The Crystal Variation (109 page)

Jethri ducked his head. “Sir, it is. However—while I read the written form, my tongue and ear run far behind my eyes.”

“Hah.” The man’s eyes gleamed. “You are, in fact, a scholar. It is nothing less than my duty to assist you. Come. I believe I have just what you are wanting.”

As it happened, he did: A thin paper book simply entitled
Guide To Kailipso Station
.

“It is slight, but well enough to satisfy the first level of questions and engage the mind upon the second level,” the shopkeeper said easily. “It will, I think, serve you well. Though used, it is new enough that the information is reasonably dependable.”

“I thank you,” Jethri said. “However, again, I fear that my coins may be too few.” And of the wrong sort, he thought suddenly, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He was wearing his trading coat, but what he had in his public pocket was Terran bits and his fractin. He’d clean forgotten to stop at ship’s bank to pull money out of his account in proper tor and kais. . .

The man looked up at him. “Do you know, young sir, I believe we are in Balance. It is seldom enough that one sees a Terran. It is rarer to see a Terran unaccompanied and unhurried. To meet and have converse with a Terran who reads Liaden—even the gods must own themselves privileged in such an encounter.” He smiled, slight and gentle.

“Have the book, child. Your need is greater than mine.”

Jethri bit his lip. “Sir, I thank you, but—I request an elder’s advice. How should a young and inexperienced person such as myself Balance so generous a gift from a stranger?”

For a moment, he thought he’d gone well beyond bounds, though by all he knew there ought to be no offense given in asking for a clue to proper behavior. But the man before him was so still—

The shopkeeper bowed, lightly, right hand over belt-buckle. “There is,” he said, straightening to his full, diminutive height, “a . . . protocol for such things. The proper Balance for the receipt of a gift freely given is to use it wisely and with honor, so that the giver is neither shamed nor regretful of his generosity.”

Oh. Feeling an idiot, Jethri bowed, low enough to convey his thanks. He hoped. “I am grateful for the information, sir. My thanks.”

The man waved a dismissive hand. “Surely, it is the duty of elder to instruct the young.” Once again, he smiled his slight smile. “Enjoy your holiday, child.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jethri murmured, and bowed again, figuring that it was better to err on the side of too many than not enough, and moved out of the shop, trying not to let his eyes wander to those shelves full of treasure.

HE FOUND A VACANT
bench in the main square and quickly became absorbed in the guidebook. From it, he learned that Kailipso Station had come into being as a way station for cargo and for galactic travelers. Unfortunately, it very shortly became a refugee camp for those who managed to escape the catastrophic climatic upsets of a colony world called Daethiria. While many of the homeless colonists returned to the established Liaden worlds from which they had emigrated, a not inconsiderable number chose to remain on Kailipso Station rather than return to the conditions which had forced them away in the first place.

Kailipso Admin, realizing that it would need to expand quarters to support increased population, got clever—or desperate—or both—and went wooing the big Liaden Guilds, like the Traders and the Pilots, and got them to go in for sector offices on Kailipso.

Where most ports and stations would automate scut-work, Kailipso used people wherever possible, since they had people—and they not only got by, but they thrived.

So, Kailipso expanded, and soon enough became a destination all its own. Like any other station, it was vulnerable to attack, and dependent on imports for luxury items and planet-bred food. If it had to be, though, it was self-sufficient. On-station yeast vats produced enough boring, wholesome nutrition to feed Kailipso’s denizens. Off-station, there were farm pods—fish, fruits and vegetables—which made for tastier eating in sufficient quantities to keep those same denizens in luxury if they could so afford.

Kailipso also offered recreation. There was a power-sled track, swimming facilities, climbing walls to challenge a number of skill levels, and more than two dozen arenas for sports Jethri had never heard of.

The guidebook also provided a list of unsafe zones, accompanied by a cutaway station map with each danger outlined in bright green. Most were construction sites, and a few out-ring halls that dead-ended into what looked to be emergency chutes, marked out as
Danger: Low Gravity Zones.

He likewise learned from the guidebook that the Kailipso Trade Bar was in the Mercantile Zone, and that it was open to all with a valid license of trade or a tradeship crew card. There, at least, he could directly debit his account on ship, and get himself some walking-around money. A brew and a looksee at the ship-board wouldn’t be amiss, either.

So thinking, he came to his feet and slipped the book away in to a leg-pocket. He took a second to stretch, luxuriating in the lower grav, then headed off at a mild lope, bound for the Mercantile Zone.

HE RAN HIS CARD
through the reader; the screen flashed blue, and the door to the Trade Bar swung open before him.

Valid and verified
, he thought, grinning, and then remembered to put on his trading face—polite, non-committal, and supposedly unreadable; it wasn’t much, set against your usual Liaden’s ungiving mask. Still, grinning out loud in a place crammed with folks who just didn’t couldn’t be polite. And polite was all he had.

What hit him first, were the similarities to the Terran Trade Bars he’d been in with Uncle Paitor or Cris or Dyk. The high-info screens were set well up on one wall, showing list after list: ships in dock; traders on duty; goods at offer, stationside; goods at offer, dockside; goods sought. The exchange rates were missing, which made him blink until he realized that everybody on this station was buying in cantra and kais.

The milling of bodies seemingly at random around the various stations—that was familiar too—and even the sound—lots of voices, talking at once, maybe a little louder than needful.

But then the differences—damn near everybody was shorter than him, dressed in bright colors, and soft leather boots. Jewelry gleamed on ears, hands, throats. Not a few wore a weapon, holstered, on their belts. For the most, they walked flat, like born mud-grubbers, and not like honest spacers at all. And the slightly too loud voices were saying things in a quick, liquid language which his ear couldn’t begin to sort.

He found himself a corner where two booths abutted, and settled back out of the general press to study the screens. Stationside goods at offer tended toward art stuffs and information—reasonable. The longest list by far, though, was for indenture—folks looking to buy their way off-station, maybe all the way back to Liad, by selling out years of their lives. By Jethri’s count, there were forty-eight contracts offered, from sixteen years to thirty-four, from general labor to fine craftsperson.

“Well, what do we find ourselves here?” a woman’s voice asked, too close and too loud, her Trade almost unintelligible. “I do believe it’s a Terran, Vil Jon.”

Jethri moved, but she was blocking his exit, and the man moving up at her hail was going to box him in proper.

“A Terran?” the man—Vil Jon—repeated. “Now what would a Terran be doing in the Trade Bar?” He looked up into Jethri’s face, eyes hard and blue. “Well, Terran? Who let you in here?”

Jethri met his eyes, trying with everything in him to keep his face smooth, polite and non-committal.

“The door let me in, sir. My ship card was accepted by the reader.”

“It has a card,” the woman said, as if the man hadn’t heard. “Now, what ship in dock keeps tame Terrans.”

The man glanced over his shoulder at the boards. “There’s
Intovish
, from Vanthachal. They keep some odd customs, local.” He looked back at Jethri. “What ship, Terran?”

He considered it. After all, his ship was no secret. On Terran ground, asking for someone’s ship was a common courtesy. From these two, though, it seemed a threat—or a challenge in a game he had no hope of understanding.

“
Elthoria
,” he said, soft and polite as he knew how. “Sir.”

“
Elthoria
?” The woman exchanged a long glance with her mate, who moved his shoulders, pensive-like.

“Could be it’s bound for Solcintra Zoo,” he said.

“Could be it’s gotten hold of a card it shouldn’t have,” the woman returned, sharply. She held out her hand. “Come, Terran. Let us see your ship card.”

And that, Jethri thought, was that. He was threatened, cornered and outnumbered, but he was damned if he was going to meekly hand his card over to this pair of port hustlers.

“No, ma’am,” he said, and jumped forward.

The grav was light—he jumped a fair distance, knocking the woman aside as gentle as he could, out of reach before the man thought to try and grab him.

Having once jumped, Jethri stayed in motion, moving quick through the crowded room. He met a few startled glances, but took care not to jostle anybody, and very soon gained the door. It was, he thought, time to get back to his ship.

THEY KNEW THE station
better than him—of course they did. They turned him back, hall by hall, crowding him toward the Concourse, cutting him off from the docks and his ship.

In desperation, he went down three floors, hit the hall beyond the lift doors running and had broken for the outer ring before he heard them behind him, calling “Terran, Terran! You cannot elude us, Terran!”

That might be so, Jethri thought, laboring hard now, light grav or not. He had a plan in his mind, though, and if this was the hall as he remembered it from the guide book’s map of danger zones. . .

He flashed past a blue sign, the Liaden letters going by too fast for his eye to catch, but he recognized the symbol from the map, and began to think that this might work.

The hall took a hard left, like he remembered it from the map, and there was the emergency tunnel at end of it, gaping black and cold.

“Terran!” The woman’s voice was suddenly shrill. “Wait! We will not hurt you!”

Right
, Jethri thought, the tunnel one long stride away. He hit it running, felt the twist inside his ear that meant he had gone from one gravitational state to another—

He jumped.

Somewhere behind him, a woman screamed. Jethri fell, slow-motion, saw a safety pole, slapped it and changed trajectory, shooting under the lip of the floor above, anchoring himself with a foot hooked ‘neath a beam.

The woman was talking in Liaden now, still shrill and way too loud. The man answered sharply, and then shouted out, in pidgin, “Terran! Where are you?”

Like he was going to answer. Jethri concentrated on breathing slow and quiet.

They didn’t wait all that long; he heard the sound of their footsteps, walking fast, then the sound of the lift doors working.

After that, he didn’t hear anything else.

He made himself sit there for a full twenty-eighth by the Liaden timepiece on his wrist, then eased out of hiding. A quick kick against the side of the chute sent him angling upward. He caught the edge of the floor as he shot past and did a back flip into the tunnel. He snatched a ring, righted himself, and skated for the hall.

A Liaden man in a black leather jacket was leaning against the wall opposite the tunnel.

Jethri froze.

The Liaden nodded easily, almost Terran-like.

“Well done,” he said, and it was ground-based Terran he was talking, but Terran all the same. “I commend you upon a well-thought-out and competently executed maneuver.”

“Thanks.” Jethri said, thinking he could scramble, go over the edge again, make for the next level up, or down . . .

The Liaden held up a hand, palm out. “Acquit me of any intent to harm you. Indeed, it is concern for your welfare which finds me here, in a cold hallway at the far edge of nowhere, when I am promised to dinner with friends.”

Jethri sighed. “You see I’m fine. Go to dinner.”

The Liaden outright
laughed
, and straightened away from the wall.

“Oh, excellent! To the point, I agree.” He waved down the hall vaguely, as if he could see through walls, and so could Jethri. “Come, be a little gracious. I hear you are from
Elthoria
, over on Dock Six, is that so?”

Jethri nodded, warily. “Yes.”

“Delightful. As it happens, I treasure an acquaintance with Norn ven’Deelin which has too long languished unrenewed. Allow me to escort you to your ship.”

Jethri stood, feeling the glare building and not even trying to stop it. The man in the jacket
tsk’d
.

“Come now. Even a lad of your obvious resource will find it difficult to outrun a Scout on this station. At least allow me to know that
Elthoria
is on Dock Six. Also—forgive me for introducing a painful subject—I must point out that your late companions will no doubt have called in an anonymous accident report. If you wish to avoid awkward questions from the Watch, you would be well-advised to put yourself in my hands.”

Maybe it was the Terran. Maybe it was the laugh, or the man’s easy and factual way. Whatever, Jethri allowed that he trusted this one as much as he hadn’t trusted the pair who had been chasing him. Further down the hall, a lift chimed—and that decided it.

“OK,” he agreed, and the man smiled.

“Not a moment too soon,” he said, and stepped around the edge of the wall he’d been leaning against.

“This way, young sir. Quickly.”

HIS GUIDE SET
A brisk pace through the service corridors, his footsteps no more than whispers.

Jethri, walking considerably more noisily behind him, had time to appreciate that he was at this man’s mercy; and the likelihood that his murdered body could lie in one of the numerous, dark repair bays they passed for days before anyone thought to look. . .

“Do not sell your master trader short, young sir,” the man ahead of him said. “I can understand that you might be having second thoughts about myself—a stranger and a Scout, together! Who knows what such a fellow might do? But never doubt Norn ven’Deelin.”