The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “I only wished to tell you, Pilot, that the delivery from Blue Light Day Broker was taken at my direction to the port holding office. It awaits your signature there.”

  Cantra blinked. So Jela’s “runner” wasn’t a play-story, after all, though what the second son could want with her was a puzzle, indeed.

  “Your orders, Pilot,” Dulsey said, sounding unsure now, “were not to accept any package or visitor unless it came with you.”

  Standing orders, those, and trust Dulsey to stand by them.

  “You did fine, Dulsey,” she said into the talkie. “Pilot Jela an’ me’ll be with you in a couple short ones.”

  “Yes, Pilot,” the Batcher answered. “Out.”

  Cantra looked over to Jela, who was sitting calm and unperturbed next to her.

  “Now what?” she said, snapping the talkie onto her belt.

  “Leave it,” Jela said. “Somebody whose duty it is to watch that day-trader will show a proper interest, if they haven’t already.”

  “Why target me?” she asked, which was a bothersome question, but Jela just shrugged his wide shoulders.

  “You talked to him, you looked hungry, you might take the bait,” he said, like it wasn’t anything to worry on. “Man can’t get ahead unless he takes some risks.”

  Which she had to allow was true.

  EIGHTEEN

  On port

  Ardega

  “What about stock seed?” Jela asked from beside her.

  Cantra eyed the rest of the list, on the theory that she was the elder trader.

  Ardega wasn’t a world known to her. Its rep was good, if it happened you were trading Lights. The on-offers here at the agri fair, for instance, included a wide range of basic genetically stable growables, the price-pers well into the reasonable range.

  “Price is right,” she said. “Might want to take on a pallet of the stasis-sealed embryos, too.”

  “They’re not claiming to be gen-stable,” Jela protested, and she pointed her chin at the board.

  “On offer from Aleberly Labs,” she murmured. “I’m betting they’re stable.”

  “I missed that,” he admitted. “They’re a possibility, then. The price—”

  “It’s a little high per, but if we take the whole pallet, we get a discount from the dockworkers guild on the transfer fee.”

  “That makes it reasonable,” he agreed, eyes on the offer board. “Do we want any of this whole leaf tea?”

  She frowned. Where was he—oh. Garnet leaf. Good price, too. She sighed with real regret.

  “It degrades too fast. Be gone by the time we raised Phairlind.”

  “They stay here, then,” Jela said, and turned his head to look at her. “If we take the seed, and the embryos, we’ve still got half-a-can to fill.”

  “Little more.” She gave the board one last read, finding nothing that caught her by the trade sense and demanded to be bought—and looked back to Jela.

  “Let’s reserve our decideds. Then we’ll go ‘round to the arts fair and see what they have on offer,” she said.

  “Art?” he repeated. “Is there an art market on the Rim?”

  “There’s a market for damn’ near everything, anywhere there’s people,” she said, turning and threading her way through the cluster of other traders, all oblivious to anything but the boards and the info displayed there.

  Jela stayed at her back, which she’d gotten used to. Her nerves no longer processed him as “too-close-about-to-be-dangerous,” but as “extra-protection-safe.” Which proved that her nerves were just as idiot as her brain, which, despite her having reasoned it out several times, continued to produce words like “co-pilot,” “partner,” and other such traps to describe Jela and his relationship to her and her ship.

  Well, she’d pay that tariff when it came due. In the meanwhile, it was . . . comforting . . . to feel his solid presence at her back, and know there was another honed set of survival skills on the lookout for trouble.

  “yos’Phelium,” she said to the reservations clerk, and slid her trade coin across the counter to him.

  “Yes, Trader.” His voice was high, and he spoke the Common Tongue with a lisp, which could have been accent, or an accident of nature. “How may I be of assistance?”

  She tapped her finger on the counter, the goods on offer scrolling across its surface. The scrolling stopped and a highlight appeared under her fingertip. She moved down the list until she came to the ID for the seed, tapped once to highlight the line, moved down to the embryos and tapped that line, too.

  “Very good,” the clerk trilled, his eyes in turn on his private screen. “Quantity?”

  “A pallet of the embryo,” she said, and shot a glance over her shoulder at Jela. “Three of the seeds?” He inclined his head.

  “One pallet stasis bound poultry embryo guaranteed by Aleberly Labs. Three pallets mixed crop seed, gen-stable SATA inspected and warrantied.” He looked up. “Anything else?”

  “That’ll do,” she said. “Hold delivery until I call. My partner and me’re still on the boards.”

  He worked with his screen, lower lip caught between his teeth.

  “Delivery hold, willcall,” he said finally. “The goods revert, fee forfeit, if delivery is not taken by local midnight.”

  “I understand,” Cantra told him, and he spun the screen around.

  She thumb-printed the order, he pressed the trade coin against the sensor. A sheet of hard copy curled out of the top of the screen. He pulled it free and handed it and the coin to her.

  “Your receipt,” he said. “Please retain it, in the unlikely event that a dispute should arise regarding your reservation. Thank you for your patronage of the Ardega Agricultural Fair and please come again.”

  “Thanks,” Cantra said, sealing the paper away into an inner pocket of her vest. She left the counter, Jela behind her, and headed for the door.

  THE ARTS FAIR occupied a massive cermacrete shell, booths and tables stretching out to the horizon, and sparse of buyers, compared to the agri fair. Though that could, Cantra thought, have been an illusion born of the much larger space.

  She paused on the edge of the floor, and frowned at the directory.

  “Not a lot of money on the Far Edge of the Rim, in a general way,” she said, running her eye down the long list of luxuries and frivols. “There are some who can afford whatever there is to buy—at Out-Rim prices. I’m thinking we’ve got room in that can for something interesting in textile. Rugs. Wall hangings. Bolt cloth.”

  “One-ofs?” Jela asked, leaning over her shoulder and putting his finger on a listing for stone carvings.

  She wrinkled her nose. “We got the room, but is there enough of a market? We’d have to hand sell, and I’m not seeing us setting up a booth on Port Borgen, say, for a Common Month.”

  “It could happen,” he said, in the way he did sometimes that made her think she wasn’t the only one who bye-n-bye forgot to remember that their partnership was a matter of his convenience.

  “How much credit left?”

  She fingered the trade coin out of its pocket and held it up; he glanced at the number and grunted softly.

  “Reserve a quarter of that for me?” he murmured. “I want to cover the possibility of having to spend a month on Borgen.”

  In pursuit of his wandering info, whatever it was. For a man who said he knew what he was looking for, he was awfully fuzzy on its probable location. This despite his continued—and unauthorized—use of Dancer’s long-comm. He hadn’t discovered the sentinel—or he had and had made the decision to pretend it wasn’t there, in the cause of preserving ship-board peace.

  As long as a copy of the outgoing was caught and shunted to the private screen in her quarters, she had no complaint. Or no complaint that she was willing to voice, given the circumspect nature of the intercepted communications.

  Incoming messages—and there were those—did present a problem, Jela having worked a block that she was reluctant to disturb for rea
sons that were likely close to those that kept him from interfering with the sentinel.

  “Quarter’s yours,” she told him now. “Meet you back here in two hours?”

  “Will do,” he said, and with a nod was gone, moving out with that easy stride that covered ground quick and never seemed to tire him.

  Cantra watched until he turned a corner, admiring the stride, which was just nothing short of dangerous—to ship and to pilot—and forcibly put her eyes back on the directory board.

  Textile was on the Avenue of Weavers. She touched the listing and a map opened on the screen, a green line showing her the path straight down the main hall, across six intersections, and a right at the seventh. She touched the map over the avenue and the image enlarged, showing a long row of booths, with names and annotations.

  She identified several bolt cloth dealers, and also several rug merchants. Good. The sooner the last can was full with honest trade goods, the sooner they could lift out of here.

  Bound for Scohecan, which port had been Jela’s call, and a sorry world it was, too. Still, it did own a port there, and a market, though they weren’t likely to either sell or buy there.

  And after Scohecan, a gentle jump off the Farthest Edge and into the Out-and-Away for to pay a social call on the Uncle. If she came out on the other side of that visit with Pilot Jela still by her side, then she could concentrate whole mind and heart on getting her ship and her liberty restored.

  Right.

  Sighing, she straightened her shoulders, had one more look at the map, and took off toward the Avenue of Weavers, swinging out with a will, thoughts firmly on textile.

  SHE COMMITTED HALF the remaining credit, less Jela’s reserve, on a quarter-can of mixed compressed textile. The transaction was completed at the booth, and a time for delivery was set. Still room for a few rolls of rugs, assuming Jela wasn’t buying life-sized carvings for his portion.

  Mind more than half on double-checking her capacities, she came to the first rug booth on her list. It, like the textile booth, was thin of company, a bored young person she took to be the ‘prentice merchant lounging behind the counter, arms crossed over his chest, staring across the avenue with a slightly glassy look in his eye.

  Cantra turned her head, following the direction of the young man’s gaze, and found it was a young lady of voluptuous habit in the scarf booth across the way under study. The lady was draped in numerous of her diaphanous wares—very likely a dozen of themcomplimentary shades of blue, and clearly thought herself very romantical.

  Someone, thought Cantra, had neglected her education badly, judging from the way the scarves were arranged. She hoped the young lady didn’t take it into her head to attempt to perform anything she might fondly believe to be the Dance of a Dozen Scarves. She doubted the arts fair was ready. Though it looked like the ‘prentice merchant was.

  “Good day to you,” she said, approaching the rug booth.

  The boy started badly, and came out of his slouch with a gasp, bowing hurriedly.

  “Trader,” he murmured, the Common Tongue pleasantly burry in his mouth. She didn’t immediately place the accent—and then did: The lad was from The Bubble. “How may I be of service?”

  “I am interested in rugs, sir,” she said, bringing the Rim accent up a notch. “Good rugs, not necessarily in the first line of art, but durable and pleasing to both the eye and the foot.”

  “I believe we may have precisely what you are searching for,” the boy said, moving down the booth. “If the trader will attend me here, I will undertake to acquaint her with our mid-line rugs. It is on these rugs that we base our reputation as manufacturers of the first rank. Durable, attractive, stain and dirt resistant. Here—” He put his hand on a sample. “Feel the nap, Trader. Not so deep as to trap dirt, yet deep enough to comfort feet tired from a day on-port in boots.”

  Cantra felt the nap, as directed, and found the boy to be correct with regard to the rug’s tactile virtues. Unfortunately, he was dead wrong regarding attractiveness, it being warning-light orange. She flipped an edge up and considered the backing. Machine-loomed, sturdy, nothing special to commend it; color to discommend it. She sighed and flipped the edge back down.

  “I wonder,” she said, “if there might be a less—robust color available.”

  “Trader, I am desolate. The color is the hallmark of this particular rug. Now, if the trader would be willing to aim a step higher, we have these to offer—”

  He moved up-counter, displaying a slightly larger specimen woven from variegated rose thread. The ‘prentice flipped the edge up before she could get her palm against the nap, displaying the back for her.

  Machine-loomed again. Cantra reached out and flipped the corner down, sliding her hand against the nap.

  Stiff and unpleasant, cut far too close. She sighed and moved back from the counter, letting her eyes rest meditatively on the boy’s face.

  “Young sir, it would appear that you have no rugs that you wish to sell me.”

  He had the grace to blush, round cheeks darkening.

  “Trader, it was you who asked to see cheap rugs.”

  She moved a hand in negation. “You misheard me, sir. I asked to see durable, comfortable and useful rugs at a good price. I have no interest in art pieces, nor in rugs so flimsy they lose their knots at the first suggestion of a boot. However, I see that you cannot accommodate me. I will search elsewhere. Fair profit to you.”

  She strolled away, leaving the ‘prentice staring, hot-faced after her. Cantra sighed. It was an old game—guide the customer to the goods carrying the highest mark-up by being unable produce anything suitable at the lower price levels. The boy hadn’t played it particularly well, and had likely earned a tongue-lashing from his master for ineptitude, more the pity. Light traders, being law-abiding by fiat, ought not to display such tricks, even given that the Light version of the game was hardly more than a parlor trick, with only money at the risk. The same game played at a Dark port could well involve lives and ships.

  The next rug booth on the list sported customers—no surprise, if they’d all encountered the boy with the Bubble accent first. The senior merchant behind the counter gave her a quick flutter of fingers—hand-sign for be there soon—which Cantra acknowledged with a dip of the head. Mooching through the displays not involved in the merchant’s presentation, she located two possibles, both machine-loomed, durable, and soft against the skin. One was deep blue, the other a blend of quiet greens, and by the time the senior merchant came down-counter, Cantra had decided on the green, should price and availability favor her.

  “Trader, how may I help you?” The merchant had a good, solid Insider accent, and a pleasant cast to her face. Her body language conveyed that she considered this to be the most important transaction of her day, and she met Cantra’s eyes openly, her own a lucent brown.

  “I am interested in good, serviceable rugs,” Cantra said, with an easy smile. “They need not necessarily be in the first line of art, but they must be durable and pleasing to both the eye and the foot.”

  The other woman smiled back, and reached to stroke the nap of the blue rug.

  “The trader has a good eye. These and these—” the palm moved to the green rug— “are our most durable offerings. As you see, they are soft, both—” a practiced move of the hand and the corner of the green came up— “machine made, of course. They have been treated with SATA standard stain and dirt guard—to clean the rug, merely shake it out. Also, as you will see, all of our rugs have anti-skid strips at each corner, for added comfort and safety.”

  “The rugs please,” Cantra said, flipping up the corner of the blue and running her finger over the skid stopper. “As well-made as they are, I wonder if they might be above my touch.”

  The senior merchant smiled. “Surely not. For a half-pallet of either, I ask only six hundred carolis.”

  “Entirely above my means, alas.” Cantra sighed, and smoothed the blue rug with her palm. “I had been hoping that we might me
et at three hundred carolis.”

  “Three hundred?” The senior merchant’s brown eyes gleamed. “The trader jests, of course. Why—”

  And so it went, until each was certain that they had the advantage of the other, and Cantra eventually handed over her trade coin, from which the brown-eyed merchant deducted four hundred carolis. A time was set for the delivery of the half-pallet of green and they parted amicably.

  As pleased with her purchases as if she were legit and ultimately about lawful business, Cantra ambled back toward the entrance-way. She did the calcs in her head as she walked, and took time to hope that Jela’s carvings were compact, and not needful of specialized packing. Some stone was fragile, despite it all, which she should’ve thought to say to him, and if he came in with a deal on a crate full of breakables—

  He’d be a bigger fool than you know him to be, she snapped at herself. The man’s a pilot; he knows about acceleration.

  Acceleration, in fact, was only one of the fascinating things that Pilot Jela seemed to know. Nothing like the encyclopedic training she’d survived, in which the aim of the directors was to cram all known history, cultures, languages, and arts into the skull of the student.

  No, Jela seemed to specialize in the odd bit of knowledge, the random snip of lore. He had a truly awe-inspiring library of songs available to him—many of them obscene on one world or another—which he sang softly while he worked at whatever small task he had set himself to.

  She had so far, and by constant reminder to herself, managed to avoid discounting him as a mere pack-dragon, hoarding his pieces and oddments without understanding—or caring about—their wider connections. Jela had surprised her more than once during their short acquaintance, and she was allergic to surprises.

  At the intersection with the main avenue, she turned left, taking it easy, there being some while left ‘til the meet-time. It was therefore with some startlement that she bespied a short, wide-shouldered figure in respectable trade leathers walking purposefully in her direction.

  She paused by an avenue sign and waited for him to join her, which he did in good time.