Trade Secret (eARC) (9 page)

He caught his breath.

"Now, my friend, we move our Festival to the bedside and bring you to me."

Releasing him with firm reluctance, she stood with dancer's grace, and temptingly removed her overtop. Then she reached for his hand as he rose, and they gathered their bottle and themselves to the bed.

*

"I am very thirsty, my friend, and the bottle is on your side."

He was now waking from a drowse of such excellence, of such satiation and satisfaction, that he almost didn't hear the quiet voice, but then his mind processed it and the hand that had been on his knee stroked upward and Gaenor said then-- "Let us finish this last glass between us, and see what else it is you might learn."

He poured into the closest glass, nearly filling it, and Gaenor raised her head and then stretched, arching herself with provocative intent.

"Have your sip," she said. "There's still work to do, but give me mine, too . . ."

While he sipped she began teasing and he sipped the glass half empty before he handed the glass to her. Her two-hand hold permitting him range, he bent to kiss her ear, and then as she giggled and finished the glass, reaching to the bedside he put his hands on either side of her waist and drew her to him, hands now under her arms and caressing, pulling his willing mentor toward him in a hug fraught with possibilities . . .

Then she said, "One more thing I must tell you, that you must know before you are pressed upon the worlds, my friend."

She twisted within his arms, nearly a move from his self-defense classes, and she pushed him back to the bed.

"Still," she said, "be still."

He laid flat, or as flat and still as he could, for her hands were just below his navel, pressing . . .

"Your fur," she told him, "is much to be admired, and I hope to brush it for you many times and curl my hands in it, for it is not what I have known before now. Liadens are not equipped with so much luxury! But I must correct you . . . for myself being incorrect."

He started. Everything they had done had been perfect! What correction? He tried to sit up. but her hand was still flat and firm below his navel . . .

"I think," she said seriously, "that you were following my hair and then my earrings and--as we were both involved elsewise as well, I didn't realize what you would do, and so you . . ." Here she sighed, and he strove to think: what error might he have committed, how could he have hurt her?

Her breasts were close and he thought of reaching out and tasting them again but . . .

She laughed, husky, for no doubt she'd seen his reaction to that passion!

"Just moments and we shall, yes we shall."

Awkwardly then, she put her hand to his lips, and he kissed her finger. She bowed where she was, which was very nice and now she giggled . . .

"Nearly hopeless. Next time we'll schedule one hundred hours and be sure I have backup for when I rest . . ."

He started to speak but now she pressed her finger harder to his lips and sighed.

"We were enthralled in the moment and lost to sense; I trust you will share this with none of your future lovers--at least none Liaden--unless you bring them to bed as your all-time love. For this thing you did--and which I did to you in return" . . . Now her hand left his lips and began stroking his face, not only under his chin and on his lip, but his cheeks and forehead, touching the side of his nose and his eyebrows before leaning low and kissing each eyelid.

"This touching of the face, which you admire and which I find I admire . . . this is a touch that is reserved for family, for the brushing away of tears of the young or the old, and for showing where too much tension or decision or emotion is displayed in a face. Yes, I may do this," she said, and leaned suddenly, bringing breast to tease his lips and his mouth, but she withdrew, and then she saw him bounce and leaned her face, laughing, touching her cheek to the side of his erection, her lips touching his eager head for one sweet second.

"That we can do," she said, turning to him and showing hands fluttering. "But the hands and fingers are not to touch the face of any but family and life-loves. It is as forbidden as the inking of words or letters or arts upon a body; it is as forbidden as piercing the body with permanently installed devices or jewels. It may be that upon a drunken night on a port where you are unknown or in a Festival on a world where you'll not return, that one might as a dare or a thrill do such a thing. But else, my good friend, doing such a touch might marry you on the spot, or name you pervert and have you hunted down and hounded by Balance for
melant'i
errors."

"But why?" he blurted, trying to recall the rulebooks, the Code that covered such things, knowing that he'd not pursued all the studies he should have . . .

She continued. "Kissing is a gray area; for families may kiss, and lovers, but one may not purposefully stroke the face . . .

"But you're beautiful!"

She sighed, perplexed. "Am I so? Beautiful? Well, my friend, you make me feel thus. Your eyes and your hands and your touch and your enthusiasms, yes, you make me feel beautiful."

She sat up somewhat then, holding him down with one hand and leaning over him, using the other hand to tease his ear with a sigh . . .

"I should not, you know," she allowed, but then, despite her admonition, she let the hand trace his ear to the side of his face, and put the whole of her hand on his cheek.

Her hand and her glance moved down his chin, playfully traced the choker--spanning it with her finger and thumb before pressing very gently on the rampant rabbit where it echoed his pulse--and then drifted downward, across one nipple and then the other, now down across his navel and teasing lower.

"Dance for me," she offered with a tempting smile, "and you may rub my cheek!"

But his hips were moving already as her cheek flattered his belly, and there was another lesson or maybe two, before morning.

*

Morning brought its own delights, with one of them the scandalous way Gaenor risked the door to tug in the breakfast cart, dressed as she was in only her flimsy overtop. That top had been put on to explain the names of clothes he'd never seen before, and the names of seams, inner workings, and to explain something of the disappearing. Perhaps he should have gone for the cart, had he known her intentions, but there, though he might be somewhat dressed in the see-through bottoms she'd had him put on again for this technical discussion, there was no doubting that an accidentally passing crew member might be surer of what he'd been up to than her.

In any case, her laughing countenance assured him there'd been no major exposure, and the breakfast she brought to the bedside, and the dessert she offered, was just what the famished trader needed.

Clan Ixin's Tradeship
Elthoria
, Boltston Arrival

He'd had five minutes, from the time the emergency wake-up did its job until the door sounded Norn ven'Deelin's tone. Jethri had managed, in those five minutes, to dress, though he had not, he feared, dressed
well
.

Worse, he had been late at his books, and short sleep had likewise shortened his temper.

"Ma'am, I'm in no case for a meeting," he told his mother as he opened the door.

"Scout necessity," was her answer. "Be at ease if you will! And come with me!"

"Ma'am, I'm hardly on the shift schedule--" It was hard not to sound annoyed, and he didn't hide it well, with a sharp edge he rarely used for anyone, much less Norn ven'Deelin.

His blush was minor: there were none to have heard it but him; he was fully deserving of her increased speed and more. But she relented as she hand-signed him toward the passage leading toward the small break room.

"None of us are, twenty breaths out of Jump and ten out of sleep, child."

He took the hint. More complaints would be really bad form, despite the provocation.

Well, and that was the problem: he'd been half-muffled in his bedclothes when the annunciator went off, and barely dressed when Norn herself appeared at his door on her way to their sudden breakfast. All this after he'd spent a late night writing notes. The easy part was one each to the twins, promising an excellent update when he was not so pressed for time--that task made more difficult by having to say some of the same thing in different words, in case they shared his message--he'd not be so gauche as to be sending ladies cut-and-paste correspondence!

The hard part--he'd hoped he'd reassured Tan Sim of his trust and continued goodwill, while admitting that the missing items might be a difficulty. That Tan Sim was well aware of the intricacies of both the delivery and ownership portions of this problem he didn't doubt.

A muffled sniff brought him back to Norn and her ironic smile.

"My son, I am required for this, for all that it may be your business. Forgive me: the information came in cipher and tagged for myself; there'd be no use having the mate refuse you despite the news is yours more than mine."

"She can't tell me, then?"

"It would only pain you both and that, my son, is something you'll need to recall and refine as time goes on: the duty of a superior is to increase and protect the ship's interest as the clan's interest. Rarely is such an increase favored by the breaking of regulations or the reliance on friendship."

He nodded, which the trader didn't notice, having a half-step lead on him.
Melant'i
was all about stuff like that--that just because they'd chewed each other's ears, he had no right to ask or expect Gaenor to be spilling secrets. Same thing traders knew anywhere, anytime, he guessed. "There are secrets in all families," as he had it from Grig, and this was no different.

The small break room merged into the two larger ones at the touch of a button but Norn left the button alone, dropping from fast walk to still as she touched the fingerpad, letting the ship--or at least the command center--know where she was.

Perforce, Jethri stopped, watching for a signal. It came from her hand, and he hurriedly stepped into the unoccupied meal line, pulling for himself tea and breakfast and 'mite. Before he was done Norn passed him, hurrying, and stopped and took motion again, this time toward the outer door, where Gaenor's voice brought him round suddenly--along with the familiar voice of ter'Astin.

Norn ven'Deelin's signal was solid enough, so he went, his fleeting catch of Gaenor's glance an elation and then a sense of dread--for while she permitted the briefest of smiles her eyes held not a smile, but wary concern.

Jethri went by the green "reserved" light, on to the small break room, passed the head chair at the small table and was angling for a safe middle spot when from behind came the Master Trader's voice, with perhaps a tinge of amusement.

"You will grace me at my left hand, if you please, and the Scout will sit at my right."

He blinked: he on the left, she to the right, offering him the first voice. He bowed, seeking the proper phrase of thanks and acknowledgment.

The Master Trader sniffed dourly.

"Yes, of course. But it signifies very little when one deals with a Scout in a hurry, I assure you. We might as well meet in zero-G with you upside down on the ceiling for as much attention as he will pay!"

*

It seemed to Jethri that Norn was wrong, for the scout arrived with a small meal to hand and made all the proper bows, exact in degree to Norn, and then a move full of nuance and complexities to him, with overtones of an admission of failure and error of judgment, even a request for forgiveness--there was little in Liaden that allowed of anything nearly as simple as an "I'm sorry!"

There were just the three of them, and from the exultant formal they moved instantly into a mode Grig would have called war-room.

"Eat," the Scout advised as he sat, "for one of you will be departing with me, and
Keravath
has already filed a tentative outbound, with a departure within the local twelfth day, if you please."

Before they could reply he expanded the statement of his bow, addressing the pair while favoring Norn with a particular nod and wry expression.

"Almost I begin to think that my errors should include my failure to refuse a summons from one surely not so well versed yet in
melant'i
as to include a life path for me . . ."

Then looking directly at Jethri, who'd managed to bite off half of a breakfast dumpling before being addressed:

"You, sir, entrusted me with a notebook, in order that I might have it studied and copies made. I am of no doubt that the notebook is your own, and I promised to return it to you safely. That notebook and some related material have been appropriated--or perhaps misappropriated--by an internal agency allied with our organization. They've removed it from our facilities and taken it, we believe, in order to take control of several other pieces of property which may be forbidden technology, or which may simply be property of your own which you have yet to be made aware of."

"Property? What kind of property? Why would they take my journal?"

Internally, Jethri grimaced--he hadn't meant to just start in like this. But unless there
were
secret pages most of what was in that book was silly kid stuff--like his count on the fractins he'd bought at different places, and how many were "good ones, real ones" and where were the best places to look, and like the trade routes he'd outlined with his father for when he would have a ship to fly or trade with, and . . .

The Scout sighed, holding his hands in a gesture Jethri took to mean
slow down
. . .

"Some of these questions may be best answered by those associated with the removal of the items from a supposedly secure area within a Scout facility. The question of the property itself cannot be answered without the book--it was removed after I wrote a study approach for the experts who were to do the evaluation for me, since there are subtleties which I know of but am not expert at. They performed only the first of these before the material was removed."

"Can't you just tell them to bring it back? They're Liaden, they're
your
associates--can't your bosses just order them?"

"That would be the case normally, yes. However, my superiors . . ."

Jethri caught an expression on the Scout's face, saw his glance toward Norn ven'Deelin.

He bowed a bow requesting assurance of the Master Trader.

"To reply properly I shall need to discuss information of a confidential nature."

Norn's face had gone bland, and her hands made the little go-ahead common among traders, the left hand palm up and open, a two-fingered fist orbiting beyond the open palm and then sweeping toward the requester . . . that would be "offer the deal."

"The problem I have," he said quickly, then, "is that some of the permissions given to make this happen came from levels well up within my organization. There is a debate going on, a stressing of boundaries, perhaps even a disaffection. Additionally, there is a jurisdictional difficulty. With the action being removed from Scout headquarters and common Liaden space in pursuit of items known or suspected to be in Terran areas, the possibility of
jedante
--the setting of precedent--becomes a difficulty."

The Scout paused, his face intent as he sought another point.

Jethri's frustration grew and he fell into Terran, interrupting. "So you're saying that the bosses don't care that you promised me I'd have it back and they're going to ignore you and your promise and take what's mine, while they mess around with my notebook--and who knows, maybe using my name!"

With a voice slightly raised now, and eyes seeking to dominate the conversation, the Scout used a bow indicating "I understand your concern." The Scout replied in Terran, not too badly accented.

"The matter allows of multiple interpretations. Let me say this: the division in intent extends both up and down in the organization, yes.

"
Some
of the bosses are in favor of the action that's been undertaken. Others, such as those closest to my own areas of operation, feel that the
melant'i
of the Scouts suffers greatly if the word of a field agent may be ignored or disarranged so fully."

He paused, then went on, his face going blander, bringing Jethri's already strained attention up a notch.

"I feel I must insist, with no disrespect meant or offered, that at least one part of your statement is wrong. I promise you that,
no
, they will not just ignore me and take from you. That would be outside the bounds of proper behavior in several of our shared cultures."

He rose, smoothly unwinding to his modest height, and bowed to Jethri again.

"On my name and my House, as witnessed by one not of my clan, they will not just ignore me on this. Again, I promise you, Jethri Gobelyn, I will do my utmost to bring you face-to-face with these miscreants, that we may together return to you what is yours."

*

Apparently the "witness" part was even more formal than he'd gotten from tel'Ondor's training since it required a solemn stand-up bow from
both
the Scout and his mother; and the insistence on "Gobelyn" in this had some depth he didn't at first fathom.

"It occurs to me that I may have my own backups stand down," Norn offered judiciously as they sat again. She had her hands spread on the table then. Jethri saw her staring hard at her Master's ring before she looked at him, her mouth going straight, and perhaps grim, before she turned her attention to the waiting Scout, her look giving him permission to speak.

"Yes, that would be the case," he said. "If we are to move among Terran boundaries--you understand that we have no time frame for this, except as soon as possible? They have to pull together a team and the pair of us shall move with more speed, and perhaps have more access, as well as less likelihood of a crossing of my Balance with your own."

Norn bowed acknowledgment and looked at both of them.

"You, Scout, for yourself and for your organization, have brought this to us for solving, and the solving requires great trust. This I accept. My son has necessity and must be gone from the ship for the purpose of Balance both ethical and physical, a purpose he agrees with, and which may have cultural subtlety beyond my comprehension. Is this agreed by all?"

There were bows from both Jethri and the Scout.

"In that case, you will know your business better than I," she said, a hand motion indicating them both,. Then to Jethri: "My son, never forget that you may call upon the clan as you need. You will take and wear your collar pin, and use Ixin's name among any of our allies as needed. Take the choker, it is yours, if luck so follows. Dress as trader, and take at least one of the good suits."

She glanced toward ter'Astin's bland face and saw something there Jethri must have missed, continuing with an emphatic slap on the table.

"In fact, take the very best suit, for you will be a diplomat for yourself.
Jedante
will be properly served if necessary. This is a matter of necessity on several fronts, this venture. Do us proud, for I expect to be by your side when you tell your tales to my foster mother!"

She stood, bowed. "Safe lift, my son. Move as quickly as you can, that you may return to me as soon as may be, to make yourself, Ixin, and
Elthoria
whole again."