"You really mean it, don't you?" She had trouble believing her ears.
"Yes, I do," Greenberg said firmly.
"We'd like to have you along," Marya agreed. Koniev nodded.
"Thank you," Jennifer said. "Thank you more than I can say." She went over and kissed Greenberg. She found she didn't mind at all when his arm slipped around her waist. But she still shook her head. "Once, for me, is enough. I feel very certain of that. The university suits me fine."
"All right," Greenberg said. "I'll see you get rated journeyman anyhow. You've earned it, whether you choose to use it or not."
"Thanks," she said again. "That's very kind. I won't turn you down. Not, mind you, that I ever will use it."
"Of course not," Greenberg said.
She looked at him sharply. As a master merchant, he was used to?and good at?manipulating people to get his way. Not this time, you won't, she thought.
III
The tall fur crest above Gazar's eyes rippled slightly. With Atheters, Jennifer thought, that was supposed to mean they were going to get down to serious business. She hoped so. Gazar had shown her nothing but junk?well, not junk, but certainly nothing worth taking offworld?for the past two hours.
As the Atheter merchant rummaged through his wicker basket, Jennifer wondered, for far from the first time, what she was doing sitting cross-legged on a fat tree branch dickering with an alien who looked like a blue plush chimpanzee with a prehensile tail. She'd firmly intended to teach Middle English literature after a single trading run gave her a taste of the life Middle English science fiction writers tried to imagine.
That had been two trips ago, now. She still hadn't quite worked out why she'd signed up for her second trip. Had she really been that depressed about not getting the first teaching job she'd applied for?
She stopped the useless worrying as Gazar's big golden eyes?his least-chimplike feature?went wide. He'd found what he was looking for, then. With a fine dramatic sense, he held whatever it was concealed between his six-fingered hands. He started squawking. The translator Jennifer wore on her belt turned his words into Spanglish. "Here, my fellow trader, is something not many will be able to show you."
"Let me see?" Jennifer's soft, breathy voice didn't activate the translator. She tried again, louder. "Let me see it, please." The machine let out a series of raucous squawks and shrieks.
"Here." Crest erect with pride, Gazar opened his hands. "This is carved omphoth ivory, which of course means it is very, very old."
"Why 'of course'?" Had Gazar not made an issue of it, Jennifer would have taken him at his word. The ivory of the figurine was yellowed, the carving in a style unlike anything she had seen on Athet: it was vigorous, exuberant, unsophisticated but highly skilled. Back in civilization, collectors would pay a lot for it.
"Surely any nestling knows?" Gazar began. Then he let out a high-pitched screech that reminded Jennifer of forks on frying pans. To him, it was laughing. He was, in fact, laughing at himself. "But why should you, from the treeless wastes between the stars? 'Of course' because as soon as my earliest ancestors bravely crossed the Empty Lands into this forest, they began to hunt the omphoth that roamed here. No omphoth has been seen alive in more than a thousand winters."
"Oh." Jennifer was glad the alien would not notice her distaste. Humans, she was sure, had exterminated a lot more species than the Atheters, but they had also learned not to sound proud of it. Maybe, she thought, Gazar had an excuse. "Were these omphoth fierce animals, then, that killed and ate your people?"
"They were worse!" Gazar's tail writhed like a fat, pink worm, a sure sign of agitation. "They ate the trees! Fruit, leaves, branches, everything!"
That hit him where he lived, all right, Jennifer thought, in the most literal sense of the word. Atheters were arboreal by evolution and by choice. They only came down from their precious trees for stones and for copper and tin ores. Their domestic animals were as tree-bound as they were. No wonder they called the savannahs that alternated with their rain forests "the Empty Lands."
"No wonder you hunted them, then," Jennifer said soothingly. "What would you want in exchange for this figurine?"
"Ah, so here at last is something that interests you, then? I was beginning to think nothing did." Atheters understood sarcasm just fine. Gazar's tail twitched again, a different motion from the one it had made before; he was deciding how greedy he could be. "You must understand, of course, that because there are no more omphoth, the object is irreplaceable, and so doubly precious."
"I suppose so," Jennifer said. The flat tones of the translator made sure she sounded indifferent. She'd hoped Gazar wouldn't think of that.
"Oh, indeed!" Always raucous, his screeches were nearly apoplectic now. "In fact, I would not think of parting with it for less than half a dozen scalpels, two dozen swissarmyknives"?the Terran name came out in one squawked burst?"and, let me see, two, no, three bottles of the sweet tailtangler you humans brew."
He meant Amaretto, Jennifer knew. The Atheters were crazy about it. She also knew he had decided to be very greedy indeed. She gasped. The translator turned the noise into a scream of rage worthy of?what was that ancient mythical ape's name??King Kong, that was it. That was how Atheters gasped. They were a noisy species. Jennifer said, "Why not ask for our ship, while you are at it?"
Gazar's grin exposed formidable teeth. "Would you sell it to me?"
"No. Nor will I give you everything that in your extravagance you demanded. Are you trying to empty all our stores so that we cannot deal with anyone else here?" The haggling went on for some time. It started to grow dark outside Gazar's hut of woven branches. Eventually they agreed on a price. Jennifer rummaged in her backpack. "Here are your two scalpels and fourteen knives. I will come back tomorrow with the bottle of tangletail," she said.
"I trust you so far," Gazar agreed.
"Now I must go back to my ship, while there is still some light." Jennifer stood up. She was not very tall by human standards, but she had to stoop to keep from bumping the ceiling of the hut.
Gazar scurried around to open the door for her, a courtesy she'd read of but one long obsolete on civilized worlds, where doors were smart enough to open themselves. "Until tomorrow," the Atheter merchant said.
"Yes." Jennifer started down the chain ladder the crew of the Pacific Overtures used to reach the lower branches of the big trees on which the locals lived. The Atheters carved what they reckoned hand-, foot-, and tailholds into the forest giants' trunks, but for humans, who unfortunately lacked both opposable big toes and any sort of tails, prehensile or otherwise, ladders were infinitely preferable.
Gazar peered anxiously after her. "Be careful down there," he called. "The omphoth may be gone, but there are all manners of dangerous beasts."
"I have my weapon that throws sleep," she reminded him. He smiled a big-toothed, reassured smile, then started screaming at the top of his lungs for customers. His shrieks were just a tiny part of the din; living as they did in an environment where they could rarely see far, Atheters advertised with noise.