Balance of Trade (35 page)

He cleared his throat and shifted a little in his chair.

"If you please, ma'am," he said slowly and felt like he wanted to sink through the floor on his own account when she turned her face to him—and took a breath.
Dammit
, he thought;
you took whatever Cap'n Iza was serving, you can sure take this
. He cleared his throat again.

"The fact is," he said, keeping his voice settled and easy, just like Cris would do, when their mutual mother was needing some sense talked to her, "that I wasn't left unguarded. Ren Lar left Flinx with me, to supervise, he said. I thought it was a joke—I've been studying on what is and isn't a joke, ma'am, as you'll remember—but it comes about that he was serious. Snakes—I read about snakes, but I've never seen one. And Flinx was there to do what was needful."

"I see." She inclined her head, maybe a bit sarcastic—he thought so. "You would argue, then, that the house provided adequate care to one who is perhaps naive in some of the . . . less pleasant aspects of planet-bound life."

"Yes, ma'am, I do," he said stoutly, and thought to add, "All's well that ends well, ma'am."

"An interesting philosophy." She turned to face her son. "You have an eloquent champion in the one whose life you endangered. Pray do not rest upon your good fortune."

Ren Lar bowed. "Mother."

She sighed, and moved an impatient hand. "Attend me a moment longer, if the vines can spare you. Jethri, you have had adventures enough for a day. Go and make yourself seemly for the dancing master."

"Yes, ma'am." He rose, made his bow and headed for the door, Flinx prancing at his side, tail high and ears forward.

THE SHIP-BOARD WAS hung along the backmost wall, the Combine-net computers lined up just below.

The computers was all taken, of course, not that Khat had need of a beam or a quote. She did want a clear view of the 'board, though, and that took some fancy dancing around various clustered jaw-fests.

Finally, she got herself situated behind a rare group—half-a-dozen Liadens, talking low and intense 'mong themselves and not minding anything else. No problem seeing over
those
heads, and there was the ship-board, plain as you please, showing the names of five Terran ships, including her own—and four Liaden ships, their names a garble of Terran letters and pidgin hieroglyphic.

Khat frowned at the listings, trying to work out the names and having a little less luck than none. Four Liaden ships at Banthport was
some
news and no doubt Paitor'd be glad of it. Nameless, though, that wasn't much good, especially as there was a Combine key graphic next to two of the four indecipherables, and Paitor would
really
want to know those names, so he could run a match through Terratrade's main database.

Some Liaden traders held Combine keys—it was 'specially found it 'mong those who worked the Edge. Banth being the Edge, it wasn't out of the question to find a Liaden-held key on-port. You might even stretch to two on a port the size of Banth, given the random nature of the universe. But
four
Liaden ships, two carrying keys?

Khat's coincidence bone was starting to ache.

She stared at the 'board, not really seeing it, trying to figure the odds of getting anything useful out of Admin and what plausible reason she might offer for her need-to-know. And how much it was likely to cost her.

". . .  long time!" an exuberant male voice bellowed into her off-ear.

She started and blinked, coming around a thought too fast for such cramped quarters—and lowered her hand with a half-laugh.

"Keeson Trager, you near scared me outta my skin!"

"No more than you did me, thinking that strike was gonna land!" he retorted, blue eyes dancing in a merry round face. "Least I'd've been able to tell my captain it was Khat Gobelyn who decked me."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Your captain figure brawl fines by who takes you down?"

He pushed his chest out, pretending to be a tough guy. As Khat knew for certain, there wasn't no need to pretend, except for the joke of it. Keeson Trager was plenty tough.

"My captain says, anybody takes me down in a brawl, she'll waive the fine and give double to the one who done the deed." He let his chest deflate a little, and cast her a bogus look of worried concern.

"Not short on cash this trip, are you, Khati?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Even if I was, there's easier ways."

His relief was obvious—and ridiculous. "Well, I'm pleased to hear you're doing OK." He glanced over to the 'board.

"
Market
not with you?"

"
Market's
at Kinaveral for refit. Right now, I'm a hired wing." She waved a hand at the 'board. "Brought
Lantic
down today. The unloading goes timely, I'll lift out tomorrow."

"My luck," said Keeson with a sigh. "
Wager's
lifting inside the hour—I'm sweep. Of course."

Of course. "Who's missing?" Khat asked.

"Coraline."

Of course. Keeson's youngest sister had a restless urge to explore every station and port
Wager
put in to, roof beam to secret cellars, and she'd more than once been the cause of the
Wager
refiling a scheduled lift.

"Funny to look for her here," Khat commented. "You try the residences, down below?"

"Tried that first. Then all the tunnels and the crawlways. Figure she might be here on account she's takin' her approach from your Jeth and givin' some study to the Liaden side of things."

"What's with all the Liadens, anyway?" Khat asked, since Keeson would know, if anyone did. "Port the size of Banth, with hardly no trade. . . "

He shrugged. "Maybe they're looking to buy it for a resort."

Khat wrinkled her nose at him. "Seriously."

"Seriously—I don't know, nor neither does the captain. All Banth's got is the mines. Now, they're bringing high-quality gold up outta the ground, but it's still only gold. Ain't ever seen Liadens much interested in raw gold—even processed, it's a ho-hum, though they'll buy some, every once in a while, just to be polite."

This was true. "Something else comin' out of the mines, then?"

Keeson shrugged again. "Bound to be, but I don't know what it is, and my guess is Admin don't, too, though right about now they're prolly scrambling to find out."

"What about the ship names?" Khat asked abruptly, with a jerk of the head toward the 'board.

He grinned. "Bothered you, too, huh? Farli worked 'em out—I'll drop a beam under your name to the crash when I get back to the ship. Assuming." He shook his head. "Oughta leave her once, so she'd learn."

Khat could see where it might be tempting, given Coraline's rare ability to vanish, mud-side, but still—"Remember the Stars," she said, which family had done just that—left their wanderaway youngest and lifted, to teach him. When they set back down, couple hours later, the boy was dead.

He'd been up on one of those observation decks Grounders favored—nothing more than a platform and a rail. The Grounders who saw it, they said he panicked, but every spacer who heard the tale knew better'n that.

What more natural, after all, seeing your ship's running lights come up and knowing down to the heartbeat how much time you had to gain the hatch—what more natural than to calculate your angle and take off over that rail, all forgetful, until it was hideously too late, of planetside grav. . . 

"I know," Keeson said. "But still."

Khat put her hand on his arm. "I'll help out. Let's take it to the back corners and sweep toward the door."

He looked around, firmed up his shoulders and nodded. "Good idea. Obliged."

"FLINX IS A HERO!" Meicha cried, swooping down to snatch the big cat into her arms. He flicked his ears and lifted his head to rub a cheek against her chin. She laughed, and spun away, her feet describing patterns that Jethri thought might be Liaden dancing.

"Are you well, Jethri?" Miandra had come forward to stand next to him, her eyes serious.

He grinned and shrugged, Terran-style. "Too ignorant to know my own danger. I shouted for Ren Lar, true enough, but because I didn't think it was right for Flinx to kill that thing. It turns out that it was a good job he didn't get bit, since I learn that the . . . kylabra. . .  bite will leave you ill."

"The kylabra bite," she corrected, her eyes even more serious. "Will leave you dead, more often than not. If you have been bitten by a young snake, or one newly wakened, perhaps you will merely become ill, but it is wisest to assume that any snake you encounter is both mature and operating at full capacity."

He considered that, remembering how small the snake had been. But, then, he thought, a mouthful of anhydrous cyanide will kill you, sure as stars, no matter how big you are. If the kylabra carried concentrated poison. . . 

He frowned.

"Why allow them to remain in the vineyard, then? Wouldn't it be better to simply kill them all and be sure that the workers are safe?"

"You would think so," Miandra agreed, her eyes on Meicha, who was bending so that Flinx might jump from her arms to the upholstered window ledge. "And, indeed, the winery logs show that there had at one time been a war waged upon the kylabra. However, the vines then fell victim to root-eaters and other pests, which are the natural prey of the snakes. The damage these pests gave to the vines was much greater than the danger kylabra posed to the staff, and so an uneasy truce was struck. The snakes are shy by nature and attack only when they feel that they have been attacked. And it is true that they do not usually wake so early."

"The weather has been unseasonable, Ren Lar said."

She glanced up at his face, her own unreadable. "Indeed, it has been. We pray that it remains so, and we have no sudden frosts, to undo what the early warmth has given us."

Jethri frowned. Frost was condensed water vapor, but—"I am afraid I do not understand weather as it occurs on-planet," he said slowly. "Is there not an orderly progression—?"

She laughed and Meicha smiled as she rejoined them. "Is Jethri telling jokes?"

"Not quite," her sister said. "He merely inquires into the progression of weather and wonders if it is orderly."

Meicha's smile widened to a grin. "Well, if it were, Ren Lar would be a deal more pleased, and the price of certain years of wine would plummet."

He worked it out. "The vines are vulnerable to the . . . frost. So, if there is a frost after a certain point, there are less grapes and the wine that is made from those grapes becomes more valuable, because less available."

Together, they turned to look at him, and as one brought their palms together in several light claps.

"Well reasoned," said Meicha and he shrugged a second time.

"Economic sense. Rare costs more."

"True," Miandra murmured. "But weather is random and there are some grapes of which we need to have no shortage. It is better, if rarity is desirable, to reserve the vintage to the house and sell it higher, later."

That made sense. The weather, though, you'd think something could be done.

"Do you watch the weather?"

"Certainly." That was Meicha. "Ren Lar has a portable station which he carries on his belt and listens to all his waking hours—and his sleeping hours, too, I'll wager! However and alas, the reports are not always—one might say, hardly ever—accurate, so that one must always expect that the weather will turn against you. Only think, Jethri! Before you is yet the experience of being awakened by the master in the still of night, in order that you might assist in tending the smudge pots, which will keep the frost from the buds."

There had to be a better way
, he thought, vaguely thinking of domes, or the
Market's
hydroponics section, or—

"Good-day, good-day, Lady Meicha, Lady Miandra!" The voice was brisk and light and closely followed by an elderly gentlemen in evening clothes. He paused just inside the room, bright brown eyes on Jethri's face.

"And this—I find Jethri, the son of ven'Deelin?"

He made his bow, light and buoyant. "Jethri Gobelyn," he said in the mode of introduction. "Adopted of Norn ven'Deelin."

"Delightful!" The elderly gentleman rubbed his hands together in clear anticipation. "I am Zer Min pel'Oban. You may address me as Master pel'Oban. Now, tell me, young Jethri, have you been instructed in the basic forms and patterns?"

"I can dance a jig and a few line dances," he said, neither of which likely hit any of the basic forms and patterns, whatever they might be. Still, he was accounted spry on his feet, and at the shivary during which he came to sixteen, Jadey Winchester—mainline, right off the
Bullet
—had danced with him to the positive exclusion of the olders who were trying to court her—or, rather, to court the
Bullet
, since Jadey was in line for captain, as he found out later. But not 'til him and Mac Gold had come to blows over who had a right to dance and who was just a kid.

"A jig," Master pel'Oban murmured. "I regret, I am unfamiliar. Might you, of your goodness, produce a few steps? Perhaps I may recognize it."

Not likely
, thought Jethri, but since he'd brought the subject up, there really wasn't any way he could ease out of a demo.

So—"I will attempt it, sir," he said, politely, and closed his eyes, trying to hear the music inside his head—flutes, spoons, banjo, drums, some 'lectric keys, maybe—
that
was shivary music. Loud, fast and jolly for a jig. Jethri smiled to himself, feeling his feet twitch as the remembered twang of Wilm Guthry's banjo echoed through his head. He closed his eyes, and there was Jadey, smiling a challenge and tossing her head, kicking high, once, twice—and on the third kick he joined her, then both feet down and hands on hips, look to the left and look to the right, and your feet moving quick through the weaving steps. . . 

"Thank you!" he heard, and opened his eyes to the dancing room with its wooden floor and blue-covered walls, and Master pel'Oban standing before him, his hands folded and a look on his face that Jethri thought might have been shock. The twins, at his right and left hands, were visibly trying not to smile.