Trade Secret (eARC)

by Sharon Lee

  Jethri bowed . . .

  "I will wager, Guest Pilot Jethri, that no one will ask very much about your training levels!"

  *

  In fact, they had not asked after his proficiency levels the day before. The news that Liaden Scout ship Keravath--commanded by Scout ter'Astin, with Guest Pilot Jethri Gobelyn ven'Deelin acting as Pilot in Charge--had arrived, was good enough. The news in fact was received with good cheer and with confirmation of nearby ships and plotted routes, updated communication channels, and quite a bit of background chatter on the off-channels about Scout ships showing up here and Gobelyn not being any Liaden name they'd ever heard of. Scattered replies named half a dozen Terran ships flown by or carrying Gobelyns and chatter went on until three more ships arrived in-system and then two more and another as the trade show took shape.

  And today, they also never treated Pilot Jethri as anything other than a complete professional, assigning Keravath a station berth at the still being built Tradedesk Station according to the invitation number and names they had now in hand.

  For his part, Jethri managed calm despite the thudding of his heart and the occasional flash of sweat or flush of cheek; as Pilot in Charge he asked his Second to reduce extraneous comm chatter, and take care of minor housekeeping while the ship measured distance to their goal and checked the orbital changes he requested--and the scout provided backup there, out of his head, while Jethri calculated and double-calculated to be sure.

  In the meanwhile he observed the system, surprised enough to mention to ter'Astin: "That's a pretty big station for one planet, isn't it?"

  A chuckle drifted over from the Scout--

  "Ah yes, for one small planet it is. But their intention is for it to be the system's station, since the planets offer such interesting weather, and indeed it is seen as a regional trade hub. That the system also is wellconnected as a direct Jumplink to five others makes it an excellent candidate for such investment! And it is rare for such a station to be built from scratch--this one's modules are still coming together--but what you see has been in progress with a single vision since your father's era as a commissioner, if I am not mistaken. Built in orbit here, tested here, and to be moved to the intermediate orbit overtime, starting very soon. The reading is quite interesting, but I'll hold it for when you are not flying PIC!"

  Finally, Jethri called through to the station, offering a flight plan to Traffic Control and receiving a noncommittal, "We'll get to you there, Scout, we'll get to you . . ."

  "For clarity, Control, I am a guest pilot. Only Captain ter'Astin is a Scout here!"

  "We'll make a note of that, Pilot Jethri. We've also got a bunch of incoming not quite as nimble as you, so we'll get back to you. We'll expect you to yell if it looks like someone's pushing you!"

  The screens looked clean enough and their basic orbit and path hadn't been argued with, but Jethri mounted a tight scan, continuing to broadcast the basic Keravath ID without an assigned flight number.

  Finally came a double call--"Here's your new flight ID number there, Keravath, repeat it to me and broadcast if you will, and I'll be switching you over to someone with courier chops to be sure we're all working with the same parameters. We don't often get to play like you do, you know! If there's a Scout sitting beside you, I'm guessing you're double-checked. Here's your new contact!"

  Off comm Jethri looked to ter'Astin, unsure.

  "Is my flight plan flawed, Scout?"

  Jethri'd seen enough docking vids to know how clutter-free most large trading zones were, but this one had showed up as a busy and crowded place, with orbiting bundles and ships as well as odd bits and pieces of . . . stuff. He'd tried to think ahead . . .

  "This course you suggest, Jethri, is a good way to enter into an extremely active construction zone. Keravath is completely at ease with such maneuvers, which would be inappropriate to a larger vessel. Going over your plans--correct me if I am wrong--you have cited and avoided the areas with the largest amount of free-motion equipment. You have decided that by minimizing time spent in these several orbit-trees we will be exposed to fewer correction necessities. You have correctly checked all of our inertial flywheels as well as the jets and have seen that with 'a little hurry' as I heard you speak to yourself, we can avoid as well that incoming crowd of heavy tradeships. I have seen you check against the posted planned routes of local commuting vessels. This is an adequate use of Keravath."

  Jethri nodded, avoiding the telltale of wiping sweat off of his brows. Then he bowed as properly as he could from his seat, student to mentor, thankful of advice.

  Permissions granted, Jethri started in, eyes busy, barely knowing he'd spent two hours while waiting for one last touch of business.

  "Keravath here, Pilot in Charge Jethri Gobelyn ven'Deelin preparing to enter duty-free Tradedesk docking zone. Vincza Control, my marks have matched yours this last three hours, will you confirm."

  "Guest Pilot, we have you moving in good order to Zone Three; can't miss your spot because it'll be the only one open on the arm. We confirm your vector, time marks, and velocity have all matched within acceptable limits; your calibrations continue to echo good. You'll see blue is your guide here in Zone Three, repeat please? And I'll need your choice of Trade or Terran on the final approach."

  "Blue is my guide in Zone Three, Keravath's calibrations echo positive. We will be working with Terran units and with Terran language, Liaden as backup but Trade's usable."

  A chuckle there--"Can't cuss nearly as good in Trade Pilot, agreed. We've got you set Terran, Liaden, Trade. Come to relative zero zero zero twenty five center line on your marker and we'll go from there, working centimeters per second on all fronts from there. Get your zero zero zero twenty-five center line."

  Jethri shook his head with the irony-- he'd spent more than twenty hours learning and fussing to be ready to take the full load of docking and now Vincza Control was nicely talking him in to dock past a row of unmatched ships, all marked with flashing lights and radio beacons, on a quiet channel; the video feed from Control matched nicely with their own docking guides.

  "Thirty seconds, Keravath. Very clean . . ."

  "Port, this is Wynhael, will we be docking this day? We have--"

  "Wrong channel, Wynhael, please cease transmission on this link, we've got docking in progress."

  Keravath was in motion, the guides lined up, the target straight ahead, clock tick showing twenty-two seconds--

  "This is a docking channel is it not? My information--"

  "Off channel Wynhael!--"

  Jethri gathered in all the information, blues and greens as should be, docking probes centered--he had not time to get words in edgewise!

  "Control please acknowledge, Keravath docking commit."

  "These frequencies are nonstandard--" declared Wynhael.

  "Commit marked Keravath, go!"

  There was talk around him but Jethri stuck with it, compared the video images felt the slightest of vibrations, saw zero zero zero zero, heard the clunk as the lead link locked, called "Outboards?"

  "Outboard stabilizers are good, we'll lock you all the way around. Thank you, Pilot, for putting up with that nonsense!"

  Control went on for a few confused words about uppity Liadens, and laughed, and then went silent a moment, flustered.

  "Sorry, Keravath. I didn't mean to . . ."

  "This is Scout ter'Astin," came the voice from the actual Board One, "and you have our agreement on this issue, I assure you!"

  From somewhere on the other side of the connection came laughter and what sounded like cheering, then the familiar Control voice.

  "Keravath--Guest Pilot, when you have a chance please come on by our office on Deck Six at your earliest opportunity. I owe you a thanks for a smooth docking on your side, and thanks to both of you, I won the office pool for the day. Welcome to Vincza!"

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tradedesk, Dockside and More

  "Samay pin'Aker Clan Midys, trade assistant on Barsk
alee," said the ship-dressed young woman before him. She performed a complex and well-nuanced bow of welcome and greeting, with overtones of respect well-earned and a hint of approval and appreciation. There was a smile at the corners of her mouth and eyes and a flawless grace about her.

  This artful welcome was more than gracious, considering that she had the drop on him. He's come this close to heedlessly, and vigorously, backing into her, as he gestured to Scout ter'Astin to give over his chiding ways. She might as easily--and with perfect justice--given him a setdown.

  Gone from Jethri's lips and his mind was the retort he'd been preparing in answer to ter'Astin's most recent gibe, urging him to act as if the day had length and the universe not entirely breathless for his arrival as the beauty of the season. True, he had stopped one more time to use the ship's inner vid system to look over his clothes, attempting to consider both the Terran and the Liaden necessities of being a properly dressed trader on his way to a business meeting of unknown import.

  Such was the power of the lady's art, not to mention her lurking smile, that he immediately knew himself appropriately attired for the work in hand, even if all he did was return the lady's bow and flee to Keravath's safe interior. He chose not to flee; a retreat would surely damage his melant'i.

  The lady had managed to bow to him, and to the Scout, without pausing and without overtly changing mode--yet it was obvious that this member of Clan Midys was in fact more pleased to meet the young trader than the Scout.

  She beat him to the now necessary, "Forgive me," part of the exchange as well, her voice quiet and musical, nearly lost in the echoes, hums, and air-moving noise of the passageway.

  Jethri managed to pronounce his name and home ship, as did Scout ter'Astin, but they needed to repeat them a moment later, because the woman continued her "Forgive me" rather breathlessly. In the repeat, Jethri remembered to report that he was Guest Pilot on Keravath, but wasn't sure she gathered that, her flow of eloquence being rather lengthier than expected.

  "Do forgive me. I did stop rather suddenly when I heard your lock operating, and I should have given you far more room, but I am unused to the protocols and dimensions on this station and I did not intend to interrupt either your passage or your conversation."

  Jethri beat back the urge to redden, recalling that he had not, in fact, answered ter'Astin's last gibe, nor had ter'Astin been speaking loudly for all that the lock's own sounds had a certain depth to them.

  "Galandaria need not ask forgiveness for a greeting properly given on a strange port," ter'Astin assured her prettily. He received a nice bow of acknowledgment in return.

  Jethri tucked that phrase away, it sounding to be one very useful in the long run for someone whose very living depended on meeting others. Especially, he noted the mode, in which "strange port" carried, not only unfamiliarity, but the implication of alienness; of on-dock behavior even wild or unruly--which of course this place had small resemblance to, outside Wynhael's minor pettishness.

  "Indeed, Scout," Samay pin'Aker said. "I had not considered the matter in those terms, for surely those with melant'i must be considered equals when they stand among those without."

  Her brief concentration on the scout gave Jethri the opportunity for a longer look.

  Though her shirt with the Barskalee ship logo and her three-digit crew number would have her simply ship-born, as would her haircut--ship-short, but long enough to see that her hair was brown, and had a tendency to curl--she had what he'd come to think of as the High House nose. This was short and long at once, the face being long and the projection of the nose short--less pronounced than on the mythical average Terran face. In all, hers was a pleasant face, particularly when she favored him with a smile. Her phrasing and accent--obviously, he had study ahead of him in the House books, for Tan Sim would have by now known who her close kin and her cousins were, and the amount of her quarter-share.

  "We should explore that idea, of the distribution of melant'i," the Scout said thoughtfully, "as time permits. I fear that the Code's strictures may not fully address the necessities of wider commerce."

  He bowed then, briskly, reminding them all of press of business, and in short order they parted, invitations to visit as time permitted having been dutifully exchanged as well.

  Jethri wondered if the station gravity ran light, as easy as his steps were as they marched off to the control room--

  "I believe, young sir, that you ought sometimes to review recent portvids as much as you stare for dust on your boots as you prepare to exit the ship."

  The Scout was smiling, his hands making a motion Jethri lacked the reading of.

  "Yes, do look quizzical, my charge. That artfully accidental meeting took Samay pin'Aker a triple tour of the passageway if not more to arrange. It was all our luck that she didn't have to chase after us to ask directions!"

  It was a Terran shrug he offered first, followed by a Liaden bow requesting elucidation. "I'm in orbit without referents," Jethri admitted.

  "I mean that the trade assistant walked the passage before our lock at least three times in each direction, slowing as she came closer and speeding away once she was distant."

  "But why should she? If she's a trader why should she not merely address the ship--but she's not a trader!"

  "Exactly. Her duty may well not be in the trade hall but on the ship itself. It is my thought that she was sent--or she sent herself--to catch sight of you and make your acquaintance."

  They reached the end of the passage, and turned left. A small group of Terrans was clustered mid-hall, and Jethri held his reply in reserve, even as he slowed his pace.

  "Midcentral Crystal Logistics, that's who!" a woman's voice said excitedly. "I saw the ship! Saw it last time, at the dock here, waiting for the Uncle. Sure, it had a different name, and a different company but that's easy. And you know who's listed as PIC? Senior Pilot Dulsey Omron! Can't be anyone else but him!"

  There were five of them, three apparently pilots and the other two perhaps locals, and one with her back turned said, "Give me time to count the times Dulsey is a name first or last on a galactic census!"

  "You say it--but the ship's the deal. Have you seen it? Halfway between a courier and a family trader, got a couple pod points and a couple blisters just big enough to hint they're able to defend themselves. I'll see if I can find some images out of our files . . . That ship, with Dulsey, and it can't . . ."

  The three pilots looked up; Jethri sighed silently, blaming himself for a boot-scuffle on the deck plate when they switched grav sections for interrupting his eavesdropping.

  Their arrival at the group merited several nods, two bows, and--

  "Damme if you ain't the pretty proof of a Gobelyn on port, boy! Been years. Bet you don't remember me! But I seen you on the same deck with your Da, more than once."

  Jethri was inclined to agree with her on that not remembering: dyed black-and-pink streaked hair, fluorescent green short boots, legs barer than bare as they were captured in distracting yellow shorts that showed a touch of skin above as it led to a formfitting shirt worn under an overtight pilot's jacket. She had his attention as she turned, and then he heard her say "Damme" in his head again, and smelled the brew on her--and memory stirred.

  The hair, that was a change, but the voice and even the pose reminded him of someone standing too close to him on Gobelyn's Market's kitchen deck, leaning over him, that was it, so she could stroke Dyk's shoulder.

  He extended a hand, and gave her a cordial shake, remembering to "smile Terran" broadly.

  "You're Blinda Bushey, as close as I know. Don't 'member your ship, sorry. Must've been the kitchen . . . 'cause I wasn't much on the trade deck those days. Dyk gave you his wine limejel recipe for your pasta log with cheese. I got the extra three maize buttons because . . ."

  "You better not remember that particular 'because' out loud!" She sounded jolly enough, but she looked serious, and her face showed a touch of color, while her hand was tucked into the protective arm o
f a pilot not much older than he was. She was half-turned now to block the pilot's view of Jethri, or to make her urgent lean toward him less obvious.

  "Yes'm," he mumbled, recalling that the because was her and Dyk leaving him in charge of the galley while they did some private back-room work when Iza was off on port. Dyk hadn't often run off for fun, but if it came to him he seemed to like it well enough.

  "So there," she said, waving her unencumbered arm at her fellows, "I told you I heard a familiar name there coming in. You flying a Scout ship, Jethri? Wow, like your dad you are, just do exactly what you want to, and show up at the big shindigs like any plus-side pilot will!"

  Jethri had schooled himself on the melant'i of the situation he was entering, even as he'd dressed. It was almost guaranteed that as he went among Terran traders, someone would bring up his status on the rosters, and his father. He had vowed to answer these questions, impertinent as they doubtless would be, as if they were the merest commonplaces--which they were rapidly becoming.

  He therefore managed a credible light bow of acknowledgment and a hand wave presenting ter'Astin: "The good Scout, Captain ter'Astin, allows me as guest pilot this trip. I am learning much!"

  Blinda laughed, gave the Scout a well-practiced lookover and a half bow that started as a nod.

  "I didn't mean to interrupt your walk, Scout, but I've known Jethri since he first learned to wear shoes, and some of his old shipmates and--"

  "I'd have it no other way." The Scout gave back a rather exact copy of Blinda's salute, and one to each of the other's in the party, and a hinting hand motion to Jethri. "One always must affirm networks!"

  "We have been asked personally to the control room," Jethri explained, "but if we're on station, we'll find each other again . . ."

  "We will, we will. Bet you'll get a call for all the party suites, anyway, once the show's really under way, and we'll get all caught up. And you, you'll have to tell me what lucky ladies've been . . ."