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.