Derelict For Trade

6

Dane Thorson drew a deep breath, and fought the urge to grip the table with both hands. Most of the time he was fine—kept his visual orientation balanced with his inner ear—but if he turned too quickly, or got absorbed in watching the gyrations of the Kanddoyds, without warning he’d lose his sense of down and up, and see himself floating upside down in a revolving canister.

One breath, two. He looked up, saw an expression of sympathy on his chief’s face. "Drink," Van Ryke said.

Obediently Thorson sipped at the straw that had extruded from the bubble of nilak, the Kanddoyd version of coffee. He tightened his stomach muscles, determined to conquer what he derided as physical weakness. A Free Trader—particularly a cargo master—ought to be able to adjust to any environment, he told himself.

As if reading his mind, Van Ryke said, "I have lost count of the number of planets I’ve visited, but of them very few rate as repellent to natural human instinct as one of these cylomes."

"It’s inside out," Dane muttered. "I tell myself this is the best design for a habitat, but my guts know that down is out, with vacuum underfoot, and the horizon doesn’t curve out of sight, as it decently should—instead it curves up and over. Then." He glanced at a quartet of Kanddoyds passing nearby, and clamped his jaw shut.

He would not speak a criticism of the indigenous population, even in Terran, which apparently few of the other races understood. It wasn’t the way of a Trader. But still, it made a person dizzy to watch the way the beings zigzagged back and forth across each other’s path, constantly buzzing and humming and chirping and clicking. The tapes hadn’t even remotely made him ready for that; he’d stupidly gotten the idea that they would speak Trade, and augment what they said with one discrete noise of emotional amplification at a time. The reality was, they never stopped making noises, so many it was difficult to distinguish what kind of noise, much less the patterns. He thought grumpily, And this is only what they do in my sonic range.

Van Ryke was watching the four Kanddoyds make their way down the concourse. To human eyes they walked in a continual braiding motion,

veering only when they encountered others of their kind. Then the pattern evolved into a mesmerizing series of intersecting angles, broken only if they were approached by other beings, especially the bulky, heavy-treading Shver. Then they flowed out of the way in deference, wide berth for high clan rank and just skirting those of low rank. The Shver, Dane noted, did not turn aside from their path for anyone save others of their own kind, and then only for those of higher degree; but they paused and exchanged gestures of formal recognition and obligation first.

Dane, watching the tall, massively muscled beings gesturing as their low voices rumbled like distant thunder, wondered who would be idiot enough to deliberately cross a Shver’s path.

The Shver were even bigger up close than seen from afar. Their thick, coarse gray hides and massive bodies called to mind humanoid elephants. Even their ears were almost elephantine, so large and wrinkly were they, though the faces were more or less humanoid—a forbidding sort of humanoid. The sheer size of the Shver, plus their bulk and broody mien, and the savage-looking serrated honor knives worn at their sides, guaranteed that no beings, even the raffish and overdecorated Yip, or the militant Rigelians, got in their way.

They seemed all-powerful, yet Dane recalled reading that they were phobic about flying insects—and were terrified of spiders. It made sense that their heavy gravity would not support most insect life as known to Terra and other worlds; fragile exoskeletons would be crushed by the creatures’ own weight. Small fauna on the Shver’s homeworld was apparently all vermiform.

But in addition, for some reason buried deep within the Shver’s prehistory, anything with more legs than five—their sacred number—was considered daemonic. They apparently reacted at the sight of spiders the way most spacers would react to meeting a ghost.

Van Ryke’s sudden chuckle brought Dane’s attention back to the Shver walking by. As the two men watched, the smallest of three Shver stared at them intently, until one of the taller ones noticed and with a sharp gesture ordered the youngster to turn around again. Dane smothered the urge to grin. He remembered that the Shver considered it indelicate to eat in public, and the gawking youngster reminded him strongly of human children and their infinite capacity for entertainment at the prospect of impolite spectacles.

"A few minutes more." The cargo master’s voice broke into Dane’s thoughts, and Van Ryke turned to study Dane. "Do you wish me to accompany you, my boy?"

Thorson shook his head. "No. Thanks. I’ll manage. With the start Flindyk gave us on the process, as the captain said, this is cut-and-dried work. You’ll need all the time we have to secure a good cargo. That’s top priority."

"Good enough, then," Van Ryke said. "Speaking of which, I ought to be about my business. The sooner I get started on those hours of flowery talk the better. I just hope it comes with suitable refreshments." He gave Dane a smile that the apprentice cargo master knew was meant to be reassuring, rose, and moved at a sedate pace down the concourse.

Dane sighed. He knew he had the easier job—which would be the more embarrassing if he failed. He fingered the recorder at his belt, with its variety of tones and tinkles that had been established as acceptable emotional modifiers for Trade Speech, then turned his eyes to another group of Kanddoyds who were busy settling at one of the tables nearby. Covertly Dane studied them, trying to muster all he’d learned in order to identify them. Three had huge, gold-faceted eyes, which meant they were females; of these one had light eyes, indicating youth, and the eyes of the other two were a darker honey color, indicating greater age. The four males were also a variety of ages, their green eyes reflecting varied shades.

All of them had complicated jewel insets and enameling on their exoskeletal components, indicating wealth; Dane did not bother to scrutinize the decorations any more closely, since they were supposedly indicative only of individual tastes—and might change from day to day, if the owner had enough time and money to constantly augment his or her carapace. Kanddoyd, unlike the clannish, hierarchical Shver, did not wear any insignia indicating rank—they were far too individualistic for that.

Sucking absently at his drink, he realized it was empty when the fragile bubble collapsed in his hands. He slid the crushed bubble into a recycle bin and shuffled out onto the concourse, careful to move slowly. A forgetful step and he’d bound in the air, legs and arms pumping for balance, making him look like the rawest newbie.

A glance up the concourse toward a place where bright lights and loud music emanated forth caused him to grin. There, right in the middle of a

group of flashily dressed Traders from half a dozen widely scattered civilizations, was Ali. To all appearances he was just partying, but Dane knew better. Sometimes the quickest way to find out what you need to know is to go where the spacers hang out, and listen to gossip, Ali had said when he and Rip held their planning session.

Better you than I, Dane thought, turning toward the mag-lev. His chrono showed it was time for Prime Facilitator Koytatik’s duty to start at the registry office, something he’d taken care to ascertain earlier. He slid into a pod, moving around a pair of Shver. A cluster of other beings, all from different worlds but wearing the brown indicative of Trade, pushed in from behind.

"So they swapped them, cargo for cargo, and sold for double."

"... got a week of leave before we blast out for the Thstoths-Buool Run."

"... so they think the Deathguard must have done it. No evidence anywhere—"

Dane sneaked a peek when he heard that one, but the speaker’s voice lowered, and he could not tell which being had said the words.

"... the grace and beauty of your excellent ship, but we poor Traders cannot possibly hope"—Regret, with Elements of Doubt—"to compete with the great and powerful Traders from the Deneb."

The pod drew to a halt, and the talk blended into general noise as the travelers pushed out, everyone bounding lightly into the microgravity and ricocheting off in various directions.

Dane looked up at the vast, terraced edifice with the holographic poles declaring in the three main languages that this was the Trade Administrative Center.

He finally made his way straight for the widest pathway in the middle. Just under an archway he saw a Kanddoyd spot him and come scurrying forward. The Kanddoyd escorted him to a pleasant waiting room while assuring him that the locutor would promptly interrupt her activities to serve him, using about four times as many words as were necessary.

While he was waiting, Dane forced himself to walk forward to the huge window overlooking the interior of the cylome and gaze out. The reluctance he felt triggered a sudden realization: that the Kanddoyd had doubtless put him here to exploit the well-known Terran aversion to habitats.

" The Kanddoyd are indeed the friendliest of all alien races," he remembered Van Ryke saying. " That does not mean they do not desire their own advantage."

Despite himself, Dane found himself fascinated by the view. The locutor’s office was in the middle of the Kanddoyd levels: a compromise for the comfort of the many races who might visit here. It faced down the length of the habitat, and there were no obstructions to his gaze.

And the view was utterly strange. Dane found that if he looked straight ahead, it was much like being in an aircar above a planetary surface, flying through an immense canyon— like the Slash on Immensa, he thought—with distance softening the juts of buildings among greenery into analogues of distant mountains. But then the curve of the cylindrical walls drew his eyes up and over and vertigo seized him anew as he saw towering structures skewering out into the air far above him, apparently in defiance of all gravity and engineering. Fortunately, he thought, the radiants that lit the interior of the vast habitat blocked any view of the opposite surface—he didn’t know if he could have tolerated seeing an entire half a world hanging upside down overhead.

" The hindbrain knows nothing of spin gravity," he remembered Craig Tau saying dryly.

It was clever, though, Dane thought, how the design of the habitat fit the nature of the two races who inhabited it. The inner surface was at 1.6 gee, giving the Shver not only the acceleration they’d evolved in but also the lion’s share of the living space—just as that expansive race preferred. The Kanddoyds, on the other hand, lived high up in the immense tube-shaped towers that transfixed the cylinder from side to side, giving them the lower gravity and combination of enclosure and exposure that they preferred. They did not mind the imbalance in territory, for their long, losing battle on a dying planet had bred them to enjoy close quarters.

In fact, the more he looked, the more he was impressed by Kanddoyd engineering, despite his discomfort. The huge cylindrical towers would

have rendered many acres dark and undesirable on a planet, but here, since they passed through the Spin Axis, they cast no shadows. And elevators in them gave rapid transit from one side of the habitat to another— as long as you didn’t mind the change in gees, and the flip-over at the center, where gravity was zero.

His musings were interrupted by the cheery clackings and whirrings of welcome from a Kanddoyd who bustled forward out of a cleverly concealed door. She was painted all over in curlicues of pleasing shades of purple. Jewels winked on her carapace as she made the complicated gesture that was the equivalent of a human bow. She said in a thin, reedy voice, "Welcome to the Bright Arrangement of Herbaceous Delights, O Gentle Trader. Locutor Danakak wishes no greater pleasure this day than to have the honor of assisting you in your important affairs."

Dane said, "I have come to register a salvage find."

"Ah!" the locutor said. "May I congratulate you upon your advantageous discovery—but at the same time we salute the misfortune of the unknowns whose craft has fallen, through the exigencies of fate, to your benefit." She clacked her mandibles rapidly, and rubbed together the complicated ankle armor that reminded Dane a little of ancient pictures of spurs. A deep droning sound rose, fell away. He identified both sounds—Grief for the Honorably Fallen and Acknowledgment of the Ephemeral Nature of Material Ownership—and hastened to produce from his belt recorder the corroborative sounds.

"Thank you," he said, and pressed another code on his recorder as he said, "If you would honor me with the directions to the registry office of Prime Facilitator Koytatik, we can both carry on our tasks." Underscoring his words were the musical chirps of Friendly and Honest Intent.

"Well, then," said the locutor. She made a series of rapid noises, the only one he recognized being Curiosity Appropriate to the Circumstances. "Your respected employer must rejoice in a worker so ready to execute her will in a timely manner! Permit me to introduce to your notice the humble Augmentor Laktic, whose greatest pleasure in life is the assistance of our Terran visitors in the expeditious discharge of their important affairs!"

Danakak led Thorson along a roundabout route past terraced layers of fragrant herbs. He curbed his impatience, knowing that this was intended as a compliment. To conduct someone the shortest way was not only to

hint that the person had no taste for beauty, but to indicate that one wished to spend as little time as possible in his company. People came and went along the winding paths, past offices whose exteriors were painted with geometric designs or decorated with ceramic mosaics. Busy Kanddoyds scurried in between all the other sentients, moving with the startling swiftness Dane had hitherto associated only with Rigelians.

Under a flowering vine-covered archway they encountered a waiting Kanddoyd, and after a mutual exchange of compliments accompanied by rhythmic noises indicating good intentions, Dane found himself handed off to Augmentor Laktic. He was a young male, painted over with geometric shapes in metallic colors.

He offered, at great length, to assist Dane in finding the appropriate office for the initiation of his business, at which time Dane pulled out the spool that Flindyk had given Captain Jellico and a printout version of the data, and said, "I’ve already gotten the proper forms. What I need to do is find the office where I can register this information. If you can take me there, I’d appreciate it, Augmentor Laktic."

The Kanddoyd looked at the spool, glanced at the printout, and clacked in Surprise Tempered with Respect. "I contemplate with admiration the rapidity of Terrans in their business enterprise," he said, making a series of clicks and tweets that Dane sensed were interrogative.

Dane’s time as cargo master apprentice had provided enough experience for him to instinctively endeavor not to give any hint of the time and money constraints forcing the Queen's crew to act quickly. Though the business he had here was only a matter of form, he didn’t know how much talk passed between the registry workers and those who dealt with Traders. It would be more difficult for Van Ryke if whoever he was working with found out about their desperate need.

So he said, "Terrans usually act quickly to execute business so they can get to their pleasures the more quickly. Our crew wants to have plenty of time to explore all the delights Exchange has to offer." And he pressed his belt in the code that produced the sounds indicating Fervent Anticipation.

The Kanddoyd laughed, a sound like a violin cadenza. "Ah! Of course! Then clearly it behooves me to bustle us along, the quicker to enable the Gentle Terrans to consort in the pleasure decks with other convivial beings. Since you appear to have all the correct forms, and filled out—as

far as this humble augmentor is able to infer—correctly as well, I suggest we proceed directly to the august precincts of Registry and Claims."

Thorson tried to keep his face impassive, but inside he felt a spurt of joy. So he was going to be successful!

They proceeded up through levels and layers, all flower-bordered, with occasional views out into the habitat, to a door inlaid with a fabulous mosaic pattern indicating the birth of a star. Through the door, and into pleasant scents of fresh flowers. Kanddoyd music played softly from somewhere; not melodic, but the complicated rhythms were pleasing to the Terran ear.

They had to go through two or three levels of functionaries, each of whose jobs apparently existed to prevent the applicant the disappointment of discovering that his forms were incorrect. After the customary exchanges of compliments, Laktic proffered the spool, with its unmistakable sigil of Trade Administration, and the helpers all bowed them on their way.

Laktic seemed as pleased as Dane was, if it was possible to ascribe human emotions to a nonhuman. As they approached what appeared to be the last stop, Dane wondered if augmentors got paid for each successful piece of business they helped to resolve. If so, he had to admire all the more the indefatigable good manners that had detained them along the way; on Terra, though no one liked standing in line, Dane suspected twenty people could have gotten their papers filed in the time it was taking him just to find the correct person to submit his to.

But at last Laktic brought him to a low table where an older Kanddoyd waited, her carapace jeweled in shades of gold to match her eyes. This was Prime Facilitator Koytatik, Dane discovered, after a truly memorable exchange of flowery politeness.

At last, though, she dismissed Laktic, who thanked Dane—and on being thanked for his help, thanked him for his thanks—and after exchanging mutual wishes for each other’s long and pleasurable lives, Laktic departed.

"Now, Gentle Trader," Koytatik said, making the clicks of Universal Goodwill. "Will you permit me the honor of requesting the data the augmentor has indicated you hold, so that we may persevere in your efforts to complete your business?"

"Here is the spool," Dane said, tapping his belt to play the code for Happy Compliance. "And the printouts, in case you need those."

Koytatik extended a grasping member to take the spool, which she dropped into a slot cleverly hidden among the mosaic patterns on the table. A thin screen extruded at an angle; Dane, from his height, could just see over the top, and watched Kanddoyd script flash up on the screen in ordered ranks of data.

There was a pause, and for a moment Thorson felt a flash of something—almost pain—through his temples. But then it was gone, and he realized Koytatik was making sounds that he needed to decode. He recognized Universal Goodwill again, among other more rapid patterns. "The Solar Queen," Koytatik said. "And the ship you found is the Starvenger, registered through the Terran Free Traders."

"That’s correct," Dane said.

Again he felt that strange tightness in his head, and was reminded suddenly of Frank Mura’s feedle pipe and its ten ultrasonic notes. He surreptitiously activated the jeweled ultrasonic recorder that Jasper had made—noting at the same time that the facilitator was rapidly making sounds that he recognized. All were positive ones, even the low droning of Important Business Proceeds Best with Care and Caution.

"We must check your data against the claims registry of your own Traders, as well as our registry," Koytatik said. "If, of course, the owners of the Starvenger or the heirs of the owners have made an insurance claim against the ship—thus indicating they in fact duly abandoned her—then she is yours. If not, we shall proceed to the next step in our process, which is to post the claim."

Dane nodded. "We understand all that. How long does it take to get transmissions to and from Terran Trade? A couple of days?"

Koytatik made a series of sounds so rapid that Dane was not able to follow them, and he felt for the third time that odd sense of pressure in his head, and he glanced down at his ultrasonic device, and saw that it was flashing blue. But she said, "About that long, yes, indeed, Gentle Trader. If you will honor us with your presence again in two Standard Days, which is three Cycles in Exchange time measure, I shall avail myself of the pleasure of furthering your business once again."

Dane nodded, mentally going over the questions he was to ask about the next step, so the captain could plan for them, but to his surprise the prime facilitator made a bow, clacking away with complimentary sounds and chirps, and then withdrew behind a screen with all the rapidity of her race. Dane felt an impulse to follow, except the screen was closed—and with a shrug he decided that, taken all in all, things had gone well enough. He could always get to the questions next visit, and report with the answers straight back to the captain.

He got to his feet, and made his way back through the maze of flowered pathways, pausing only to exchange complimentary farewells with all the functionaries whom he encountered on the way.