"Any of those reported lost, stolen, or dead?" Jellico asked.
"I’ve no Patrol flags on any outside of Ariadne's Web, which was fined for attempting to smuggle in klifer-dust—an airborne scent which is lethal to Kanddoyd biochemistry," Ross replied. "To find out which have been decommissioned or otherwise taken out of service, your questions ought rightly to be submitted to your headquarters at Trade Central." He looked up, his long face narrowing in sudden suspicion.
"We’re doing that," Rael said smoothly. "It’s just that our stay is necessarily limited, so we thought we’d do a crosscheck here at the same time as our cargo master is at Trade."
Ross gave a nod as he wiped his screen blank. "Your business is rightly Trade’s; they ought to be able to give you complete data."
And that was that—dismissal was clear in the man’s voice. What was he hurrying to? Rael couldn’t help thinking as they walked out of his quarters. Back to designing his holographic rose garden?
"I don’t like him," Jellico said as they walked onto a maglev pod.
"Seems he’s got a cog loose."
"Well, it’s the Patrol’s job to be suspicious. If we were to tell him that Trade is not cooperating with us, and he hears of those rumors—"
"We’re likely to be brigged first, and our ships impounded, and asked questions later," Jellico finished. "Thought of that too." He rapped on the chair arm with his fingers, then said, "Let’s go somewhere. Get something to eat, thrash this out."
"All right," Rael said, inwardly amused. His manner was abrupt and distracted—not at all what one would expect of a man asking a woman for her company. He could have used the same tone with Van Ryke or Steen Wilcox, his oldest crew, she thought—except he wouldn’t have been so abrupt.
On impulse she glanced at her chrono and said, "Not the concourse eateries. Let’s go up to the North Pole. I’ve always wanted to try the Movable Feast, ever since I heard about it. My treat," she added.
He gave her a twisted smile. "I don’t eat my crew’s earnings," he said. "I’ll pay for myself. Otherwise, lead the way."
Rael talked easily as they traveled up the core of the tower, pausing only momentarily as the capsule made the giddy swing around into the microgravity of the Spin Axis. She spoke mostly about her initial visit to Exchange. Jellico seemed mildly interested, at least enough to distract him from his problems. "... so Teague and I went up to the Movable Feast, just to find out that it was closed. It seems the owner, a Kanddoyd named Gabby Tikatik, was molting, and if he can’t be there everything stops. Supposed to be quite a character."
Jellico was looking around, interest apparent in his light eyes. The lines of his face were not as severe, and again Rael felt that frisson of attraction, of the desire to protect, to please. She would exert herself to entertain him, to take his mind off his problems just as long as he needed.
"So what’s special about this place?" he said. His head was turned; he appeared to be watching the sudden blooms of open space through which the capsule was passing, from tube to spindly truss, across vast tunnels spiderwebbed with light and shadow dwindling in immense perspective. Rael wondered how he could do so without vertigo. "Aside from the fact that it appears to move up and down from the Spin Axis."
"Teague told me the story," she said as the maglev debouched them into a station and they followed a group of glittering Kanddoyd merchants into the Movable Feast. "It’s one of the oldest establishments on the cylome—predates even the Concord. Apparently life was somewhat wild and lawless out here—it was an outpost for Traders, smugglers, and outright pirates, no questions asked. The first proprietor, surprisingly enough, was a human, named Gabby Grimwig. It was his idea to establish a fine restaurant here, where the view would be spectacular and the diners could choose their grav levels—or even eat while the grav changed."
"An interesting but repellent idea," Jellico said.
Rael laughed, thinking of the spectacular changes gravity had on some food and drink substances. "The idea was that all the diners would agree on the level and change time."
She paused as a feline biped from the mysterious Enkha System bowed them in, her graceful form clad in a green tunic that floated out behind her in the micrograv. She led the way to a table in a section designed for Terran body types. Rael glanced around, gained a swift impression of comfortable pods arranged in terraced layers in a half-circle. Exotic plants screened each dining pod from the others, but all had a view along the length of the habitat. It was evening, the radiants overhead dimming to a soft glow reminiscent of a full moon on Terra, and the lights of the Shver dwellings far below gleamed softly yellow, lapping up and over in the curving sky to either side like constellations distorted by the gravity of a black hole. The vast towers of the Kanddoyds, lit not with discrete point sources but with gracefully twining tubes of light, shimmered like wrinkled ropes of silk binding a curving earth to narrow heaven.
"Choissess for delectable viandss the exssalted guestss will find here," the Enkhai said in her soft, musical voice, touching the corner console.
"Either automated or ssentient sservice available. Dine well!" With a graceful flick of her tail she bowed again and moved swiftly away.
As soon as she was gone, Jellico looked up inquiringly, and Rael continued. "The problems were evident right away. It seemed no matter what kind of beings were in, they always seemed to prefer grav at another level. Traders then being as ready to settle things with fists, teeth, or tentacles, as some are now, there were frequent fights. After Gabby Grimwig’s place was trashed one too many times, he made some changes. One, to hire Shver as security. Two, he decided the place would stop at regular intervals, signaled by light flashes, so it was up to the eaters to determine when to come and what grav they wanted to finish their meal in. And three, diners were to eat in harmony. No arguments, no duels, nothing but polite social exchange. Anyone breaking the rules got handed over to him for justice, which he executed in. imaginative ways."
"Like?" Jellico regarded her with a fascinated gaze.
Rael suddenly felt mischievous. "Well, one diner had to choose between three unmarked containers, with the understanding that he had to eat everything in the one he chose." She paused, watching Jellico’s eyes. Again the habitual hardness had eased; she saw interest, and fainter, appreciation.
"It was full of Hudapi gourds. Hundreds of Hudapi gourds. It took him months, and Gabby made a fortune selling tickets to let people watch him."
Jellico’s smile stretched, and suddenly he laughed. "A slime-explosion every time he took a bite?"
"And the spores sprout wherever there’s any moisture at all. It took just as long to defoliate him afterwards—when he finished them all he was just a big ball of squiggling green hairs." Rael grinned, then continued, "So the place’s success was established—and however things were resolved elsewhere in the habitat, the most hardened pirates were painfully polite if they came here to eat. Sworn enemies would ignore one another by mutual, unspoken agreement."
"I’ve heard of a few similar places across the galaxy," Jellico said.
Rael smiled. "I’m sure you’ve been to a few as well. I know I
have—Teague has always had a taste for places with unusual histories. Anyway, Grimwig lived quite a long time, and when his successor took over, and made it apparent that the same rules would apply, the name ’Gabby’ also stuck. I think there’ve been three or four Gabby owners since then. Tikatik is the latest, and Teague said he’s probably every bit as unusual as the original Gabby."