“Decadent,” Linda said, looking around. “Really decadent stuff.”
The word almost applied. There were plastic-encased bouquets, and mineral specimens, a pretty lot of crystals, and some truly odd geologic curiosities in a case that drew Fletcher’s eye despite his determination to keep ubiquitous junior-junior elbows from knocking into vases and very pricey carvings in the tight quarters.
Out of Viking’s mines, the label said, regarding the lot of specimens in the case, and the price said they were probably real—a crystal-encrusted ball, brilliant blue, on the top shelf; a polished specimen of iridescent webby stuff in matrix on the next shelf.
And, extravagantly expensive, and marked museum quality , a polished natural specimen on the next shelf, labeled Ammonnite, from Earth, North America. Fletcher’s study told him it was probably real.
Real, and disturbing to find it here.
He was looking at that, when he became aware Jeremy was talking to the shopkeeper, wanting something from another cabinet. He didn’t know what, in this place, Jeremy could possibly afford.
But he was amazed to see what the shopkeeper took out and laid on the counter at Jeremy’s request.
Artifacts. Pieces of pottery.
“Earth,” the shopkeeper said. “Tribal art. Three thousand years old. Bet you never saw anything like this.”
Fletcher stopped breathing. He wasn’t sure spacer kids understood what they were seeing.
But a native cultures specialist did. And a native cultures specialist knew the laws that said these specimens definitely weren’t supposed to be here.
“Real, are they?” Fletcher asked, going over to look, but not to touch.
“Certificate of authenticity. Anyone you know a collector?”
He almost remarked, Mediterranean . But a spacer wasn’t supposed to know that kind of detail.
“Got any downer stuff?” Jeremy piped up.
That got an apprehensive denial, a shake of the head, a wavering of the eyes.
Fletcher understood Jeremy’s interest in curio shops the instant he heard the word downer in Jeremy’s mouth. He bridged the moment’s awkwardness with a dismissive wave toward the Old Earth pottery and a flip of his hand toward the rest of the shop. “I always had a curiosity,” he said, playing Jeremy’s game, knowing suddenly exactly what was behind Jeremy’s new enthusiasm for curio shops and the other two junior-juniors’ uncharacteristic support of his interest in shops where they couldn’t afford the merchandise. “I read a lot about the downers. No market for the pottery. But I’ve got a market for downer stuff.”
The shopkeeper shook his head. “That’s illegal stuff.”
Fletcher drew a slow breath, considered the kids, Jeremy, the situation. “Say I come back later.”
“Maybe.” The shopkeeper went back to the back of the shop, took a card from the wall, brought it back and wrote a number on it.
“Here.”
Fletcher took the card, looked at it, saw a phone number, and a logo. “Is that where?”
“Maybe.” The shopkeeper’s eyes went to the kids, and back again.
“They’re my legs,” Fletcher said, the language of the underworld of Pell docks. “You want that market, I can make it, no question. You in?”
“See the man,” the shopkeeper said “Not me. No way.”
“Understood.” Fletcher slipped the card into his pocket
“Specialties,” the shopkeeper said.
“Loud and clear.” Fletcher shoved at Linda’s shoulder, and got her and the other two juniors into motion.
Jeremy gave him a sidelong look as they cleared the frontage, walking along a noisy dockside of neon light and small shops and sleepovers.
“Clever kid,” Fletcher said. He’d had no idea the track Jeremy had been on, clearly, in his sudden interest in curio shops.
“I said we’d get it back,” Jeremy said.
“We?”
“I mean we.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no ? We’re on to where there’s downer stuff! This is where that guy will sell it off clear to Cyteen!”
“I mean this is illegal stuff. I mean these people will kill you. All of you! This is serious, you three. It’s not a game.”
“We know that,” Jeremy said in a tone that chilled his blood. Jeremy, Fletcher suddenly thought, who’d grown up in war. Linda and Vince, who had. All of them knew what risk was. Knew that people died. Knew how they died, very vividly.
“ Champlain’s in port,” Vince said. “So’s the thief.”
“So?” Fletcher said. “They might not sell it here. Not on the open market.”
“Bet they do,” Linda said. “I bet Jeremy’s right.”
“I don’t care if he’s right.” He’d been maneuvered all day long by three clever kids. Or by one clever kid, granted Vince and Linda might not have suspected a thing until it was clear to all of them what Jeremy was after. “This isn’t like searching the ship. Look, we tell JR. He’ll tell the Old Man and the police can give the shop a walk-through.” It sounded stupid once he was saying it. The police wouldn’t find it. He knew a dozen dodges himself. He knew how shopkeepers who were fencing contraband hid their illegal goods.
“We can just sort of walk in there and find out,” Jeremy said. “We’re in civvies, right? Who’s to know? And then we can know where to point the cops. I mean, hell, we’re just kids walking around looking at the stuff. We won’t do anything. We can find out , Fletcher. Us. Ourselves.”
It was tempting—to know what had happened to Satin’s gift, and to get justice on the lowlife that had pilfered it. They could even create a trail that could give Finity a way to come at Champlain , who had the nerve to sue them: that word was out even to the junior-juniors. He’d lay odds the crewman’s thieving had been personal, pocket-lining habit, nothing Champlain’s captain even knew about—just the regular activity of a shipful of bad habits, all lining their pockets at any opportunity. The thief had been after money, ID’s, tapes, anything he could filch; and the lowlife by total chance had hit the jackpot of a lifetime in Jeremy’s room. Sell the hisa stick, here, in a port a lot looser than Pell, a port where curios were pricey and labeled with museum quality ?
Jeremy was right. It was a pipeline straight to Cyteen, for pottery that shop wasn’t supposed to have—he guessed so, at least. Maybe for plants and biologicals illegal to have. Maybe the trade was going both ways, smuggling rejuv out to Earth, rejuv and no knowing what: Cyteen’s expertise in biologicals of all sorts was more than legend—and Cyteen biologicals were anathema in the Downbelow study programs—something they feared more than they did the easy temptation to humans to introduce Earth organisms, which at least had grown up in an ecosystem instead of being engineered for Cyteen, specifically to replace native Cyteen microbes. He’d become aware how great a fear there’d been, especially among scientists on Pell during the War, that Cyteen, outgunned and outmaneuvered in space by the Fleet, would use biologics as a way of destroying Downbelow. Or Earth. They hadn’t; but now they were spreading on the illicit route. Every scientist concerned with planets knew that.
And it immeasurably offended him that Satin’s gift might become currency in a trade that, after all the other hazards humans had brought the hisa, posed the deadliest threat of all.
Go walk with Great Sun?
Take a hisa memory into space? What could Satin remember, but a world that trade aimed to destroy for no other reason than profit and convenience?
He looked at the address of the card they’d gotten. It was in Blue. It was in the best part of Blue, right in the five hundreds. They were standing at a shop in the threes. Finity was docked at Blue 2, Boreale at Blue 5, and Champlain at 14. Being in charge of junior-junior security—he’d made it his business to look at the boards and know that information.