Balance of Trade (23 page)

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.

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.

"Take a moment to study what the screen tells you, child."

Truth told, he needed a chance to study the screen. He bent forward eagerly, one hand fiddling with the fractin, the other curled into a fist on his knee.

The screen was beyond high-info—it was
dense
info. At the bottom left corner was a schematic of
Elthoria
, full cans and cargo holds limned in green; empties colored red. Bottom right was marked
Funds
and showed a balance of zero. The top half of the screen was divided into columns—Incoming, Outgoing, Bids Made, Bids Taken, Bids Refused. Right now, there wasn't much action, but he thought the columns would start to fill up quick as soon as they came into Modrid's approach space.

His fractin slipped out of his fingers. He caught it before it had fallen far, palmed it, slipped it into his pocket—and looked up to find that Norn ven'Deelin had noticed his movement. He braced himself, waiting for her to ask what silly toy he had in his pocket; then she spoke and he realized that she had misunderstood his sudden movement.

"Forgive me. Please return your board to observer status with the reverse-ward clicks. Very good. Now on either side of your seat you will find several tabs and buttons. I suggest you take some time with them until your hands know what they do—they are adjustments for length and height, for spin and—but you must discover them and adjust what is necessary, for we may sit for some time today."

He put his hands down, fingers discovering the advertised buttons and tabs. He quickly found that one button adjusted the inflation of his seat, and another the angle compared to the console, another the height of the seat relative to the deck, which allowed him to straighten his legs. Only the pilot's chair had these kinds of extra adjustments on the
Market
, and if a lowly 'prentice trader's observation chair was so equipped what must the captain have available? Meditatively, he cycled the chair to the very back of its track, then slowly forward.

". . . and when you are comfortable," Norn ven'Deelin murmured, "you will say something to me so that we know your com is working and at proper volume. . . "

Face burning, he locked the chair where it was and touched the button in his ear.

"Yes, Master Trader."

She smiled at him, gently. "Always the silver tongue, my child. Perhaps you will tell me what you think of the two offers at the top of the board, which came in as you were adjusting your chair."

Startled, he glanced at his screen and saw an offer to sell two MUs of cheese. . .  he blinked, then laughed. Two MUs—that was two cargo pods!

"Ma'am, I'd tell the first one thanks but no thanks," he said, dropping into Trade. "At that price we'd need to be carting locally on a prepaid rush delivery—or we'd need to broker it on planet, and that's a time waster."

"Yes, thank you, we shall decline. And the second?"

That was harder, the offer being a half-can of specialty spices and herbs. Jethri frowned, mentally running through the manifests he had studied.

"Ma'am, in general I don't believe you have
Elthoria
carrying foodstuff," he said tentatively.

"Excellent," she murmured in his ear. "You see what they wish us to do—to broker this and that. Were we at leisure, perhaps I might allow myself—but this is not such a trip. Now, attend your controls once more."

He brought his attention to the console.

"You see the red tabs set on either side of the blue control wheel. For details of what is on offer, if needed, select the right, and again if need be—sometimes there are as many as a dozen detail levels. If these leave you uninformed, make a record—that is the left tab—and we will add it to our analysis list. Now, if you see something which you think I should note, click the yellow button above the wheel here—and I will have a highlight informing me."

Jethri began to nod, caught it and inclined his head. "I understand," he said, and looked at his screen, where two more offers had appeared in the Incoming column.

"Ah, good," the master trader said.

The run-in to orbit took several hours and for awhile he sat in observer mode, watching as she filed
Elthoria's
availables. As he'd suspected, the incoming offers picked up momentum as they moved further in. Teeth indenting lower lip, he bent forward, trying to move his eyes fast enough; caught an offer of a twelfth MU of compressed textiles—highlighted it, and heard her murmur, "Yes, that looks likely. However, there is history—we have not used that source for some time. There was a bad load. Watch and see if the price falls. . . "

The bridge behind them got busy—maneuvers as they entered planetary nearspace, or so he thought, and she said quietly in his ear—

"Please go to tandem. Note that we have emptied a pod entire; check on that textile and if it is still available highlight it for me. . . also, I have accepted a tranship of a half pod; that will show up as a block on your diagram about now. . . "

The original lot of textile was gone, but he found another near enough, and a better price, highlighted it, and continued down the list, as the incoming column filled, spawned an overflow column and did its utmost to overfill it. He highlighted an offer of raw lumber; another of frozen chicken embryos, billed as genuine Roque Eyeland Reds and a marvelous low price the seller was asking for them, if true.