“Well, you’re in luck, mir,” Starli said. “It’s the port, that’s all.”
“All” was a relative term, Tatian thought, but he understood her point. “Which one?”
Starli pushed the viewlens to one side, met his eyes for the first time across the desktop. “I can run some more tests and tell you for sure—at a price—or you can replace the box altogether. Frankly, I’d recommend the latter.”
Tatian waited and, after an instant, tilted his head to one side. Starli sighed and folded the viewlens back down to the desktop, then tugged the cables one by one from the needleports.
“You can get a better deal at the port yourself, and you’re likely to have better luck getting it officially imported—or whatever—than I would.”
That was also true, and Tatian nodded slowly, thinking of Prane Am. If he wanted a good deal, he would have to go to her, which was not a pleasant thought—or maybe Reiss had connections there as well. He said, “Probably. Do you do installation?”
“Yes. But—” Starli showed her teeth again. “I’d want to be paid in metal.”
“And I’d want to see your medical set-up,” Tatian said, and matched her tooth for tooth.
“Fair enough,” Starli said. She pushed herself up from her chair, went to a cabinet built into the wall, and tugged open the double doors. The first layer of the interior folded down automatically into an operating table, the clean-field lighting automatically; the multicolored telltales of the monitoring system glowed in the space behind it. Tatian scanned it quickly, recognizing the bulk of a doc-in-a-box and the familiar stacks of test equipment, and only then saw the twined KJ etched into the edge of the table. It was an older system, but it had been top of the line once: it was certainly good enough to replace an interface box.
“Okay,” he said aloud. “What are you asking?”
“Fifty kilos of hard steel,” Starli answered promptly.
“Try reality.”
“That’s two starcrates,” Starli said. “NAPD must be able to spare that much—especially compared to what it’d cost you to get this done in the port.”
She certainly bargained like a fem. Tatian said, “I still have to buy the box. You’re not saving me anything there. Besides, star-crates aren’t cheap, and they come out of my budget. Twenty thousand meg.” That was eighty percent of what he’d pay in the port, but she wanted metaclass="underline" she would take less in cash, if she could get a starcrate or two with it. He ran the company inventory rapidly through his head, enjoying the game. He knew they couldn’t spare any of the working crates—they were too expensive, nearly a thousand concord dollars apiece—but most of the value was in the electronics package. If there were any damaged crates, he might be able to use the metal shell to buy her services.
“I’ll take a crate instead,” Starli said, as though she’d read his thought. “Or just the metal. Forty kilos hard steel.”
“I can get you ten,” Tatian said. “And five thousand meg in cash.”
“Thirty kilos, and no cash needed,” Starli answered.
“Twenty and six thousand,” Tatian said. “I—even the company doesn’t have that much metal to spare. And you’re not supplying the parts.”
There was a little silence, and then Starli sighed and touched the latch plate to refold the operating theater into its cabinet. “All right. Twenty kilos hard steel, and six thousand meg, White or Red cash. Agreed?”
The currencies issued by the White and Red Watches were the most stable, had the best rate of exchange against the concord dollar, though most Harans didn’t bother with those considerations. But then, Tatian thought, Starli would be buying metal, or metal parts, with a good bit of her fee, and that meant dealing with the port technicians. “Agreed.”
Starli bowed, touching lips and forehead. “Then it can be done at your convenience, mir. Whenever you get the box, give me an hour’s warning, and I can put it in.”
“Good enough,” Tatian said. “Thanks, mirrim.”
They went back out into the bay. Reiss was sitting with the technicians, passing a bottle of something from hand to hand. He rose hurriedly at Tatian’s approach, but not so quickly that Tatian couldn’t recognize the familiar squat brown jar of quarta. He lifted an eyebrow at that, but said only, “I need you to run me out to the port.”
Reiss nodded. “No problem.”
“It had better not be,” Tatian said, and Reiss had the grace to look abashed. He looked at Starli. “I’ll contact you then, mirrim, about the scheduling.”
“As I said, give me warning,” Starli answered. “I’ll be ready.”
Tatian nodded, and swung himself into the jigg’s passenger seat. Reiss kicked the starter twice, and the engine caught with a roar that was almost deafening in the confined space. He twisted the throttle, muting the sound, and backed decorously out into the hot street.
Traffic was heavier than ever, and Reiss took an indirect route through the city, skirting the Souk and the congested streets that led into Startown. Even so, progress was slow, and he glanced over his shoulder in apology.
“Sorry—” His eyes slid sideways then, fixing on something in the crowd behind the jigg, and he swerved abruptly, pulling the jigg into a partially cleared space between a four-up and an unloading shay.
“Reiss?” Tatian looked over his shoulder, scanning the crowd, but saw nothing immediately out of the ordinary. Then Reiss was wresting himself free of the safety webbing. “Hey—”
“Æ, mosstaas,” Reiss called, and levered himself out of the jigg before Tatian could even think of stopping him. The crowd parted for him, and Tatian swore under his breath. In the center of the square they had just skirted, by the dry fountain, two of the city militia had stopped a woman—were questioning her, by their stance and her gestures. Reiss shoved his way through the crowd, which melted around him: not a good sign at all, Tatian thought, and freed himself from the jigg. Why the hell does he have to do this? He started after the younger man, hoping that their off-world clothes, and the pharmaceutical mark on the nose of the jigg would keep them out of trouble.
“—mistake,” Reiss was saying, as Tatian came into earshot. “Astfer works with me.”
“So the wyfie’s yours?” one of the mosstaas demanded, smirking, and Tatian bit back another curse. Reiss was getting them involved in trade, despite his—despite Masani’s—explicit prohibitions.
“We work together,” Reiss said again.
The woman looked warily from him to the mosstaas and back again. Or, rather, the fem: this close, Tatian could see the height, the full breasts and narrow hips, the typical build that %er off-world shirt and trousers did nothing to conceal. The other militiaman gave a snort of laughter, and the first one said, “I just bet the wyfie gives excellent—service.”
He wore a pin at his collar, not a rank marking, but an anchor on a bed of red and white flames. Both were symbols of the Captain, Tatian knew, and then remembered someone saying that Tendlathe’s party had adopted the combined signs as their badge. So this was trade again, Tatian thought. And more than that, the damned two-sex model. He said, “Is there a problem, officer?” He spoke in franca: it was unlikely either of the mosstaas understood creole, but more than that, the reminder of off-world power could only make the situation worse.
“Œ,” one of the mosstaas began, and Reiss cut in quickly, in creole.
“Ser, I told them Astfer works for us, for NAPD. She’s a good friend, they say she was throwing rocks at one of the ranas last night—inciting trouble.”