FIVE
Surprisingly enough, he did sleep, and woke feeling rested, and—somewhat optimistic about the coming day.
He showered and dressed, then sat to breakfast.
He’d started adding ’mite to his breakfast during the relaxing days of pre-pre-congress, and it seemed like a good idea to keep that up. He sipped, chose a cheese muffin, and opened his screen to review his day’s schedule again.
It was somewhat more crowded than he recalled from his review last night. A careful perusal showed him why. In addition to his scheduled talks, presentations, and turns at the table—and in one instance, against a talk—there were several items marked as musts. Opening the details, he saw that he was scheduled to attend a large general informational meeting about the organization of TerraTrade. A second meeting also had him as one of a large group, gathered to be informed about the administrative teaching campus on Trantor.
Jethri sat back, and sipped his tea, frowning, because here was Bory’s hand, writ large.
Tie him up in basic-level info-meets, keep him off the floor and derail his presentations, was that it? Jethri flicked through the details again, eyes narrowed. Not that the information was useless, if you didn’t already have it. Which gave him an idea.
His melant’i as the proposed ambassador for the Envidaria was clear. However, it would not do to—openly—scorn the efforts a declared ally made on his behalf. And there was good basic information on offer. Which he didn’t need, but somebody would.
He reached for the comm.
“You’re right, Jeth—we oughta send somebody to those meetings Bory’s been kind enough to arrange for us to get into. Got a couple worthwhile youngers—” Freza paused, apparently thinking.
“How about Taber, from Lantic?” Jethri asked suddenly. “In for the trade side, or something else?”
“Taber’s all about the trade side,” Freza said. “Great idea. I’ll get Brabham to make the call personal.”
She laughed, and he imagined her shaking her head.
“Bory’s trying to slow you down, Jeth.”
“I’m a little insulted,” he said. “Did he think I wouldn’t see that?”
“Well, he’s gotta try,” Freza said. “He don’t know you, so it’s like a test—how sharp is this—” she made her voice bold and deep, in imitation of Bory’s, “young trader who’s lead on his own Liaden ship?”
Jethri grinned. “He’ll have to do better.”
“’Spect he will. Next one’s not gonna be so easy to spot.”
“I got expert help,” he said. “How’s your schedule this evening?”
“Won’t know ’til I know,” Freza said. “Same might be said for you.”
“I’m gonna do my best to keep the evening schedule open,” he told her.
“Fair,” she answered. “I’ll do the same, but—no promises, Jeth. We’re in it now, and we gotta work with what comes.”
“Understood,” he said, and added, “Until soon, Frez.”
“Soon,” she answered, and closed the connection.
He was reaching for his coat when he realized that he had left an important piece of information languish. He’d best be up-to-the-minute on Brabham’s riot, he thought, for it would surely be a topic on the day.
He picked up Balrog’s comm, found the vid, and sent it to the room’s large screen.
There was Brabham, on his scoot on an already crowded dock, his cluster of volunteers around him, and Freza to one side.
And on the opposite side of a crowd of Loopers catching up with each other—there came Bory, likewise the center of a cluster, walking purposeful, and maybe not paying as much attention to Desty Gold, walking and talking at his side, as the man might’ve supposed.
Jethri straightened his coat and smoothed the sleeves, eyes on the screen.
“Well, look at the crowd of us!” Bory boomed, stopping so sudden Desty went two paces past him. “Reminds me of when I was just first—”
“Bory!” Brabham could make some noise when he put his lungs into it, Jethri thought. “Is that Bory I hear?”
“The man himself!” Bory boomed, and people turned, startled, and then instinctively stepping out of the way of the big man bearing down on them.
Bory arrived at Brabham’s scoot, the volunteers having stepped aside in deference to such self-confidence. There was a moment, relatively silent, with Brabham and Bory gripping each other’s forearms, two old friends, silently communing, before Bory broke contact, and turned to present Freza with a fulsome compliment, subtly shifting his position next to the scoot, and leaning forward slightly, possessively.
“If I’d had any idea you were coming in so early,” Bory was saying, “I would’ve set up a proper meeting, Brabham. If you’re of a mind right now, why don’t we sit down together over this Envidaria, and—”
And that had been the wrong thing to say.
Jethri paused the vid, wondering if it had been a misstep or if it had been purposeful on Bory’s part; if he’d realized he wasn’t going to be able to co-opt Brabham with all his volunteers around, and had gotten creative.
If his idea had been to sow confusion, it had worked a little too well.
Jethri started the vid again and heard one of the crowd yell that the Envidaria was a plot to turn the Loops over to the Liadens, which actually had some sense behind it, Jethri thought, given his status as the ’prentice and adopted son of a Liaden master trader, and also the person who had released the Envidaria to all of space.
And here came Desty Gold, grabbing Bory’s sleeve and looming over Brabham in his scoot, shouting insults and starting to look a little chancy—which was when Lantic’s Taber gathered some other of the taller volunteers with a look and a jerk of the head, and suddenly Desty didn’t have a place to stand, on account there were three volunteers between him and Brabham.
Jethri fast-forwarded from there, saw Bory belatedly take charge of the mob he’d created, purposefully or not, booming down the loudest argumenters, while others peeled off to shout among themselves.
Sighing, Jethri admitted that Freza’d been right to not want him in that. Just a shouting-match, a mix-up to test the temper on the dock, maybe.
Jethri turned off the comm and stowed it in a right inside pocket, while Genchi’s comm went in the left; cards in a public pocket, the small mingle of Terran and Liaden coins in another. His fractin was already in the pocket of his pants, by all signs completely disinterested in the riot.
Riot, he thought. Temper on the dock. He paused with his hand on his hideaway, considering the shouting, the angry faces, and the non-committal faces at the edge of the crowd. They’d looked sharp and rough, those faces, and he remembered Arin telling him that people wore weapons open or kept them close for reasons, and it was up to him to decide not only what was the reason, but how he wanted to be seen.
Liadens took social pressure and hideaways as their weapons of choice, though arms master Pen Rel had been known to wear his weapon openly on some ports where he insisted upon escorting the master trader.
Loopers tended toward the same thought process—open weapon, open warning, on rough ports; reputation and intimidation on ports not-so-rough.
Jethri had considered that the South Axis Congress and Trade Fair would be a place of refinement and courtesy. But he’d failed to take into account the likelihood of high tempers—especially of high tempers aimed particularly at him, as the bearer of unwelcome news. The Envidaria pushed change; change was hard, even for a good reason.
Right.
Jethri reached for his broader belt, with its built on holster. Then, he unlocked the weapon drawer and took out his other gun. He checked it and holstered it, then stepped to the mirror to manage the drape of his coat. After a moment, he slipped Genchi’s comm onto the loop opposite the gun, and put his hideaway into its usual pocket.
Confronted with such a costume as this, Jethri thought Pen Rel would ask if he also carried a secret blade, in the event that the open gun invited trouble, rather than deflecting it.
He wasn’t a knife fighter, Jethri thought irritably, knowing Pen Rel would openly laugh at him for saying so, and at the end of the day, the man was an arms master.
Jethri slipped the knife into his sleeve, as he’d been taught.
He checked the mirror again, deciding that he looked sufficiently dangerous. In fact, he looked like a man credited with the deaths of two people, even if one had technically committed suicide and the other wasn’t factually dead.
“It’s all about the rep, Jeth,” he told his reflection, and turned toward the door. Time to get started on the day.
There was a sponsored reception when the table closed. Jethri’s invitation had been hand-carried, and a quick consult with Brabham by comm had revealed that it was not something Jethri, as the ambassador of the Envidaria, could miss.
“Got something similar myself tonight,” Brabham said. “Freza’s got another. Between the three of us, we’re just about enough to keep it all covered.”
In fact, the reception had been useful. He’d made solid contacts, answered good, thoughtful questions, and had maybe even pulled a couple of waverers at the edge of the Dust zone over the line into supporting the Envidaria.
He got back to Genchi late, and full of nerves. He checked his messages—nothing from Freza—and sat down at his desk to review the next day’s schedule, and sketch out some notes for tomorrow’s big talk.
Distantly, he heard a ping—more flowers, he guessed, and wondered briefly where they all came from before going back to his notes.
A moment later, Bry Sen knocked on the edge of his open door, bowing apology for his interruption.
“I am at a loss, Trader. One has arrived at the hatch, bearing your card, insisting that you had desired an immediate meeting.”
Jethri frowned. He’d spoken to so many people, given out not a few cards. But for most of the day, he’d had plans with Freza, and had been very careful to keep the evening clear. Nor could he remember demanding an immediate meeting with anyone.
“At a loss in what way?” he asked Bry Sen.
“She gives a single name, as if you will know her personally. Malu?”
Jethri blinked, sighed, and rose.
“Oh,” he said. “Malu. Of course.”
In truth, he almost didn’t recognize her. She had shaded and painted her lean face artfully so that it seemed rounder, and rosier, and subtly exotic. She had used a purple tint on her eyelids, which made her close-set brown eyes seem wider and more trusting. She had done something to her eyebrows, he thought, and her lips were fuller, looking soft, pliant. The entire effect was of a woman both fascinating and intriguing; innocent and knowledgeable.
Her clothes—a dark top cut low under a barely discernible piece of jewelry—a silvery gossamer net in which tiny jewels glittered and winked in the foyer’s lights. She was wearing a rich brown skirt slashed like the sleeves of a Liaden gentleman’s evening coat, the slashes lined with silver. The skirt flowed nearly to the decking on one side; the other side caught up above her knee with a silver riband. There were rings on her slender fingers. A pair of high black boots with a sensible low heel that would have had the boot makers of Seybol crying out in protest completed the outfit.
She might, Jethri thought, be going to a shivary, only—
“Minsha told me you and Vally were confined to Elsvair,” he said. “So you understand my surprise at seeing you here.”
“A determination has been made,” she said grandly and stepped forward, her hand held out for him to shake, Terran-style, even as she swayed in a small bow he would have found too fascinating if Protocol Master tel’Ondor hadn’t been determined to produce not only a person of manner from a Looper, but an adult from a callow youth.
“Minsha brought the news that you wished further instruction on some of those items you purchased from us. I am here to provide what instruction I can. I tried to send a message first, but your system is backed up, Kohno! It is a short enough walk from Elsvair to Genchi—and so I am here.”
She gave him a large smile, and squeezed his hand strongly. This, too, might have been distracting, but Jethri’s mind had caught the important detail. He slipped his hand free, and stepped back, his bow an instinct—necessity.
“A moment, please,” he said. “I must check my info-stream!”
Nine quick steps from the foyer and he was on the bridge, where he confirmed that Bry Sen and the captain were working their way through a backlog.
“Eyes on the foyer, please,” he murmured, leaning on the back of Bry Sen’s chair. Captain sea’Kera obligingly opened a tile at the right side of his number two screen. There was Malu standing in the foyer, arms crossed, one hand stroking the delicate silver collar. She was frowning, but as if she was puzzled rather than angry.
“Comm lines backed up?” Jethri asked.
“Yes, Trader,” Bry Sen said, his hands moving rapidly among the comm keys, sorting messages faster than Jethri could read the subject lines.
“We have been the recipients of quite a large number of portside service advertisements, and supposed informational mail, which was not. Automatic filters were overwhelmed, and the stream of legitimate messages was disrupted. Kel Bin went to Balrog and elder Pilot Brabham was good enough to alert port admin to the problem.”
Jethri frowned. “Balrog was hit, too?”
“To a lesser degree, Trader. Captain sea’Kera and I believe it is a general condition as Meldyne merchants seek advantage among the ships newly arrived for the congress, and not an attack targeting Genchi.”
“We are,” Captain sea’Kera said, “experiencing a high volume of legitimate comm traffic, Trader. There are many who wish to speak with you regarding your sponsorship of the Envidaria; and fewer, but not few, if you take me, Trader, who wish to renew the ties of kinship; among them are legitimate station alerts, and updates from the congress administrators.” He glanced over his shoulder to Jethri. “I garner these intentions and meanings from the subject lines, Trader. Of course we do not open your mail.”
“Of course not,” Jethri said, inclining his head. “I am grateful for your insights and information, Captain.”
“We’re also in receipt of a round dozen messages originating off-station, Trader,” Bry Sen continued. “Many of the names are familiar to me because of my House’s connection to trade. Included among them are the Rabbit and the Star-With-Three-Rings.”
Correspondence from Master ven’Deelin and Master pin’Aker might be expected, but a round dozen of other Liaden traders?
“Please forward those to my action queue,” he said. He would answer those letters first, after he had found what information Malu had brought him.
He glanced again at Captain sea’Kera’s screen. Malu was sitting, hands in her lap, eyes closed. She might have been asleep, or practicing board rest, or considering the most satisfying way to fillet a rude trader, kohno or otherwise.
“I had considered the wisdom of sending the young person to Balrog with her necessities, pleading the trader at study,” Bry Sen said in Liaden. “My wits awoke just then, and thus I appealed to you.”
Jethri blinked, for a moment considering Freza confronted by an apparent port trinket demanding to speak with the kohno on a matter of private business.
“I am,” he answered in the same language, “in debt to your wits, Pilot.”
“Never say so, Trader, for I will freely confess that your own wits astound me.”
Jethri considered the top of the pilot’s head, then met his eyes in the screen.
“My master trader would have judged you a silver-tongue, Pilot.”
In the screen, Bry Sen blinked.
“I am properly set into my place, I believe.”
“I felt the same way,” Jethri assured him. “Tell me now—what might I do to assist?”
“You’ll do your part, later, Trader,” Captain sea’Kera said surprisingly. “Myself, I wouldn’t care to read all these messages, much less answer them.”
The voice he heard inside his head this time was not Master ven’Deelin’s, but Dyk’s. Only so many hours in a shift, Jeth, an’ that’s just the flat truth.
“Captain sea’Kera, you said some of those messages were coming in with subject lines referencing the Envidaria?”
“Yes, Trader, on the average of eight from every dozen.”
“Send those to Balrog,” he said, “and beg that they will answer those most urgent, as they are able.”
“Yes, Trader.”
Jethri frowned, staring at Malu’s image on the screen.
“Also, those that seem to be requests from kin, please direct to Balrog. They will have the most current listings of ships and families. It is true that I have been long away from my cousins and do not wish to make an error in my replies.”
If it hadn’t been very unLiaden, he would have said that he heard Bry Sen snort.
“It will be done as you say, Trader,” Captain sea’Kera said.
“My thanks. If Kel Bin is not on some other necessary task, might he bring a light tea to the conference room? The young person from Elsvair and I will be conducting our business there.”
“Certainly, Trader. Is there anything else?”
“Not at this present,” Jethri said, and deliberately shook himself out of the Liaden mind-set to say, in Terran. “Carry on, crew.”
He conducted Malu to the conference room and saw her seated with all courtesy on the leather chair Freza had occupied earlier. Like Freza, Malu touched the leather with approval, and inclined her head graciously.
“Indeed, you are a magiestro, are you not?”
“I’m a trader,” Jethri said, hoping that bluntness would move the business along. Malu’s word games were a distraction he would rather dispense with.
He was grateful for the relative roominess of Genchi’s conference room. Given Malu’s tendency to lean toward him, and to touch, he chose the seat on the opposite side of the table for this meeting, and smiled.
Malu returned the smile, and fondled her necklet once more, rings shining against the silver netting.
Kel Bin appeared just then, bearing what Jethri thought must be the ship’s former best tea service, bright with Genchi’s name and seal, and not the service that had been used earlier, to serve Freza and Bory.
“Thank you, Kel Bin,” Jethri murmured. “We will serve ourselves.”
“Trader.” His crewman bowed and left them, the door closing behind him.
Jethri lifted the pot and poured, feeling his face heat as the scent reached him. Not a working tea, this, but a social tea such as might be shared with a friend. A close friend.
He passed the cup to Malu, who held it until he had filled his own, then took a deep drink, giving no attention to the flavor or the intent, for which Jethri could only be grateful. He sipped from his cup, and set it aside.
“So this determination that was made in your favor—”
“Bah!” Malu said, and put her cup on the table, having drunk all of the tea. “In our favor it is not, Kohno! No, the determination is that we may leave our ship, but not together! And we are restricted to this docking level. We may not come up into the shopping district, we may not attend the festivities, nor even the business of the congress. Yet it has created so much busyness for port administration that they may not even make a true ruling regarding the complaint made against us until after the congress has ended.
“Look!”
She stood suddenly, brought her leg up, braced her boot against the table, and swept a hand downward. Jethri followed the gesture, and saw the tracking bracelet around her ankle.
“Should I leave this docking area, that device will report me and I will again be confined to the ship!”
Quickly, Jethri reviewed the Meldyne Station rules and regulations he had memorized.
“Station admin has to hear your case no later than three station-days after the complaint is filed,” he said. “I’m—assuming that one of the station merchants made a complaint about your…tour the day we met?”
Annoyance crossed her face, as she flounced back into the chair.
“The station merchants make no complaint of us, Kohno. Why would they? No, this comes from Lufkit—off-station, you understand. Lufkit lays a complaint against Vally, with myself named a secondary, because…because we are so often on port together.”
Jethri picked up his teacup, motioning for her to continue.
“Yes. Lufkit sends to Meldyne admin that Vally had been on Shaltren, which is a world that Lufkit does not approve of. Further, they say that Vally has been on Lufkit—which is perfectly true, Elsvair’s own log attests it!—but that he had previously been on Shaltren—which Elsvair’s log does not reflect—and did not report this to Lufkit admin, which is, you understand, a crime upon Lufkit, entailing fines, because we all know how much admin admires its fines, do we not, Kohno?”
Jethri put his cup down, wondering how to answer this, but she swept on as if she expected no answer.
“We showed the Lufkit inspectors the log. They did not believe us, and they were about to make a second duty-search, for which the ship would be obligated to pay the fee, which is just another word for fine and—and the captain decided that Elsvair would not remain on a port which sought to extort honest ships.”
“So you lifted,” Jethri murmured, in order to hold up his end of the conversation.
She smiled at him.
“So we lifted. We came, in due time, to Meldyne, and the great trade congress, which has brought so many here, yourself among them. We hoped for profit here. We hoped to make contacts, to attend the conference, and especially the festivities. But, no! What should occur but Lufkit admin contacts Meldyne admin, saying that Vally is suspected of being attached to a known criminal enterprise, and that Meldyne must send him back to Lufkit. Lufkit says that it is sending an escort, who is expected to arrive after the congress has completed itself. In the meantime, Meldyne admin confines us as I have said, until this escort arrives and Elsvair’s own logs can prove the lie.”
Well, that did take them out of the local ordinances, Jethri thought, and leaned over to pour her another cup of tea.
She took it without thanks, drinking half in one gulp.
“Even if Vally and I are on the dock at the same time, the device will report, and we will be confined to Elsvair once more.” She looked at him over the rim of her cup, her artfully painted eyes wide and soft. “It is very hard, Kohno.”
She stood again, very slowly, as if she did not want him to miss an inch of her. Then she put the tea cup on the table, smiled slightly and spread her skirt between her hands, making a little unnuanced bow as she did so.
“Here I am, dressed for the festivalia of a mighty congress, and restricted. I ask, Kohno, is there not something you could do?”
“Do?” Jethri stared at her. “What do you think I can do?”
She moved her shoulders and the silver netting moved, the little gemstones flashing seductively.
“I am not a magiestro. It is my part to ask, and yours to oblige, or deny.”
Jethri shook his head.
“I’m not a magiestro. I’m a trader. My father was a commissioner. He created the Envidaria, and I am here to represent it and the procedures it puts forward, so that worlds, stations, and Loopers can survive the incoming Dust. I don’t have any—” he flailed here, as his brain wanted to provide him with the Liaden concepts so elegantly suited to the situation, and finally arrived at—“leverage with station admin. Lufkit has more, I’m sure.”
Malu sat down, and folded her hands in her lap.
“So,” she said, pressing her lips together. For a moment, she considered the decking, then looked up at him, eyes wide and soft once more.
“I thought you might call this liaison I hear of, between the congress and the station. You could tell them that you wish to attend the festivalia this evening, and that your friend you wish to bring with you, to introduce to your associates, is inconvenienced by this ankle-bracelet. You could ask that it be deactivated while I am in your company, and guarantee a time by which I will be back here on our dock, and the device reactivated.”
That—Jethri felt a reluctant admiration for this plan. So simple. So innocent. Even Master ven’Deelin would have admired it, he felt, as one admires a piece of art.
He shook his head. “If you came only to ask me to—exercise my influence with station admin, I’m sorry for both of us. I have no influence. I am not a kohno, any more than I’m a magiestro. A trader is what I am, that’s all.” Again, he recalled Master ven’Deelin, and her good friend Master pin’Aker, and shook his head.
“And not even a top-tier trader, at that.”
Malu’s frown was pronounced.
“You are a kohno! You are a person of power, Jethri Gobelyn and ven’Deelin. People will follow you, if you need them to, they will band together for you—already they do so, pleased with themselves that they have seen your quality so quickly! Some of course will follow your power, while others will resist it. I have heard on the comms that—”
Jethri saw her hear her own words, and stop, lips pressed tight.
He waited. She looked away.
“On the comms, Malu?” he prompted.
She brought her eyes back to his, her face still stormy.
“What else was there to do while we waited on the ship for the budsperson to make their stupid determination? The ships who are docked here—they are not careful, and many of the messages were in the open, anyway. Why should they hide when they are proud to stand for their own future, eh?”
It would, Jethri thought, be useful to have the names of the ships who were declaring for the Envidaria, and those who were against, except—it was snooped-out info, and more than that, if he asked for it, he gave Malu an advantage.
“So,” she said defiantly. “I will call you magiestro, kohno, and trader, for that is what you are—all three! They say you are taught by a Liaden trader of great substance and honor. Surely, then, you know how to be more than one thing!”
And he did, Jethri thought, know how to be more than one thing. It was figuring out which thing he should be at this particular point in time that was giving him some trouble.
He sipped tepid tea, thinking. Malu had come to him to provide what instruction she could on the Old Tech he had purchased. He had brought her to the conference room with the understanding that she would be providing that instruction. His melant’i therefore was plain.
He was a trader.
He put his cup down, and folded his hands on the table, feeling himself calm in his role.
Malu considered him, lips straight.
He nodded.
“I had hoped that you were here, as you said, to provide me with information about the devices I purchased. That’s something that could benefit both of us.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I see the benefit to you,” she said. “I see no benefit to me.”
“That’s because I haven’t made my offer yet,” he told her. “Don’t rush the trade, Malu.”
She raised her brows.
“I am instructed, Kohno. By all means, make your offer.”
“I will bring the devices I purchased from you to this room. You will show me how you may have handled them already, especially if you can do so without activating it. I want to be sure of my purchases. I will pay you for your time and your expertise—a consultant’s fee.”
She said nothing, her eyes measuring his without flinching. Finally she let her breath out in a soft hiss.
“Tell me then, Kohno—what is my time worth, to tell you stories about strange objects?”
“That’s a good question. If you don’t have a figure in mind, I’ll ask the ship’s copilot to come in and go over the rates posted for the congress with you. I’ll retrieve the items in question, and when I come back, we can negotiate from current rates to a payment that is fair and reasonable. Does that suit?”
She pressed her lips together, saying nothing, and he added.
“Of course, if you must discuss this with your trade advisor…”
She looked up sharply.
“I am able to decide this. Yes, let us do this thing. Let the evening at least be profitable, if it cannot be entertaining.”
“Excellent,” he said, and turned his head as Kel Bin quietly asked from the open door. “More refreshment, Trader?”
Jethri glanced at Malu. He believed her story about wanting to attend the parties and meet people, though he questioned her motives. Malu, he thought, was someone who needed to be among people, a person suited to crowds and worthy of admiration. He couldn’t provide a crowd of admirers, but he could offer a little festivity.
“Would you care for a light luncheon before we go to work?” he asked her. “Is there anything in particular you would like?”
Malu looked startled—genuinely so, as if either the offer of food, or being consulted on which food was something that did not often come her way.
“It is too early for wine, I think, when we have business ahead of us. So—tea would be good, Kohno. To eat—” She took a breath as if she was about to say something, glanced at Kel Bin and smiled before turning back to Jethri.
“You know your own larder best, Kohno. I will be happy to eat of whatever feast you provide.”
“A fortifying tray for two,” Jethri said to Kel Bin in Liaden, “with a fitting tea.”
“Yes, Trader.” Kel Bin swept a bow, and was gone.