Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (23 page)

"It was Annek's
idea. I can't take credit. But if you can convince him it's
serious--"

"Maybe Folhare can,"
Warreven answered, and knew he sounded dubious.

At the table, Annek
shook her head, and pushed herself up out of the chair, leaving her
drink untouched on the table. "Let's go, Tatian. I'm not doing
any good here."

Tatian nodded, looking
around for a place to leave his own drink, and Warreven said, "Wait."
Tatian set the bottle on an unoccupied table and looked back at him.

"I do have other
business with you," Warreven said, "in my new job. I'd like to
discuss the surplus with you."

Even in the uncertain
light, he saw the flicker of interest cross Tatian's face, quickly
muted. "Our office is in the Estrange, Drapdevel Court. You're
welcome to come by."

"I will," Warreven
answered, and the off-worlder nodded and turned away. Warreven
watched them go, Tatian looming over the smaller woman, a protective
presence at her side, and wondered if they were lovers. He didn't
think they were, but couldn't give a real reason--something in
Tatian's voice when he'd said it had been Annek's idea to come
to Shinbone, maybe, or just something in his stance, too casual,
almost automatic, to be more than courtesy. And those reasons were
nothing more than wishful thinking; they were hardly relevant to the
job at hand.

Ser, serrem, serray,
serram, sera: (Concord) honorifics placed before the surname to
indicate the gender of the person (man, mem, herm, fem, woman),
considered in Concord usage to be part of the person's full name;
the generic plural is sersi.

7

Mhyre Tatian

The bad connection in his wrist
was getting worse. Tatian tried to ignore it, to concentrate on the
desktop display, on the patterns of rough and smooth on the
shadowscreen, instead, but the sensation was too irritating. He
rubbed his wrist gently, barely touching the protective plate, and
winced at the sudden rush of pain. The pressure set off a feedback
loop--as he had known it would, as it had done every time he had
touched his arm--and the stinging, pins-and-needles sensation shot
up his arm and across his chest like the precursor of a heart attack.
He swore under his breath and grabbed the edge of the desktop with
his good hand, squeezing his fingers into the wood until the pain and
tingling had eased again.

He took a careful
breath and touched the main control switch, turning off the implanted
system. The itching, like the fizz of bubbles under his skin, stopped
instantly, and the figures for the newly drafted contract vanished
from in front of his eyes. He muttered another curse and worked the
shadowscreen, projecting the same numbers onto a secondary screen. It
was hard, slow, and clumsy, working without the implants, but the
system was getting bad enough that he couldn't afford to work with
them, either. If Am would just hurry up and confirm that she'd
bought the box--his eyes strayed to the message screen, obstinately
dark despite the golem he'd set to forward him any incoming
messages from the port--then he could get the surgery done and get
back to normal. If Am was still angry--

He shoved that thought
away and touched the shadowscreen to transfer the new numbers from
the secondary to the main screen, filling in the blanks in the draft
of the new contract with the Liassan
mesnie
.
The numbers looked good, and he'd only had to deviate from NAPD's
preferred standard contract in a couple of places. Even with those
changes, and even factoring in the worst possible weather and harvest
conditions, the company should show an acceptable profit. And if the
weather followed the predicted patterns . . . He ran his hand over
the shadowscreen again, fingers pressing hot and cold spots that
changed and shifted under his touch. If the weather stayed within the
meteorologists' predicted limits, NAPD would increase its revenue
by a little under seventeen percent. That wasn't just Liassan, of
course, and it didn't account for fee increases from the various
Stane offices--and there would be increases, once Temelathe's
people realized that NAPD's profits were up--but there wasn't
anything he could do about that. Temelathe's share was like an act
of God: one paid and was grateful it was no worse.

It was still hard to be
philosophical about it, especially after Wiidfare's latest attempt
to drag NAPD into permit trading, and Tatian found his thoughts
drifting away from the contract details, wondered instead if there
was any way to avoid Temelathe's levies. There was plenty of
opposition to the Most Important Man, the
presance
at the Stiller
baanket
had been ample proof of that; maybe there was a way the
pharmaceuticals could use that opposition to force Temelathe to take
less. He shook himself then, scowling at the screens. First, the
pharmaceuticals wouldn't cooperate if it affected their profits,
and, second, the Modernists made no particular distinction between
one company and another. All he would do is get himself kicked off
the planet, and NAPD either banned entirely or at best severely
restricted. He thumbed the selection menu and called up the file of
contracts waiting for renewal. Without the implants, checking them
would be a tedious business. Tatian eyed the first screen without
eagerness and was grateful when the intercom buzzed.

"Yes?"

"Ser Mhyre." It was
Derebought's voice and the formal tone and title she used to warn
him of something out of the ordinary. "There's someone to see
you, if you're free. Mir Warreven--the Stiller
seraaliste.
"

Tatian stared at his
desktop without seeing the open screens, mind racing. Warreven had
mentioned the Stiller surplus--which rumor said was considerable--at
the dance house, Shinbone; unfortunately, any offer was almost
certain to come with strings attached, strings that led directly to
Shan Reiss and his withdrawn statement. Tatian suppressed the memory
of Reiss's face when he'd heard the ultimatum, the expression of
frantic guilt, and touched the intercom. He would be foolish not to
listen to what Warreven had to say--and beside, he admitted,
silently, I'm curious. "I'm free. Show 3im
in, Derry, please."

"Right away."

Tatian blanked his
screens--though there wasn't much point; copies of the same
documents would be sitting on Warreven's desk already--and the
door opened. Derebought said, "Mir Warreven."

Warreven nodded 3er
thanks and stepped past her into the office, holding out 3er
hand in off-world greeting. Tatian leaned across the desk to take it
and was aware again of the jewelry, thick hoop earrings, half a dozen
metal bracelets, and even the long necklace was more metal than
glass. Warreven was, at a conservative guess, wearing half an
ordinary indigene's yearly income: it was a sobering reminder of
3er importance, and Tatian
guessed, a deliberate one.

"Shall I make up a
tray?" Derebought asked, and Tatian looked past Warreven to see the
botanist frowning slightly. Her message was clear: this was an
important person and an important meeting; the traditional amenities
should be observed.

"Please," Tatian
answered, though he doubted someone as assimilated as Warreven would
be unduly impressed by anything NAPD could provide, and gestured for
the indigene to take the visitor's chair.

"Thanks," Warreven
said, with a glance over 3er
shoulder that included Derebought, and sat down opposite Tatian.

Tatian reseated himself
at the desk, glancing again at Warreven. The
seraaliste
was dressed much as 3e had
been at the dance house, a soft silk tunic over soft trousers, all
expensively casual, and 3er
thick hair had been pulled back into a single braid. The planes of
3er face looked harder
without the mane of hair; Tatian was suddenly aware of the shadows
under 3er eyes, and the
lines just beginning at the corners of 3er
mouth. Ȝe was
unexpectedly attractive--handsome rather than beautiful, but still
the classic herm looks--not to his usual taste, and Tatian looked
down at the empty desktop to break his stare. This had happened
before, and not just on Hara, would happen again. Herms and women
shared some physical attributes; it was easy to be attracted to the
"feminine" aspects of a herm, and ridiculous to think of acting
on that attraction. "What can I do for you, Mir Warreven?"

"I hope quite a lot,"
Warreven answered, "as I hope I can do something for you. I
understand you've already been buying from Stiller?"

"
Mesnie
contracts only."

"I wonder if you're
still interested--or able--to buy?" Warreven tilted 3er
head to one side, wide-set eyes narrowed slightly, as though 3e
might smile. The door opened then, and Derebought came in, carrying a
tray laden with imported coffee and a triple jug of
liquertie
.
Tatian's eyes narrowed for an instant, inspecting the offering.
Derebought knew the traditional proprieties better than anyone else
on NAPD's staff--that was the reason she was responsible for these
social duties, though it always gave Tatian an odd feeling to see the
botanist handling protocol--and she was saying, as clearly as if she
had spoken aloud, that Warreven was very important indeed.

"
Liquertie
,
mir?" Derebought said, to Warreven. "Or perhaps coffee?"

Tatian let the ritual
wash over him, wondering just what Warreven wanted.
No,
that's obvious, 3e wants Reiss's statement; the real question is
what 3e'll offer to get it. Or maybe I'm misreading the whole
situation, and 3e' sjust here for the harvest. Derebought wouldn't
have brought out coffee if she didn't think a deal was a solid
possibility
. He accepted a cup of the coffee--the real
thing, imported from Atalanta, too expensive to drink more than once
a week--and waited until the door had closed again behind
Derebought. "NAPD is usually able to acquire worthwhile items,
either craft or harvest. Do you--does Stiller, forgive me--have
something on offer?"

Warreven smiled. "The
harvest has been good this year generally, which you know, and the
Westaern sea-harvest particularly so. Which you also know. Stiller
has significant surplus, and the
mesnie
s
have agreed that it should be placed on offer in a single lot, to be
handled by the
seraaliste
.
I wondered if NAPD would be interested."

Tatian blinked. The
sea-harvest had been unusually good; if Stiller was offering the
entire surplus as a single block, the harvest was likely to be
extraordinary. Reiss's statement wouldn't be an unreasonable
payment, for such an unheard-of offer. He put that thought aside and
said cautiously, "We're interested, of course. But I understood
your contract was with Kerendach."

"The
mesnie
s
have voted me full bargaining rights," Warreven answered. "In
effect, it's mine to do with as I please, and I'm not fully
satisfied with Kerendach right now."

Plus
you want something from me
, Tatian thought. He said, "As
I said, we're always interested. I'd like to see some details
first, of course. Then I can make a rough offer."

Warreven set an
old-style disk on the desktop and slid it past the tray of
liquertie
s. "I
think everything you'll want is there. I'll be frank with you, I
would go to one of the Big Six, but they tend to stick together. I
doubt they'd offer me much more than Kerendach would, and that
hasn't been adequate for less." Ȝe
hesitated, as though 3e
would say more, then leaned back in 3er
chair.

Tatian took the disk,
then ran his hand over the shadowscreen to activate the multiformat
reader. He slipped the disk into the cradle, and there was a pause
while the system sorted through competing formats. Then the first of
the summaries flipped into view. It was enough to make him catch his
breath--that block alone would increase NAPD's potential income by
about a tenth of the current total--and he paged quickly through the
file, dizzying himself with the possibilities. Warreven was offering
broad-leaf kelp, and cutgrass and wideweb, the staples of the Haran
sea-harvest, but 3e was
also offering crumbling coral, coral fish, and even half a dozen
false-kelp holdfasts. Those were worth over a thousand concord
dollars apiece, more if they were close to whole: the false-kelp grew
too deep for Haran divers easily to reach its base, and in any case,
harvesting the holdfast killed the plant. Most of the holdfasts that
reached the off-world markets came from storm wrack, and the Big Six
bought and sold most of them; for Warreven to be able to offer six as
surplus was extraordinary--and a tribute to the negotiating skills
of the previous year's
seraaliste
,
who had set the contract quotas with Kerendach. It also made it
easier to contemplate giving Warreven the extras 3e
was sure to want. Tatian paged slowly back to the top of the file,
imagining the Old Dame's response to this bounty, and said, "Has
Kerendach made an offer, or are we getting first chance?"

"They have a standing
offer for surplus," Warreven said. "It's in the secondary
file."

Tatian flipped that
open, eyebrows rising. "It seems--less than generous," he said
at last. In point of fact, it was ridiculously low for the surplus of
an excellent harvest, and he wondered who at Kerendach had made the
tactical error. If it had been his business, he would have doubled
the standing offer sight unseen--but somebody had been operating on
the assumption that Warreven's inexperience amounted to stupidity. "I
think we could--would-- better it."

Warreven smiled again.
"There is another matter, of course."

Tatian matched the
smile. "Of course."
And
here we go
, he thought.
Shan
Reiss's statement for the chance to bid on the surplus, which is
one of the best block offers I've ever seen--except that I've
been told explicitly, by the Concord agency, that letting Reiss
testify can do most to ruin my company, that I cannot not let Reiss
get involved in this case
. "Reiss?"