Trade Secret (eARC)

by Sharon Lee

  There was a pause and a, "I got the Grig Tomas news clear, but can you repeat that berth on that cousin Jethri?"

  Khat looked to Iza again, who still held head down at computation.

  "Yah, Geo, that's Jethri--he went free-crew when we put the Market in for a major refit. He was that wandering age, you know, and he's got himself sub-trader on Elthoria--they did adoption as I hear it."

  A pause longer than speed of light might be blamed for, and almost too long for chatter.

  "Heck, that's news, I'd say. Only that's not Elf Lord, out of Caratunk, but Elthoria, out of Liad, is that correct?"

  "Liad, that's the one, Geo."

  "Pilot Khat, we'll pass this on to Grayspinner and around, if that's good."

  "News is news," Khat said amiably, seeing Iza still staring elsewhere, "and thanks."

  "Got you, and got your news too, Pilot Khat. If you got fuel and time, we can do a scan--we haven't had a shipside visual for a couple trips."

  Khat held, seeing Cris pulling up the radar image of near space. Iza tapped the light indicating seat empty and leveraged herself to standing.

  "I'm off to pull snacks. If Vernon needs pictures, you'll clear it with Control--my figures show us up to a two-hour link-up if she needs us to do a roundabout. Just give me hold-warning before you pull any power if they need something sooner."

  Half looking at the floor and the other half more at Cris than Khat, she moved toward the hatch. In the doorway Iza turned and looked hard at Khat.

  "Khat, you did good. New is news, and he's your cousin by name, so we'll give him his due. You got it right though--Seeli and Grig first, if we're asked, and Jethri next. We'll not bad-talk the kid--it'd make more talk than not. And good, for not mentioning Arin. Anyone nosy enough will ask, or they'll ask around."

  With that she was gone, in time for Control to beg Khat for attention.

  *

  Control was a little abashed to be moving the Market into look-see, but the courtesy was for Vernon and the Market was closest to rendezvous by several shifts. Iza, back on the bridge, was all smiles on her call on the timing being within seconds.

  For her part, Vernon was polite. Khat admired that and it made their time arranging the rendezvous go easier, in particular the part where Khat was working out exactly who was rolling first, since it was Vernon's call. It wouldn't do to have a reaction jet test spin that ship into the Market. . . .

  Khat looked to Iza as they closed--and all Iza said was "You're doing good there, so just go on, but I bet Seeli'd appreciate it if you kept them a bit more in the circuit on this."

  Khat nodded, did an all-call to the ship on the upcoming movements, and plugged the video feeds into all available screens as well, getting thanks from all over for the challenge.

  "We'll run all the sensors and a lot of eyes over you--tell me you're all stable!"

  Iza turned up the meteor shielding and lowered the gravity, advising in quiet tones as they finally closed, while Cris and Vernon's second in command did ranging calibrations and shared visuals. The left of the main screen showed Vernon approaching, the right side showing the Market, and the scan's color-coding of the mini dust-and-gas cloud explain why they could actually hear occasional pinging scrapes of ancient comet or shattered meteor almost anywhere in this system.

  Vernon, in sight, turned out to be a light-haul ship smaller than the Market, and likely built in the system's local yard out of leftover parts--not pretty, and without an easy clue as to a maker. The markings were austere at best, but the visual symmetry was not quite right for a long-haul vessel.

  "That's a good plan, there, Cris," Iza said quietly. "Can we get that across all the vids--you want as many eyes on this as you can. Grig?"

  "Here, Iza," Grig replied.

  "You take reports from the rest of the ship and send them up here if we need them. It'll keep us sharper up here if--" Iza said.

  "Yes, Iza . . ."

  "Thanks, Pilot, I didn't think--" Khat said.

  "You're doing good, Khat. I just been doing this longer and have some tricks to pass on yet," replied Iza.

  Khat laughed quietly, flipped a switch, and pointed to the open sound link while she signed plan moving forward.

  "We're starting to record in sixty seconds. My plan is to do four slow passes and you can tell me then what you need us to get closer to, if anything. Confirm?"

  "On your mark, Pilot Khat, thanks!"

  *

  The ship had worked hard. Most obvious was the scored line on the underside of Vernon's semi-airfoiled shape. Khat cringed--if that was a scrape, the little ship had been out of service for some fixes.

  While the main vids were focusing there, Cris continued to mutter to Vernon's second, every so often agreeing or not on some other point, with Vernon identifying dings by date or past pilot, or both.

  Zam and Mel must have split their time between the feeds--Grig reported their observations in brief, condensed lumps. They'd managed to get a stereo effect and an estimated mass on the ship, just for fun. He even reported, "Zam and Mel suggest a more fashionable font and color for the Market nameplate and numbers, and I promised to pass that on," and later, "Zam thinks the shipyard left some graffiti behind!"

  "Hey, Vernon, " Khat eventually said to her counterpart, "I'm not seeing much from our side. Looks like all your rear and ventral reaction jets are clear. As close as we can get, I'd trust that you don't have bends in that old dinged section. My radar's not showing any holes you're not supposed to have, I think, and we're not seeing any signs of outgassing. Beyond that--"

  "Pilot Khat, I'm seeing the same pictures you are. Let me poll the crew . . . we can likely call it good both ways."

  While that was going on, Cris and Grig were on another channel, and Khat could hear Cris saying "Zam's got a good eye you know. Maybe a rescan . . . At close power?"

  Khat looked in Cris's direction, about to ask what the discussion was about when Pilot Thuy came back on the link.

  "Cris?"

  She looked up at him to smile, but saw him grim-faced about something, and sounding grim-voiced. "Let's make sure we've swapped all the data both ways--highest data density. Then we stand by at a distance while they test, still swapping vids and sensors and then watch us," Thuy said.

  Iza's, "The Captain concurs," was immediate, and, "Assigning observers now," came across the all-call from Grig.

  Grig sounded as grim as Cris, and a glance at Cris showed him touching keys to send information somewhere--information that wasn't showing up on her screens.

  Khat patched through to Grig, on a private connection, asking, "Assigning observers to what, Grig?"

  "Zam's got good eyes, Khat, and so does Mel. There's an anomaly we're checking."

  "And it is so worrisome that you can't tell their pilot about it?"

  There was a pause, which Khat imagined was a sigh, or maybe it was a sigh because she heard Seeli talking quietly in the distance, something about spec sheets . . .

  "Won't mean a thing to her, Khat. Just that it looks like something's odd about the externals of the Struven Unit on the right screen. Our Struven Unit."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Port Chavvy

  Port Chavvy was noisy with the hum of people and equipment, the storefront videos full of improbable promises. There were people of many appetites and necessities, and potential trouble to make someone fresh off the flight deck of a two-man ship jumpy without the added burden of anticipation. He wanted to see Freza and he wanted to get what he needed to retrieve his book. . . .

  The truth was, Terran ports feel different to a spacer than Liaden ports. Liaden ports are all business all the time, with the practical and utilitarian overriding the constant mercantile appetite of Terran ports, the Terran appetite including shopping stalls, walking vendors, and sensualists offering to do or to have done just what the working pilot had been dreaming of, cooped up in that lonely spaceship for all those days . . .

  Jethri tried to take all that
into account as he worked his way through passageways joining the crowded multilevel commercial port's shopping arcades with the working side, the real port. His credentials on dock were trader and pilot--on this side his credentials were a willingness to pay and an ability to keep what was his.

  They'd come down to this side to check the dropboxes for incoming news from home, from Vincza, from wherever, and whatever news the Scout was running with was keeping him on high-frets, too.

  Form his left, then, a nearly bare chest and slim arms with tiny wrists, waving a package, the move tending to push him to the side, out of the flow of traffic . . .

  "Genuine vya, in concentrate, good Pilots. The best, and only a quarter bit. Want to try it out, ten bits for the quick."

  Truth told, Jethri'd seen less clothes on people, but rarely revealing quite that much nor even so close . . . and the mystic scent of vya was thick enough to override the generic smell of fried this-and-that hanging heavy in the air.

  He moved a hand toward a potential hidden knife as Pen Rel had instructed and sure enough the seller backed away, with a huffy, "Don't get that short-fused with me, hon, I've been on this port for three whole years, and got all my papers!"

  Jethri kept his mouth shut, aiming toward the actual docks, and toward Balrog, the Scout a half pace to his left and almost a half-pace behind, letting Jethri's newfound urgency take the lead, as melant'i would have it.

  The Scout's "packages waiting" news had been messages eventually downloaded into hardcopy direct into a sealpack as they waited, the clerk being stone-faced about dealing with a Liaden, his third in as many days, as he'd let on. Jethri's Combine key had calmed the ether somewhat but the news that there were enough Liadens on port to make a storekeeper take note was disturbing at best.

  It was during their rather lengthy wait for the Scout's info that Jethri's portable comm connections finally propagated through the local nets and a message from Freza was bounced to him--promising him an audience today, if he'd like, in fact the sooner the better since they did have a shipment for him--and they'd had inquiries from two different Liaden ships asking about the same item. He'd spent considerable thought on the reply, wishing not to overconcern her. . . .

  "Two Liaden ships, asking outright on the availability of a book hardly known among Terrans," he said to the Scout, "and she's put them off, saying that it isn't on any of their invoices and she doubts there are any on ship."

  The Scout's bow had shown his concern, and so Jethri's reply was succinct.

  Arriving shortly in person, with backup pilot, for my shipment.

  The day was already longer than they'd planned, for the mailbox forwarder used local hours, and they'd stopped in the trade bar while waiting for it to open, that being early in the local day, to find that they were noticed and somewhat artificially ignored, though Jethri's ordering two near beers in good Terran seemed to hearten the barkeep.

  Crowds seemed the rule.

  They'd seen only two exceptions to that rule--the low docks themselves and the contiguous warehouse zone which was but casually separated from those docks by intermittent fencing, painted lines, and message walls. These housed as well an impromptu open market where those not satisfied with retail bargains could barter, trade, or finagle.

  Jethri longed to visit the market--he often did well in such places--but the pressure of his appointment weighed on him as they crossed into the dock zone itself.

  Liaden docks--he was trying to concentrate on his environment and not his mission so he let his thought backtrack--Liaden docks tended to be sized smaller for Liadens and bigger for their ships and equipment, so that the walks on a Liaden dock might not be quite as wide, but the room for mechanisms and locks and connectors tended to be larger. The equipment itself might not be bigger--but Liadens left more room for it. By what Jethri'd seen, Terrans tended to overbuild some things, after all, as if they recognized that they were less delicate and more argumentative than Liadens.

  Liaden docks tended, too, to be newer--but then he realized that might be a function of Elthoria's routes as compared to the Market's--in fact all of his impressions of Liaden docks were of the docks being capable of handling large ships and not just in-system and planetary ships.

  This segment of dock might have handled Elthoria at either of the two far-end berths, where it would have taken up all three levels' worth of height and more, but in the section he strode through now, the ships were much smaller than Elthoria, and much less grand in many other ways. In fact, the crew members standing or sitting about in the marked areas just aside the gangways and hatches was something one saw more often on Terran docks and Terran worlds--Terrans were more gregarious than Liadens at dockside, more likely to act as if the dock was an extended shift room or a sun porch open to neighbors.

  They'd had salutes and hand waves in passing, even with his focused stride, and he realized that he'd fallen back into that Terran habit easily. He doubted he'd ever spoken to any of these docksiders before in his life, but like most Terran docksides, the fact that one was seen twice meant he'd be recognized . . . there was a level of community there that Liadens reserved for allies, or clan, or even line.

  Balrog's location he had from the bar's diagrams, and third level meant they'd have to take a lift, which he wasn't in favor of, or take the catwalk-and-stairs edifice to that level, which was probably a good idea, given his adrenaline spring.

  He made no mention of his plan to the Scout, merely angling to the open-railed stairs that enclosed the lift stack for Section 3B, his stride barely changing as his footsteps rang out. He deplored the noise of these boots, but they'd been the fancies, as specified by Norn ven'Deelin at the start of this trip, which seemed at the moment like years ago. The Scout might as well be a cat as much sound as he made in Jethri's wake, and he was barely in Jethri's vision at each turn of the stairs.

  Arriving on the third level, the light gravity having impeded him not at all in his rush, Jethri turned hard to the right, a slight and probably purposeful scuff behind him letting him know the Scout was with him. On this level there were a third more gangways since they served even smaller ships and the neighborly spotting of knots of crew was even more in evidence--except something was wrong.

  Jethri saw the looks he was getting on this level, and the wary set of some of the standees as they sipped at beverages or leaned on tool carts. The buzz of conversation was lower even if the echoes were more insistent.

  "Jethri, my Second," came the low voice suddenly close to his side, "may I suggest . . ."

  Jethri slowed, paused, scanning the hanging signs for Balrog's spot, looking now for people who really might know him by face and by name and by ship history and . . .

  He turned to the Scout, who was being as inconspicuous as he could.

  "I see they're expecting something and wondering if I'm it."

  "Yes. I shall have to tell Pen Rel that you're able to do more than basic risk assessment . . ."

  Despite his mood Jethri managed to laugh, which was a good thing for he'd realized he'd let the tension build in him, something Pen Rel would surely have been unpleased with. Probably, in fact, he'd been stalking these last few steps, which wouldn't do at all.

  "No need to look immediately, but there is a woman approaching from our direction of travel, Terran, carrying, but not openly, and who must know you, for her tension is not for you. Behind her some distance, standing with a small group, there is a Terran crew member, acting backup for her, as I read it."

  Jethri closed his eyes and opened them. "She wears a blue ear cuff, perhaps?"

  "She does, in fact. Along with a blue face decoration or tattoo which matches it."

  "Then we're closing into the alert zone, Pilot," he said. "You have your opportunity to step back and be aside of this problem of mine . . ."

  "Surely," ter'Astin's bow was of the most elaborate, so elaborate that Jethri smiled, for it was a bow of extreme irony, reading the hand motions, a bow to one most wise . . .

/>   A nod then, and Jethri turned in time to see the skip-step that took Freza's rapid walk into a trot.

  In spite of it all, he was glad to see her, and reached his arms in her direction despite the distance until they nearly collided.

  "Jeth, I have your note, and see you have mine," Freza said simply, leaning forward to take his hand in what started off as a shake and turned into a wrist hug and then a real hug, to brush her lips close toward his right ear, saying quickly and quietly, "Glad you're here."

  She didn't have the makeup on this time, but now he saw that she had a misty blue tattoo, all fine lines and quiet shades--an image of a spiral galaxy it was, running from her hairline and even maybe into the hair in front of her ear, parallel to the ear--where her make-up had been heaviest when last he'd seen her--and the blue ear cuff shone out all the more against her pale skin and close-cropped hair. The make-up she'd worn made the cuff less obvious, he realized. She'd do that if it was a comm instead of decoration, he decided.

  She moved close to his face, whispered in his other ear, saying, "Sorry we had to leave so soon last time," and finished her words with the self-same kind of nip and then she was nodding at the same time toward the little man in plain pilot clothes who walked behind with a smile. It was just polite social for her to take Jeth's hand and smile, but it was pointed social news for her to show a public tendre this way, saying to all witnesses that Freza DeNobli of Balrog knew and welcomed this dandy-dressed trader.

  The witnesses were no less alert, Jethri could see that just by looking over Freza's shoulder, but some of the immediate tension had gone out of those closest to Balrog's gangway sign, which meant something . . .

  Freza waved the pair of them toward her ship's flag, hanging over the breezeless gangway, saying in a serious voice that belied her public smile, "There's been four passes, up here. Four that we noticed, in a group. They just walk on by, if you know what I mean, slow and comfortable. Except they're all carrying weapons and they're all on alert. Looks like a patrol, but they aren't authorized, and they don't talk--at least not to anyone but themselves."