"OOF!"
The weight hit him right dead center, and Jethri jackknifed from sound asleep to sitting up, staring blearily down into a pair of pale green eyes.
"You!" He gasped. Flinx blinked his eyes in acknowledgment.
"Might let a man get his rest," Jethri complained, easing back down to the pillows. Flinx stayed where he was, two ton paws bearing Jethri's stomach right down onto his spine.
He yawned and turned his head to look at the clock. Not enough time to go back to sleep, even if the adrenaline would let him. Stupid cat had jumped on his stomach yesterday morning, at just this hour. And the morning before that. He was starting to wonder if the animal could tell time.
Down-body, Flinx began to purr, and shift his weight from one considerable front foot to the other—and repeat. He did that every morning, too. The twins swore that the purring and the foot-shifting—kneading, they called it—were signs of goodwill. Jethri just wondered why, if the cat liked him so much, he didn't let him sleep.
He sighed. The house crew tended to take Master ven'Deelin's view that he was fortunate to have fallen under Flinx' attention. What the cat got out of it, Jethri couldn't say, unless it was making notes for a paper on xenobiology.
Flinx had upped the volume on the purrs, and was pushing a little harder with his feet; the tips of his claws pierced skin and Jethri was off the pillows again with a yell.
"Hey!"
Startled, the cat kicked with his back feet, twisted and was gone, hitting the floor with a solid thump.
"Mud!" He flung to the edge of the bed, and peered over, half afraid he'd find the animal with a broken leg or—
Flinx was standing on four sturdy legs at the edge of the rug, his back to the bed. He looked over his shoulder—accusingly, to Jethri's eye.
"I'm sorry," he said, settling his head onto his crooked arm and letting the other arm dangle over the edge of the bed. "I don't like to be scratched, though."
There was a pause, as if Flinx was considering the merit of his apology. Then, he turned and ambled back to the bed, extending his head to stroke a whiskery cheek along Jethri's dangling fingers.
"Thanks." Carefully, he slipped his fingers under the cat's chin and moved them in the skritching pattern Meicha had shown him. Flinx immediately began to purr, loud and deep.
Jethri smiled and skritched some more. Flinx moved his head, obviously directing the finger action to his right cheek, and then to the top of his head, all the while purring.
Well, Jethri thought drowsily, fingers moving at a far distance, what a relaxing sound.
Across the room, the alarm chimed.
Flinx skittered out from under his hand a heartbeat before he snapped upright out of his doze.
Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his head, frowning at the lengthening strands, and swung out of bed.
Shower, breakfast, tailor—that was the first part of his day. Then an afternoon with Ren Lar. Pruning vines, it was today. After that, he was to join the twins with their dancing instructor, Lady Maarilex being of the opinion that a gentleman should show well on the floor, and then supper.
Supper done, he could retire to the library with the list of books the twins' tutor had produced for him—history books, mostly, and a bunch of marked-out sections of a three-volume set titled, The Code of Proper Conduct.
"Busy day," he said to the empty room, and headed for the shower.
COMPARE BANTH PORT to Kinaveral and Kinaveral came to look like the garden spot of the universe, Khat thought, throwing her duffle over one shoulder and heading across the wind-scoured tarmac. She had her goggles polarized, and her head down, much good it did. The constant hot wind was supersaturated with sand particles, stuff so fine it sifted through any join, clogged the nose, filled the mouth, and sank through the pores. Nose plugs helped some. So did keeping your mouth shut. Other than that, it was walk fast and hope the pilots' crash was climate controlled.
After a couple Standards of walking bent against the wind, she came to a service tunnel. Her body broke the sensor beam, the door irised open, and she ducked inside, barely ahead of the door closing.
Inside the tunnel, the light was dim and slightly pink. Khat pushed the goggles up onto her forehead, took a good, deep lungful of filtered air—and started to cough; deep, wracking spasms that left an acid taste in her mouth, overlaying the taste of the sand.
Eventually, she was coughed out and able to take some notice of her surroundings. A hatch closet built into the right wall of the tunnel said "drinking water" in Terran, which she could read fine, and, underneath, the written pidgin for the same—a stylized drawing of a jug—for them as couldn't read Terran.
The taste in her mouth wasn't getting much better. Khat stepped over and inserted her thumb into the latch. Inside the closet were a couple dozen sealed billy bottles carrying the same bilingual message. She snagged a bottle, slapped the door shut and popped the seal, taking a short, careful swallow, then another, and so on until the bottle was empty.
Feeling more or less human, she slid the billy into the wall recycler, and looked about her.
There were arrows painted in flourescent green on the floor, and the words, "Banth Port Admin," the Admin part repeated in pidgin, which was apparently her direction, whether she was going there or not. Though, as it happened, she was Admin bound.
She pulled the goggles off her forehead and snapped them onto her belt, taking another deliberately deep breath of filtered air. No coughing this time, which she took as a smile from the gods, even as she shook her head. She had some sympathy for the 'hands who would eventually be unloading her cargo, and shuddered with the memory of the constant dust storm, heat and battering white light of the world outside.
Granted, most Grounders're glitched in the think-box, she thought, setting her feet on the green arrow and walking on, but a body'd think even a Grounder would know better than Banth.
Khat sighed. Well, now she knew why Kinaveral Admin had put such a nice bonus on this job—and now she knew better than to take another flight to Banth.
"Live 'n learn," she said, and her voice sounded as gritty as her face felt, despite the water. "You live long enough, Khatelane, an' someday you might turn up smart."
"THERE! NOW WE SEE a son of a High House in his proper estate!" Sun Eli pen'Jerad was pleased with himself and his handiwork, and Jethri supposed he had a right. Himself, he'd thought the trading coat and silk shirts provided by Elthoria plenty fancy enough and hadn't aspired to anything in the way of collar ruffles so high they tickled the tips of his ears, or belled sleeves that reached all the way to his fingertips. Then there were the trousers—tighter than his own skin and not near as comfortable—and over them both a long, and pocketless, black vest.
"Very good," Lady Maarilex said, from her chair, Flinx asleep on her lap. "Do you not think so, young Jethri?"
He sighed. "Ma'am, I think the work is fine, but the sleeves are too long and the trousers too tight."
Mr. pen'Jerad made an outraged noise. Lady Maarilex raised a hand.
"These things you mention are the current fashion, and not open to negotiation. We all bow to fashion and rush to do her bidding. How else should we show ourselves to be a people of worth?"
Jethri looked at her. "Is that a joke, ma'am?"
"Hah. Progress. Some bits, yes. Discover which bits and we shall have progress, indeed. In the meanwhile, we are pleased with Master pen'Jerad's efforts on behalf of evening clothes. Of your kindness, young Jethri, model for me the calling clothes."
Calling clothes weren't quite so confining, though they still showed a serious deficiency in the pocket department. The trousers were looser, the cream colored jacket roomy, the shirt dark blue, with an open collar and no ruffles anywhere. They were close enough to trading clothes to be manageable, and Jethri stepped out into the main room and made his bow to the seated matriarch.
"These please you, eh? And well they should. The jacket hangs well, despite what would seem to be too much breadth of shoulder. Well done, Sun Eli."
The tailor bowed. "That you find my work adequate is all that I desire," he murmured. "However, I must object—the shoulders are not too wide, but balance the rest of the form admirably. It is a balanced shape, and pleasing, taken on its own. It is when we measure it against the accepted standard of beauty that we must find the shoulders too wide, the legs too long, the chest too deep."
"Do you say so?" She raised a hand and motioned Jethri to turn, slowly, which he did, liking the feel of the silk against his skin and the way the jacket hugged his shoulders, too wide or not.
"No, I believe you are correct, Sun Eli. Taken in the context of himself alone, there is a certain pleasant symmetry." Jethri's turn brought him 'round to face her again and he stopped, hands deliberately loose at his sides.
"So tell me, young Jethri, shall you be a beauty?"
And that had to be a joke, given the general Gobelyn face and form. He bowed, very slightly.
"I expect that I will look much as my father did, ma'am, and I never did hear that he was above plain."
Surprisingly, she inclined her head. "Well said, and honest, too." She looked into his eyes and smiled, very slightly. "We must teach you better. However, there are still the day clothes to inspect, if you would do me the honor?"
THE TUNNEL WIDENED, and widened some more, and by the third widening it was a large round room, crowded with desks and chairs and people and equipment—and that was Banth Admin.
Khat stopped her steady forward slog and blinked, something bemused by all the activity, and scouting the room by eye, looking for her contact point.
The desks were on platforms a little higher than floor level, and each one had a sign on the front of it, spelling out its official station name in Terran and pidgin. Some of the signs weren't so easy to spot, on account of the people wandering around, apparently in search of their contact points. Lot of long-spacers in the mix, which she'd expected. Good number of Liadens, too, which surprised her. This close to the Edge, there was bound to be a couple working, looking for advantage, but to see so many. . .
"Edge is widenin' out again," Khat muttered. "Pretty soon, won't be nothing to edge."
She considered the crowd, rising up on her toes to count the Liadens, and filing that number away for Paitor's interest, on the far side of the trip. Might she'd head down to the Trade Bar, after a shower and a change, and scope out the ship names.
Right now, though, she was after Intake Station. Sooner she had her papers stamped and her cargo in line for off-load, the sooner she could hit the pilots' crash and have that shower.
After a time, it occurred to her that the only thing craning around the crowd was getting her was a cricked neck, and she settled the duffle and charted a course into the deeps of the room.
Up and down the rows she cruised, careful not to bump into anybody, Liaden or Terran, being not wishful of starting either a fistfight or a Balance. Admin crew was solidly Terran, sitting their stations calm enough, for all each one was busy.
Intake was on the third row, which made sense, Khat thought sarcastically. There were only two in line ahead of her—yellow-haired Liaden traders, looking enough alike to be mother and son. The boy was apparently determined on giving the clerk a difficult life experience. As Khat came to rest behind them, he was leaning over the desk, waving a sheaf of papers too close to the woman's face and talking, loud and non-stop, in Liaden, which was just stupid. Anybody who came to the Edge to trade ought to at least speak the pidgin.
And if the pidgin's too nasty for your mouth, Khat thought at the boy's expensively jacketed back, you'd have done better to stay home and tend your knitting.
In the meantime, his voice had risen and he was leaning closer over the desk, the wild-waving sheaf of papers now an active danger. Khat took a step forward, meaning to haul him back to a respectful distance, but the clerk had her own ideas.
"Security!" She yelled, and simultaneously hit a yellow button embedded in the plastic desktop.
The boy paused in his harangue, like he was puzzled by her reaction, the papers wilting in his hand.
"Peliche," Khat said helpfully, that being the pidgin for 'cop.'
He sent her an active glare over his shoulder, in the space of which time his mother stepped forward, hands moving in a pretty rippling motion, apparently meant to be soothing.
"Your pardon," she said to the clerk in heavily accented, but perfectly understandable pidgin. "We have cargo to be off-loaded. There is urgency. We must proceed with quickness."
The clerk's mouth thinned, but she answered civil enough. "I will need to see the manifests. As I said to this trader," a nod of the head indicated the boy, "since the manifests are written in Liaden, the cargo must be inventoried before it is off-loaded. Admin provides inventory-takers. There is a fee for this service."
The Liaden woman inclined her head. "What is the price of this fee?"
"Fifteen Combines the quarter-clock," the clerk said.
Now, that's steep, thought Khat, touching the zip-pocket where her own manifest rode, snug, safe, and printed out in plain, good Terran. No wonder the boy's in a snit.
His mam, though, she just bowed her head again and said, cool as if it weren't no money at all, "That is acceptable. Please produce these inventory-takers at once."
That cargo better be guaranteed profit, thought Khat, darkly.
The clerk reached for her keypad, and then looked up, annoyed for all to see, as a big guy in standard blues came striding toward her station.
"You call Security?" he demanded, hand on his stun-gun.
The clerk shrugged, eyes on her schedule screen. "Took your time."
His face, broad in all directions and unshaven on the south side, reddened. "I'm coverin' the whole floor by myself."
She glanced up at him, then back to the screen. The two Liadens were frankly staring.
"Sorry to bother you," the clerk said, in clear dismissal.
The cop stood for a couple heartbeats, giving a fair impression of a man who'd welcome a chance to put his fist authoritatively against somebody else's chin. He glared at the Liadens, daring them to start something. The woman touched the boy's arm and the two of them turned back to the clerk, the boy rolling his sheaf of papers into a tube, which Khat thought might have been nerves.
Finally, the cop turned and strode off into the crowd. The clerk slid a piece of paper out of her printer and handed it to the Liaden woman.
"The inspectors will be waiting for you at the security station in Access Tunnel Three. Give them this paper and follow their instructions. The red arrows are your guide to Access Tunnel Three."
"Yes," the woman said, folding the paper into her sleeve. She turned, her boy with her, and Khat was briefly caught in the cold stare of two pair of blue eyes, before they separated to walk around her—boy to the right, mam to the left.
Khat let go a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and stepped up to the desk, pulling her papers out of the zip-pocket.
"Disaster shift?" she asked the clerk, crew-to-crew.
The clerk took the manifest. "Be nice if it was that calm," she said, unfolding the papers. "Let's take a look at what you got here. . . "
ESCAPED AT LAST into his own clothes from Elthoria, he slipped into the kitchen and wheedled an off-hours lunch from Mrs. tor'Beli, the cook.
"For the vines today, are you?" She asked, handing him a plate so full of eatables that he had to hold it in both hands for fear of losing some of the contents.
"Yes ma'am," he said politely, guiding his plate over to the table and setting it down.
"Be sure you have a hat and a pair of heavy gloves out of the locker before you go out," she said, placing a glass of grape juice on the table next to his plate. "Summer is still before us, but the sun is high enough to burn, and the vines not as weak as they might appear."
"Yes, ma'am," he said again. She returned to the counter where she was enthusiastically reducing a square of dough into a long, flat sheet, with the help of a wooden roller. Jethri nibbled from his plate as he looked around the kitchen, with its multiple prep tables, and its profusion of pots, pans and exotic gadgets. Dyk would love this, he thought, and gulped as tears rose up in his eyes.
C'mon, kid, what's up? He said to himself sharply. You crying over Dyk?
Well, in point of fact, he thought, surreptitiously using his napkin to blot his eyes, he was crying over Dyk—or at least crying over the fact that Dyk would never see this place, that would have given him so much pleasure. . .
"You had best hurry, young ven'Deelin," the cook called over her shoulder. "Ren Lar Maarilex puts the vines before his own lunch, much less yours."
He grinned, and sniffled, and put serious attention on his plate, which was very soon empty, and drained his glass. Pushing back from the table, he looked around for the dishwasher. . .
"Leave them," Mrs. tor'Beli said, "and betake yourself to the wine room—at a run, if you are wise."
"Yes, ma'am," he said for a third time, pushing in the chair. "Thank you, ma'am."
"Hurry!" she responded, and to please her he left at a pace, stretching his legs.
Outside of the kitchen, he kept moving, taking a right into the hall the twins had shown him, and arrived handily at the door to the wine room. It opened to his palm, and he clattered down the stairs, through the vestibule and tapped the code into the keypad set in the wall next to the ancient wooden door.
The lock snicked, and he worked the old metal latch. The door was slow on its metal hinges, and he put some shoulder into hurrying it along, stepping into the wine room proper only a little out of breath and scarcely mussed at all.
Ren Lar was not at his accustomed place at the lab table. Instead, there was Graem, busy with the drops and the calibrator. She glanced up as he entered, and frowned.
"The master's gone to the vineyard; he said that you're to find him on the north side."
Late, Jethri thought, and sighed, before remembering to incline his head. "Thank you, I will. Before I go, can you tell me where I might draw a hat and a pair of gloves?"
She jerked her head to the left, her attention already back with her calibrations. "Locker over there. Take shears, too."
"Thank you," he said again and moved to the locker indicated.
A few minutes later, wide brimmed hat jammed onto his head, too-small leather gloves on his hands as best he could get them, and shears gripped firmly in his right hand, he left the wineroom by the side doors and entered the vineyard.
No one was waiting for him, in the yard, and there were no signs to tell him which way to go. He considered, briefly, returning to the cellar and asking Graem for directions, but—no, blast it. He was tired of depending on the directions and help-outs of the various members of the household, like he was a younger—and a particularly backward younger, at that.
There had to be a way to figure out which way to go. If he put his thought on it, he ought to be able to locate north. He remembered reading a story once, where someone lost on a planet discovered his direction by observing which way a stream ran—not that there were any streams in his sight.
"And not that it would work, anyway," he grumbled to himself. "Meicha isn't the only one who reads too many stories, I guess."
He shifted his shears from his right hand to his left, pushed his hat up off his forehead and frowned around him. You'd think there'd be signs, he thought. What if somebody got turned around and didn't have a navigation device?
Navigation device.
He slapped his pockets, found what he wanted in the right leg and pulled it out. The mirrored black face grayed, displaying swirls, like clouds, or kicked-up dust, then cleared, showing the old, almost-forgotten icons along the top and bottom of a quartered screen.
Jethri frowned down into it, trying to put sense to symbols he hadn't seen for ten Standards—and suddenly, he did remember, the memory seating itself so hard that the inside of his head fair vibrated with the snap.
The icons at the top—those were detail buttons; the ones at the bottom indicated direction, while the quartered screen was meant to be read left-right/down-up, with the first square representing planetary north.
He touched a direction icon, and touched the north square. The screen changed, and now he was looking at a vid of the yard he was standing in, with a blue line superimposed over the image, shooting off to the left.
Making sure of his grip on the shears, he moved left, one eye on the screen and one eye on the treacherous dirt underfoot.
The next thing he'd do, Jethri thought some while later, would be to puzzle out if the device had a distance indicator. He'd walked a goodly distance, by his reckoning, along a dirt path crossing long corridors of wire fencing, against which bare wooden sticks leaned, dead vines like tentacles sprouting from their heads. It was an eerie landscape, and the vines just tall enough that he couldn't see around them, and sufficiently complicated to the eye that there was no need to look up at the unfettered sky. He did look the length of each corridor as he crossed it, and saw not one living thing. The birds, which sang outside his window, and in Meicha and Miandra's favorite garden, were silent, here in the vineyard—or maybe they preferred other circumstances.
Jethri had worked up a fair sweat and was reassessing how good an idea striking out on his own actually was, when he finally heard voices up ahead. Relief fetched up a sigh from approximately the soles of his boots, and he slipped the device back into his pocket before moving forward, quicker now. He turned right—and braked.
Ren Lar, hat on head, gloves tucked into his belt and looking just as comfortable as if he were standing in the coolness of the wine cellar, was talking with two men Jethri didn't know.
"This section here, today. If you finish while there is still sun, then begin tomorrow's section. We race the weather now, friends."
"Yes, sir," one of the men murmured. The other moved a hand, and Ren Lar acknowledged him with a slight nod of the head.
"Shall I call in my cousins, sir? They're able and willing for a day or three, while the warehouse refits."
Ren Lar tipped his head. "How many cousins?"
"Four, master. They tend our house vines and understand the pruning. If I call tonight, they can be here at first sun."
A small pause, then a decisive wave of a hand. "Yes, bring them up, of your kindness. It is, after all, a wind year—bitter beyond bearing last relumma, and now it grows warm too early. I do not wish the sap to surprise us."
The man inclined his head. "I will call them."
"Good. Then I leave you to your labors." He looked up. "Young Jethri. I trust you left Master pen'Jerad well?"
"Your honored mother was present, sir," Jethri said carefully, "so there was no hope of anything else."
Ren Lar's eyebrows rose. One of the strangers laughed.
"A stride, in fact. Well said. Now, walk with me and we will find you a section in need of your shears."
He moved a hand, beckoning, and turned left. At his feet a shadow moved, flowed, and gained shape.
"Flinx," Jethri said. "What are you doing out here?"
Ren Lar glanced down, and moved his shoulders. "He often comes to help in the vineyard. For which assistance we are, of course, grateful. Come with me, now."
Down the row they went, turned right down a cross-path—which would be north again, Jethri thought with pride.
"You will be tending to the needs of some of our elders," Ren Lar said, moving briskly down the pathway. "I will show you how to go on before I take up my own duty. But have no fear! I will be but one section over, and easily accessible to you."
That might have been a joke, though on consideration, Jethri didn't think so. He very likely would need a senior nearby. The wonder of it was that Ran Lar was apparently not going to be in the same row with him and keeping a close eye on the precious "elders."
"Here we are," the man said, and dodged left down a corridor, Jethri on his heels and Flinx flowing along in the shadows beside them.
The vines here were thick-bodied; some leaned so heavily into their support that the wires were bowed outward.
"Now, what we will wish you to do," Ren Lar said, pausing by a particularly bent specimen, its head-tentacles ropy and numerous. "Is to cut the thick vines, like this, you see?" He pulled a branch forward, and Jethri nodded.
"Yes, sir. I see."
"That is good. I must tell you that there is a reason to take much care, for these—" he carefully slipped his hand under a thin, smooth branchlet—"are what will give us this season's fruit, and next year's wine. So, a demonstration. . . "
He lifted his shears, positioned the blades on either side of the thick branch, and forced the handles together. The wood separated with a brittle snap, and before the severed twig had hit the ground, Ren Lar had snipped another, and a third, the shears darting and biting without hesitation.
The old wood tumbled down into an untidy pile at the base of the vine. Ren Lar stepped back, kicked a few stray sticks into the larger heap, and inclined his head.
"At first, you will not be so quick," he said. "It is not expected, and there is no need for haste. The elders are patient. The cuttings will be gathered and taken to burn, later." He moved a hand, indicating the next vine down.
"Now, let us see you."
Teeth indenting lower lip, Jethri looked over the problem, taking note of the location of the new growth inside the woody tangle. When he had those locations in his head, he carefully lifted his shears, positioned the blades and brought the handles together.
The wood resisted, briefly, then broke clean, the severed branch tumbling down to the ground. Jethri deliberately moved on to his next target, and his next.
Finally, there was only new wood to be seen, and he stepped back from the vine, being careful not to tangle his feet in the grounded branches, and pushed his hat back up from his face.
"A careful workman," Ren Lar said, and inclined his head. "The elders are in good hands. You will work your way down this row, doing precisely what you have done here. When you reach an end of it, you will go one row up—" he pointed north—"and bring your shears to bear. I will be six rows down—" another point, back toward the house and the wine cellar—"should you have need of me."
"Yes, sir," Jethri said, still feeling none too good about being left alone to do his possible with what were seemingly valuable plants.
Ren Lar smiled and put his hand on Jethri's shoulder. "No reason for such a long face! Flinx will doubtless stay by to supervise."
That said, he turned and walked off, leaving Jethri alone with the "revered elders," his shears hanging loose in his right hand. Ren Lar reached the top of the corridor and turned right, back down toward the house, just like he'd said, without even a backward glance over his shoulder.
Jethri sighed and looked down at the ground. Flinx the cat was sitting three steps away, smack in the center of the dirt corridor, casually cleaning his whiskers.
Supervise. Sure.
Well, there was nothing for it but to step up and do his best. Jethri approached the next plant in line, located the fragile new growth, and set to snipping away the old. Eventually, he moved on to the next vine, and a little while after that, to the next. It was oddly comforting work; soothing. He didn't precisely think; it seemed like all his awareness was in his eyes and his arms, as he snip, snip, snipped the old wood, giving the new wood room to breathe.
It was the ache in his shoulders and his forearms that finally called him back to wider concerns. He lowered his shears and stepped away from his last vine. Standing in the middle of the dirt corridor, he looked back, and whistled appreciatively.
"Mud and stink," he said slowly, looking down the line of pruned vines, each with a snaggly pile of twigs at its base. He looked down at the base of his last victim, saw a twig 'way out in the corridor and swung his foot, meaning to kick it back into the general pile.
The twig—moved.
Jethri jerked back, overbalanced and fell, hard, on his ass, and the twig reared back, flame flicking from the rising end and a pattern of bronze and white scales on its underside, moving toward him and he was looking to see how it was moving, exactly, with neither feet nor legs, and suddenly there was Flinx the cat, with his feet on either side of the—the snake, it must be—and his muzzle dipped, teeth flashing.
The snake opened its mouth, displaying long white fangs, its twig-like body flailing in clear agony, and Flinx held on, teeth buried just behind the head.
"Hey!" Jethri yelled, but the cat never looked up, and he surely didn't let go.
"Hey!" he yelled again, and got his feet under him, surging upward. Flinx didn't flick an ear.
"Ren Lar!" He gave that yell everything he had and it worked, too. His panicked heart had only beat half-a-dozen times more before the master of the vine rounded the corner, running flat out.
But by the time, the snake was dead.
THE DOORMAN AT the pilots' crash scanned her Kinaveral Port willfly card, and gave her a key to a sleeping room with its own sonic cleaner, which device Khat made immediate, grateful use of. She then hit the hammock for two solid clocks, arising from her nap refreshed and ravenous. Pulling on clean slacks and shirt, she remembered her idea of checking the Trade Bar for the names and numbers of Liaden ships at dock, for Paitor's eventual interest, and thought she'd combine that interest with the pleasure of a brew and a handwich.
The doorman provided a map, which she studied as she walked.
It seemed that most of Banth, with the notable exceptions of the ship yards and the mines, was under roof and underground. Ground level, that was the Port proper. Down one level was living quarters, townie shops, grab-a-bites, and rec centers. Khat thought about that—living under the dirt—and decided, fair-mindedly, that it was a reasonable idea, given the state of the planet surface. Why somebody had taken the demented notion to colonize Banth at all remained a mystery that she finally shrugged away with a muttered, "Grounders."
The Port level, now, that was Admin, of course, and the pilots' crash, hostels for traders and crew, exhibit halls, Combine office, duty shops, eating places—and the Trade Bar.
Khat traced the tunnel route from her room to the bar, and checked the color of the floor arrows closely.
"Yellow arrow all the way," she said to herself, folding the map away into a pocket. Up ahead, her hall crossed another, and there was a tangle of color on the floor of the convergence. The yellow flowed to the right, and Khat did, too, lengthening her stride in response to her stomach's unsubtle urging.
Banth was close to Kinaveral-heavy, despite which Khat arrived at the Trade Bar barely winded.
Look at you, she thought smugly, swiping her card through the reader. There was a small hesitation, then the door swung open.
She'd expected a crowd, and she had one. Terrans outnumbered Liadens, Liadens outnumbered the expectable, just like Admin, earlier. Noisy, like Trade Bars were always noisy—no difference if they was small, which this one was, or large—with everybody there trying to talk loud enough to be heard over everybody else.
Khat waded in, heading for the bar itself, and found it standing room only.
No problem. She got herself a place to stand, and swung an arm over her head, catching the eye of a bartender with spiked blue hair and a swirl of tattooed stars down one cheek.
"What'll it be, Long Space?" she bellowed
"Handwich an' a brew!" Khat yelled back.
"It's processed protein," warned the barkeep.
Khat sighed. "What flavor?"
"Package says chicken."
At least it wasn't beef. "Do it," Khat yelled, and the other woman gave her a thumbs-up and faded down-bar.
Khat fished a couple bills out of her public pocket, and eased forward, careful not to step on any toes. The bartender reappeared, and handed over a billy bottle of brew and a zip-bag. Khat tucked them in the crook of her arm, and handed over the bills in trade.
"Got change comin'," the woman said.
Khat waved a hand. "Keep it."
"You bet. Good flying, Long Space."
"Same," Khat said, which was only polite. The bartender laughed, and turned away, already tracking another patron.
Provisions firmly in hand, Khat squinched out of the crowd surrounding the bar, and looked around, hoping to find a ledge to rest her brew on. The booths and tables were full, of course, as was the available standing space—no, there was a guy coming off of his stool, his recyclables held loose in one hand. Khat moved, dancing between clusters of yelling, gesticulating patrons, and hit the stool almost before he left it.
Cheered by this minor bit of good luck, she popped the seal on the billy and had a long swallow of brew. Warm, dammit.
She had another swallow, then unzipped the food bag.
She's expected to find her flavored protein between flat rectangles of ship cracker, and was pleasantly surprised to find it served up on two fine slices of fresh bake bread, which was almost enough to make up for the warm brew.
A bite confirmed that the protein was no better than usual, with the bread contributing interest and texture. Khat made short work of it, and settled back on the stool, nursing what was left of her brew.
Good manners was that she should pretty soon surrender the stool and the little table, so someone else could have their use. Still, she had a couple minutes left before she hit the line for rudeness, and she wanted to study the floor a little closer before she went back to being part of the problem.
The Liadens traveled in teams—no less than two, no more than four—and all of the teams she could see from her stool were in conversation with Terrans. That struck her as funny, being as Liadens were always so stand-offish. On the other hand, shy never made no trades.
It did make a body pause and consider what it was that Banth had, that Liadens wanted.
She chewed on that while she finished her brew. The mines—what did they mine on this space-forsaken dustball? She made a mental note to find out, and slid off the stool, on-course for a view of the ship-board.
"AND NO ONE THOUGHT to tell our guest, before he was left alone among the vines, that kylabra snakes are poisonous?" Lady Maarilex inquired gently. Too gently, Jethri thought, sitting stiff in the chair she had pointed him to, Flinx tall and interested beside his knee.
Her son was standing, and his face had regained its normal golden color. He hadn't known that it was possible for a Liaden to pale, but Ren Lar had definitely lost color in the instant that he took in the snake, and whirled back to Jethri, snapping, "Are you bit?"
"Mother," he said now, voice quiet and firm. "You know that the kylabra do not usually wake so early."
"And you know, Master Vintner, that the weather in this wind year has been unseasonably warm. Why should the snakes sleep on?"
"Why, indeed?" murmured her son, and despite his level shoulders and expressionless face, Jethri was in receipt of the distinct idea that Ren Lar would have welcomed the ability to sink into and through the floor.
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.
He let his feet still, dropped his hands from his hips and inclined his head.
"A few steps only, sir. I hope it was—instructive."
Master pel'Oban eyed him. "Instructive. Indeed. You have grace, I see, and an athletic nature. Now, we will show you how the dance is done on Irikwae." He waggled his fingers at Miandra and Meicha.
"If the ladies will oblige me by producing a round dance?"
THE BAR WAS LESS frenzied now. In fact, the blue haired bartender was leaning at her ease at the near end, in earnest conversation with a little girl wearing a ship's coverall, sitting cross-legged atop the bar.
"This one yours, Long Space?"
"Belongs to a friend," Khat said, sparing a hard frown for Coraline. "Her ship's going up in a quarter-clock and her brother's lookin' for her."
The 'keeper produced a frown of her own. "Bad business, worrying your brother," she said sternly.
Coraline bit her lip and stared down at the bar. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"You tell him that," the barkeep recommended and tapped her on the knee. "Hey."
The girl looked up and the woman smiled. "It's been good talking to you. Next time you're here, stop by and give me the news, right, Cory?"
Coraline smiled. "Right."
"That's set, then. Go on now and find your brother."
"All right. Good flight." Coraline scooted to the edge of the bar and dropped to the floor, landing without a stagger.
Khat held out her hand. "Let's go." She said, and the two of them crossed the last bit of the bar and went out into the corridor.
"YOU!" KEESON'S BELLOW got the frowning attention of a cluster of Liadens near the door. He ignored them and swept his sister up in his arms.
"I oughta break you in half," he snarled, giving her a hug that looked close to doing the job.
Coraline put her head next to his. "I'm sorry, Kee."
"You're always sorry," he said. "What you gotta be, is on time. You keep up like this an' captain'll confine you to ship for sure." He set her on her feet, keeping a tight grip on her hand, and turned to give Khat a grin and an extravagant salute.
"Khat Gobelyn, you're my hero!"
She sputtered a laugh and shooed him down the tunnel. "Go on, or your captain'll leave both of you."
"And count herself ahead," Keeson agreed. He gave her another salute and tugged on Coraline's hand. "C'mon, Spark. Show me how fast you can run in grav."
"'bye, Khat," the little girl called and the two of them were gone, moving out with a will.
Khat shook her head and raised a hand to stifle a sudden yawn. Time to get back to the crash, she thought, and looked around for her guiding arrows.
"Gobelyn," a soft malicious voice said behind her. Khat spun, and met the cold blue eyes of the yellow-haired trader who'd been giving Intake so much grief.
"What about it?" she asked him in pidgin, not even trying to sound sociable.
He frowned. "Kin you are to Jethri Gobelyn?"
What was this? One of Jeth's new mates? "Yes," she allowed, slightly more sociable, trying to see Jethri having anything cordial to do with such a spoiled, pretty fellow, and having a tough go of it, even given that business was business. . .
"Your kin has damaged my kin," the Liaden was saying, and Khat felt her skin pebble with chill. "You owe Balance."
The Liadens standing all around were real quiet, watching them. A couple of Terrans slammed through the door, talking loudly, barged through the crowd without seeing it and disappeared down the tunnel.
"What did he do?" Khat asked the Liaden. "And who are you?"
"I am Bar Jan chel'Gaibin. Jethri Gobelyn by his actions has stolen from me a brother. He does not pay the lifeprice. You are his kin. Will I Balance the loss exactly? Or will you pay the lifeprice?"
What was this? Khat wondered wildly. Jethri had killed somebody—this man's brother? And now she was being threatened with—exact Balance—death? Or she could pay up? And Master ven'Deelin was allowing Jeth to dodge a legitimate debt? That seemed unlikely at the least.
Khat drew a careful breath, not cold now that her brain was engaged.
"How much?"
His eyes changed, though the rest of his face remained bland.
"For a gifted trader at the start of a profitable career—four hundred cantra."
She almost laughed—if he'd been Terran, she would have laughed. If he'd been Terran, they wouldn't be having this conversation.
She shrugged, indifferent. "Too much," she said and turned away, tracking the yellow arrows out of the side of her eye, moving firm but not so fast that he'd think she was running.
He grabbed her, the damned fool. Grabbed her arm, hard, and yanked her back around.
She came around, all right; she came around swinging, and caught him full across the face. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and dropped him flat, backbone to deck, and there he laid, winded, at least, or maybe out cold.
A shout came out of the watching Liadens, and she figured it was time to show she was serious, so she kept on turning, until she was facing the lot of them, crouched low and the boot knife in her hand.
She let them see it, and when nobody seemed disposed to argue with it, eased out of the crouch.
"We can take it to Security, or we can leave it," she snarled. "We take it to Security, be sure I'll let them know that this man tried to rob me, and made threats against my cousin and myself—and that you stood by and watched."
There was a stir among the group of them, and another boy, not quite so pretty as the one on the floor, stepped forward.
"We leave it," he said. "No Security." He moved a hand so deliberately that the gesture must have meant something. "Safe passage."
Well, now, wasn't that sweet?
Khat bared her teeth at him, in no way a smile. "You bet," she said, and turned away, keeping the blade ready.
Nobody tried to stop her.
IT WAS EDGING onto the middle of the world-night, and he should have been well a-bed. Thoughts were buzzing loud inside his head, though, most notably thoughts regarding supply and demand and the unpredictability of weather.
So it was that Jethri was kneeling on the bench beneath the window in his bedroom, swearing at the latch, instead of sweetdreaming in his bunk.
The latch came down all at once and the window swung out on well-oiled hinges. He damn near swung out with it, in the second before he remembered to let go and lean back, and then he just knelt there, waiting for his heart to slow down, breathing deep breaths of the cool mid-night air.
The breeze was slightly damp, and carried a confusion of odors. Tree-smells, he guessed, and flowers; rocks, grapes and snakes. The sky showed a ribbon of stars and two of Irikwae's three moons, riding the shoulders of the mountains.
The cushion he was kneeling on moved and he looked down to find Flinx. The cat looked at him, eye to eye, and blinked his, in what Miandra insisted was a cat-smile.
"Guess I owe you Balance," Jethri said, reaching down and tickling the underneath of the chin. Flinx purred and his eyes melted into mere slits of peridot. "Your life ever needs saving, you don't hesitate, take me?" Flinx purred even louder, and Jethri grinned again, gave the chin another couple skritches for good measure, then sat carefully back on his knees and pulled the weather device out of his pocket.
Sometime during the endless repetitions of the basic pattern of a round dance, it had come to him that the little machine might be well-used on behalf of Ren Lar's grapes. He frowned down into the screen, touched the icon which him and his father had figured out accessed the predictive program and knelt tall once more, elbows on the window ledge, the device held firmly between his two hands, slightly extended, allowing it to taste the night.
The screen displayed its characteristic transitional swirls, then cleared, showing a mosaic of symbols. Jethri frowned at them, then at the starry and brilliant night.
Rule of opposites, he thought, which was nothing more than whimsy, and touched the icon for "rain".
The screen swirled and cleared, showing him a duplicate image of the sky outside his window—and nothing else.
Well, that didn't exactly prove anything, did it?
Jethri tapped the upper right corner of the screen, and the icons reappeared. He touched another, at exact random. Nothing at all happened this time; the screen continued to display its mosaic of exotic icons, unblinking, unchanging.
He sighed, loud and frustrated. Beside him, the cat sputtered one of his rustier purrs and banged his head deliberately against Jethri's elbow.
"You're right," he said, reaching down and rubbing a sturdy ear. "The brain's on overdrive. Best to get some sleep, and think better tomorrow." He gave Flinx's ear one more tug, slid off the window seat and headed for the bed, taking a small detour to leave the weather gadget on the table with the rest of his pocket things.
He snapped the light off and climbed into bed, hitting a solid lump with his knee. Flinx grunted, but otherwise didn't move.
"Leave some room for me, why don't you?" Jethri muttered, pushing slightly.
The cat sighed and let himself be displaced sufficiently for Jethri to curl on his side under the covers, head on his favorite pillow, eyes drooping shut. He yawned, once. Flinx purred, briefly.
"GOT A PRINTOUT for you," the doorman said. "Come down from Trager's Wager."
It took a second, her mind still being on the problem back at the Trade Bar and thinking maybe Security'd be waiting for her at the crash, wanting to discuss the open showing of knives in a Combine port. But, no—Keeson had promised to send Farli's list, when he got back to the ship.
"Thanks," she said taking the gritty yellow sheet. She unfolded it, read the names—Winhale, Tornfall, Skeen, Brass Cannon—and tried to remember why she'd cared.
Right. Paitor would've been interested in the names, especially the ones that carried the keys. She glanced back at the paper and half-smiled. Never let it be said that Farli Trager was anything less than thorough. Both Skeen and Brass Cannon carried a key behind their names.
Well, Paitor would be happy, anyway. Assuming Khat managed to get off Port in one piece, and without acquiring a Liaden knife in her back. Which brought her back to wondering if Jethri had killed the blond Liaden's brother and if in that case he was all right. Or if, as she considered more likely, the boy had been trying to earn a little—a lot—of extra money by playing the stupid Terran for an idiot.
"You OK?" the doorman sounded genuinely concerned.
Khat shook herself and looked up at him.
"Had a little trouble at the Trade Bar. Heard some bad news about kin. You got a fastbeam I can use?"
He shrugged. "We got one. It'll cost you, though."
Well, what else were bonuses for? Khat nodded.
"I can cover it."
DYK'S BEEN MESSING with the climate control again, Jethri thought muzzily, pulling his blanket up around his chin. Khat's gonna take his ear this ti—
He sat up, clumsily, because of the heavy, hot boulder resting against his hip, blinked stupidly at the huge space, looming away into darkness—Tarnia's house, he remembered then, and shivered in a sudden flow of cool air, from, from—
"Mud!" He flung out of bed and went over to the open window, climbed up on the window seat, leaned out, got a grip on the cold, wet latch and hauled the window closed, pushing down on the lock with considerable energy.
"Ship kid," he muttered. "Think you'd know enough to be sure the hatches was sealed." He shook his head, and slid off the ledge, which was slightly damp where the rain had come in, and, yawning, went back to bed, shoved the cat out of his spot and snuggled back under the covers.