Balance of Trade (15 page)

So thinking, he nodded, felt the nod become a bow—a light bow, all but buoyant; with the easy move of the left hand that signaled understanding.

Still buoyant, he straightened, and surprised a look of sheer astonishment in his tutor's face.

"Yes, precisely so," Master tel'Ondor said, softly, and himself bowed, acknowledging a student's triumph.

Jethri bit his lip to keep the grin inside and forced his face into the increasingly familiar bland look of a trader on active business.

"Jethri Gobelyn, I propose that we break for tea. When we meet here again, I believe we should concern ourselves with those modes and bows most likely to be met on the trade floor at Tilene."

It was too much; the grin peeped out; he covered with another soft, buoyant bow, slightly deeper and augmented by the hand-sign for gratitude. "Yes, Master. Thank you."

"Bah. Return here in one twenty-eight, and we shall see what you may do then." The master turned his back as he was wont to do in dismissal.

Grinning, Jethri all but skipped out of the classroom. Still buoyant, he made the turn into the main hallway—and walked into a mob scene.

He might have thought himself on some port street, just previous to a rumble, but there were faces in the crowd he recognized, and it was
Elthoria's
increasingly familiar walls giving back echoes of excited voices and, yes—laughter.

At the forefront, then, there was Pen Rel, and Gaenor, and Vil Tor—all talking at once and all sporting a state of small or extra-large dishevelment. There was a bruise high up on Gaenor's fragile, pointy face, and her lips looked swollen, like maybe she'd caught a smack. More than one of the crew members at her back were bloody, but of good cheer, and when Gaenor spotted Jethri she cried out, "Company halt!"

It took a bit, but they mostly settled down and got quiet. When there was more or less silence, Gaenor bowed—Jethri read it as the special bow made between comrades—and spoke through an unabashed grin.

"The First Mate reports to Jethri Gobelyn, crewman formerly at risk, that the Trade Bar of Kailipso will be pleased to cordially entertain him whenever he is in port. I also report that a house speciality has been named in your honor—which is to say, it is called
Trader's Leap
, and is mixed of 'retto and kynak and klah. On behalf of the ship, I have tasted of this confection and have found it to be . . .  an amazement. There are other matters, too, of which you should be advised, so, please, come with us, and we will tell you of our visitation and correction."

Visitation and correction? Jethri stared at the bunch of them—even
Vil Tor
rumpled and his shirt torn and dirty.

"You didn't bust up the bar?"

Gaenor laughed, and Pen Rel, too. Then Gaenor stepped forward to catch his hand in hers, and pull him with her down the hall.

"Come, honored crewmate, we will tell you what truly transpired before it all becomes rumor and myth. In trade, you will then tell us of your training and skill, for already there are a dozen on station who have attempted to duplicate your leap and have earned for their efforts broken arms and legs."

She tugged his hand, and he let her pull him along, as the mob moved as one creature down the hall toward the cafeteria.

"But," Jethri said, finding Vil Tor at his side, "I thought Balance required craft and cunning and care—"

The librarian laughed, and caught his free hand. "Ah, my friend, we need to teach you more of
melant'i
! What you describe would be seemly, were we dealing with persons of worth. However, when one deals with louts—"

At that there was great laughter, and the mob swept on.

IT WAS MIDDAY ON the port by the time Khat cleared the paperwork and took receipt of her pay. By her own reckoning, it was nearer to sleep-shift, which activity she intended to indulge in, soon as she raised the lodgings.

Her step did break as she passed by the
Ship'n Shore
, but the prospect of ten hours or more of sleep was more compelling than a brew and a bite, so she moved on, and caught a tram at the meeting of the cross streets.

She was in a light doze when her stop was called; got her feet under her and bumbled down the steps to the street, where she stood for far too long, eyes narrowed against the glare, trying to sort out where, exactly, she was, with specific relation to her cubby and her cot. Eventually, she located the right building, mooched on in at quarter-speed, swiped her key through the scanner and took the lift to the eighth floor.

The Gobelyn Family Unit was, thanking all the ghosts of space, quiet and dim. Khat charted a none-too-steady course across the main room to her cubby, stripping off her clothes as she went. She stuffed the wad of them into the chute, pushed aside the drape and fell into her cot, pulling the blanket up and over her head.

It occurred to her that she ought to hit the shower; her being at least as ripe as her clothes, but she was asleep almost as soon as she'd thought it.

"ALL CREW ON DECK!"

There are those things that command a body's attention, no matter how deep asleep it is. Khat jerked awake with a curse, flung the blanket aside and jumped for the common room, stark naked and reeking as she was.

Seeli stood in the center of the room, hands on hips and looking none too pleased. Apparently Khat was the sole crew the all-hands had roused.

"Are you the only one here?" Seeli snapped, which wasn't her usual way. Seeli snapping was Seeli upset, so Khat made allowance and answered civil.

"I'm guessing. Place was empty when I come in—" she looked across the room at the clock. "Two hours ago."

Her cousin vented an exasperated sigh.

"It's our shift, then," she muttered, and then appeared to see Khat's condition for the first time. "Just down from the free-wing job?"

"Two hours ago," Khat said. "They had me running solo. Sleep is high on the list of needfuls, followed by a shower and food."

Seeli nodded. "I'm sorry. If there was anybody else to hand—but it's you an' me, an' it's gotta be now." She pointed to the 'fresher. "Rinse an' get decent. I'll fix you a cup o'mite and some coffee. You can drink it on the way."

Khat stared. "What's gone wrong?"

Seeli was already moving toward the galley, and answered over her shoulder. "Iza got in a cuffing match with the yard boss, and the port cops have her under key."

"Shit," Khat said, and sprinted for the 'fresher.

Seeli'd gone down to the yard, to talk with the boss and smooth over what she could, which left Khat to bail Iza out.

It was a cross-port ride on the tram, by which time the 'mite and the caffeine were working, and she walked into the cop shop more or less awake, if none too easy in the stomach.

"Business?" The bored woman behind the info counter asked.

"Come to pay a fine and provide escort," Khat said, respectfully. She wasn't over-fond of port police—what spacer was?—but saw no reason to pay an extra duty for her attitude. The ghosts of space bear witness, Iza had likely scored enough of that for the crew at large, if they'd interrupted her in a cuffing match.

"Name?" the cop asked.

"Iza Gobelyn. Brought in this afternoon from the yards."

The cop looked down at her screen, grunted, and jerked her head to the right.

"Down the end of the hall. If you step lively, you can get her out before the next hour's holding fee kicks in."

"Thank you," Khat said, and made haste down the hall, there to stand before another counter just like the one at the front door, and repeat her information to an equally bored man.

"Kin?" he asked, peering at her over the edge of his screen.

"Yessir. Cousin. Khatelane Gobelyn."

"Hmph." He poked at some keys, frowned down at the screen, poked again. Khat made herself stand quiet and not shout at him to hurry it along, and all the while the big clock behind the counter showed the time speeding toward the hour-change.

"Gobelyn," the cop muttered, head bobbing as he bent over the screen. "Here we are: public display of hostility, striking a citizen, striking a port employee, striking a law enforcement officer, swearing at a law enforcement officer, Level Two arrest, plus transportation, booking, three hours' lodging, usage fees, tax and duty, leaving us with a total due of eight hundred ninety-seven bits." He looked up. "We also accept trade goods, or refined gold. There is a surcharge for using either of those options."

Sure there was. Khat blinked. Eight
hundred
—

"Duty?" she asked.

The cop nodded, bored. "You're offworld. All transactions between planetaries and extra-planetaries are subject to duty."

"Oh." She slipped a hand into her private pocket, brought out her personal card, and swiped it through the scanner on the front of the counter. There was a moment of silence, then the cop's screen beeped and initiated a noisy printout.

"Your receipt will be done in a moment," he said. "After you have it, please go down the hall to the first room on your left. Your cousin will be brought to you there."

"Thanks," Khat muttered. She took the printout when it was done with a curt nod went to wait for Iza to be brought up.

"LEVEL TWO ARREST" involved sedation—the construction of the drug, duration of affect, known adverse reactions, and chemical antidotes were all listed at the bottom of the two-page receipt. Khat scowled. The drug lasted plus-or-minus four hours. Iza had been arrested three-point-five hours ago. There wasn't enough credit left on her card to rent a car to take them cross port, and the prospect of woman-handling a half-unconscious Iza onto the tram was . . .  daunting, not to dance too lightly on it.

She'd barely started to worry when the door to the waiting room opened, admitting a port cop in full uniform, a thin woman in bloodstained overalls and spectacularly bruised face walking, docile, at her side.

"Khatelane Gobelyn?" The cop asked.

"That's me." Khat stepped forward, staring into Iza's face. Iza stared back, blue eyes tranquil and empty.

"She's good for about another forty minutes," the cop said. "If I was you, I'd have her locked down in thirty. No sense running too close to the edge."

"Right," Khat said, and then gave the cop a nod, trying for cordial. "Thank you."

"Huh." The cop shook her head. "You keep her outta trouble, space-based. You copy that? She put Chad Perkin in the hospital when he tried to get the restraints on her—broken kneecap, broken nose, cracked ribs. You hurt a cop on this port once, and you're a good citizen ever after, because there ain't no maybes the second time."

Khat swallowed. "I don't—"

"Understand?" The cop hit her in the chest with an ungentle forefinger. "If your buddy here gets into another fistfight and the cops are called on it, she ain't likely to survive the experience. That plain enough for you, space-based?"

"Yes," Khat breathed, staring into the broad, hard face. "That's plain."

"Good. Now get her outta here and tied down before the stuff wears out."

"Yes," Khat said again. She reached out and took Iza's hand, pulling her quick time down the hall.

THE TRAM WAS WITHIN two blocks of the lodgings and the time elapsed from the cop shop was rising onto forty-two minutes, when Khat felt Iza shift on the seat beside her. The shifting intensified, accompanied by soft growls and swear words. Khat bit her lip, in a sweat for the tram to
hurry
—

"'scuse me." A hand landed, lightly, on Khat's shoulder. She looked up into the face of an older grounder woman.

"'scuse me," the woman said again, her eyes mostly on Iza. "Your friend just fresh from the cop shop?"

"Yes."

"You take my advice—get her off this tram an'
down
. That drug they use has a kick on the exit side. M'brother threw seven fits when it wore offa him—took all us girls to hold him down, and my uncle, too."

"Damn dirtsider," Iza muttered beside her. "Trying to cheat me. Short my ship, will he. . . "

Khat grabbed her arm, leaned over and yanked the cord. The tram slowed and she leapt to her feet, dragging Iza with her.

"Thank you," she said to the grounder woman, and then thought to ask it—"What happened to your brother?"

The woman shrugged, eyes sliding away. "He was born to trouble, that one. Cop broke his neck not a year later—resisting arrest, they said."

The tram stopped, the side door slid open. "Mud sucker!" Iza yelled, and Khat jumped for the pavement. Perforce, Iza followed; she staggered, swearing, and Khat spun, twisting her free hand in Iza's collar, using momentum and sheer, naked astonishment to pitch the older woman off the main walk and into a gap between two buildings.

"Cheat! Filth!" shouted Iza. Khat hooked a foot around her ankle, putting her face down into the mud, set a knee into the small of her back, and pulled both arms back into a lock.

Iza bucked and twisted and swore and shouted—to not much effect, though there were a few bad seconds when Khat thought she was going to lose the arm-lock.

After half an hour or an eternity, the thrashing stopped, then the swearing did, and all Iza's muscles went limp. Cautiously, Khat let the lock down, and eased her knee off. Iza lay, face down, in the mud. Khat turned her over, checked her breathing and her pulse, then, stifling a few curses herself, she got Iza into a back carry and staggered off toward the lodgings.

The lodgings were in sight when Seeli showed up on Khat's left. Wordlessly, she helped ease Iza down, and then the two of them got her distributed between them and walked her the rest of the way. Seeli swiped her key through the scan and they maneuvered Iza into the lift, then through the common room and into her own quarters, where they dropped her, muddy and bloody as she was, atop her cot.

"How bad at the yard?" Khat asked Seeli as they moved toward the galley.

"Bad enough," Seeli said after more hesitation than Khat liked to hear. She sighed, and opened the coldbox. "Brew?"

"Nothing less. And some cheese, if there's any." She closed her eyes, feeling the electric quiver of adrenaline-edged exhaustion in her knees and arms.