by Sharon Lee
Jethri sighed and she held her hand up.
"Jeth, it don't matter to me, but it might to shipfolk. It's true though, it doesn't look like there's drop one of Iza's blood in you. You look so much of Arin--"
He overrode her then, his voice gaining tension with each word.
"I . . . look so much like Arin I could be his twin!" He closed his eyes as part of his pause, opened them to find Freza's attention riveted. "And since I only knew him after I was born, I can't tell you how it happened!"
Startled by his vehemence Freza sat back, her face serious. It took a moment for her to find words, and then they were uncertain.
"Yeah, Jethri, you could. I didn't really know Arin, but I'd seen him. And now, with you all dressed up, you could pass for him when he was doing the official bit. Hair's different, and that's good, but . . ."
"But rumors I'm a copy are exactly the kind of thing Mac Gold would go for, aren't they? Mad at everyone so not anyone, anywhere, can be as pure a looper as he is."
Freza smiled, nodded, and said lightly, carefully, "You know, you even sound more like Arin when you're mad. I was there, toting drinks for the common room, when he had to bust up the Glenleg shivaree. You even got a flashy ring on your hand!"
He glanced at the ring again, nodded. "Guess it does look flashy if you don't know it's a starter ring . . ." He paused, looked to her face, saw a lot to like there, went on "I keep finding stuff out about Arin that everyone thinks I know. Kind of hard sometimes. It's almost worse than learning what I need to do to get by with my new crew, since they know I'm outside the culture. But there's a lot I didn't know, and don't. I keep trying to learn it all . . ."
"But, like you say, there's schedules to do things, and learning to do, and we can't get all done at once."
He hadn't exactly said that, but she went on before he could correct her.
"Several things are happening, Jethri Arin's son; one is that someone's watching out for the Market. It's been on port a couple places that if anyone knows where the Market's been or where it's going, it might be worth some big money. And then there's your name, same thing, and then some folks are after the Envidaria, too . . ."
His bow became a nod--he fought against the shrug, but once that happened, he let the grimace come to his face too.
"Envidaria?"
She laughed, "Well, yeah, I mean they've been after that for years so it doesn't make any difference, does it? If someone needs it, we carry a copy, but it's not just handed around . . . and the Golds don't have it from us, so they can't sell it, that's for sure!"
Too much at once--
"Who is buying what?" he finally managed.
"That's the thing. Mostly it seems to be regular ship trackers, like finance folk might put out, I guess. Seems to me the questions are thicker closer we are to Liaden ports, and closer to where we hear the Market's already been, but I haven't put analysis to that."
A gentle buzzing noise then: "Gotta go, Jethri. I swear I'm watching for you. We'll catch you up on everything! Here's our schedule--you got one?"
He stood, pulled a card from his public pocket, his trader's card, handed that across and sighed: "Elthoria's got a long-posted route--you can drop messages along there and I'll get 'em. I have to set up some personal boxes, I guess. And your route, I'll watch for news and send it. I don't know how long this business with the Scout's going to take . . . "
They hugged again as they parted at the door, his ear still smarting from the nip she'd given it and his grin not well-hidden as he played her parting words over in his mind.
"More where that came from, Trader, and that's a contract!"
"Done!" he'd managed, but then she was away, and the world around him was dimmer.
He sighed, and folded the borrowed rain cloak into his carry case before searching out his appointment with the law-jaw.
*
The first time he'd come through here he'd still been in the wind-blown rain slicks, his hair and face as damp as the cloak. Now, though, he'd had time to recover not only from the rain but from the combing and shaping for his ID photoshots and vidclip made for his meeting. He had his collars right, some of his Ixin jewelry showing around his neck and his ring was showing color.
He felt good, having gotten work done, and he walked like he felt good and in charge. Thus, he was visible.
His new visibility meant there were a couple of bows, two salutes, some quiet near-whispered conversation after he passed--yes, it was obvious that Balfour wasn't really used to Liaden traders in full dress-up walking their corridors, no matter that they might see and handle an occasional Liaden ship.
The sides of the rain tunnel were furled now, with the edges of the passage just ended glittering with rain drips.
The drips showed that the rain had not long been gone, and the breeze still whistled through the covered way, the puddles not as deep as they'd been.
Deep in thought over the day's work--and with an early morning appointment facing him on the morrow--Jethri hardly noticed the cooling temperatures nor the glow on the horizon where the local star was rapidly falling below sight level. There were sounds of work nearby, and voices, and he caught the flash of port landing lights. In the lowering light he sensed a wide glow that domed the rest of the city.
Since he'd not been beyond the customs zone he had no idea of its size by sight or by numbers: ter'Astin had been far too canny to have Jethri doing more than covering incoming radio transmission during the inclement landing. What the Scout ship gave way in size to even a compact family trader like Gobelyn's Market meant local weather could make landings unstable.
He operated the entry with quick touches, casually turning to be sure that no one was close enough to see his codes or be sure if he'd used a card or keypads--of such things was security built!
Once in, Keravath was fairly quiet, only the comforting whisper of air circulation now, along with the occasional tick of one or another piece of equipment comparing the state of Board One against that of Board Two. Maybe the ship was a little noisier than usual--when the Scout was on sleep shift it often seemed as though there were more sounds and not fewer.
The ship's interior was more comfortable than the breezy world outside and Jethri tucked the dry raingear away. Out of new habit he dropped into the second's seat. Curious, touching controls that brought up the ship's outside eyes, he saw the city as Keravath could: glows of air currents in one screen, energy levels of the clouds and distant storm in another, and nearby -
And nearby, well within the ship's stay-away zone, were two figures in workers' gear moving slowly away, a hip-height tractor following obediently behind.
Inexpertly he sought the camera controls, triggering an external light as well as the video control he wanted. The workers sped up slightly, leaving the ship's zone empty, and by the time he'd figured out the image zoom and follow, the zone was clear. And boring.
He stared at the screens absently, leaning into his seat as the fingers of his right hand twiddled idly with his right ear halfway up the rim. He laughed then--that was where Freza had nipped him to promise a contract for shivaree . . .
He allowed his fingers to continue their ruminative exploration a few moments longer, far happier to consider that bit of contract than the maze of notions and motions laid out for him this day by Jay Rivenkid Dorster, Esquire. He stared into the screen, seeing nothing but his post-Freza meeting.
*
Despite the obvious police in other sections of the complex, Jethri hadn't seen any once he stepped down the two shallow steps to the section marked as "Upper Old Gate Mall" on the wall maps.
The people were many, sitting at tables or standing at small food and beverage booths, dressed Terran, or local Terran, with a fair number in kilts or skirts. Most of the others, in bland bluish or grayish trousers and mixed color shirts could have been from other back-ports Jethri'd been on, and the clothes of day workers. If Jethri's underbrain knew anything about it, many of them weren't all that well-
off, though there was no air of desperation about the place.
There was an undercurrent of sound, which he took to be the rain, which he could see through sheeting the upper windows, elsewise the sounds were low voices calmly shared, either tired, indolent, or both.
He was watched with minor interest, and watched back, glad at least that his hair was no longer ship-smooth, for many of these wore their hair long and bordering on the unkempt, a mix of hats, scarves, and visors not hiding the prevalence of reddish-brown heads; a few watched harder and were dressed in a more forward and provocative fashion with shorter kilts or skirts and more open shirts, but none approached asking for his custom and he didn't slow, since time was coming closer.
His walk was short, and down three more steps in another section, this with a roof that leaked in several spots. He shivered, a touch of his world-side phobia returning to imagine a place where leaks weren't plugged and gases were free to escape hither and yon . . . but the directions were good even if the door he came to at Fifty-Six Gate Court Lower looked to be made out of polished wood set into a raw stone wall instead of something properly airtight.
He passed through that swinging door, taking the enter sign at its word, and discovered the door was indeed wood, not even as thick as his fist--and if the wall on the other side was not of the same raw stone, it was instead a matching tone of gray bricks.
The other walls of the room were a treasure. His trader's eye went to work cataloging the shelf space of books--hardcopy books!--the sidewalls full, the back wall full except for two doors, a hip-high shelf wall of books split the room. He closed the door, saw that the front wall held a treasure of paintings on cloth, and . . .
"Yes?"
Startled, Jethri turned, caught sight of a quizzically smiling face peering over the wall--from a seat on the other side of it. He bowed to the woman: by her lined face and near colorless hair, an elder . . .
"I regret I failed to see you. I am Jethri Gobelyn. An appointment made for Ixin and Gobelyn--"
"Why, yes, your name is here in the book. You are several moments early. Please, make yourself at home and I'll let Jay know you are arrived."
Making himself at home took the form of approaching the closer left wall and peering at the titles at easy eye height. The books stopped just short of the ceiling . . . and the shelves were wood, too!
He caught a motion out of the corner of his eyes--the elder had risen and was walking toward the back, from where presently arose some mumbles. She was dressed in trousers and top much like those in the courtyard outside, though not as strained with wear, and her shoes were simple sandals.
The sound continued, but Jethri's eyes were drawn to the wall again, which he moved along slowly, trying to absorb exactly what it was he was looking at. Some of the books matched in series, and each had the name of a planet, or a system, or a ship manufacturer or--
"Sir, Jay will see you now."
Jethri blushed beneath his bow, the lady's nice smile from just an arm's length away taking away part of the sting of his being quite so inadvertent in his attention. She turned and walked away, and he smelled something flowery--likely one of the scents the world-bound use to disguise themselves.
"Come on in and find a seat, Trader Gobelyn, and welcome!" The words were in ship-deck Terran, broad and loud, with a depth and smoothness so easy it was almost sung.
Jethri stood, transfixed. The man behind the huge desk stood, bushy red hair brushing the room's ceiling and cascading down to his shoulders, merging as it fell into an impossible mask of gray-red that left his face, temple to nose, open to view and the rest covered in a roiling mass of self-grown hair.
"Say what?" asked the man, laughing, lips and mouth showing as he spoke. "Do you say that my new friend the trader has never seen a real beard?" He offered a huge hand, and it took Jethri a moment to recall his Terran duties, and reach to clasp it.
"I'm Jay Dorster. Got a card here for you, so you won't forget me."
The joke was in the words, for how could any who met him forget such a man?
Jethri took the finely made card, saw the Jay Rivenkid Dorster, Esquire in bold type and even bolder the words Trade Law Specialist.
"Thank you sir," he managed, I'm Jethri Gobelyn ven'Deelin . . ."
The big man waved his hands. "Sit. You make me tired standing there!"
Jethri managed a bow and a thank you and found the center seat by touch as the big man sat. The beard stretched almost to his belly and Jethri needed to look up to see him clearly for all that they were sitting across from one another.
"So, possession problems, eh? Often the way things happen when you loan things out to a third party, so I guess you'll learn that from this little situation."
The big man hummed to himself as he went though a stack of paper notes, face bobbing in time to his own tune.
"So, we got some info from Elthoria and Ixin. Makes it complicated, this Liaden side of things. Your man ter'Astin, I have his note as well, and he's clear that there's a mess, but before I go any further, tell me it's true that you're a Gobelyn because you're Commissioner Arin Gobelyn's git."
Still the same question! Could he never get beyond his father? Jethri gathered himself, the attribution of ter'Astin as his "man" unsettling as it was both misleading and appropriate.
"Yes, it is true, sir." He manfully put aside the Liaden protocols, thought of his father being official, tried to sit firmly and honorably in front of this force of nature. "I . . ."
"Of course it's true! Couldn't be anyone but him stamp that face on a kid, but you musta heard that a million times squared. Sorry he left us so soon--had a good head on his shoulders." The shaggy head shook sadly a moment, then said, piercing gray eyes suddenly bright beneath bushy brows," Do you?"
Against training, Jethri smiled, and then shrugged, formality shattered by the man across the desk top.
"The proof's not in on that, sir," he admitted, which drew a laugh and a snap of the fingers.
"Now I see, couldn't place your accent, but that's ship Liaden I'm hearing playing with the looper, yes it is. Guess eventually there'll be more young traders talking with that . . ."
Jethri suppressed the shrug this time, managed, "I'm the experiment, I guess. If it works . . ."
The big head nodded, ringlets shaking their way out of the hair momentarily and disappearing.
"One more question before we really start--how'd you pick up a Liaden berth, you coming from the Market? Was that a . . ."
"I was looking for a ship," Jethri said with some asperity, "because I was a redundant. 'Just taking up oxygen', the captain told one of the crew, and me. I did a turndown when the captain pointed me to an opening with one of her age-friends. Did some business that got the attention of Master Trader ven'Deelin and since I was looking for off-ship, and she had a trader berth to fill, it worked out."
"Redundant, eh? Well don't I know about that? That's what happened to me," Dorster said reminiscently, leaning back and letting his head touch the wall while the seat he pushed back groaned, just a little. "I was on the Floydada out of Trustee, with my mother being nav officer and backup pilot, but we could all see it coming--I was getting to be too much to feed, and wasn't a berth on board that would take me unless I folded up--I was sleeping in a chair. We got here, in fact, to Balfour, and they made it plain--fourteen or forty, I wasn't flying with them no more."
He laughed then, booming voice shaking the books on the wall. "They figured Vania would set me off to school and she'd fly, but they hadn't checked with her, and she left them on the tarmac, started a nav tutoring service. Served them right, I say. They picked up someone that Olaf-crashed them on Bumsted very next trip. Them Gorins--that'd been when your ship was still doing the north center I think . . ."
A shake of the head--"Well after that, I got schooling and a specialty 'cause I knew about ships and stuff. What happened after you got left off?"
"After? I . . ."
Jethri paused, looking for the rig
ht phrase to cover the rather awkward fact of his having two mothers these days. "After that, turned out there were protocol issues and extra training being needed--on account of culture differences. I got myself in some melant'i trouble that might have been fatal, and that got solved by bringing me in-clan, to Ixin. The only way they could make it stick was to make me a son of the clan."
Dorster listened intently. A rolling hand motion encouraged Jethri to go on . . .
"Likely next time there's a Terran riding trader for Liadens, if there is one, it ought to be a swap--even up--with a bit more experience all the way around, and a few more rules established."
The beard shivered as Dorster nodded quickly.
"Yes, yes, by damn! Someone should have done that a bunch of Standards ago. Ought to be a protocol, not just for trade, but for mixing traders! Well now, that gives me a--hold on!"
He raised his head, shouted out the door: "Vania, I need a new folder made up, dated today. Two of them. One's got this fellow's name on it. The other, call it--umm . . . wait."
A large hand disappeared beneath the beard and the bright eyes closed for several seconds, opening about the time the mouth did to say, "Here it is Van, other new file, dated today, is Mixed Trader Swap Protocol Proposals; I'll need that crossed to . . . whatever it gets crossed to plus I'll have notes later, remind me!
"Now, what happened that's got one of these scouts playing taxi driver for a Gobelyn? Why's there property rights in it? I'll be clear with you: this is confidential, but I may need room to work. Just asking some questions is enough to--well, you know how it works, right? Once you ask someone where you are, they start to want to know where you're going or where you come from. Asking a question is a wave with ripples. But before you start on the property, the rest of the questions I have up front are . . ."
*
Most of the up-front questions were simple, made harder by Dorster's intent eyes. The man watched as if everything Jethri said was in doubt, and demanded to see all the ID he had on him.