The Crystal Variation (129 page)

He sighed. The house crew tended to take Master ven’Deelin’s view that he was fortunate to have fallen under Flinx’ attention. What the cat got out of it, Jethri couldn’t say, unless it was making notes for a paper on xenobiology.

Flinx had upped the volume on the purrs, and was pushing a little harder with his feet; the tips of his claws pierced skin and Jethri was off the pillows again with a yell.

“Hey!”

Startled, the cat kicked with his back feet, twisted and was gone, hitting the floor with a solid thump.

“Mud!” He flung to the edge of the bed, and peered over, half afraid he’d find the animal with a broken leg or—

Flinx was standing on four sturdy legs at the edge of the rug, his back to the bed. He looked over his shoulder—accusingly, to Jethri’s eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said, settling his head onto his crooked arm and letting the other arm dangle over the edge of the bed. “I don’t like to be scratched, though.”

There was a pause, as if Flinx was considering the merit of his apology. Then, he turned and ambled back to the bed, extending his head to stroke a whiskery cheek along Jethri’s dangling fingers.

“Thanks.” Carefully, he slipped his fingers under the cat’s chin and moved them in the skritching pattern Meicha had shown him. Flinx immediately began to purr, loud and deep.

Jethri smiled and skritched some more. Flinx moved his head, obviously directing the finger action to his right cheek, and then to the top of his head, all the while purring.

Well
, Jethri thought drowsily, fingers moving at a far distance,
what a relaxing sound.

Across the room, the alarm chimed.

Flinx skittered out from under his hand a heartbeat before he snapped upright out of his doze.

Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his head, frowning at the lengthening strands, and swung out of bed.

Shower, breakfast, tailor—that was the first part of his day. Then an afternoon with Ren Lar. Pruning vines, it was today. After that, he was to join the twins with their dancing instructor, Lady Maarilex being of the opinion that a gentleman should show well on the floor, and then supper.

Supper done, he could retire to the library with the list of books the twins’ tutor had produced for him—history books, mostly, and a bunch of marked-out sections of a three-volume set titled,
The Code of Proper Conduct
.

“Busy day,” he said to the empty room, and headed for the shower.

COMPARE BANTH PORT
to Kinaveral and Kinaveral came to look like the garden spot of the universe, Khat thought, throwing her duffle over one shoulder and heading across the wind-scoured tarmac. She had her goggles polarized, and her head down, much good it did. The constant hot wind was supersaturated with sand particles, stuff so fine it sifted through any join, clogged the nose, filled the mouth, and sank through the pores. Nose plugs helped some. So did keeping your mouth shut. Other than that, it was walk fast and hope the pilots’ crash was climate controlled.

After a couple Standards of walking bent against the wind, she came to a service tunnel. Her body broke the sensor beam, the door irised open, and she ducked inside, barely ahead of the door closing.

Inside the tunnel, the light was dim and slightly pink. Khat pushed the goggles up onto her forehead, took a good, deep lungful of filtered air—and started to cough; deep, wracking spasms that left an acid taste in her mouth, overlaying the taste of the sand.

Eventually, she was coughed out and able to take some notice of her surroundings. A hatch closet built into the right wall of the tunnel said “drinking water” in Terran, which she could read fine, and, underneath, the written pidgin for the same—a stylized drawing of a jug—for them as couldn’t read Terran.

The taste in her mouth wasn’t getting much better. Khat stepped over and inserted her thumb into the latch. Inside the closet were a couple dozen sealed billy bottles carrying the same bilingual message. She snagged a bottle, slapped the door shut and popped the seal, taking a short, careful swallow, then another, and so on until the bottle was empty.

Feeling more or less human, she slid the billy into the wall recycler, and looked about her.

There were arrows painted in flourescent green on the floor, and the words, “Banth Port Admin,” the Admin part repeated in pidgin, which was apparently her direction, whether she was going there or not. Though, as it happened, she was Admin bound.

She pulled the goggles off her forehead and snapped them onto her belt, taking another deliberately deep breath of filtered air. No coughing this time, which she took as a smile from the gods, even as she shook her head. She had some sympathy for the ‘hands who would eventually be unloading her cargo, and shuddered with the memory of the constant dust storm, heat and battering white light of the world outside.

Granted, most Grounders’re glitched in the think-box
, she thought, setting her feet on the green arrow and walking on,
but a body’d think even a Grounder would know better than Banth.

Khat sighed. Well, now she knew why Kinaveral Admin had put such a nice bonus on this job—and now she knew better than to take another flight to Banth.

“Live ‘n learn,” she said, and her voice sounded as gritty as her face felt, despite the water. “You live long enough, Khatelane, an’ someday you might turn up smart.”

“THERE! NOW WE SEE a son
of a High House in his proper estate!” Sun Eli pen’Jerad was pleased with himself and his handiwork, and Jethri supposed he had a right. Himself, he’d thought the trading coat and silk shirts provided by
Elthoria
plenty fancy enough and hadn’t aspired to anything in the way of collar ruffles so high they tickled the tips of his ears, or belled sleeves that reached all the way to his fingertips. Then there were the trousers—tighter than his own skin and not near as comfortable—and over them both a long, and pocketless, black vest.

“Very good,” Lady Maarilex said, from her chair, Flinx asleep on her lap. “Do you not think so, young Jethri?”

He sighed. “Ma’am, I think the work is fine, but the sleeves are too long and the trousers too tight.”

Mr. pen’Jerad made an outraged noise. Lady Maarilex raised a hand.

“These things you mention are the current fashion, and not open to negotiation. We all bow to fashion and rush to do her bidding. How else should we show ourselves to be a people of worth?”

Jethri looked at her. “Is that a joke, ma’am?”

“Hah. Progress. Some bits, yes. Discover which bits and we shall have progress, indeed. In the meanwhile, we are pleased with Master pen’Jerad’s efforts on behalf of evening clothes. Of your kindness, young Jethri, model for me the calling clothes.”

Calling clothes weren’t quite so confining, though they still showed a serious deficiency in the pocket department. The trousers were looser, the cream colored jacket roomy, the shirt dark blue, with an open collar and no ruffles anywhere. They were close enough to trading clothes to be manageable, and Jethri stepped out into the main room and made his bow to the seated matriarch.

“These please you, eh? And well they should. The jacket hangs well, despite what would seem to be too much breadth of shoulder. Well done, Sun Eli.”

The tailor bowed. “That you find my work adequate is all that I desire,” he murmured. “However, I must object—the shoulders are not too wide, but balance the rest of the form admirably. It is a balanced shape, and pleasing, taken on its own. It is when we measure it against the accepted standard of beauty that we must find the shoulders too wide, the legs too long, the chest too deep.”

“Do you say so?” She raised a hand and motioned Jethri to turn, slowly, which he did, liking the feel of the silk against his skin and the way the jacket hugged his shoulders, too wide or not.

“No, I believe you are correct, Sun Eli. Taken in the context of himself alone, there is a certain pleasant symmetry.” Jethri’s turn brought him ‘round to face her again and he stopped, hands deliberately loose at his sides.

“So tell me, young Jethri, shall you be a beauty?”

And that
had
to be a joke, given the general Gobelyn face and form. He bowed, very slightly.

“I expect that I will look much as my father did, ma’am, and I never did hear that he was above plain.”

Surprisingly, she inclined her head. “Well said, and honest, too.” She looked into his eyes and smiled, very slightly. “We must teach you better. However, there are still the day clothes to inspect, if you would do me the honor?”

THE TUNNEL WIDENED,
and widened some more, and by the third widening it was a large round room, crowded with desks and chairs and people and equipment—and that was Banth Admin.

Khat stopped her steady forward slog and blinked, something bemused by all the activity, and scouting the room by eye, looking for her contact point.

The desks were on platforms a little higher than floor level, and each one had a sign on the front of it, spelling out its official station name in Terran and pidgin. Some of the signs weren’t so easy to spot, on account of the people wandering around, apparently in search of
their
contact points. Lot of long-spacers in the mix, which she’d expected. Good number of Liadens, too, which surprised her. This close to the Edge, there was bound to be a couple working, looking for advantage, but to see so many . . .

“Edge is widenin’ out again,” Khat muttered. “Pretty soon, won’t be nothing to edge.”

She considered the crowd, rising up on her toes to count the Liadens, and filing that number away for Paitor’s interest, on the far side of the trip. Might she’d head down to the Trade Bar, after a shower and a change, and scope out the ship names.

Right now, though, she was after Intake Station. Sooner she had her papers stamped and her cargo in line for off-load, the sooner she could hit the pilots’ crash and have that shower.

After a time, it occurred to her that the only thing craning around the crowd was getting her was a cricked neck, and she settled the duffle and charted a course into the deeps of the room.

Up and down the rows she cruised, careful not to bump into anybody, Liaden or Terran, being not wishful of starting either a fistfight or a Balance. Admin crew was solidly Terran, sitting their stations calm enough, for all each one was busy.

Intake was on the third row, which made sense, Khat thought sarcastically. There were only two in line ahead of her—yellow-haired Liaden traders, looking enough alike to be mother and son. The boy was apparently determined on giving the clerk a difficult life experience. As Khat came to rest behind them, he was leaning over the desk, waving a sheaf of papers too close to the woman’s face and talking, loud and non-stop, in Liaden, which was just stupid. Anybody who came to the Edge to trade ought to at least speak the pidgin.

And if the pidgin’s too nasty for your mouth
, Khat thought at the boy’s expensively jacketed back,
you’d have done better to stay home and tend your knitting.

In the meantime, his voice had risen and he was leaning closer over the desk, the wild-waving sheaf of papers now an active danger. Khat took a step forward, meaning to haul him back to a respectful distance, but the clerk had her own ideas.

“Security!” she yelled, and simultaneously hit a yellow button embedded in the plastic desktop.

The boy paused in his harangue, like he was puzzled by her reaction, the papers wilting in his hand.

“Peliche,” Khat said helpfully, that being the pidgin for ‘cop.’

He sent her an active glare over his shoulder, in the space of which time his mother stepped forward, hands moving in a pretty rippling motion, apparently meant to be soothing.

“Your pardon,” she said to the clerk in heavily accented, but perfectly understandable pidgin. “We have cargo to be off-loaded. There is urgency. We must proceed with quickness.”

The clerk’s mouth thinned, but she answered civil enough. “I will need to see the manifests. As I said to this trader,” a nod of the head indicated the boy, “since the manifests are written in Liaden, the cargo must be inventoried before it is off-loaded. Admin provides inventory-takers. There is a fee for this service.”

The Liaden woman inclined her head. “What is the price of this fee?”

“Fifteen Combines the quarter-clock,” the clerk said.

Now, that’s steep
, thought Khat, touching the zip-pocket where her own manifest rode, snug, safe, and printed out in plain, good Terran.
No wonder the boy’s in a snit.

His mam, though, she just bowed her head again and said, cool as if it weren’t no money at all, “That is acceptable. Please produce these inventory-takers at once.”

That cargo better be guaranteed profit
, thought Khat, darkly.

The clerk reached for her keypad, and then looked up, annoyed for all to see, as a big guy in standard blues came striding toward her station.

“You call Security?” he demanded, hand on his stun-gun.

The clerk shrugged, eyes on her schedule screen. “Took your time.”

His face, broad in all directions and unshaven on the south side, reddened. “I’m coverin’ the whole floor by myself.”

She glanced up at him, then back to the screen. The two Liadens were frankly staring.

“Sorry to bother you,” the clerk said, in clear dismissal.

The cop stood for a couple heartbeats, giving a fair impression of a man who’d welcome a chance to put his fist authoritatively against somebody else’s chin. He glared at the Liadens, daring them to start something. The woman touched the boy’s arm and the two of them turned back to the clerk, the boy rolling his sheaf of papers into a tube, which Khat thought might have been nerves.

Finally, the cop turned and strode off into the crowd. The clerk slid a piece of paper out of her printer and handed it to the Liaden woman.

“The inspectors will be waiting for you at the security station in Access Tunnel Three. Give them this paper and follow their instructions. The red arrows are your guide to Access Tunnel Three.”

“Yes,” the woman said, folding the paper into her sleeve. She turned, her boy with her, and Khat was briefly caught in the cold stare of two pair of blue eyes, before they separated to walk around her—boy to the right, mam to the left.