by Sharon Lee
"Now, let me ask you this: In all of your life, how many pods have you loaded?"
Later, it came to Jethri that perhaps the question had been intended rhetorically. Caught in the moment, however, he bent his brain to the count, frowning slightly at the victualers's van. . .
The cargo master laughed. If he'd been a Terran, Jethri would have considered him just a little dotty.
"No need to be embarrassed that you have no experience, young sir," the old man said.
"But I do, Master," Jethri interrupted. "I have never loaded an entire pod by myself, but in the last ten Standards I have done initial load checks on at least seventeen pods, and was final load check assistant on about the same number. I did the initial strap-downs on ten or so, and did net-string on a bunch of odd lots. I. . . "
"Enough!" Cargo Master per'Etla waved a hand. "I am cheered immensely! Now instead of needing to cover sixty years of knowledge in sixty hours we'll need only cover the final fifty-five years in sixty hours! We are saved!"
Despite himself, Jethri laughed.
"Ah, so now," the man in the hat went on, with a smile and a wink, "will you share with me? How came you by all this experience when you are so new to a house of trade?"
They leaned together on the boundary wall, per'Etla honestly interested in his charge's background. Periodically, he inclined his head, so slightly as to appear a nod, as Jethri explained how a family ship was unlikely to have a full-time cargo master and how at certain ports and with certain cargo, the entire crew might be pressed into the loading and offloading.
As he spoke, Jethri absently watched the food truck's driver using a lift-cart to offload pallets, which he deposited on the 'crete regardless of the puddled water or the marked driving lanes. Finally, he stacked them into a pile, and Jethri could see distance water dripping from the top pallets onto those lower in the pile—which pile he aimed in the general direction of the ship's dock as his lift-cart gathered speed.
Stopping in mid-sentence, Jethri pointed toward the incoming tradesman, whose approach was yet unnoticed by the clerk.
"The modules, master, contaminated in the dock-water!"
Master per'Etla glanced to the clerk, who was concentrating on his computer.
The master gestured toward the clerk, and then looked Jethri hard in the face. "What would you do, apprentice? The dock is yours to direct."
Jethri bowed quickly and strode forward, stepping into the gate and holding his hands up, palms forward, to stop the cart.
The driver appeared oblivious, then attempted to wave Jethri aside.
"Halt!"
The driver turned his rig so sharply that it tilted, pallets shifting, and finally came to a stop. He came off the seat angry, yelling so hard and fast that Jethri couldn't get more than the basic idea of what the guy was saying, which was close enough to fighting words.
Jethri found himself turning sidewise to the man, reacting automatically to the volume and the threat. . .
The driver got closer, and now the clerk was at Jethri's side, adding his voice to the general clamor, but no matter—it was suddenly like the deliveryman had gotten a good, hard look at one of the scarier ghosts of space.
Again his words came so quickly that Jethri wasn't completely sure of what they were, but the depth of the bows, and the number of them, convinced him that the driver was seriously sorry.
"I would say that your clan-pin was noted," said per'Etla quietly from his left side, "I suggest you continue with your instructions."
Jethri took a breath, and centered himself like Pen Rel was always tell him to do.
"These items here—" He pointed to the dripping edges of the pallets, to the wet tire tracks—"did you plan to bring them into the ship's hold that way? This is not some storeroom where the wind blows as it might. A ship must control its environment and avoid contamination. As a youth I once spent two dozen hours sealed in a space suit while a hold was decontaminated from a careless spot of walked-in goo. What will you have brought us on these?"
"Sir, pardon, I had not considered. Normally, I deliver to warehouses and such is not a difficulty. I mean no—"
"These cannot come onto the ship. Our clerk will contact your office and have replacements brought. These—" Jethri waved a hand, trying for one of Master tel'Ondor's showier effects—"I care not what you do with them. "
The clerk, whose name Jethri still didn't have, bowed and began to speak, sternly, to the driver.
Jethri turned his back on them both, feeling a little gone in the knees, and looked to the attentive cargo master.
"That is what I would do, were I directing the dock, Master."
The old man inclined his head.
"Indeed. I cannot argue with you entire; it is in fact the most efficient way to approach the problem, and the lesson was well given. But let me speak a moment."
Jethri took a deep breath, and inclined his head
The master motioned him toward the open port and began walking. Jethri, perforce, followed.
"Our ship is, I suspect, somewhat larger than that of your family. True it is that the sheer random nature of the dockside might permit some contaminant—oh, what a wonderful word you have taught me!—some goo as it were, to belabor our air system or corrode our floors.
"There are measures we can take which would likely require none of us to be suited for a Standard Day, or even a Standard Hour. Some of these measures will be taught you—must be taught you—that you know the capabilities of Elthoria. But, for the moment, you are correct. The clerk ought to have been more alert, and I believe your lesson has taught him as well as the driver; I shall not belabor him more on this.
"Yet still, sir," the master continued, as they crossed the threshold into the ship's cargo port itself, "I ask you to riddle me this: what shall the master trader and the captain feed to their guests at luncheon?"
Jethri froze between one step and the next, face heating.
"Lunch?"
"Indeed." The cargo master laughed lightly. "I do believe that what you have turned back just now was the afternoon meal my friend Norn has ordered in for the local jeweler's shop association."
* * *
THE FLOW OF SCHEDULES was such that Jethri found himself in the hold, cargo deck, and pod-control offices more than in his regular haunts. When he saw someone he knew well—Pen Rel or Gaenor for example—they were usually going the opposite direction and in conversation with someone else. By day three he'd nearly forgotten the incident with the lunch-truck; indeed, for two nights he'd dreamed cargo density patterns for three different pod styles, lading codes, and the structural dynamics of orbital pod transfer.
On his way to the dockside galley for a quick lunch—he still had to finish a test balance on the bulk—he ducked unwittingly by someone ambling slowly down the 'crete.
"Ah," came Master tel'Ondor's familiar voice, "do you wish to avoid speaking with me as much as that?
Ears a-fire, Jethri ducked back, bowing a hasty apology.
"Your pardon, sir. My mind was on my numbers and my stomach on lunch."
"A compelling combination, I agree," the master allowed. "I rejoice to see you thus engaged upon the work of your house. You bring joy to your mother."
A test. Great. Jethri kept his sigh to himself and bowed, wincing only a little when his stomach audibly growled.
Master tel'Ondor moved a languid hand, motioning Jethri onward.
"Please, you have need. But first, let me congratulate you upon your defense of our ship at dockside."
Jethri stiffened. Not a lesson, then—a lecture.
"But no," said the master, apparently recognizing something in Jethri's face, despite his efforts to remain bland—"this is not a problem. The ship speaks well of you, as does the cargo master and the clerk. I am told that you had the mode perfectly in dealing with the incident. The cargo master insists that you were prepared to take a charge and repel boarders!"
He bowed, gently. "I wish merely that all the traders I
have taught would have the sense you've shown. I believe you will be quite ready for the next part of your voyage!"
And with that, he swept his hand forward again, and Jethri went, thinking as much about inertial restraints as about lunch.
Day 116
Standard Year 1118
Elthoria
THEY WERE FOUR Standard Days out of Tilene, bound for Modrid. There, they'd do a couple days of fill-in trading and set course for the inner worlds.
Inner Liaden worlds, where somebody as Terran as a Jethri Gobelyn would speedily become a three-day wonder. At best.
Say that he worried; it was true enough. Gaenor and Vil Tor, together and separately, assured him that he'd do better than fine, but he considered that they might be a thought biased, being friends. Pen Rel sig'Kethra, who wasn't necessarily a friend, had responded to the news of their amended route by intensifying the self-defense sessions 'til they weren't much shy of a shore-leave brawl. Master tel'Ondor had done the same with the protocol lessons, though at least those didn't leave bruises.
And Norn ven'Deelin, who should've been as terrified of the whole business as he was—if not more so, having, as he blackly suspected, a much sharper understanding of what exactly would happen if he made hash out of things—Norn ven'Deelin smiled, and patted his arm, and called him her son, and said that she was certain he would acquit himself with honor.
All that being so, it was no wonder, Jethri thought, throwing back the blanket and slapping on the light, that he couldn't sleep.
He pulled on the most comfortable of his Liaden-made clothes—a pair of tough tan trousers, with a multitude of pockets, and an equally tough brown shirt—which was close enough to the coveralls that'd been standard ship wear on the Market to be comforting—slipped on a pair of soft ship slippers, and sorted through his pile of pocket stuff until he had his fractin, the Combine key and the general ship key. He slipped them into a pocket; a wrench set and folding blade into another and left his quarters.
There wasn't any need to sneak overtime studies on Elthoria, where the rule 'mong the crew was that the trader knew best what the trader required. He'd come to have a fondness for that rule, no more so than now, as he swung down the wide corridor toward his personal bin.
He'd several times over the last ten ship-days thought of the B-crate from home. Finding time to do something about it was the challenge there, his schedule being as crammed as it was.
Which made his present state of nervous sleeplessness nothing less than a gift, looked at in a certain way. At least he'd be able to open the crate at his leisure, and take care over those things his mother had said he should have.
He passed one other person on the way to the cargo section—Kilara pin'Ebit, who inclined her head, murmuring a polite, "Sir."
"Technician," he replied, and that was that—no muss, no fuss, as Dyk used to say—and a few minutes later was standing in front of his bin.
He touched the lock pad in the proper sequence; the door slid open, the interior lights coming up as he stepped into the room.
Lashed against the far wall was one Terran-standard B crate, looking like it'd taken the rocky route through an asteroid belt to reach him.
Releasing the netting, he knelt down, feeling in his pocket for the wrench set.
There was a dent the size of his head in the side of the crate. Frowning, Jethri ran his hand over it. B crates were tough, and the most likely outcome of taking a whack at one with a heavy object was that the object would bounce—unless it broke. Something hard enough to stave in the side of one. . .
"Must've got hit by a flying rock," Jethri muttered, fitting his wrench around the first tog.
There were a couple bad seconds with the third and sixth togs, which had gotten jammed when the crate deformed, but he finally got them loose, pulled the panel out, and leaned it against the wall.
Inside, the crate was divided into four smaller magnetically sealed compartments over one larger compartment. Jethri reached for the seal of the upper right hand compartment, then sat back, his hand dropping to his knee, fingers suddenly cold.
"C'mon," he whispered. "It's just kid stuff."
'cept it was kid stuff his mother had seen fit to take into custody, hold for more'n ten years before sending it all after him. Say what you would about Iza Gobelyn's temper, and no question she was cold. Say it all—and when it was said, the fact remained that she was a canny and resourceful captain, who held the best good of the ship in her heart. That being so, she would've had a reason, beyond her own personal grief, for locking his things away. And a reason for finally letting them loose.
He felt the scarebumps rise up on his arms—and then he laughed, breathy and a little too light. "Get a grip! What? You think Iza set you up for a double-cross, like one of Khat's scare-stories? She sent your stuff because it's yours by right an' Paitor talked her into doing the decent."
Which Khat hadn't said, but, then, Khat wouldn't. The more he thought on it, though, the likelier it did seem that such a conversation had taken place; he could almost hear Uncle Paitor's voice rumbling around inside his ears, comforting and comfortable.
Jethri leaned forward and pulled open the top right door.
A plain black purse sat in the center of the small space, a piece of paper sticking out of the fold. Slowly, he reached in and pulled the paper free; unfolded it and blinked at Khat's messy scrawl, laboriously spelling out, "Stinks Money."
Jethri sat back, a breath he hadn't known he was holding escaping in a whoosh! He put the paper on his knee, flipped open the purse and counted out a ridiculous amount of Combine paper. All this, from Stinks? It was hard to believe. Harder, in the end, to believe that Khat could cheat the ship. A right stickler, Khat. In a lot of ways, he thought suddenly, she'd've made a good Liaden. He slipped the purse and the note into a pocket and looked back to the crate.
Feeling less spooky about the process, he opened the next door, withdrew a small metal box, and held it between his two hands. The metal was red-gold, burnished 'til it glowed. The sides were decorated—etchings of stars, comets and moons. Three fancy letters were etched into the flat lid, intertwined like some dirtside creepers—AJG. Arin Jethri Gobelyn.
The lock was a simple hook-and-eye; he slid it back with a thumb and raised the lid with care.
Inside, it was lined with deep blue velvet. Scattered 'round the velvet, like stars, were half-a-dozen expired Combine keys, a long flat piece of what might be carved and polished bone—and a ring.
He picked it up between thumb and forefinger. It was a massive thing—arrogant, if jewelry could be said to have attitude—the wide band engraved with stars, comets, moons—just like the side of the box. The top was oval, showing the stylized ship-and-planet of the official Combine seal.
Jethri frowned. His father hadn't been one to wear rings—plainly said, rings on a working ship were foolish, they had too much of a tendency to get caught in machinery and on rough edges. A commissioner, though—a commissioner might well wear a ring or a patch or somelike, to alert folks to the fact that here was somebody with connections.
The gold was cold and unfriendly against his skin. He put it back in the box and reached for the bit of bone.
As soon as his fingers touched it, he knew it wasn't bone. Cool and slick, the symbol repeating down one face eerily familiar, it felt just like his lucky fractin.
Frowning, he had that piece out of his pocket and put it side-by-side on his knee with the—whatever it was.
By eye and touch, the two of them were made of the same material. Not exactly scientific, but it would do for now. And the repeating symbol? The very same as the big doughnut-shape on the face of his fractin, set end-to-end down the whole length of the thing.
He picked it up and held it on his palm. Thing had some weight to it—heavier than you expected, like his fractin, which Grig had said enclosed alien workings. A sort of large economy size fractin, then, Jethri thought, smoothing his thumb over the soothing surface. That would
have appealed to Arin, with his fascination with the regular sort of fractin. Jethri ran his thumb over it once more, then replaced it on its nest of old Combine keys, lowered the lid the put the box aside.
The next compartment gave up a pair of photocubes. He snatched one out, hands shaking, and flicked through the images quickly, breathless, then more slowly, as he registered that the pictures were of people he didn't know, had never seen. Spacers, most of them, but a few ground-based folk, too, the lot of them looking tired and wary. He put it down.
