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ELEVEN

“What in the wet mud am I supposed to do with these?”

It was late, the last workshop had been…trying, and the walk back to Genchi interrupted several times by people who wanted to argue about the Envidaria with him right now. It had taken all of Bry Sen’s persuasiveness and all of Chiv’s muscle to shift them and move on.

They’d all sighed in relief when they reached Genchi’s dock—until a shadow burst out from behind the ship-board, moving straight for Jethri.

He dodged, Bry Sen twisted, Chiv threw a punch, which didn’t land, and the shadow spoke sharply.

Kohno!”

“Stop!” Jethri gasped, lunging forward to grab Chiv’s arm. “He’s from Elsvair.”

“Why ain’t he there, then?” Chiv demanded, which Jethri allowed was a good question. He stepped up into a pool of light. Vally stayed inside the shadows, his eyes gleaming, dark inside darkness.

“What do you want, Vally? Be quick.”

“It is this paper, Kohno. Malu said that you wished to have it, as soon as we found it.”

A pale rectangle appeared, seeming to hover in the dark air between them. Jethri extended a hand, the rectangle was placed on his palm. Paper. Jethri closed his fingers over it, and stuffed it into the pocket holding his fractin.

“Anything else?”

“No, Kohno.”

“Then jet,” Jethri snapped. “Give Malu my thanks.”

“Yes, Kohno.”

The blackness suddenly felt empty.

“All right,” Jethri said. “Chiv—”

“I’ll see you to the hatch, Cousin, then I’m for home.”

“Right. Thank you, Cousin.”

“No worries,” Chiv answered, as the hatch opened, and Kel Bin stepped aside to let them in.

“There is a box for you in the conference room, Trader,” Kel Bin said, so Jethri had gone to the conference room.

There was a box, and two envelopes. Jethri recognized Freza’s hand on one of those, and opened it.


Jeth, can you take care of these so nobody finds them? We need to talk about Dulcimer, real soon. Love you, Freza.


The love you was almost enough to banish the dull ache between his brows. Then he opened the box.

“What in wet mud am I supposed to do with these?” His voice was sharp and too loud, and the headache flared. “Take care of ’em so nobody finds ’em?” Jethri went on, pulling the things out of the box. “Who wants ’em?”

“Trader, your drink,” a quiet voice broke into his tirade. He turned to see Kel Bin enter, bearing restorative elixir.

Jethri took the glass gladly, and swallowed some of the thick, tasty beverage, before waving a hand at the junk on the table.

“Who brought this, please?”

“Two persons who said they were,” he paused and mustered the Terran from memory: “Freza’s cousins Erl and Loozie.” Kel Bin hesitated. “Did I err, Trader?”

Jethri shook his head, and had another swallow of elixir. It felt like the pain in his head was easing a little.

“No error on your part, comrade,” he assured Kel Bin. “Merely—” He nodded at the table. “This is junk, utterly worthless, which I am asked to place where it cannot be found, and I am confounded.”

“Captain Bry Sen allowed me to know that the day was long and trying,” Kel Bin said. “Your reserves are low. The elixir will help you regain energy and clarity. A moment and I will bring chernubia, as well.”

Left alone, Jethri surveyed the junk on the table, muttering to himself.

“Knock-off roll coins, imitation energy blades, a stasis box with a broken seal, two fake Before pistols—” He shook his head. “It’s all junk.”

His eye fell on the second envelope. He opened it and drew out a single sheet—an inventory list of the items received, with destroy this written hastily across the top in Freza’s hand.

“Trader,” Kel Bin set a plate of chernubia on the table by the glass and vanished again.

Jethri frowned at the list, picked up the glass and sipped elixir.

Where had this stuff come from? he wondered. Freza had been going out to Dulcimer—had they been carrying it? If so, why? And did he really want to know the answer to either question?

Destroy was actually a good idea, he thought, for the list and the listed.

He finished the elixir and put the glass aside. The chernubia failed to tempt him, which was a measure of just how bad his temper was.

Destroy, now—he shook his head. Junk though it was, it would still require energy to destroy it, and he didn’t want Genchi to show a spike at dockside. Prolly best thing was to—

The hatch gong sounded. Jethri sighed. Prolly more flowers. Well, the crew could deal.

“Trader, your guest has arrived,” Bry Sen stated on closed call to the conference room.

Jethri frowned.

“Am I expecting a guest?”

“So the guest claims. It is your Uncle Yuri, Trader.”

Of course it was.

Well, it wasn’t as if he could pretend not to be at home. Jethri glared at the wall speaker.

“Is my Uncle Yuri alone?”

“Yes, Trader.”

“Then bring him to me,” Jethri said, bowing to the inevitable. “Please ask Kel Bin for tea.”

He thought of asking for more elixir, then lost the thought as his fractin warmed appreciably in his pocket. He slipped his hand inside—and felt paper.

Right, he thought, and pulled it out.

It was not nearly so clean as it had seemed against the darkness, and Jethri very much feared that the stain on the upper right corner was blood. But despite the dirt, a portion of the address was clear: Veeoni, Crystal Rezonics, Freebar City

The door opened.

Jethri turned.

Bry Sen stepped into the room, a Bry Sen re-visioned, in a sharp uniform in Genchi’s colors, and the captain’s ring on his finger, his collar a-glitter with multiple pins, rather than the simple pilots guild pin that had previously adorned him.

He bowed.

“Trader, here is Yuri Tomas for you.”

“Uncle Yuri,” Jethri said, without warmth. “Come in, please.”

“I am wanted on the bridge, Trader,” Bry Sen murmured. “The communications difficulty again.”

“Go,” Jethri told him. “Uncle Yuri and I will do very well together.”

Possibly.

Bry Sen bowed and left. The door closed, and Jethri looked at his uncle, who was staring at the pile of junk on the table.

“Really, Jethri? Surely you know better than these.”

“I do, but somebody don’t,” Jethri said with a sigh. “I’m charged with hiding them so they won’t be found.”

“By whom?”

“A friend,” Jethri said, and sighed for being snappish. “I’m thinking she wanted me to hide them ’mong my stock, but these things put honest tech to shame. Not to say that anybody with half-an-eye could tell they weren’t the same at all.”

“What will you do with them?”

Jethri shrugged. “Prolly hide ’em among my stock. In a stasis box, maybe. In a back corner.”

The speaker clicked.

“Tea, Trader,” Kel Bin said.

“Enter,” Jethri said.

Kel Bin did, bearing the everyday tea service, which he placed on the table, taking the empty glass onto the tray.

“Else, Trader?”

“Thank you, no,” Jethri told him, and he was alone with his Uncle Yuri.

Who was still gazing in offended horror at the junk in the middle of the table.

“Let me put them back in the box,” Jethri said.

“They are distracting,” his uncle admitted, stepping back to allow Jethri past him.

“Here,” Jethri said, handing over the address label. “Thought you might know who that is.”

His fractin warmed as he was repacking the box, but Jethri thought it was interest in Uncle Yuri, and not the other items.

He closed the top of the box, bent and slid it under the conference table.

Straightening, he found himself quite close to his uncle, who was still holding the label in his hand.

“May I ask where you found this?”

Jethri shook his head. “Vally brought it. Malu said the silver net had been wrapped up in the mailroom of a dead ship. She thought Vally might’ve kept the label and said she’d send it, if he had.”

He moved his shoulders in a Liaden shrug.

“It’s been in my possession less than an hour.”

“Thank you.” Uncle Yuri inclined his head. “In fact, I do know this person. What came of the silver net?”

“I have it,” Jethri said. “It’s in a stasis box.”

“Excellent. I will take it.”

Jethri sighed and moved down-table. “Tea?”

“Thank you.”

He poured, noting the amber color, and the floral scent. Kel Bin had rolled out the Jasimun Flo’at, the best tea on-board, and not so many tins of it, either.

Uncle Yuri received his cup and drank, pausing to savor the leaf with eyes closed.

“Excellent,” he murmured.

Jethri sipped respectfully, then, still holding the cup, he accessed the pilot’s renewing exercise.

As always, the exercise offered a moment of peace, then, as the muscles and mind relaxed, clarity and a renewed energy bloomed, until of a sudden, the exercise ended, leaving the pilot awake and refreshed, as if from a comfortable nap.

“I wonder, Nephew, what has occurred? The tea is fine, but not as resuscitating as that!”

Jethri smiled lightly, feeling the start of a trade session gambit…and recalled he was not dealing with a Liaden this time, nor a Terran as such.

“I accessed a pilot’s exercise, sir. That’s all.”

A nod. “I understand. Early in a career such events as these can be quite wearying. So much opportunity, so many ways to make the wrong move. It can be useful to acknowledge and prepare yourself.”

Jethri had another sip of tea and put the cup down. Uncle Yuri did the same. He looked at Jethri and spread his hands, the firegem flashing on his finger.

“We must now arrive at my topics, though the tea is still on the table. First, you have interfered with arrangements of mine. This is not entirely your fault. Elsvair has been collecting for me for some time and your appearance—your knowledgeable appearance here in the midst of so much activity, has disrupted the delivery of items that were—that are—necessary to projects I’ve been involved in for some…time.”

“The goods were offered, and I purchased them in good faith,” Jethri said.

Yuri sighed.

“Yes, I understand from Elsvair that you conducted yourself well, and gave good prices. As your uncle, I have no complaint of your comportment. However, that sidesteps the fact that those items were not yours to purchase, and that Elsvair was not to have sold them to anyone but me.”

Jethri nodded. “The actual you,” he said, “and not an instance of you.”

His uncle eyed him. “Someone was…casual.”

“Confused, I think,” Jethri said. “We settled it out that I was neither, but I don’t think it took. Also, they were running out of room.”

“I see. Still, the goods should not have been offered, and I will have them.”

“I paid for them,” Jethri said.

“And I will reimburse your out-of-pocket and reasonable expenses. I’m not a fool.”

Jethri had recourse to his tea cup.

“What about the fractins?”

Yuri frowned. “Fractins.”

“I bought crates full of fractins, mostly imitation. But the ones that are real, aren’t just real—they’re special. At least as special as my own.”

“Have you held these…specials in your hand, counted them?”

“I have not. This isn’t a good place to dump fractins out on a deck and go through them one-by-one, asking my fractin to find the specials. It’s busy here, and people might get a funny idea or two.”

“So they might. Let me save both of us time. I will buy back all of the items you purchased from Elsvair, including the cases of fractins. I will pay you this evening, and take the memory veil with me. Tomorrow, I will send a team for the rest of the items.

“I learn that Elsvair crew used some of the devices, and while they have had some training, they are not by any means expert. I am told that they showed you how several operated. I hope that you haven’t damaged yourself by this activity. Some of these devices are very dangerous, as I think you know. In particular, I must have the memory veil.” He paused, then asked, softly, “Did you use the memory veil, Jethri?”

“I did,” he said, there being no reason to lie, not after his bungle with the language. “Malu thought it was a necklace. My fractin and I thought otherwise, and when I had it in my hands, it was clearly something else, though I didn’t know what, until I had it on, with the hood over my head.”

“That was—forgive me—a very foolish thing to have done,” Uncle Yuri said. “There is a whole course of training that…ought to be mastered before attempting to use the veil. It provides a highly immersive experience, and without the training, a user could be…absorbed entirely into the beads.”

“It was startling,” Jethri admitted. “I think it was recording; it kept asking what I knew, and building databases. I learned some things—that language, for instance—history—old history. Batchers…”

He looked up.

“Are we made in batches?”

“No,” Uncle Yuri said firmly. “We were never made in batches.” He sighed.

“We cannot undo what is done,” he said. “We can only resolve not to do it again. Where is the veil?”

“In a stasis box, in the safe room.”

“And the other devices?”

“Each in their own stasis box, in the safe room.”

“Well done. One more question, if you allow it. The phrase ‘my fractin and I.’ This is one of the so-called special fractins?”

“Yes. My fractin is active, it knows Old Tech. It likes some, and doesn’t like others.” He paused, considering, and then added. “It liked the memory veil. It didn’t like—”

He stopped, remembering.

“There were some things I didn’t buy,” he said. Uncle moved a hand, inviting him to go on.

“On Elsvair—there’s a partial—I think it’s partial—arms mount. There are things—I don’t know what they are, but they’re hungry, and if it were me, I’d drop them into the nearest sun.”

“Ah.” Uncle Yuri failed to look horrified. “I will examine those, thank you. Once our business here is done, I will be returning to Elsvair.”

He paused, apparently considering, then looked up.

“You may not wish to hear this, but I feel that I must say it. Jethri, there is no we with a fractin. Fractins are machines—tools—even the special ones, saving that those hold more potential for mayhem than the genuine worker fractins. The specials, as you call them, are linking fractins. That’s why it may feel to you as if it is reacting to various devices. Very possibly it is reacting—to timonium levels. It is not sentient. It is not your friend. I would counsel—strongly counsel—that you allow me to take your special fractin with me when I go.”

Jethri shook his head.

“There is a we. Throw my fractin into a crate of fractins—even special ones—and mine will come to my hand. When the Scouts impounded it, they tried to fob me off with a fake, but mine called to me from across the room.”

Yuri looked grim. Jethri shrugged.

“The fractin’s in my pocket. It reacts to you. I haven’t asked it what it does. I should’ve asked the memory veil, I guess.” He smiled briefly. “Hindsight.”

“Indeed.” Uncle Yuri sighed.

“It is late. Have the memory veil in its stasis box brought to me, and produce me a list of your expenses, which I will pay. We can arrange pick up of the other devices and the fractins—”

Jethri blinked. A framework was building in his mind, a multi-dimensional wire diagram with himself at the center with the fractin, as a unit, and shaded points of light beyond. He knew the veil was the net of fine bright points within that diagram, and there were other points of active light, quite nearby, a dozen or more of them.

The wire frame diagram in his head shuddered and now there were eerie smudges, too, some of them close, so close they might have been in Elsvair, where, after all he’d left those things he wanted nothing to do with.

Jethri opened his eyes, saw Uncle clearly and saw multiple concerns clouding his expression.

“Uncle Yuri, the we I see is your fault.”

“Mine?”

“You told me that you and Arin between you had settled on how I wouldn’t be you and how I wouldn’t be Arin. I recall this.

“You told me yourself that you’d done something to modify who I’d be so that I could be more in tune to Old Tech. Well, it worked, Uncle Yuri.” He paused, smiling into his uncle’s eyes.

“We can’t undo what is done,” he said. “We can only resolve not to do it again.”

Uncle Yuri—laughed.

“You are yourself, Jethri Gobelyn ven’Deelin,” he said. “But you are also plainly family.”

He bowed slightly.

“At some point we will have a discussion that Arin was to have had with you. In the meantime, I will ask you to be careful in your experimentation. What you do with your legacy and what you must do for the Envidaria is important work, work you are uniquely qualified to perform. Do not remove yourself from the center of this!”

Rising, Uncle extended a hand.

“Please, bring me the veil. Keep your fractin if you must.”

Jethri sighed, and for a moment he thought he’d refuse to part with any of the devices, most especially the veil.

But, no. Uncle Yuri was right. The Envidaria and all it meant, that had to come first.

He reached for the comm.

“Trader,” Bry Sen said over the system.

“Trader, there is an individual at the lock loudly demanding to speak with your guest. He tells me that the Uncle will be pleased to speak with Choody, and sooner is better for all!”


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