Trading in Futures (3 page)

She stared at him until he heard his heart
thudding in his ears. Then she sighed in her turn, and spun the
chair so she faced the screens, showing him profile.

"You want another ship," she said, and she
didn't sound mad, anymore. "You find it."

Zeroground Pub

"NO CALLS FOR Jethri Gobelyn? No message
from Sirge Milton?"

The barkeeper on-shift today was maybe a
Standard Jethri's elder. He was also twelve inches taller and
outmassed him by a factor of two. He shook his head, so that the
six titanium rings in his left ear chimed together, and sighed,
none too patient. "Kid, I told you. No calls. No message. No
package. No Milton. No nothing, kid. Got it?"

Jethri swallowed, hard. "Got it."

"Great," said the barkeep. "You wanna beer
or you wanna clear out so a paying customer can have a stool?"

"Merebeer, please," he said, slipping a bit
across the counter. The keeper swept up the coin, went up-bar, drew
a glass, and slid it down the polished surface with a will. Jethri
put out a hand--the mug smacked into his palm, stinging. Carefully,
he eased away from the not-exactly-overcrowded counter and took his
drink to the back.

He was on the approach to trouble. Dodging
his Senior, sliding off-ship without the Captain's aye--approaching
trouble, right enough, but not quite established in orbit. Khat was
inventive--he trusted her to cover him for another hour, by which
time he had better be on-ship, cash in hand and looking to show
Uncle Paitor the whole.

And Sirge Milton was late.

A man, Jethri reasoned, slipping into a
booth and setting his beer down, might well be late for a meeting.
A man might even, with good reason, be an hour late for that same
meeting. But a man could call the place named and leave a message
for the one who was set to meet him.

Which Sirge Milton hadn't done, nor sent a
courier with a package containing Jethri's payout, neither.

So, something must have come up. Business.
Sirge Milton seemed a busy man. Jethri opened his pouch and pulled
out the agreement they'd written yesterday, sitting at this very
back booth, with Nance the bartender as witness.

Carefully, he smoothed the paper, read over
the guarantee of payment. Two cantra was a higher buy-out than he
had asked for, but Sirge had insisted, saying the profit would
cover it, not to mention his 'expectations.' There was even a
paragraph about being paid in the event that Sirge's sure buyer was
out of cash, citing the debt owed Sirge Milton, Trader, by Norn
ven'Deelin, Master Trader, as security.

It had all seemed clear enough yesterday
afternoon, but Jethri thought now that he should have asked Sirge
to take him around to his supplier, or at least listed the name and
location of the supplier on the paper.

He had a sip of beer, but it tasted flat and
he pushed the glass away. The door to the bar slid open, admitting
a noisy gaggle of Terrans. Jethri looked up, eagerly, but Sirge was
not among them. Sighing, he frowned down at the paper, trying to
figure out a next move that didn't put him on the receiving end of
one of his uncle's furious rakedowns.

Norn ven'Deelin, Master of Trade...

The words looked odd, written in Terran.
Norn ven'Deelin, who had given his card--his name--into Sirge
Milton's keeping. Jethri blinked. Norn ven'Deelin, he thought,
would very likely know how to get in touch with a person he held in
such high esteem. With luck, he'd be inclined to share that
information with a polite-talking 'prentice.

If he wasn't inclined...Jethri folded his
paper away and got out of the booth, leaving the beer behind. No
use borrowing trouble, he told himself.

Ynsolt'i Upper Port

IT WAS LATE, but still
day-Port, when he found the right office. At least, he thought,
pausing across the street and staring at that damned bunny
silhouetted against the big yellow moon, he hoped it was the right
office. He was tired from walking miles in gravity, but worse than
that, he was scared. Norn ven'Deelin's office--if this
was
at last his
office--was well into the Liaden side of Port.

Not that there was properly a Terran side,
Ynsolt'i being a Liaden world. But there were portions where
Terrans were tolerated as a necessary evil attending galactic
trade, and where a body caught the notion that maybe Terrans were
cut some extra length of line, in regard to what might be seen as
insult.

Standing across from the
door, which might, after all, be the right one, Jethri did consider
turning around, trudging back to the
Market
and taking the licks he'd
traded for.

Except he'd
traded for
profit to the
ship, and he was going to collect it. That, at least, he would show
his Senior and his Captain, though he had long since stopped
thinking that profit would buy him pardon.

Jethri sighed. There was dust all over his
good trading clothes. He brushed himself off as well as he could,
finger-combed his hair and looked across the street. It came to him
that the rabbit on Clan Ixin's sign wasn't so much howling at that
moon, as laughing its fool head off.

Thinking so, he crossed the street, wiped
his boots on the mat, and pushed the door open.

* * *

THE OFFICE BEHIND the door was airy and
bright, and Jethri was abruptly glad that he had dressed in trading
clothes, dusty as they now were. This place was high-class--a body
could smell profit in the subtly fragrant air, see it in the floor
covering and the real wooden chairs.

The man sitting behind the carved center
console was as elegant as the room: crisp-cut yellow hair, bland
and beardless Liaden face, a vest embroidered with the
moon-and-rabbit worn over a salt-white silken shirt. He looked up
from his work screen as the door opened, eyebrows lifting in what
Jethri had no trouble reading as astonishment.

"Good-day to you, young sir." The man's
voice was soft, his Trade only lightly tinged with accent.

"Good-day, honored sir." Jethri moved
forward slowly, taking care to keep his hands in sight. Three steps
from the console, he stopped and bowed, as low as he could manage
without falling on his head.

"Jethri Gobelyn, Apprentice
Trader,
Gobelyn's
Market
." He straightened and met the bland
blue eyes squarely. "I am come to call upon the Honored Norn
ven'Deelin."

"Ah." The man folded his hands neatly upon
the console. "I regret it is necessary that you acquaint me more
nearly with your business, Jethri Gobelyn."

Jethri bowed again, not so deep this time,
and waited til he was upright to begin the telling.

"I am in search of a man--a Terran," he
added, half-amazed to hear no quaver in his voice--"named Sirge
Milton, who owes me a sum of money. It was in my mind that the
Honored ven'Deelin might be willing to put me in touch with this
man."

The Liaden frowned. "Forgive me, Jethri
Gobelyn, but how came such a notion into your mind?"

Jethri took a breath. "Sirge Milton had the
Honored ven'Deelin's card in pledge of--"

The Liaden held up a hand, and Jethri gulped
to a stop, feeling a little gone around the knees.

"Hold." A Terran would have smiled to show
there was no threat. Liadens didn't smile, at least, not at
Terrans, but this one exerted himself to incline his head an
inch.

"If you please," he said. "I must ask if you
are certain that it was the Honored ven'Deelin's own card."

"I--the name was plainly written, sir. I
read it myself. And the sigil was the same, the very
moon-and-rabbit you yourself wear."

"I regret." The Liaden stood, bowed and
beckoned, all in one fluid movement. "This falls without my area of
authority. If you please, young sir, follow me." The blue eyes met
his, as if the Liaden had somehow heard his dismay at being thus
directed deeper into alien territory. "House courtesy, Jethri
Gobelyn. You receive no danger here."

Which made it plain enough, to Jethri's
mind, that refusing to follow would be an insult and the last thing
he wanted to do...

He bowed slightly and walked forward as
sedately as trembling knees allowed. The Liaden led him down a
short hallway, past two closed doors, and bowed him across the
threshold of the third, open.

"Please be at ease," the Liaden said from
the threshold. "I will apprise the Master Trader of your errand."
He hesitated, then extended a hand, palm up. "It is well, Jethri
Gobelyn. The House is vigilant on your behalf." He was gone on
that, the door sliding silently closed behind him.

This room was smaller than
the antechamber, though slightly bigger than the
Market's
common room, the
shelves set at heights he had to believe handy for
Liadens.

Jethri stood for a couple minutes, eyes
closed, doing cube roots in his head until his heartbeat slowed
down and the panic had eased back to a vague feeling of sickness in
his gut.

Opening his eyes, he went over to the
shelves on the right, half-trained eye running over the
bric-a-brac, wondering if that was really a piece of Sofleg
porcelain and, if so, what it was doing set naked out on a shelf,
as if it were a common pottery bowl.

The door whispered behind him, and he spun
to face a Liaden woman dressed in dark trousers and a garnet
colored shirt. Her hair was short and gray, her eyebrows straight
and black. She stepped energetically into the center of the room as
the door slid closed behind her, and bowed with precision, right
hand flat against her chest.

"Norn ven'Deelin," she stated in a clear,
level voice. "Clan Ixin."

Jethri felt the blood go to ice in his
veins.

Before him, Norn ven'Deelin straightened and
slanted a bright black glance into his face. "You discover me a
dismay," she observed, in heavily accented Terran. "Say why,
do."

He managed to breathe, managed to bow.
"Honored Ma'am, I--I've just learned the depth of my own
folly."

"So young, yet made so wise!" She brought
her hands together in a gentle clap, the big amethyst ring on her
right hand throwing light off its facets like purple lightning.
"Speak on, young Jethri. I would drink of your wisdom."

He bit his lip. "Ma'am, the--person--I came
here to find--told me Norn ven'Deelin was--was male."

"Ah. But Liaden names are difficult, I am
learning, for those of Terran Code. Possible it is that your friend
achieved honest error, occasioned by null-acquaintance with
myself."

"I'm certain that's the case, honored,"
Jethri said carefully, trying to feel his way toward a path that
would win him free, with no insult to the Trader or her House, and
extricate Sirge Milton from a Junior's hopeless muddle.

"I--my friend--did know the person I
mistakenly believed yourself to be well enough to have lent money
on a Portweek investment. The--error--is all my own. Likely there
is another Norn ven'Deelin in Port, and I foolishly--"

A tiny hand rose, palm out, to stop him. "Be
assured, Jethri Gobelyn, of Norn ven'Deelin there is one. This
one."

He had, Jethri thought, been afraid of that.
Hastily, he tried to shuffle possibilities. Had Sirge Milton dealt
with a go-between authorized to hand over his employer's card?
Had--

"My assistant," said Norn ven'Deelin,
"discloses to me a tale of wondering obfusion. I am understanding
that you are in possession of one of my cards?"

Her assistant, Jethri
thought, with a sudden sharpening of his wits on the matter at
hand, had told her no such thing. She was trying to throw him
off-balance, and startle him into revealing a weakness. She was, in
fact,
trading
.
Jethri ground his teeth and made his face smooth.

"No, ma'am," he said respectfully. "What
happened was that I met a man in Port who needed loan of a cantra
to hold a deal. He said he had lent his liquid to--to Norn
ven'Deelin, Master Trader. Of Clan Ixin. He said he was to collect
tomorrow--today, mid-day, that would be--a guaranteed return of
four-on-one. My--my payout contingent on his payout." He stopped
and did not bite his lip, though he wanted to.

There was a short silence, then,
"Four-on-one. That is a very large profit, young Jethri."

He ducked his head. "Yes, ma'am. I thought
that. But he had the--the card of the--man--who had guaranteed the
return. I read the name myself. And the Clan sign--just like the
one on your door and--other places on Port..." His voice squeaked
out. He cleared his throat and continued.

"I knew he had to be on a straight
course--at least on this deal--if it was backed by a Liaden's
card."

"Hah." She plucked something flat and
rectangular from her sleeve and held it out. "Honor me with your
opinion of this."

He took the card, looked down and knew just
how stupid he'd been.

"So wondrously expressive a face," commented
Norn ven'Deelin. "Was this not the card you were shown, in earnest
of fair dealing?"

He shook his head, remembered that the
gesture had no analog among Liadens and cleared his throat
again.

"No, ma'am," he said as steadily as he
could. "The rabbit-and-moon were exactly the same. The name--the
same style, the same spacing, the same spelling. The stock was
white, with black ink, not tan with brown ink. I didn't touch it,
but I'd guess it was low-rag. This card is high-rag content..."

His fingers found a pattern on the obverse.
He flipped the card over and sighed at the selfsame
rabbit-and-moon, embossed into the card stock, then looked back to
her bland, patient face.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am."