The Crystal Variation (119 page)

Jethri frowned. His father hadn’t been one to wear rings—plainly said, rings on a working ship were foolish, they had too much of a tendency to get caught in machinery and on rough edges. A commissioner, though—a commissioner might well wear a ring or a patch or somelike, to alert folks to the fact that here was somebody with connections.

The gold was cold and unfriendly against his skin. He put it back in the box and reached for the bit of bone.

As soon as his fingers touched it, he knew it wasn’t bone. Cool and slick, the symbol repeating down one face eerily familiar, it felt just like his lucky fractin.

Frowning, he had that piece out of his pocket and put it side-by-side on his knee with the—whatever it was.

By eye and touch, the two of them were made of the same material. Not exactly scientific, but it would do for now. And the repeating symbol? The very same as the big doughnut-shape on the face of his fractin, set end-to-end down the whole length of the thing.

He picked it up and held it on his palm. Thing had some weight to it—heavier than you expected, like his fractin, which Grig had said enclosed alien workings. A sort of large economy size fractin, then, Jethri thought, smoothing his thumb over the soothing surface. That would have appealed to Arin, with his fascination with the regular sort of fractin. Jethri ran his thumb over it once more, then replaced it on its nest of old Combine keys, lowered the lid the put the box aside.

The next compartment gave up a pair of photocubes. He snatched one out, hands shaking, and flicked through the images quickly, breathless, then more slowly, as he registered that the pictures were of people he didn’t know, had never seen. Spacers, most of them, but a few ground-based folk, too, the lot of them looking tired and wary. He put it down.

The second cube—that was the one he had expected, and missed, and wished for. Images of family—Arin, naturally, with the half-grin on his face and his hands tucked into the pockets of his coverall, broad in the shoulder and stubborn in the jaw, brown eyes sitting deep under thick black eyebrows. After that was Seeli, Cris; a picture of Dyk up to his elbows in some cooking project, and a manic grin on his round face; and another of a thin and serious young Khat, bent over a piloting simboard.

Another picture of Arin, with his arm around a woman that it took two blinks to recognize as Iza—the two of them laughing at some forever secret joke. Then a picture of a skinny kid, big eyes and his ears sticking out, coverall grubby, sitting on the floor of the galley at Arin’s side, the two of them contemplating the mosaic they’d fitted together. Jethri grinned at the memory. They’d used three dozen fractins in that design, and held up dinner for primary shift, while Arin snapped close-ups from every angle, like he did with every design they’d built.

Still grinning, he clicked the button again, and came back to the first picture of Arin. He put the cube down and opened the last of the small compartments, discovering a notebook and a thick sheaf of hardcopy

Grinning wider, he pulled out the book, riffling the pages, seeing the meticulous lists that Jethri-the-kid had kept of imaginary cargo, imaginary sales, imaginary buys, all worked out with his father’s help; each pretend deal discussed as seriously as if the merchandise and money were real. The pages fluttered toward the back, his eye snagged on a different script, and he flipped back. . .

Angular and as plain as printout, Arin’s writing marched down the page in a simple list of ship names. Jethri ran a quick glance down the line, seeing names he was familiar with, names he wasn’t—

WildeToad
. He blinked, remembering the gritty yellow paper crackling in his, and the printout of a ship’s dying.

Breaking clay . . .

And why had Arin been keeping a ship list in the back of a kid’s pretend trade journal?

Jethri shook his head. A mystery for later—or never. Likely it had just been a doodle, on a shift when things were slow; or an illustration meant to go with a conversation long talked out and forgotten. Come to remember it, his father had often doodled in the margins of his book—he riffled the pages again, slower this time, catching glimpses of the odd shapes Arin had drawn to help his thinking along.

Jethri closed the book and reached for the hardcopy, already knowing they’d be the various rules for the games invented to put use to fractins.

Something was left behind, though—and Jethri let out a whoop, dropping the game rules unceremoniously to the floor. He’d almost forgotten—

A mirror no bigger than the palm of his father’s hand, framed and backed in some light black metal. Except, the reflecting surface didn’t reflect, not even the ghost a spacer might catch in the back of a work screen, which was his own face. As a kid, Jethri had amused himself periodically by trying to surprise the mirror into giving him a reflection, pressing his nose against the glassy surface, or leaving the device on a table top and sneaking up around the side, rushing forward at the last second, more often than not yelling “boo!” into the bargain.

But the mirror never reflected one thing.

What it did do, was predict the weather.

Not a gadget that’d be much use on a spaceship, some might say, and they’d be right. No telling that it was all that useful dirt-side, just at first. Between them, though, him and Arin had puzzled out the symbol system and by the time his father died and his mother locked the thing away with the fractins and his trade journal—by that time, if they was dirt-side, Jethri could tell with a glance whether rain was due, or snow; lightning or hail, and from which planetary direction it would come.

Grinning, he looked into the black, unreflective surface, for old time’s sake, then slipped it away into his shirt pocket.

That left the big bin—no surprises, there.

Except it was a surprise—he hadn’t remembered that there’d been so many. He opened the box and scooped up a handful of the cool squares, letting them run through his fingers, watching the shapes flicker, hearing the gentle clatter as the tiles tumbled against each other.

The second box was counterfeits and brokens—what his father had called the
ancillary
collection. Some of the fakes looked pretty good, until you’d held a couple genuine fractins, and saw how fine and precise they were, no rough edges, each notch in exactly the same place, no deviation. Once you had that experience, you were unlikely ever to mistake a fake for the real thing again.

He closed the box, looked back into the compartment . . .

A rectangular wire frame lay in the far back corner. He brought it out, surprised at how light it was. He didn’t immediately place the metal, or the thing itself—a simple rectangle, sealed at the bottom, open at the top, the four walls gridlike. Not a big thing, in fact it looked to be about the size to—

He reached into the box holding the genuine fractins, fingered one out and dropped it into the top opening. It slid down the rack to the bottom.

Jethri smiled, eyeing the thing, figuring maybe fifty-sixty fractins would fit in the frame. Why anybody’d want to slot sixty fractins into a metal holder was another question—probably a new game variation.

Still smiling, he yawned, and looked down at his wrist, stifling a curse. He was scheduled to be in Master ven’Deelin’s office, bright-eyed, intelligent and
awake
in something less than five hours.

Moving quickly, he packed the fractins, sealed the lids and slid them and the wire frame back into their compartment, along with the game rules, his old trade journal, Arin’s box, and the photocube of the strange spacers and grounders.

Then, he resealed the crate, and netted it snug against the wall.

Rising, he slipped the purse into a side pocket. The photocube was too big for any of his pockets, so he carried it with him, down the hall and back to his quarters.

Day 123

DAY 123

Standard Year 1118

Elthoria

Modrid Approach

THE ALARM BOUNCED JETHRI
out of sleep two subjective seconds after he hit the bunk.

He threw the blanket back and swung out immediately, having learned from his newly accelerated shifts that the best thing to do when the alarm sounded was get up and get the blood moving toward the brain.

His feet hit the floor and he rubbed his hands briskly over his face, trying to encourage the blood—or maybe his brain—and began to review his shift schedule. First thing was a breakfast meeting with Pen Rel, who wanted to talk about the theory of self-defense. Then, he needed to go over the list of Ixin’s regular local trading partners, and a history of
Elthoria’s
last six trading missions to Modrid, that Vil Tor had pulled for him. Gaenor’s Terran lessons had gone on hold since the change of course, though they’d been managing impromptu sessions on the run; so, after his hour in the library, he was scheduled for a long session with Master tel’Ondor, and after
that
—

The door chimed, interrupting his thoughts. He snatched up his robe and pulled it on as he crossed the room and slapped the plate.

Gaenor stood in the hall, in full uniform. She bowed formally as the door slid open.

“The captain’s compliments, Apprentice Trader,” she said, speaking each word distinctly, so that he would have no trouble following her, though she spoke in a mode other than the mercantile. “You are invited to join the master trader at the trade bench as soon as convenient. The master trader bids you ‘be sure to breakfast heartily’.”

Jethri bowed his thanks and straightened to find her outright grinning. Her hand rose, making a sign he did not recognize. “At last, we have you in the thick of things! I will see you soon!”

Invited to the bridge by the captain to watch the master trader at her work, up close and personal? Jethri grinned a grin of his own, though he did remember to bow again, in light agreement. When he came up from that, she was gone, leaving him blinking at an empty hall.

He closed the door and ran for the shower, talking to himself as he soaped and rinsed.

“‘kay, kid—you’re going live crew on a live deck, ain’t that something special? Watch the master and learn your heart out. . .”

He skimped a little on the dry cycle and bounded, damp, to the closet, pulled out a blue shirt and darker blue trousers and hurriedly dressed, pausing in front of the mirror to affix Ixin’s pin to his collar and run hasty palms over his spiky, growing-out hair.

Grabbing his pocket stuff, he rushed from the room, heading for the cafeteria at just under a run, and wishing, not for the first time, that
Elthoria
kept ‘mite available to its crew.

HE CHOSE HIS BREAKFAST
not by what he wanted to eat, but by which lines were shortest at the serving tables. Fortunately, there were two lines for tea—tea being to Liadens what coffee was to Terrans; and his choice of the shorter one put him next to Pen Rel.

The arms master glanced to him, and bowed what looked to be the bow between comrades, which, Jethri thought,
had
to be him reading wrong. He made sure his answering bow was the perfectly safe and unexceptional junior to senior.

Pen Rel cocked his head to a side, and while it couldn’t precisely be said that he
smiled
, there was a noticeable lightening of his usually stern face.

“I see that our schedule has been altered by the captain’s order, young Jethri,” he said, selecting a tea bottle from those on the table. “Never fear, we will pursue your studies as time—and the captain—allow us.” He inclined his head. “Good shift to you.”

“Good shift,” Jethri answered, snagging a bottle for himself and moving off to an empty table to gulp down his meal.

HE MADE THE BRIDGE
in good time, his fractin dancing between his fingers, and found Technician Rantel ver’Borith, who he had met a couple times in the library, waiting for him at the door.

“Apprentice Trader.” She bowed, and handed him a pocket locator clip and an ear-and-mouth com. He put the button in his ear and smoothed the wire against his cheek. When she saw he was situated, Rantel put her hand against the door, and led him across the threshold, past Captain yo’Lanna, who glanced up and acknowledged their presence with a seated bow strongly reminiscent of Iza Gobelyn’s usual curt nod to outsiders on her bridge, and down-room.

It was an eerily quiet bridge, with none of the cheerful chatter that had been common ‘mong his cousins as they brought
Market
into approach. They went by Gaenor’s station, she intent on her screens to the exclusion of all else. In fact, the bridge crew, to a man, sat in rapt concentration over their screens, monitors, and map displays.

Norn ven’Deelin sat at a station far removed from the captain, her nearest neighbor what looked to be an automatic weather scanner. She greeted him with a smile and tapped her finger on the arm of the empty chair beside her.

He slid in, finding the seat a bit tighter than he might have liked, and a thought too close to the floor, so that he needed to fold his legs around the base.

“Apprentice, you made excellent time,” Master ven’Deelin said, very softly. “Your expertise will be required very soon. Now, if you please, we will familiarize you with the equipment. Please touch the blue switch—yes—now, press forward one click, and your console will come to observer status.”

He followed her instructions carefully, feeling a tingle in the pit of his belly when the screen lit and the button purred static in his ear.

“Good,” Master ven’Deelin said, her voice in his ear an odd, but definite, comfort.

“When you press again—which you will do, but not touch anything else—your board is now live and in tandem trade mode. That means you will be seeing what trades I see. The green boxes represent my offers. If you suggest an offer it will appear on my screen, and I will accept it or not.” She paused.

“Now, if you go forward once more—which you will do now but not touch anything else—you are in the solo trade mode. In that mode you commit us as utterly as if I had signed my name on a contract or placed hard cantra on the counter.” Another pause.