Trader's Leap (Liaden Universe Book 23)

by Sharon Lee

  “Liaden worlds?” she repeated. “At the edge of the Dust, orbiting a red dwarf?”

  “It scarcely seems likely, does it? In actual fact, we ought say two parts Liaden and one part Terran, with a lovely, convoluted history, and what may be called an interesting location, now that the Dust is swirling in other patterns.”

  She considered him.

  “How convoluted a history?”

  He grinned and drank some tea.

  “Moderately convoluted, I believe. The Scouts opened The Redlands for colonization at the end of the Terran AI Wars. Two of the three planets were quickly colonized, due to the discovery of minerals and plants and other things of interest to various small Liaden companies.

  “The third planet attracted farmers—Liaden, and also ethnic Terrans who had been displaced by the war. Its population did not grow—in fact, it diminished—and in the fullness of time, another call was put out for colonists, which was fortunate, because at that time on Liad, the Council of Clans was involved in a purge.”

  Priscilla blinked.

  “A purge?”

  “Indeed. It had come to the attention of . . . some . . . that there was a class of people living in society who were . . . not precisely as they seemed. There they were, going to school, attending dinner parties, participating in contract marriages, and behaving as if they were perfectly ordinary. Which, alas, they were not, a circumstance to which some took very great exception. There was talk of removing whole clans from the Book, in order to keep society safe, you know, from those who might influence the unwary and exploit their unnatural advantages.”

  “Unnatural advantages?” Priscilla frowned again, then straightened as she recalled other lessons from the histories of other planets. “The Council of Clans tried to purge the Healers?”

  “Did I say that? No, not the Healers. The Healers, you see, were useful. They might, the Council conceded, require regulation—even oversight!—but they scarcely needed to be purged. That would have been too much. Luckily, it happened that the Healers were closely aligned with Korval. Which is why there is today a Healer’s Guild. Not even the Council dared tamper with Guild Law.”

  He sighed and turned his palms up.

  “No, the Healers were safe enough, as were the more powerful of the dramliz, who knew very well how to hide.

  “Those who stood in danger of losing their liberty and their lives were the small talents—the vas’dramliz—the Lucks and the Hearth-Makers; the Finders; the Rememberers; the Reversers, and all the rest of the little mutations of talent we see from time to time.”

  “Those are all dramliz talents,” Priscilla protested.

  “Well, yes, they are now—when the dramliz are accepted as a necessity, if not precisely loved. Then . . . it was a difficult time, and the Council needed a scapegoat, badly. The Healers were out of reach; the dramliz went into hiding, but the vas’dramliz . . .

  “The vas’dramliz . . . simply were. They had no more control over their talents than they had over the color of their eyes.”

  He sighed.

  “They were easy meat, and it was a bad time. If they were no danger to anyone—except, sometimes, themselves—they were certainly too diverse to bundle well into a guild.

  “Some were killed, a few clans were broken—but most managed an escape from Liad. Korval helped them; Ixin did, and Tanitha.

  “A few went to Irikwae; about as few went to Beezatra . . . ”

  “While the larger number went to The Redlands as colonists, and hoped never to hear from the homeworld again?” Priscilla suggested.

  “Precisely the case, Priscilla, yes. Now, here is my reasoning, if it can be dignified as such: Korval is no longer of Liad. We have always been a friend of the gifted, and have assisted them in times of trouble. It is . . . possible, therefore, that we will be received at The Redlands with . . . patience, if not actual courtesy. They must trade—in fact, they do trade, as I find in the databases. It seems . . . not unreasonable that they might wish to expand, now that the Dust is thinning. And we are uniquely placed to assist them.”

  He leaned back into the couch and gave her a weary smile. “All of which means that—”

  “There’s opportunity,” said Priscilla.

  “It is, at least,” Shan conceded, “a theory.”

  Priscilla nodded, frowning still.

  “Will you take Padi into this?” she asked. “Do we know how—or if—the small talents have grown?”

  He half-laughed.

  “I think the proper question is, how will I prevent Padi from accompanying her ship and her master trader into this opportunity?”

  He moved his shoulders. “Another question would be—will I take my lifemate, and our to-be-born, into this?”

  Priscilla considered him. “I think that is not wholly your choice.”

  “And so,” he said, leaning forward to brush his lips across her cheek, “we both have our answers.”

  She turned a hand palm up, giving him the point. “Schedule changes,” she said, and he nodded.

  “I agree.”

  A moment of silence before Priscilla finished her tea, and met his eyes, her own perfectly calm.

  “So, the route—first to Pommier to deliver our buyouts to the proper authorities. Then to The Redlands. Auxiliary stops, or quickest route?”

  “Quickest route,” he said, and gave her a smile. “Understand, Priscilla, that this is my last throw. If The Redlands will not have us, then we will be returning, quickest route, to Surebleak, so that I may make my bow to the delm and inform them of my failure.”

  “What, exactly, will that mean?”

  “That . . . lies with the delm,” he said, which was true. He did not add that delms had wide latitude with regard to the members of their clans. And, really, he did not expect Korval to execute him, lease him to another clan, or find him gainful employment as a big-ship captain. Priscilla herself might be subject to that last, but he trusted that the delm would see the wisdom in keeping them together.

  Mostly together.

  “I see.” Priscilla took a deep breath.

  “We’ll hope that your last die is your luckiest, my dear,” she said, and kissed him.

  VII

  Padi always checked her schedule first thing upon rising. Schedule changes were the lot of a ’prentice, and it was her responsibility to be on time to her assigned duties. One could only imagine Cargo Master ira’Barti’s response to an apprentice presenting but my schedule was changed! as her reason for tardiness.

  This morning, however . . .

  This morning, her schedule had not been changed so much as it had been utterly demolished and something new and wholly astonishing built from the ashes.

  Her shifts were always busy—but this . . . new . . . iteration of her day had entered the realm of the frenetic.

  It was, she apprehended, scrolling down through the day—it was an accelerated program, that shortened her sleep shift . . . significantly. That wasn’t necessarily a problem; she was accustomed to using two, or even three, hours of her sleep shift for work, but, given the demands of the new schedule, one wondered when she was expected to study, or even to answer her correspondence.

  Indeed, rather than her research hour, she was, immediately after breaking her fast, to attend the master trader in his office, after which she went to Healer Faaldom for tutoring, followed by a session with Dramliza Mendoza; then her usual session with Cargo Master ira’Barti, and nuncheon.

  After that, piloting lessons on sim; menfri’at training with Arms Master Schneider; two hours guided study; one hour—one hour!—of free trade research, a second session with Lina and, in the early hours of her sleep shift, another meeting with the master trader.

  Padi blinked; ran down the new schedule a third time, and leapt to her feet. The window of opportunity for breaking her fast was shrinking—rapidly. If she took a quick shower, she’d be able to grab a protein cookie from the cafeteria on her way past, and eat it while she walked�
�quickly—to the master trader’s office.

  * * *

  Father—which was to say, Master Trader yos’Galan—was at his desk, all of his attention seemingly on the screen. An empty wine glass stood by his hand. Padi refreshed it at the bar, poured herself a glass of cold tea, and returned to the desk.

  The master trader still entranced by his screen, she put the glass on the green-and-blue coaster and took her accustomed seat on the opposite side of the desk, sipping tea, and cultivating patience. A trader, so Father had said more than once, did well to have a store of patience set by, to be deployed at need. Wielded with skill, patience was a potent trading tool.

  Regrettably, Padi was not accomplished in the art, though she flattered herself that she had made strides in becoming less impatient. She had found that it went better with her if she directed her thought to some useful topic while she waited, reviewing conversion tables, perhaps, or solving piloting equations.

  At the moment, it occurred to her that she would next be meeting with Lina, who would expect that she had something rational to say about one’s Inner Sight. It might, she thought, be prudent to practice.

  This would be tricky. Lina allowed her the crutch of closing her outer eyes before she opened her Inner. It would not, however, do for the master trader to find her sitting with eyes closed, apparently having a nap while she awaited his attention.

  She therefore fixed her eyes on the desktop, concentrated, and managed after a few fumbling breaths to open her Inner Eyes.

  Merely, she had intended to regard the desk while paying attention to how the Seeing made her feel, and what vagaries she detected in her gift, so that she might articulate these things to her teacher.

  The desk blurred, showing layer upon layer, an interweaving of complexity that overbore her in an instant—a bustle of thread and texture—a pattern, surely? Only it went beyond mere Seeing. She felt herself caught up, drawn in—and with a strong effort, she wrenched her Sight aside, to be caught and held against a blare of silver so bright that she cried out, and—

  “Padi! Close your eyes!”

  Father’s voice, sharp with command. She jumped, Inner Eyes snapping shut, and his face coming into sharp focus—stern, eyes glinting silver.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, her voice not quite steady.

  Slanting white brows lifted.

  “The last I had heard from Lina, you were yet encountering some difficulty in focusing your Inner Sight.”

  “I—yes, sir. Which is why I took it in mind to practice while I . . . awaited the master trader’s attention. I had only meant to look at the desk, so that I could describe—”

  She took a hard breath.

  “I am afraid that I am not very skilled.”

  He glanced down, then back to her eyes.

  “Only to look at the desk,” he said softly, and shook his head. “Child . . . this desk—say that this desk has seen much. I own myself impressed that you weren’t beguiled.”

  “I—was,” she said. “That is—I was being drawn in, and I moved my gaze. Only then, I caught a—mirror, silver and so very bright—”

  “Ah. Likely you Saw my shields, though I don’t believe them to be so very bright. Possibly, you caught a reflected image of yourself.”

  “If that is what I look like, no wonder the Healers at Millsap complained,” Padi said, with feeling.

  “The Healers at Millsap,” Father said, rather sharply, “had resources available to them. They did not have to bear the whole of your brightness, though they chose to make complaint rather than accommodation.”

  Padi sighed.

  “I . . . ” she began—and stopped, recalling that she was in the master trader’s office, and on business.

  “Ask,” Father said.

  “Yes. I only wonder how—how can you possibly make sense of all that?”

  To have been taken in by a desk, no matter how much it had seen—had there ever been anyone so inept?

  “Practice,” Father said gravely. “Dull as it is, practice is the key to mastery in all things, from piloting to menfri’at to Healing. And to trade. My mother your grandmother had used to say, practice makes perfect. As a musician, practice was her most constant companion.”

  Padi nodded, and had recourse to her tea. And Lina, she thought, was only a Healer?

  “I fear that Healer Osit’s explanation was cut short,” she said carefully. “It would be helpful if I knew what shields . . . are.”

  Father nodded.

  “Shields are what we rest behind. They are a protection in uncertain situations. For the moment, I am shielded so that I may direct what energy I have toward healing.”

  He paused, and extended a hand toward his wine glass, though he failed of picking it up before he met her eyes again with a wry smile. “Which I will allow to be even duller than practice.”

  She met his smile with hers. He nodded, and moved his hand.

  “I suggest that time is wearing on. Shall we take up the master trader’s topic, Trader?”

  “Yes,” Padi said, sitting straighter in her chair and bringing trader’s melant’i to the fore.

  “One assumes,” said the master trader, “that you have seen your new schedule.”

  “I have,” she acknowledged. “I wonder what the adjusted focus of my lessons portends.”

  He nodded.

  “An astute question. We—by which I mean the Dutiful Passage and all her crew—are en route to the Redland System, in search of trade and allies. I have forwarded such information as has come to my hand regarding The Redlands to your screen. I look forward to discussing your thoughts and suggestions regarding them when we meet again, later.

  “In the meanwhile, Trader, you have a choice before you. I realize that the amended schedule is challenging. It may well be too challenging. You and I have spoken frankly and at length regarding your goals and aspirations. I am fully aware that your first priority is to win the garnet as quickly as possible, and to set up as a trader on your own route.”

  Yes, certainly: her goals. Padi did not sigh. A trader would not reveal so much, though the master trader had courteously paused to allow her opportunity to speak. But, really, what was there to say? Her goal had been the garnet before her eighteenth nameday, which she might have easily managed, but for the idiot Department of the Interior escalating its insults against Korval until there had been nothing for it, but that Plan B should be called into effect.

  Well.

  She inclined her head, indicating that the master trader might resume.

  “You will have noted that the new schedule does not honor your goals,” he continued briskly. “If you accept it, you will be doing more dramliz training, at the expense of work that will move you toward your first priority. I am in error, that I did not immediately make it plain that there is a choice available.”

  Padi considered him.

  “One assumes the master trader has made these adjustments to my schedule from necessity, rather than whim,” she said slowly. “May I know the reason for the changes that were made?”

  “Indeed. As you will learn from the material I have forwarded to you, the population of The Redlands was increased by a significant number of vas’dramliz many years ago. The reason for their emigration from Liad was painful, and they did not seek further contact with the homeworld. Talents, even small talents, being what they are—which is to say, open to mutation and personal style—we simply do not know what we will be meeting there. It is, frankly, not the best place to bring a neophyte whose abilities have not yet been cataloged, much less honed.”

  Padi bit her lip.

  “What is the alternative?”

  “I have been in contact with Trader Veshtin, who is willing to have you with her on Maribel’s long route. I will mention that this is a very interesting route, rife with ongoing challenges of the sort that will delightfully test the mettle of an aspiring trader. It is not impossible that you will have that garnet, Trader, by the end of the route.”


  He paused. Padi said nothing, and after a moment he continued.

  “I have also forwarded information on Trader Veshtin and Maribel’s route to your screen. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on those as well, at our next meeting.”

  Padi inclined her head.

  “Thank you, Master Trader,” she said. “I look forward to reviewing the information.”

  “Very proper,” he murmured. “Have you any questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  He nodded.

  “Excellent. You’re just in time to find Lina for your lesson. Jet.”

  * * *

  “You will perform, please, the board drill which increases concentration and mental acuity,” Lina said.

  Padi, who had scarcely arrived in her office, and had not yet bowed to the honor of the teacher, much less taken a seat at the table—blinked.

  “Your pardon?”

  Lina raised her eyebrows.

  “You will perform the board drill which renews the pilot’s focus. I believe that there is such a drill, and that it is commonly taught to pilot candidates at the very beginning of their training. Perhaps I have been misinformed?”

  “Yes—no!” Padi said, off-balance. Her cheeks warmed. Really, she scolded herself; that was scarcely up to one of Father’s most mundane flights, and you’re cast off-balance? She sighed, focused, and bowed slightly.

  “Forgive me. I mean to say that no, Instructor, you have not been misinformed; there is indeed such an exercise, which is taught with the earliest board drills.”

  “I am gratified,” Lina said dryly. “Perhaps you will be so good as to demonstrate this exercise?”

  That was rather sharp for Lina, thought Padi. On the other hand, Padi had already shown herself to be stupid this shift.

  “Yes, Instructor,” she said. She closed her eyes, easily accessing the familiar exercise, which imparted all the benefits of a deep sleep to a weary pilot’s mind and body.

  Exercise complete, she opened her eyes, noting that she did feel somewhat more energetic, though she had not been aware of being tired.

  “I see,” Lina said, her eyes narrowed as if she had, indeed, observed the process taking place inside Padi’s head.