ranging from targeted gunsights to polar auroral radiation belts to meteor collisions and G-stress, not to mention long-term flagging as malcontents and the likelihood that lunch would be late, too.

  About the time ground control made Iza cuss when it ordered, “Gobelyn’s Market, your orbit is confirmed, please maintain,” they began to hear a good bit of local chatter, with Cris tuning through and pulling out a thread to highlight—a ship on nearly their own heading, closing enough to rendezvous if they wished.

  “Vernon,” Control said, “talk to Gobelyn’s Market before you make any sudden delta-vee out there, you’re almost in a yellow approach zone!”

  Iza glanced up from her calculations. “Had a triple cousin born on Vernon when I was tie-down, if I remember right. Talk to them . . .”

  “Gobelyn’s Market, Khat Gobelyn at PIC,” she said. “Might be cousins Vernon—who has what for a grandma?”

  There was a pause then, and a laugh, “Think the cousins done married off-ship a half-dozen Standards ago, Pilot Khat, but thanks for asking on this, I’m Pilot One Geo Frenkl. I’m gonna have to get my landing figures final real quick. Pilot Khat, your cousin Tanny is off to Grayspinner. Elsewise I’m up to first recent, and Chi Frenkl’s running second. Got news for me?”

  “Pilot Geo, hi there, ship news here . . .”

  Khat paused, looked toward Iza, who was studying her boards as hard as she might, head tilted just enough away that it was clear this conversation didn’t have anything to do with her . . . “News here is that Grig Tomas and Seeli Gobelyn got themselves a boy named Travit Tomas, ’bout two months back and are settled; and also that Jethri Gobelyn’s got himself a new ride, spun off to be a trader on Elthoria not two Standards gone.”

  There was a pause and a, “I got the Grig Tomas news clear, but can you repeat that berth on that cousin Jethri?”

  Khat looked to Iza again, who still held head down at computation.

  “Yah, Geo, that’s Jethri—he went free-crew when we put the Market in for a major refit. He was that wandering age, you know, and he’s got himself sub-trader on Elthoria—they did adoption as I hear it.”

  A pause longer than speed of light might be blamed for, and almost too long for chatter.

  “Heck, that’s news, I’d say. Only that’s not Elf Lord, out of Caratunk, but Elthoria, out of Liad, is that correct?”

  “Liad, that’s the one, Geo.”

  “Pilot Khat, we’ll pass this on to Grayspinner and around, if that’s good.”

  “News is news,” Khat said amiably, seeing Iza still staring elsewhere, “and thanks.”

  “Got you, and got your news too, Pilot Khat. If you got fuel and time, we can do a scan—we haven’t had a shipside visual for a couple trips.”

  Khat held, seeing Cris pulling up the radar image of near space. Iza tapped the light indicating seat empty and leveraged herself to standing.

  “I’m off to pull snacks. If Vernon needs pictures, you’ll clear it with Control—my figures show us up to a two-hour link-up if she needs us to do a roundabout. Just give me hold-warning before you pull any power if they need something sooner.”

  Half looking at the floor and the other half more at Cris than Khat, she moved toward the hatch. In the doorway Iza turned and looked hard at Khat.

  “Khat, you did good. New is news, and he’s your cousin by name, so we’ll give him his due. You got it right though—Seeli and Grig first, if we’re asked, and Jethri next. We’ll not bad-talk the kid—it’d make more talk than not. And good, for not mentioning Arin. Anyone nosy enough will ask, or they’ll ask around.”

  With that she was gone, in time for Control to beg Khat for attention.

  * * *

  Control was a little abashed to be moving the Market into look-see, but the courtesy was for Vernon and the Market was closest to rendezvous by several shifts. Iza, back on the bridge, was all smiles on her call on the timing being within seconds.

  For her part, Vernon was polite. Khat admired that and it made their time arranging the rendezvous go easier, in particular the part where Khat was working out exactly who was rolling first, since it was Vernon’s call. It wouldn’t do to have a reaction jet test spin that ship into the Market. . . .

  Khat looked to Iza as they closed—and all Iza said was “You’re doing good there, so just go on, but I bet Seeli’d appreciate it if you kept them a bit more in the circuit on this.”

  Khat nodded, did an all-call to the ship on the upcoming movements, and plugged the video feeds into all available screens as well, getting thanks from all over for the challenge.

  “We’ll ru
n all the sensors and a lot of eyes over you—tell me you’re all stable!”

  Iza turned up the meteor shielding and lowered the gravity, advising in quiet tones as they finally closed, while Cris and Vernon’s second in command did ranging calibrations and shared visuals. The left of the main screen showed Vernon approaching, the right side showing the Market, and the scan’s color-coding of the mini dust-and-gas cloud explained why they could actually hear occasional pinging scrapes of ancient comet or shattered meteor almost anywhere in this system.

  Vernon, in sight, turned out to be a light-haul ship smaller than the Market, and likely built in the system’s local yard out of leftover parts—not pretty, and without an easy clue as to a maker. The markings were austere at best, but the visual symmetry was not quite right for a long-haul vessel.

  “That’s a good plan, there, Cris,” Iza said quietly. “Can we get that across all the vids—you want as many eyes on this as you can. Grig?”

  “Here, Iza,” Grig replied.

  “You take reports from the rest of the ship and send them up here if we need them. It’ll keep us sharper up here if—” Iza said.

  “Yes, Iza . . .”

  “Thanks, Pilot, I didn’t think—” Khat said.

  “You’re doing good, Khat. I just been doing this longer and have some tricks to pass on yet,” replied Iza.

  Khat laughed quietly, flipped a switch, and pointed to the open sound link while she signed plan moving forward.

  “We’re starting to record in sixty seconds. My plan is to do four slow passes and you can tell me then what you need us to get closer to, if anything. Confirm?”

  “On your mark, Pilot Khat, thanks!”

  * * *

  The ship had worked hard. Most obvious was the scored line on the underside of Vernon’s semi-airfoiled shape. Khat cringed—if that was a scrape, the little ship had been out of service for some fixes.

  While the main vids were focusing there, Cris continued to mutter to Vernon’s second, every so often agreeing or not on some other point, with Vernon identifying dings by date or past pilot, or both.