Trade Secret (eARC) (32 page)

Grig spoke a quick word to the apprentice, then turned back to Trade:

"Cousin Arin came from a family ship long involved in active study during Jump, and he'd been apprenticed to a ship where learning was prized as much as piloting. Indeed, I became Arin's pilot because of those habits of his, for he needed to study and be prepared as a commissioner. Arin refreshed his languages with me, as well as his piloting and his math and his chemistry.

"Thus Jethri's mistake--his error, if you will--might have come from his father Arin, or perhaps from before that, from our Uncle, who had the teaching of both of us. My accent surely was from him."

Grig paused with a pilot's hand flourish, indicating
operation in progress continues
.

"Now of my Uncle, what can I say? His learning? I wish I'd have the time to tell you of the things he thinks of and talks about! History is a playroom to him, culture and art his familiars! Last I saw him he was an aging man with a large library and a younger mate who challenged him not to let his mind rest, not to feel old. His travels and sources were not much shared, only the results of them.

"That is what I can tell you, Pilot, if my Liaden is old-fashioned or out dialect."

Therinfel
's pilot bowed. "Ah, but see, you already have it that you are among those who are not of Liad's Highest Houses, unlike Infreya chel'Gaibin and her heir. We need not quibble over who has a better accent--as you are a learned man and I a native, we each must admit the other's facility with words adequate."

It was that pilot's turn to wave hands as if in thought.

"Still, sir, we find ourselves at odds and I wonder if we may act for a moment more as traders and less as pilots to bring our
melant'i
more in tune with one another. For my part I will begin with the assertion that your cousins are very interesting people, this Arin and this Jethri. Both holders of the Liaden tongue. Both, I gather, traders of some ability. Both, in fact, involved not only with trade usually falling within the basic--do you call them 'loops,' I think?--of Terran trade interest, but moving beyond to the larger trade spheres and routes of Liaden interests."

Grig looked to Khat, shrugged, offered to bel'Mora a nod.

"All true. As I mentioned, the family studies."

"Agreed," said the Liaden with a slight bow, "you have said. And like a good scholar, your cousin Arin, he has published, is that so?"

"He was an active man, often quoted."

"Then let me offer this, if I may. It is my belief that while young chel'Gaiban is overcareful of his
melant'i
among Liadens and undercareful of it among Terrans, his mother Infreya, as Delm Rinork, will be at pains not to involve her clan in more"--here he fell to a rolling, tumbling hand wave--"disorderly events. It is my belief that Infreya would, as a trader of some worth and cunning, be interested in the study your cousin Arin Gobelyn performed for his duties before quitting his position as commissioner. It is a document, this
Envidaria,
which is exceeding difficult to come by. In return for a copy of this study, which would of course be kept in extreme confidence, I feel Infreya might invoke a homeworld existence for her heir, since he becomes troublesome away from Liad. His means of achieving Balance, direct or indirect, against your Jethri--or against you personally, Khatelane Gobelyn--would be much reduced!"

He'd looked right at Khat with that, and so had the apprentice.

"I am not a trader," Khat allowed after a moment. "I'm a pilot, and second in command of a ship. You offer to intercede in a matter of a potential threat I'm aware of in exchange for a document I've never seen. This becomes a difficult moment for me, Pilot bel'Mora."

She sipped tea.

Grig shifted slightly, ostensibly also to have another sip of his tea. The apprentice shifted, as did Pilot bel'Mora. Eyes were careful, hands even more so.

Cup in her off hand, Khat continued with some heat and careful volume, "You must understand that the boy did wrong to grab me, but I've knocked him down and bloodied his nose in front of a bunch of people, and that's what he deserved. That's Balance, and I count that done."

She sipped more tea, weighing the cup, light angles, Grig's position . . . looked up and continued.

"Not only is there a hint of threat to me, but more to Jethri, and as far as I can see, that's done, too. It ought to be done, anyhow, the way we do things, since he's not here to agree or disagree to it. So here's what I see. You've made me a hypothetical offer to fix something that's not broken anymore, if it ever was."

Khat looked the apprentice in the eye this time, shaking her head, jetting on, "Under this hypothetical offer from someone not present is the insinuation that a failure to agree--a failure to produce what I don't have--will both continue and extend the threat. I can only program so many alternative courses, Pilot, and I'm seeing the best one for me is for my shipmate to finish our tea and then to continue our day, with thanks for your time and hospitality, and let you continue yours."

She set the empty cup down, firmly. The hand moved from the cup, clearly making the hand-sign
time,
and the follow-up movement indicating
we go
.

Grig nodded to her, placed his cup down soundlessly.

Pilot bel'Mora looked between them dispassionately, a bow which meant something she didn't know tilted toward Khat. He said something in Liaden which brought the apprentice a little straighter in the chair . . .

"Not a mistake, Pilot," Grig suggested. "Khat here, she's First in my view. Her
melant'i
must be served. We have been patient, we drank your tea, and we have heard you. If you tell us that the offer is not theoretical, but . . . but you have not done that."

"Also, Pilot," Khat broke in, "you misunderstand my view of the situation. I said I'd finished with my Balance. It was stupid of him. But I'm a spacer. I was born in space and I live in space. Shouldn't be anything that gives
me
a right to lock a man on a planet for his whole life, just on my say-so. Offering me that is like offering me a chance to stab him in the back for free--and that's not how Khat Gobelyn works. You can take
your
melant'i
and walk through the mud with it!"

That brought both of the Liadens straight in their chairs but by then Grig was standing, half in front of Khat as he helped her pull her chair out, gun hand free, for all of a sudden, the stakes had risen.

"
My
melant'i
need not be part of this discussion, Pilot, if you will simply admit your error. Else
Therinfel'
s bad will toward you accumulates with chel'Gaibin's. Have you no understanding . . ."

"You're not even good enough to pay for my tea," Khat said, throwing a coin on the table to cover their due, and then to Grig, "we're gone."

*

Gone was easier said than done, what with the uncertainty of the tearoom's staff over their hurried departure and the rush of the other Liadens to attempt to block their exit. A few seconds were wasted going around wait staff and they were out the door.

"Called off the help," Grig said as they hurried down the still-crowded large hall. The sound of loud voices rose behind them, and a clanging, scraping noise. He signaled and they took a quick right down a service stairway, and then into a larger room with an exit onto a busy loading dock. Ignoring protests they dropped a few feet to the pavement and strode out into the hazy-bright afternoon.

"Yes," she said. "But back to the ship anyway unless you have a better plan."

He didn't. "Taxi stands are on the main routes, I'm sure."

Finding a main route that wasn't the one leading to the building they'd just left wasn't easy, but they crested a small hill and saw a corner populated with the little cars.

"Do we have one?" Khat asked as they jogged that way, their plain garb marking them against the colorful dress of the local citizens. Ahead, the taxi stand . . .

"One of what?"Grig sounded slightly winded.

"A copy of Arin's study."

"If Paitor hasn't told you, you're not supposed to know."

She said something quite impolite under her breath. "I've been told something now by someone, haven't I?"

They hurried around the pedestrians, sweat breaking out on both of them.

"Until we can talk to Paitor, quiet on it. He should have said something."

"Other way?" Khat said, pointing to one of the Liadens from the tea shop arriving at the taxi stand--

"Transit this way," Grig suggested, pointing to a sign Khat couldn't decipher.

"No, wait. We might as well just get a taxi," Khat insisted. "There's only one of them!"

*

In retrospect, they might as well have broken up the beverage shop. That was Khat's first take on it, but Paitor sensibly pointed out they'd have had local damages to pay, and local injuries, too, within the city's jurisdiction. That might not only have been expensive, but fatal.

"They're coming off a coup, Khat--any excuse to show how well they keep order and discipline. They could have sent in a squad and shot the lot of you, claiming you were fomenting revolution."

"What you should have done was not talk to them at all," Iza said bluntly. "Is that what I've raised? Is this how I run my ship? Not enough sense to see a trap on the way? You, Grig? We sent you because you're supposed to have sense!"

"My call, Iza," Khat insisted. "It was my call from the first word they gave us. We needed to hear . . ."

"Jethri. Jethri! Damned if that's not what you heard, isn't it? They said
Jethri
and the both of you were all ears!"

Khat took a deep breath and dove into the argument. "What we heard was a couple of things. To start off, we heard
Gobelyn'
s
Market.
Sound familiar?
Gob-e-lyn's Mar-ket
! They'd announced us in the exam room, so anyone there could have heard of us. So yes, that got our attention. Then they said another name you might have heard of. They said
Khat-e-lane Gob-e-lyn
. You know, the name on all my licenses and certifications. Same last name as your brother has. Same one you have, right?
Go-ba-lin
one said, but the other got it right."

Paitor tried to break in, but Khat wasn't giving up the floor, and Iza started and Khat still didn't give way.

"So yes, then they said Jethri's name. They did, and we both heard it, right, Grig?"

Grig nodded and signed
yes
, but in the flow of things Khat kept going, not giving an edgewise for anyone else's words quite yet.

"They also said another name you might have heard of, right after. Tell me if you remember this name, will you, because sometimes I think you don't. They told us they wanted to talk to us about 'dead Arin.'"

Into the ensuing silence came Grig's voice, very low. "They told us they wanted to talk about Balance and Arin, too. The exact phrase they used was 'This Arin who is dead.'"

Iza glared at them all, the piloting crew, Paitor and Khat up front, with Grig half behind, and Cris too. The kids had been left out, and Seeli and Dyk. They'd get a report later, but for the moment the ship was on port lockdown, sitting at a perpetual ten minutes to lift on a hotpad they were paying premium rates for, all the pilots on the flight deck.

"Arin has nothing to do with this ship," she finally said, "and hasn't for more than a decade. Arin's nothing to this ship. What does dead Arin have to do with
Gobelyn'
s
Market,
do they think? What could they . . ."

Iza raised her hands to shoulder height and flung her arms out as if pushing a heavy weight away, turning away from the lot of them before grimacing behind a hand held over her mouth. Her gaze focused somewhere else--maybe through the deck itself and the planet and out into space--and then she closed her eyes and raised them again, open to the group.

"Can't let this get in the way of the ship, can we?" she said.

Khat agreed with a quick, "Right," nodding and gently adding, "but that's why we had to see what they were on about. Liadens have these feuds and Balances they do. We all know it, and we needed to know if it was Jethri they were mad at, or me, or if Arin had crossed someone thirty years ago and left a Balance against the ship that was just coming forward. Liadens are like that."

Iza nodded at Khat, and then at Grig, and then spun back to Khat with an exasperated sigh.

"So, you were PIC on this trip and you had to do a pilot's choice. Grig was running second and backed up the Pilot in Charge, like he's supposed to. The fact is that once you were in that tea parlor, problems were going to happen. I'll accept that. Now explain how we got from a tea parlor in the middle of the city to a taxi battle in front of the damn ship?"

*

Khat went over the day again, glossing over the trip in and omitting this time the amount of general fees, service fees, taxes, route certification charges, and suggested facilitation payments required to get them into and out of the routing permit meeting.

"Once we were out of the building and got to the taxi stand, a Liaden was in a spot to get in our way--he had a comm, and was trying to raise someone when we got there. He didn't want a taxi, but I guess he was under orders to make sure we didn't take one, so he tried to block the door. Grig just went around to the other side, and then he tried to block Grig so I ducked in my side and he stood in Grig's way. Another taxi pulled up then--"

Here she shook her head. "And that's how it started, because then the rest of
Therinfel'
s crew was running up and I told the driver to launch, and Grig ducked into the second taxi--it was all orange stripes--and the guy with the comm tried to get in and Grig let him . . . and I lost track of his course.

"At the next light there was Grig right behind me grinning like a fool but in a red stripe and signing what looked like he was going the
long way home
, with the orange stripe right behind him. My driver asked me if there was a problem and I told her, since she knew I was going to the port, that the orange stripe was trying to beat me out of a deal and I needed to get to the ship first. So she looked at me in that mirror and asked, 'Lady own deal?'"