To Trade the Stars

Table of Contents

 

 

Or, rather,
who
. A pulsating mass pressed against floor, wall, and ceiling, as though the being had forced itself to fit within our parameters. Five long, fibrous-appearing arms lay in parallel along the near wall, as if we'd surprised them reaching toward our cabin door. There were no other obvious features of body structures. With the exception of the arms, the whole seemed insubstantial, as if darkness had been poured into this shape and left without form, only a glistening, as if wet or coated in the finest possible scales.

Morgan's arm lifted into a valiant, if improbable, barrier between me and our latest uninvited guest. I put my hand on his wrist and gently brought it down.
Rugheran
, I sent to him, as tightly as my mind could focus. Despite this care, the flesh—if that's what composed this being—quivered in response.

“I think it likes us,” I ventured hopefully.

“It could learn to knock, too,” Morgan muttered under his breath, but I heard the growing wonder in his voice as he surveyed the being stuffed into his ship. “Rugherarn. Sira. Do you realize what this means? First contact ...”

Novels by

available from DAW Books:

 

 

REAP THE WILD WIND
RIDERS ON THE STORM
RIFT IN THE SKY

 

A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER
TIES OF POWER
TO TRADE THE STARS

 

Species Imperative

SURVIVAL
MIGRATION
REGENERATION

 

Web
Shifters

BEHOLDER'S EYE
CHANGING VISION
HIDDEN IN SIGHT

 

 

IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS

Copyright © 2002 by Julie E. Czerneda.

 

All Rights Reserved.

 

DAW Book Collectors No. 1225.

 

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc.

 

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-49739-5

 

 

 

 

 

First Printing, June 2002

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA.
HECHO EN U.S.A.
S.A.

The end of a beginning. That's how it feels to write a finale to the story begun by my first novel. Who knew it would lead to this? Well, Sheila Gilbert, my friend, editor, and publisher, who once more found what this book needed to be its best. And probably Roxanne Hubbard, who again fit a friend's needs into her busy life. Thanks, Luis Royo, for capturing Sira from the beginning. And thank you to all the fine folks at DAW, who treat their authors like family.

Many people have given their enthusiastic support to my work. Debby de Groot, Kate Lennard, Wendy Bush-Lister, and Peter Robb at Penguin Canada made me feel like royalty. Then, the Palm eBook guys, the nicest people you could meet. Hi Mike, Jeff, Lee, Joth, and Hayden! To sign a book for the charming Martin H. Greenberg, then meet the Tekno Books folks in person? A high point of the year. Thanks also to Gordon Van Gelder, Laura Ann Gilman, Wen Spencer, Kathryn Helmick (Hi Kat!), Jim Seidman, Larry Smith and Sally Kobbe, Frank Hayes, Patricia Bow, Russell Martin, Michael Green, David Shtogryn, Jana Paniccia, and Don Hutchison.

I was Guest of Honor at Willycon 2001, Wayne, Nebraska. My thanks and Roger's for a fabulous time to the SFFC, Ron Vick, Stan Gardner, and Kelly (Pancake Man) Russman. Hats, fame, and bowling! Thanks also to our friend, the amazing Frank Wu.

Happy hunting, Hounds of the IPU. I've sprinkled this book with nuggets just for you. My special thanks to MT O'Shaughnessy (Uriel) for his friendship and inspiration, and to Kristen Britain, convention queen and buddy. Thank you, Tim Bowie and Ruth Stuart, for allowing me to use your names as well as your good natures.

It's been another year where kindnesses flooded in, but the production people will protest if I thank everyone I should. Still, there are four absolutely dear ladies whose generosity and affection I must acknowledge: Carol Bennewies, Donna Beuerman, Barb McGrath, and Cheryl McGrath. See you in July!

Thank you, Jennifer, for putting up with my writing while you were home—and for braving the book-stores! Scott, thanks for all those names—and making me lunch! Mom's back—until the next book. And Roger? Come here.

A
KITCHEN can be a dangerous place for an argument. This one, in the rear of
Claws & Jaws
—
Complete Interspecies Cuisine
, looked like a scene from a low-budget horror vid. Knives protruded hilt-first from cupboard doors. What appeared to be body parts from several different species had been tossed in every direction, their flight paths marked by bloody trails of red, ocher, and corrosive green. And what had been done to the salads ...

Suffice it to say the regular staff had long ago run and, in one case, slithered out the service entrance to where they could listen at the door in relative safety. Now, they exchanged worried looks as the argument grew suddenly—and ominously—quiet.

They weren't the only ones.

A cautious eye, gleaming black, peered over the edge of the mammoth, steaming hot stove. It was followed by another.

And another.

And another.

Until dozens formed an anxious, beadlike row.

“But, Chef Neltare,” a voice more accustomed to booming than pleading emerged faintly from somewhere behind the eyes. “Whatever name we use for your new pate ... I can't add it to the menu. Not on Plexis. I mean—think of the clientele.” There was a clanging sound, as though pots had fallen loose inside a cupboard. It had an overtone of distress. “We can serve Humans liver pâté—we certainly can't serve them Human liver pate. You do see the problem.”

The Neblokan standing in the middle of the aisle between the stove and the sous-station glared back, his shoulders forward and flared to their maximum width. While it wasn't a particularly impressive display—evolution and culture conspiring to produce a species prone to the “find a crevice large enough to hide your head and hopefully more” philosophy of conflict resolution—this Neblokan had the bottomless courage that came of knowing oneself to be indispensable. There were, after all, only three Trade Pact Certified Multi-Species Master Chefs on Plexis.

And the other two had already quit.

“You try to confuse my genius with mere semantics?” the Neblokan shouted, reaching for another bowl of doomed salad. “I'll leave today! Now! Before supper! You will have not only no Master Chef, but no clientele at all, Hom Huido!”

“No! No. Please. Believe me, Chef Neltare, I mean no insult. There simply isn't a restaurant on the station that will allow sapient-based dishes to be served. The Food Inspectors alone—” A huge shape rose from behind the stove, head plates pulsing with agitation. ‟Perhaps—a special menu? To highlight your vast and undeniable talents in some, ah, less controversial way?”

“Semantics, I tell you! I spit at semantics.” A bile-yellow glob sizzled across the stove.

“I assure you, Master Chef, semantics are very much the issue here,” the Carasian took a careful sidestep to move clear of the stove and into what had seemed a generous aisleway, until he narrowed it with his bulk to barely passable. Seen in the light, his gleaming black carapace and jointed arms were streaked with a granular pink substance of highly suspicious origin and several wilted sprigs of garnish.

Huido Maarmatoo'kk, owner of the famed
Claws & jaws,
as well as what he hoped would prove a growing number of franchises throughout this quadrant of space, lowered his great claws to the floor in a conciliatory posture he trusted the Neblokan could read and thus forestall any further launches from the menu. The incensed chef had already accounted for most of tonight's entrées. “I understand your species' culinary traditions are more—” the Carasian struggled to find a word in Comspeak to encompass proudly cooking one's parents for the ceremonial first feast of the next generation and settled for: “—
liberal
than those of other Trade Pact species. Still, you did pass the Trade Pact Certification. You
did
pass, didn't you?” This with a suspicious rumble.