She had been surprised to find that she had the women’s bath all to herself after supper; was business in the hotel really slow, or did Suderian visitors not bathe in the evening? Or perhaps, she wondered, maybe there were not that many female travellers who came to the city? Yet, the bathing facilities were roomy, and well stocked with necessities; she found it hard to believe that they were not put to frequent use.
“Life is full of mysteries when you world-hop,” she had subvocalized to The Monk as she washed herself and her hair in the luxury of the otherwise empty facility.
“Enjoy what is here to be enjoyed,” The Monk had retorted. “You don’t have any idea what tomorrow might bring!”
Which was what was on her mind, this morning. What, indeed, was she going to discover here in Suderie? And whatever it was, what was she going to do about it, when she found it?
*****
“I’m a Free Trader from off-world,” Kati explained to the plump woman who had replaced last night’s plump man behind the hotel lobby counter. “My friend Max, here, has been kind enough to bring me to Suderie, looking for merchandise that I might buy, and resell at a reasonable profit on other planets that I plan to visit.”
“Oh, your friend has brought you to the right city, that’s for sure, Captain Katerina,” exclaimed the woman. “It’s a wonderful thing, to know people who can direct you to places which are beneficial to you! There’s not much manufactured on Wayward that is not made better and more economically in this very town, now, that’s a fact. What sort of merchandise are you looking for? Trinkets to trade with primitives on planets in the Wilderness Space? Gadgets for people somewhat more advanced, but with no electronics of their own? I can’t say that I know much about the needs of Free Traders, but I have heard that they usually avoid large, bulky items because of space issues on their ships.”
“I’m interested in small items, of course,” replied Captain Katerina, concealing the fact that woman’s bland assumption that she was out to take advantage of sentients less technologically developed than she was, had her inwardly seething. “However, I have a request for a rather bulky item from a repeat customer on a fairly civilized world. I and my crew have been in the habit of providing this man with luxuries that he cannot obtain at home. Coffee, you know, and the best wine—items like that.”
She was improvising freely, using Hana and Mose’s relationship with Jorris, the Governor of Greyrock Island on Tarangay, as a template.
The woman before her nodded knowingly, although Kati was pretty sure that she knew nothing of coffee, though she must have understood at least a little about wine. She gave a quick glance in Max’s direction, and saw that her companion was stifling a smile; he had caught on to her game, and liked it.
“Well, this fellow asked me if, the next time I stop by his place, I couldn’t bring him a nice piece of carpet for his wife’s bedroom. You see, he recently married for the second time, having been widowed some time ago. The new wife’s quite a bit younger than he is, and fond of beautiful things; he’s rather keen on satisfying her wants, understandably. So he wants something that definitely cannot be bought on the home world, and which is of the highest workmanship. He’s willing to pay a fine price, if I can provide him with something like that.”
“Old men who marry young women can be such fools with their money,” muttered the lady clerk, pursing her lips.
“Sounds like what the idlers on the dock at Seven Willows, on the Drowned Planet, said to Dorn,” subvocalized the Granda. “You’re weaving a tale from the bits of your travels to convince this slattern of your bona fides, I gather. Very amusing.”
“Don’t be a snot,” Kati took a second to respond to The Monk. “She’s not a slattern, only a very limited woman. A slattern wouldn’t be behind the desk in an establishment as clean as this hotel is.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get a list of carpet manufacturers, would you?” she asked the woman. “I would like to check out their stock and production methods before I buy anything. This sale that I’m planning is a very important one to me; the profits of this whole trip may ride on it, since we Free Traders run our businesses on pretty thin profit margins.”
“The Council of Manufacturers Office could help you with that,” the lady clerk replied, pulling out a sheaf of papers from under the counter. “I have their address here somewhere.”
She sorted through a few of the sheets, settled on one, and pulled a small pad of paper and a pen towards her. When she handed what she had written down to Kati, she looked at it, and had the Granda memorize the information for her. She thanked the clerk, and slid the slip of paper into a pocket, even as she and Max headed out, to eat breakfast first, in the same restaurant where they had eaten the night before.
“I could have told you about The Council of Manufacturers,” Max said, as they walked to the restaurant.
“I figured as much,” Kati agreed, “but purposely didn’t ask you. I wanted to start a rumour or two, if possible, about Captain Katerina, quite the odd Free Trader, who is in the market for a rug—of all things—for some goofy male customer of hers.”
“Working on the notion that odd, and, possibly, slightly deranged, though not dangerously so, stranger will get away with asking questions that might cause concern coming from a normal foreigner?” Kati could hear the laughter behind Max’s tone of voice.
“You’ve got it. You’re quick to catch on. If ever you need a job, get hold of Maryse r’ma Darien in The Second City of Lamania. She’s always looking for good operatives.”
“Pity I’m rather overage, and needed right here on Wayward,” Max muttered. “Otherwise, I might take you up on that.”
They had reached the restaurant, and set aside shop-talk for the duration of the meal.
*****
The Council of the Manufacturers Office was on the top floor of a four-story building in the Commercial Sector. The building was posh on the inside, although hardly a stand-out on the outside, among a smattering of others which were about the same size and height. Suderie did not boast any skyscrapers; Kati wondered whether the notion of building edifices to challenge the skies had even occurred to the inhabitants. Or to anyone on Wayward for that matter. Strone had boasted s few reasonably tall buildings in the Government Complex, but nothing that on her own world would have been called a skyscraper. Then, she had not seen a skyscraper even on Lamania; Lamanians were too practical and sensible to indulge in phallic symbols, she had thought, even though they had not been shy about building high when they wanted to take advantage of a good view of the ocean for the residences of the top echelon of the Professional Rewards Class. Mikal supposedly had one of such apartments... better not wool-gather; she had work to do.
Before they entered the plushly-carpeted reception area of the Office which was their destination, Max suggested that he talk to the receptionist, and use his Old Family name to gain an audience with whoever was in charge of dealing with questions about the rug-trade. Kati readily agreed; it would save time and aggravation, and it did not hurt to let her companion feel that he was useful. So while Max spoke with the girl behind the fancy wooden desk which was much too big for her, she contented herself with going on her knees on the rug which covered the floor, and examining it for its workmanship. What she knew about carpets was piddling, but even she could tell that what was under her feet in this room was machine-made, if of excellent quality, nevertheless.
She got up to see Max looking at her with an amused expression on his face, while the girl behind the desk was staring, even while she was talking to someone on an intercom of some kind.
“So, what do you think of this one?” Max asked her, toeing the rug as he spoke.
Kati shook her head.
“No good. It’s machine-made. Jorris would laugh at me if I tried to bring him something like that. He can buy its like at home, every day of the week, and probably has done so—well, maybe not every day of the week. Either I find something really speci
al, or I have to make another stop, on another world. Which I’d prefer not to do.”
“Well, Lovale was peddling some nice ones at the Market on Strone—at least he claimed so.” Max was getting into the act, quite enthusiastically. “I didn’t actually see his carpets; they were all gone by the time I heard about them and went to take a look.”
The girl had finished with the intercom. She spoke to Max while shifting her eyes back and forth between him and Kati:
“Yana will see you, if you’ll go to Room Eight, down the hall in the back. She’s a busy woman and is doing this only because the request comes from you, Sieur Lordz. Please don’t waste her time.”
“Thanks.”
Max gifted her with a most charming smile, and steered Kati towards the hallway at the back of the room. Kati, too, smiled at the receptionist, only her grin had a hint of the crazy in it—at least she hoped that it did.
Yana was an efficient-looking middle-aged woman; Kati had no doubt that she was a busy person. She was well-dressed, and courteous to Max, and Max’s slightly strange companion.
Max slid into the straight-man role.
“This is my Free Trader friend, Captain Katerina,” he introduced Kati, “who has brought some very welcome merchandise from one of the Wilderness Worlds to Strone. She has sold some of her stock to the new Government of the Continent Nord at a very reasonable price, and, grateful for that, I have agreed to help her find an item that would fill a request that another of her customers, on another world, has made. Accordingly, we’re here in Suderie, asking questions about the finest carpets that are manufactured on Wayward.”
“Well, that is interesting.” Yana’s tone was neutral. “What kind of stock did Captain Katerina bring to Wayward?”
Kati was not sure if the woman was playing for time, or up to something else. If she was a busy woman, why was she wasting time with what ought to have been an irrelevancy to her?
“Communicator crystals,” Max said proudly. “Lace crystal shards, and quite a lot of them.”
He smiled at the Captain as if at his favourite child, and both he and Kati had the pleasure of seeing Yana’s face reflect profound shock—but only for a fleeting moment. She quickly gained control of her facial muscles.
“Did you bring any of the crystals to sell here in Suderie?” she then asked, directing the question to the Captain.
Kati shrugged.
“No,” she replied. “A crew-woman is in charge of their sale at the moment. She is operating out of Max’s Strone residence, assisted by Max’s very able Head Housekeeper. It’s first come, first served, situation—always assuming that there is agreement on the price.”
“Dear me, you could sell a ship-load of those shards here in Suderie between sunrise and sunset,” Yana said. “There’s always a demand for communications crystals, and lace crystal shards are the absolute best.”
“I’ll remember that for my next trip,” commented Captain Katerina, casually. “However, in the meantime, I would like to fill Jorris’ request, if I possibly can. Max, here, is of the opinion that if I can find a suitable piece of carpet to satisfy a very demanding old man with a young wife who likes beautiful objects, it would be here in Suderie. Suderians manufacture everything: those were your words, weren’t they, Max?”
“Indeed.” Max was beaming at her again. He turned to Yana, then.
“Lovale, the Carpet Seller at the Strone City Market was hawking rugs which he claimed were hand-knotted in a Suderian plant. I didn’t actually see them; by the time I heard about them, they had all been sold. Presumably, since they disappeared so fast, in spite of the fact that Lovale was not exactly giving them away, they were something amazing.
“When Captain Katerina asked for my help in locating an exquisite piece of carpeting, I immediately thought of Lovale’s carpets, but when we asked him about the source of his stock, he turned secretive on us. So we determined to come here ourselves and track down the source, so the Captain can decide for herself if the product suits her requirements.”
“Hand-knotted?” Yana’s eyebrows had shot up. “That narrows things down considerably. Those would, indeed, be the most exclusive rugs we, in Suderie, produce. There aren’t many manufacturers in that business—good knotters are expensive, and hard to come by.”
“I was told on one of the planets where I made inquiries, that children make the best rug-knotters,” Captain Katerina was bold enough to say. “Do you find that so, here on Wayward?”
Yana glared at her.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said flatly. “I don’t advocate the use of child labour.”
“But of course not,” the Captain agreed blandly. “Neither do I, as a matter of fact. But do you think that we could get the names and addresses of the few carpet-makers who do produce hand-knotted goods? It’s certainly possible that Max and I will find something in one of their inventories that might suit my demanding customer.”
“She knows something that she’s not happy about,” the Granda subvocalized. “I took the liberty of ESP snooping, since you usually expect that of me. That last question got to her; she’s not too happy with you at the moment. Perhaps you should back off, and cede the floor to your partner.”
Kati handed over to Max the pad of fine paper and the pen that she had brought with her—for show, since a noded person had no need to keep physical notes. But, they could be used to signify the person who was to lead the discussion, and she was gratified to note that Yana reacted to her gesture as Kati had calculated, and turned her attention to the Waywardian. Kati settled deeper into the comfortable chair to listen.
“You won’t need to take notes, Sieur Lordz,” Yana said to Max. “I can give you a printed list of the manufacturers who create hand-knotted carpets. It is not an extensive one.”
“I think that we should look at the work of some of the other high-end operators, too,” Max suggested, sagely. “They, too, might have something that could interest Captain Katerina.”
Kati mentally gave him full marks for that, even as she nudged The Monk to check the woman’s reaction to it.
Yana had already risen from her seat, and had stepped over to a cabinet at the back of the room. She rummaged in it; then brought out two sheets of paper, neither of them quite of the quality that Kati’s pad boasted.
“She’s definitely clamping down on some knowledge,” The Monk informed Kati. “Right now, she’s uncommonly keen to get rid of the two of you before you ask too many more questions.”
As if in an echo to the Granda’s statement, the Waywardian woman brought the two sheets to Max and said:
“The shorter list is the hand-knotters; as you can see there are only a handful of them. The longer list includes them, as well, since it is the list of all manufacturers who make top-quality carpets for export. I really couldn’t tell you whether or not Lovale’s source is among them, but I would assume that it is—on the shorter list, would be my guess. Why don’t you spend some time looking them up and talking to the owners, or staff, and checking out their product? If you don’t mind, I have plenty to do this morning.”
Kati nodded to Max, and they both got up, Max stretching luxuriously as he rose. He grinned at Kati.
“We’ll do just that, won’t we, Captain Katerina?” he said, before turning to thank Yana for her time and attention.
Outside the building, Kati clapped her hands before taking back her pad and pen, and stashing them into her tunic pocket.
“Excellent work, Max,” she said. “You’d make a first rate Agent!”
“I’ve had a lot of practise in subterfuge, dealing with the crazy Council of the Families, as I did for so many years,” Max responded modestly, but he looked pleased.
“That’s one of the things I learned from Mikal,” Kati explained. “Work with the locals, and never underestimate them. And always remember that the opposition does underestimate them.”
“He sounds like a very smart man, this Mikal. Will I get to meet him?”
&n
bsp; “I hope so. And when you do, prepare to hear rather a lot about how planets should be governed, according to cooperative principles.”
Max laughed.
“Yes, a very smart man,” he reiterated.
*****
They started with the shorter list.
The first manufacturer on it was an artisanal operator whose whole family worked on the carpets, in a room attached to their home. They did beautiful work, as Kati and Max were able to see from the samples the household head showed them of work in progress, but their production, even at the prices quoted, was spoken for, months in advance. Samu, the Head of the Household, and the Master Carpet Maker, told them that if they wanted to buy, they would have to place their name on an order list, and could not expect delivery until the following year.
Kati shook her head sadly.
“No,” she said, “there’s no way I can wait that long. Although your work is clearly worth waiting for.”
She glanced to where four children, ranging in age from about six to twelve, were busy knotting fibres.
“Your kids?” she asked.
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 40
