The Crystal Variation (105 page)

“Apprentice. The master trader assigns me your escort.”

Jethri paused and bowed, also slightly—that being the best he could manage with the bag slung across his back.

“Sir. The master trader does me too much honor,” he said.

The blue eyes flickered—very likely Pen Rel agreed—but give the man his due, neither smirk nor smile crossed his face, either of which he had every right to display, according to Jethri’s counting.

Instead, he turned his attention to Iza Gobelyn and bowed again—deep, this time, displaying all proper respect to the captain-owner.

“The master trader sends felicitations, Captain. She bids me say that she has herself placed a child of her body into the care of others, for training, knowing the necessity at the core of her trader’s heart. A mother’s heart, however, is both more foolish and more wise. She, therefore, offers, mother to mother, route-list and codes. Messages sent by this method will reach Jethri Gobelyn immediately. Its frequent use is encouraged.”

Another bow—this one no more than a heavy tip of the head—a flourish, and there was a data card between the first and second fingers of his extended hand.

Iza Gobelyn’s mouth pursed up, as if she’d tasted something sour. She didn’t quite place her hands behind her back—not quite that. But she did shake her head, side-to-side, once, decisive-like.

Jethri felt himself draw breath, hard. Not that he had expected his mother would have wanted to keep in touch with him when he was gone, like she’d never bothered to do when he was a member of her crew. It was just—the rudeness, when Master ven’Deelin . . . He blinked, and sent a short glance straight to Khat, who caught it, read it, and stepped forward, smooth and soft-footed.

Gently, she slipped the card from between Pen Rel’s fingers, and bowed, deeper than he had done, thereby showing respect for the master trader’s emissary.

“Please convey to the master trader our appreciation of her kindness and her forethought,” she said, which deepened the frown on Iza’s face, and put some color back into Paitor’s.

For his part, Jethri felt his chest ease a little—
catastrophe averted
, he thought, which should have been the truth of it, except that Master ven’Deelin’s aide stood there for a heartbeat too long, his head cocked a mite to one side, waiting . . .

. . . and then waiting no longer, but bowing in general farewell, while his eyes pegged Jethri and one hand moved in an unmistakable sweep:
Let’s go, kid.

Swallowing, Jethri went, following the Liaden down the ramp.

“‘bye Jethri,” he heard Khat whisper as he went past her. “We’ll miss you.”

Her hand touched his shoulder fleetingly, and under his shirt the key clung a bit, then
Gobelyn’s Market
clanged as the portals closed behind him.

AT THE END OF the
Market’s
dock,
Pen Rel turned left, walking light, despite the gravity. Jethri plodded along half a step behind, and pretty soon worked up a sweat, to which the Port dust clung with a will.

Traffic increased as they went on, and he stretched his legs to keep his short guide in sight. Finally, the man paused, and waited while Jethri came up beside him.

“Jethri Gobelyn.” If he noticed Jethri’s advanced state of dishevelment, he betrayed it by not the flicker of an eyelash. Instead, he blandly inclined his bright head.

“Shortly, we will be rising to
Elthoria
. Is there aught on port that you require? Now is the time to acquire any such items, for we are scheduled to break orbit within the quarter-spin.”

Breathless, Jethri shook his head, caught himself, and cleared his throat.

“I am grateful, but there is no need.” He lifted the smaller bag somewhat. “Everything that I require is in these bags.”

Golden eyebrows rose, but he merely moved a languid hand, directing Jethri’s attention down the busy thoroughfare.

“Alas, I am not so fortunate and must fulfill several errands before we board. Do you continue along this way until you find Ixin’s sign. Present yourself to the barge crew, and hold yourself at the pilot’s word. I will join you ere it is time to lift.”

So saying, he stepped off the curb into the thronging traffic, vanishing, to Jethri’s eye, into the fast-moving crowd.

Mud!
he thought, his heart picking up its rhythm, then, “Mud!” aloud as a hard elbow landed on his ribs with more force than was strictly necessary to make the point, while a sharp voice let out with a liquid string of Liaden, the tone of which unmistakably conveyed that this was no place for ox-brained Terrans to be napping.

Getting a tighter grip on his carry-bag, Jethri shrugged the backpack into an easier position and set off, slow, his head swiveling from one side to the next, like a clean ‘bot on the lookout for lint, craning at the signs and sigils posted along both sides of the way.

It didn’t do much to calm the crazy rhythm of his heart to note that
all
the signs hereabouts were in Liaden, with never a Terran letter to be found; or that everyone he passed was short, golden-skinned, quick—Liaden.

Now that it was too late, he wondered if Master ven’Deelin’s aide was having a joke on him. Or, worse, if this was some sort of Liaden test, the which of, failing, lost him his berth and grounded him. There was the horror, right there.
Grounded
. He was a spacer. All ports were strange; all crews other than his own, strangers. Teeth drilling into his bottom lip, Jethri lengthened his stride, heedless now of both elbows and rude shouts, eyes scanning the profusion of signage for the one that promised him clean space; refuge from weight, dirt, and smelly air.

At last, he caught it—half-a-block distant and across the wide street. Jethri pulled up a spurt of speed, forced his dust-covered, leaden body into a run and lumbered off the curb.

Horns, hoots and hollers marked his course across that street. He heeded none of it. The Moon-and-Rabbit was his goal and everything he had eye or thought for. By the time the autodoor gave way before him, he was mud-slicked, gasping and none-too-steady on his feet.

What he also was, was safe.

Half-sobbing, he brought his eyes up and had a second to revise that opinion. The three roustabouts facing him might be short, but they stood tall, hands on the utility knives thrust through wide leather belts, shirts and faces showing dust and the stains of working on the docks.

Jethri gulped and ducked his head. “Your pardon, gentles,” he gasped in what he hoped they’d recognize for Liaden. “I am here for Master ven’Deelin.”

The lead roustabout raised her eyebrows. “ven’Deelin?” she repeated, doubt palpable in her tone.

“If you please,” Jethri said, trying to breathe deeply and make his words more than half-understandable gasps. “I am Jethri Gobelyn, the—the new apprentice trader.”

She blinked, her face crumpling for an instant before she got herself in hand. The emotion she didn’t show might have been anything, but Jethri had the strong impression that she would have laughed out loud, if politeness had allowed it.

The man at her right shoulder, who showed more gray than brown in his hair, turned his head and called out something light and fluid, while the man at her left shoulder stood forward, pulling his blade from its nestle in the belt and thoughtfully working the catch. Jethri swallowed and bent, very carefully, to put his carry-bag down.

Twice as careful, he straightened, showing empty palms to the three of them. This time, the woman did smile, pale as starlight, and put out a hand to shove her mate in the arm.

“It belongs to the master trader,” she said in pidgin. “Will you be the one to rob her of sport?”

“Not I,” said the man. But he didn’t put the knife away, nor even turn his head at the clatter of boot heels or the sudden advent of a second Liaden woman, this one wearing the tough leather jacket of a pilot.

She came level with the boss roustabout and stopped, a crease between her eyebrows.

“Are we now a home for the indigent?” she snapped, and apparently to the room at large.

Jethri exerted himself, bowing as low as his shaking legs would allow.

“Pilot. If you please. I am Jethri Gobelyn, apprenticed to Master Trader Norn ven’Deelin. I arrive at the word of her aide, Pen Rel, who bade me hold myself at your word.”

“Ah. Pen Rel.” The pilot’s face altered, and Jethri again had the distinct feeling that, had she been Terran, she would have been enjoying a fine laugh at his expense. “That would be Arms Master sig’Kethra, an individual to whom it would be wise to show the utmost respect.” She moved a graceful hand, showing him the apparently blank wall to his left.

“You may place your luggage in the bay; it will be well cared for. After that, you may make yourself seemly, so that you do not shame Master sig’Kethra before the ven’Deelin.” She looked over her shoulder at the third roustabout. “Show him.”

“Pilot.” He jerked his head at Jethri. “Attend, boy.”

Seen close, the blank wall was indented with a series of unmarked squares. The roustabout held up an index finger, and lightly touched three in sequence. The wall parted along an all-but invisible seam, showing a holding space beyond, piled high with parcels and pallets. Jethri took a step forward, found his sleeve caught and froze, watching the wall slide shut again a bare inch beyond his nose.

When there was nothing left to indicate that the wall was anything other than a wall, the roustabout loosed Jethri’s sleeve and jerked his chin at the indentations.

“You, now.”

He had a good head for patterns—always had. It was the work of a moment to touch his index finger to the proper three indentations in order. The wall slid aside and this time he was not prevented from going forward into the holding bay and stacking his bags with the rest.

The door stayed open until he stepped back to the side of the roustabout, who jerked his head to the left and guided him to the ‘fresher, where he was left to clean himself up as best he might, so Master ven’Deelin wouldn’t take any second thoughts about the contract she’d made.

SOME WHILE LATER,
Jethri sat alone in the hallway next to the pilot’s office, face washed, clothes brushed, and nursing a disposable cupful of a hot, strong, and vilely sweet beverage his guide had insisted was “tea.”

At least it was cool in the hallway, and it was a bennie just to be done with walking about in grav, and carrying all his mortal possessions, too. Sighing, he sipped gingerly at the nasty stuff in the cup and tried to order himself.

It was clear that his spoken Liaden wasn’t as close to tolerable as he had thought. He didn’t fool himself that dock-pidgin and Trade was going to go far at the trading tables Norn ven’Deelin sat down to. Language lessons were needful, then; and a brush-up on the protocols of cargo. His math was solid—Seeli and Cris had seen to that. He could do OK here. Better than he’d have done on an ore ship running a dying Loop . . .

That thought brought him back to now and here. Damn straight Norn ven’Deelin didn’t run no Loop.

He leaned back in the chair, considering what sorts of cargo might come to a ship bearing a master trader. Gems, he figured, and rare spice; textile like Cris would weep over; artworks . . . He considered that, frowning.

Art was a chancy venture, given differing planetary taboos and ground-hugger religions. Even a master trader might chart a careful course, there. Khat told a story—a true one, he thought—regarding the tradeship,
Sweet Louise
, which had taken aboard an illustrated paper book of great age. The pictures had been pretty, the pages hand-sewn into a real leather cover set with flawed, gaudy stones. The words were in no language that any of
Louise’s
crew could read, but the price had been right; and the trader had a line on a collector of uniquities two planets down on the trade-hop. Everything should have been top-drawer, excepting that the powers of religion on the planet between the collector and the book declared that item “blasphemous,” meaning the port police had it off ship in seconds and burned it right there on the dock.
Louise
lost the investment, the price, the fine—and the right to trade on that port, which was no loss, as far as Jethri could see . . .

A light step at the top of the hall pulled him out of his thoughts; a glance and he was on his feet, bowing as low as he could without endangering the tea.

“Arms Master sig’Kethra.”

The man checked, neither surprise on his face, nor parcels in his hands, and inclined his head. “Apprentice Trader. Well met. A moment, if you please, while I consult with the pilot.”

He moved past, walking into the pilot’s office with nary a ring, like he had every right to the place, which, Jethri thought, he very well might. The door slid shut behind him and Jethri resumed his seat, reconciled to another longish wait while business was discussed between pilot and arms master.

Say that Pen Rel was a man of few words. Or that the pilot was eager for flight. In either case, they were both coming out the door before Jethri had time to start another line of thought.

“We lift, Jethri Gobelyn,” Pen Rel said. “Soon we will be home.”

And that, at least, Jethri thought, rising with alacrity, was a proper spacer’s sentiment. Enough of this slogging about in the dust—it was time and past time to return to the light, clean corridors of a ship.

Day 42

DAY 42

Standard Year 1118

Elthoria

Arriving

“IS THE WHOLE
ship heavy, then?” he asked Pen Rel’s back.

The Liaden glanced over his shoulder, then stopped and turned right around in the center of the ridiculously wide hallway, something that might actually have been puzzlement shadowing the edges of his face.

“Is the gravity worrisome, Jethri Gobelyn? I did note that you disliked the port, but I had assumed an aversion to . . . the noise, perhaps—or the dirt. I regret that it had not occurred to me that the ship of your kin might have run weightless.”

Jethri shook his head. “Not weightless,” he panted. “Just—light. The core—admin, you know—was near enough to heavy, but the rest of the ship ran light, and the rim was lightest of all.” He drew a deep breath, caught by the sudden and awful realization that no one knew what the normal grav of the Liaden homeworld was. It could be that Ynsolt’i normal was light to them, and if the ship got heavier, the further in they—