Balance of Trade (14 page)

"Scout. To what do we owe the honor?"

"Merely a desire to share a glass and a few moments with the master trader," the Scout said, slowing slightly, but still moving steadily up the ramp. "Surely an old friend may ask so much?"

Jethri sent a glance up into Pen Rel's face, which showed watchful, and somewhat, maybe, even—annoyed.

"The master trader has just returned from the trade meeting—" he began.

"Then she will need a glass and a few moments of inconsequential chat even more," the Scout interrupted. "Besides, I wish to speak with her about her apprentice."

Pen Rel's glance found Jethri's face. "Her tardy apprentice."

"Just so," said the Scout. "You anticipate my topic."

He reached Pen Rel and paused at what Jethri knew to be comfortable talking distance for Liadens. It was a space that felt a little too wide to him, but, then, he'd come up on a ship half the size and less of
Elthoria
.

"Come, arms master, be gracious."

"Gracious," Pen Rel repeated, but he turned and led the way into the ship.

IF MASTER VEN'DEELIN felt any dismay in welcoming Scout Captain Jan Rek ter'Astin onto her ship, she kept it to herself. She saw him comfortably seated, and poured three glasses of wine with her own hands—one for the guest, one for herself, and one for Jethri.

She sat in the chair opposite the Scout; perforce, Jethri sank into the remaining, least comfortable, chair, which sat to the master trader's right.

The Scout sipped his wine. Master ven'Deelin did the same, Jethri following suit. The red was sharp on the tongue, then melted into sweetness.

"I commend you," the Scout said to the master trader, and in Terran, which Jethri thought had to be an insult, "on your choice of apprentice."

Master ven'Deelin inclined her head. "Happy I am that you find him worthy," she replied, in her accented Terran.

The Scout smiled. "Of course you are," he murmured. "I wonder, though, do you value the child?" He raised his hand. "Understand me, I find him a likely fellow, and quick of thought and action. But those are attributes which Scouts are taught to admire. Perhaps for a trader—?"

"I value Jethri high," Master ven'Deelin said composedly.

"Ah. Then I wonder why you put him in harm's way?"

Master ven'Deelin's face didn't change, but Jethri was abruptly in receipt of the clear notion that she was paying attention on all channels.

"Explain," she said, briefly.

"Certainly," the Scout returned, and without even taking a hard breath launched the story of Jethri's foray into the Trade Bar, and all the events which followed from it. Master ven'Deelin sat silent until the end, then looked to Jethri.

"Jethri Gobelyn."

He sat up straighter, prepared to take his licks, for the whole mess had been his own fault, start to finish, and—

"Your lessons expand. Next on-shift, you will embrace
menfri'at
. Pen Rel will instruct you as to time."

What in cold space was
menfri'at
, Jethri wondered, even as he inclined his head. "Yes, Master Trader."

"Self-defense," the Scout said, as if Jethri has asked his question out loud, "including how to make calm judgments in . . . difficult situations." Jethri looked at him, and the Scout smiled. "For truly, child, if you had not run—or run only so far as one of the tables—there would have been no need to leap off into a gravity-free zone which is sometimes not quite so gravity free as one might wish."

Jethri looked at him, mouth dry. "The book said—"

"No doubt. However, the facts are that the station does sometimes provide gravity to those portions marked 'free fall'."

Jethri felt sick, the wine sitting uneasily on his stomach.

"Also," the Scout continued, "a book is—of necessity—somewhat behind the times in other matters; and I doubt that yours attempted more than a modest discussion of station culture. Certainly, a book could tell you little of which ships might be in from the outer dependencies, with crews likely to be looking for hijinks."

And that, Jethri admitted, stomach still unsettled, was true. Just like he'd know better than to head down Gamblers Row on any Terran port he could name after a rock-buster crew came in, he ought to know—

But the ship names meant nothing to him, here, and though some—perhaps twenty percent—had showed Combine trade codes along with Liaden, he didn't yet have those Liaden codes memorized. Jethri swallowed. He shouldn't have been let loose on station without a partner, he thought. That was fact. He was a danger to himself and his ship until he learned not to be stupid.

The Scout was talking with Master ven'Deelin. "I see, too, that Ixin, or at least
Elthoria
, may need to be brought to fuller awareness of the, let us call them . . . climate changes. . .  recently wrought here. Indeed, these changes are closely related to my own sudden stationing."

Norn ven'Deelin's face changed subtly, and the Scout made a small, nearly familiar motion with his hand. Jethri leaned forward, the roiling in his gut forgotten—hand-talk! It wouldn't be the same as he knew, o'course, but maybe he could catch—

"So," the master trader murmured, "it is not a mere accident of happiness that you are on-station just as my apprentice becomes beset by—persons of loutishness?"

"It is not," the Scout replied. "The politics of this sector have altered of late. The flow of commerce, and even the flow of science and information has been shifting. You may wish—forgive me for meddling where I have no right!—but perhaps you may wish to issue ship's armbands to those who walk abroad unaccompanied."

The Scout's fingers moved, casually, augmenting his spoken words. Jethri tried to block his voice out and concentrate on the patterns that were
almost
the patterns he knew. He thought for a second that he'd caught the gist of it—and the Scout turned up the speed.

Defeated for the moment, Jethri sat back, and tried another sip of his wine.

"For I am certain," the Scout was saying out loud, "that there were enough of those present with Ixin's interest at heart that they would not have permitted a bullying. As it is, you may wish to ask your most excellent arms master to—"

Master ven'Deelin's hand flashed a quick series of signs as she murmured, "Ah. I have been so much enjoying your visit that I of my duty am neglectful. This is what you wish to say?"

The Scout laughed. The master trader—perhaps she smiled, a little, before turning her attention to Jethri and using her chin to point at the door.

"Of your goodness, young Jethri. Scout ter'Astin and I have another topic of discourse between us, which absolutely I refuse to undertake in Terran."

"Yes, ma'am." He stood and bowed, made clumsy by reason of the still-full wine glass. "Good shift, ma'am. Scout—I thank you."

"No, child," the Scout said, sipping his wine. "It is I who thank you, for enlivening what has otherwise been a perfectly tedious duty cycle." He moved a hand, echoing Master ven'Deelin. "Go, have your meal, rest. Learn well and bring honor to your ship."

"Yessir," Jethri gasped, and made his escape.

"YES!" RAY JON TEL'ONDOR cried, bouncing 'round Jethri like a powerball on overload.

"
Precisely
would a shambling, overgrown barbarian from the cold edge of space bow in acknowledgment of a debt truly owed!" Bouncing, he came briefly to rest a few inches from Jethri's face.

Frozen in the bow, Jethri could see the little man's boots as he jigged from foot to foot, in time to a manic rhythm only he could hear. Jethri forced himself to breathe quietly, to ignore both the crick in his back and the itch of his scalp, where the hair was growing out untidily.

"Well played, young Jethri! A skillful portrayal, indeed! Allow me to predict for you a brilliant career in the theater!" The boot heels clicked together, and Master tel'Ondor was momentarily, and entirely, still.

"Now," he said, in the mode of teacher to student, "do it correctly."

Having no ambition to hear Master tel'Ondor on the foolishness of allowing one's emotions rule—a subject upon which he was eloquent—Jethri neither sighed, nor cussed, nor wrinkled his nose. Instead, he straightened, slowly and with, he hoped, grace, and stood for a moment, arms down at his sides, composing himself.

It was not, as he had hoped, the new boots which had been waiting for him in his quarters—five pairs to choose from!—that were the problem with his bows this shift, nor was it that the silky blue shirt bound him, or that the equally new and surprising trader's jacket limited his range of motion. Though he was very much aware all of his new finery, he was in no way hampered. The problem had been and was, as he understood Master tel'Ondor on the matter, that Jethri Gobelyn had ore for brains.

Don't doubt that his lessons with Master tel'Ondor had taught him a lot. For instance, learning how to speak Liaden wasn't anywhere like learning how to speak a new dialect of Ground Terran, or dock-pidgin or Trade. Spoken Liaden was divided into two kinds—High and Low—and then divided again, into
modes
, all of which meant something near and dear and different to Liaden hearts. Improper use of mode was asking for a share in a fistfight, if nothing worse. That was if Master tel'Ondor let him live, which by this time in the proceedings, Jethri wasn't so sure he would.

Truth told, and thanking the tapes, not to mention Vil Tor and Gaenor, he did have a yeoman's grip on the more work-a-day modes in the High Tongue—enough, Master tel'Ondor allowed, that educated people would understand him to be literate, though tragically afflicted with an impediment to the tongue.

No, it was the
bows
that were making him into a danger to himself and his teacher. Dozens of bows, of varying depths, each delivered at its own particular speed, with its own particular gesture of hand—or lack—held for its own particular count. . . 

"Forgive me, young Jethri," Master tel'Ondor said, delicately. "Have I time to drink a cup of tea before your next performance?"

His one triumph was his ability to remain trader-faced, no matter the provocation. Carefully, he inclined his head, bending his neck so far, but no further, straightening without haste and only then making his reply.

"Your pardon, Master. I was absorbed by thought."

"At this moment, thought is extraneous," Master tel'Ondor told him. "The honorable to whom you find yourself in debt stands before you. Show proper respect, else they become bored—or discover that they are in receipt of an insult. Perhaps you do intend an insult; if so, you must chart your own course. The ven'Deelin did not bid me instruct you in matters of the duel."

"Yes, Master." Jethri took a deep breath, began the count in his head, moved the right arm—
so
—on the same beat extending the left leg—
so
—and bent from the waist, forehead on an interception course with the left knee.

At the count of fourteen, he stopped moving, holding the pose for six beats, then reversed the count, coming slowly to his full height, right hand and left leg withdrawing to their more usual positions—and he was at rest.

"So." Before him, Master tel'Ondor stood solemn and still, his head canted to one side. "An improvement." He held up a hand, as if to forestall the grin Jethri kept prisoned behind straight lips. "Understand me—an
improvement
only. Those who had not had the felicity of observing your former attempts might yet consider that they had been made the object of mockery."

Jethri allowed himself an extremely soft and heartfelt sigh. It wasn't that he doubted the tutor's evaluation of his performance—he
felt
like he was hinged with rusty metal when he bowed. According to Gaenor, they were due to raise Tilene within the ship-week, where, according to nobody less than Norn ven'Deelin, he would be expected to assist at the trade booth.

"Forgive me, Master, for my ineptitude," he said now to Master tel'Ondor. "I wish to succeed in my studies."

"So you do," the master replied. "And so I do—and so, too, does the ven'Deelin. It is, however, possible to wish so ardently for success that the wish cripples the performance. It is my belief, Jethri Gobelyn, that your very desire to do well limits you to mediocrity." He began to move around Jethri, not his usual manic bounce, but a sedate stroll, as if he were a trader and Jethri a particularly interesting odd lot.

For his part, Jethri stood with patience, his stomach recovered from yesterday's adventures and the off-hour meal he'd wolfed in the cafeteria under the view of an entire shift he was barely known to.

Master tel'Ondor had completed his tour.

"You are large," he murmured, hands folded before him, "but not so large as to hamper ease of movement. Indeed, you possess a certain unaffected grace which is pleasing in a young person. Understand me, I do not counsel you to be
easy
, but I do ask that you allow your natural attributes to aid you. Respect, duty, honor—all arise effortlessly from one's
melant'i
. You know yourself to be a man who
does not
give inadvertent insult—ideally, your bow—and all your dealings—will convey this. I would say to you that the strength of your melant'i is more important in any bow than whether you have counted precisely to fourteen, or only to thirteen."

He tipped his head. "Do you understand me, Jethri Gobelyn?"

He considered it.
Melant'i
he had down for a philosophy of hierarchy—a sort of constant tally of where you stood in the chain of command in every and any given situation. It was close enough to a plain spacer's "ship state" to be workable, and that was how he worked it. Given the current situation, where he was a student, trying hard to do—to do honor to his teacher. . . 

Think
, he snarled at himself.

OK, so. He was junior in rank to his teacher, and respectful of his learning, while being more than a little shy of his tongue. At the same time, though, a student ought to be respectful of himself, and of his ability to learn. He wasn't an idiot, though that was hard to bear in mind. Hadn't Master ven'Deelin herself signed him on as 'prentice trader, knowing—which she had to—the work it would mean, and trusting him to be the equal of it?