"No doubt about it now," Keff said, the consonants blunted because he was speaking sublingually. "The style is all of a piece with the ships we confronted circling Cridi. We have our culprits. The only question is, are these the leaders of the whole shebang, or will we have to go hunting further?"
Carialle conveyed the question to Noonday, who was in her main cabin with two of her bodyguard and the Cridi. The Sayas glanced up from her perch on the weight bench as Carialle zoomed in as the hatch opened.
"This is Aldon Fisman," Noonday said. "I recall him much younger. It is shameful that I and the Ro-sayo did not take closer notice of our involvement with the Melange. But all was so beneficial, and we never questioned their good intentions."
"It is natural to think they would be as morally good as yourself," Long Hand said kindly. In the ammonia-free atmosphere of Carialle's cabin, the Cridi went without their travel globes. The visiting Thelerie were fascinated, and studied their neighbors openly. In particular, they seemed interested in the Cridi's hands, which were nearly the size of their own claws, which in turn were the same size as Keff's hands. It was a sign, Noonday had said, that they all ought to be friends.
"Bisman is their sayas, in cooperation with the female who now descends," Noonday told Carialle.
On the screen, a woman and a younger man who resembled one another followed Bisman down the ramp. Next out of the ship was a young Thelerie, his eyes and jaws wide, taking in gulping breaths as if he could not get enough of the air. He took the ramp at a bound, spread his wings, gathered his mighty haunches under him and sprang into the air for pure joy. All of Carialle's pulses seemed to halt for that one moment as he took flight.
"Beautiful," she said. She checked her datatapes. Yes, that lovely moment was recorded forever in her memory banks.
"Freihur!" the young Thelerie cried. "Fanasta, theleriyagliapalo!"
Thunderstorm, a row or two down from Keff, looked up, and his eyes widened with relief.
"Farantasioyera, shafur," he said, with the booming cough that was a Thelerie chuckle, as the apprentice came to a scrabbling landing beside him. The two embraced warmly, claw hands and wings wrapped around one another's bodies.
"Did you get any of that, Keff?" Carialle asked. IT laboriously sorted through the syllables, and produced "greetings, (unintelligible) homeworld joy your coming." Thunderstorm had said, "Proud (unintelligible) return, young (unintelligible)." Carialle guessed that the missing words were names or endearments. Even days of intensive cramming wasn't enough to fill in the blanks in IT's lexicon and grammar.
Keff turned away to answer her. Carialle was disappointed when her view was cut off, but one couldn't have everything.
"I did," he said. "I'm going to have to rely on the Thelerie speaking Standard. The Cridi will be at a double disadvantage. Standard is new to them, too."
"They're very adaptable," Carialle reminded him. "They're doing just fine. And besides, they are better at reading body language than you are."
"Are you sure they won't jump in too soon this time?" Keff asked, a little more forcefully than he intended. "We need information, not statues. The second these people find out we're affiliated with the Cridi, they'll clam up."
"Absolutely," Carialle said. "Tall Eyebrow swore to me he will not act unless your very life is in danger, and he has one of my second-best monitors in that box with him. The others are here with me, watching the scopes. They are all hooked up temporarily with the Core inside my bulkhead. Myths and Legends has found a useful purpose at last outside pure pleasure, my dear. While you've been setting up your trading post over the last few days, they've been role-playing with holos of human beings until they know the difference between simple physical-psychological aggression and actual assault. They're as ready as they can be."
"Hmm," Keff said. "Keep your records of the training sessions; I'd like Dr. Chaudri in Psych on SSS-900-C to take a look at them."
"Already saved and stored," Carialle assured him blithely. "I think you have a customer."
Chapter Seventeen
The first thing anyone would notice was the poster. Mirina saw it on short-range screens before they had quite landed on the plain. Once she could examine it in detail, she was impressed.
Painted or printed at the top of the huge, white signboard was a pair of silhouetted beings, species indeterminate, exchanging shapeless bundles. Beneath the image of the traders was depicted pictures of certain commodities in various recognizable forms that the trader would accept in exchange for his wares. The first line was an irregular lump of gold, half in and out of quartz matrix; the gold was shown next pressed into an ingot, then as the molecular diagram of the element, and weight at certain gravity, then as various artifacts into which gold could be shaped, such as cups, wire, circuit boards, statues, jewelry. He wishes, Mirina thought. Other lines showed crystals, from simple quartzite sand up through diamond and radioactive crystalline forms; precious metals; radioactives; iron and steel; marble, alabaster, and other decorative heavy stone. Handcrafts were welcome, too. A depiction of weaving and various finished products showed a real familiarity with textile manufacture. Jewelry, pottery, furniture, and practically any type of merchandise approved by the Central Exchange Commission had been pictured in minute detail, but still leaving room for the individual to offer variations. So tidy a mind that could design a sign like this appealed to her. This Keff had a completist's attitude: that everything can be set out so no one misunderstands, and everyone goes away happy. If she'd been staying on with Bisman, she might have suggested such a sign for them.
There were three more lines at the bottom of the signboard, showing various kinds of weapons: guns, lasers, bows, whips, garottes, with a big red X through each. This trader didn't want just anything, Mirina noted. Even if an alien didn't understand what the X or the color red meant at once, it would understand that there was something different about the acceptability of certain things. That showed a kind of morality that she had tried without success to impose on the Melange. No matter. That part of her life would soon be behind her. The signboard was worn and battered, as if it had been in and out of a cargo hold a thousand times. She glanced at the trader in the midst of his wares. Perhaps it had. He certainly looked as if he'd seen a few days himself.
Keff, if it was he, was not a youth. He looked to be about her own age, around forty. A man of middle height with very broad shoulders, trim and fit, he was dressed for comfort in a gaudy tunic and a pair of exercise pants going saggy around the ankle underneath a clear environment suit, the only part of his attire that looked new. The top of the helmet had been opaqued against the hot Thelerie sun. The dark halo threw into prominence his brown, curly hair, and fair skin, made pink by the heat. He was at work straightening piles of goods. Two, little, boxy servo robots rumbled up and down the rows between the stacks, putting things back in order or holding up goods for the Thelerie to see. When the raider crew spread out, the boxies accepted them as customers, and held up on display any item by which anyone stopped for more than a few seconds. And what merchandise!
"He's got half a spaceship scattered on the ground," Mirina whispered to Bisman as they pushed their way along the dusty aisle toward the stranger. "Look at that: hull plates, exhaust locks, life-support circuitry-I don't know what that is." She pointed at a green, pressed-plastic tub about three meters across and two deep that had several protuberances sticking inward over the lip. A couple of locals were looking it over with the aim of making a planter out of it.