“Just a moment … sorry.” Xenaxis turned to the tridee screen set into one side of his desk, chatted briefly and softly to someone unseen. Then he turned back to them with a pleasant smile.
“It was assumed the du Kanes had died during the misfunction of the lifeboat, which you now tell me was no misfunction. I just reported them alive and well. We’ve had many inquiries. A large number of individuals will be most interested in this news.” Xenaxis appeared suddenly uncertain. “They are alive and well?” Ethan nodded.
“The kidnappers themselves are dead,” September added. “I killed one of ’em myself. If there’s a reward I’d like to lay claim to it.”
“Naturally. That is your right.” The portmaster touched another switch, prepared to make a fresh recording. “If you’ll just give me your name, world of origin, home address and financial code I’m sure we…”
“Actually, that wouldn’t be the fair thing to do.” September gestured at his companion. “It was this here lad who was responsible for most of what happened. He deserves any credit.”
Ethan turned a startled look on September, opened his mouth to comment. An experienced salesman is a specialist in reading expressions. A multitude of meanings were available for interpretation on the big man’s face just then. To his credit, Ethan picked up most of them.
“If there is any kind of reward, I’ll worry about that later.” September relaxed ever so slightly. “The main thing we’re concerned about is getting off this place as fast as possible.”
“I can imagine.” Xenaxis sounded properly sympathetic. “I do not myself find the company of the natives particularly pleasant. One can do business with them, but it is next to impossible to socialize. Besides the differences in temperature each race is accustomed to, they are argumentative and combative by nature.” Ethan said nothing, maintaining a blank expression.
“The local trade is profitable then?” September somehow sounded as if there was more behind his question than just polite conversation.
Xenaxis shrugged. “Keeping the commercial end of this post open is my principal task, sir. There are three large warehouses here in Brass Monkey whose contents change frequently. Of course, I’m only a civil employee, straight salaried.” Ethan thought he detected a note of envy in the portmaster’s voice. “But some companies or individual entrepreneurs are certainly making money off this frozen wasteland.”
“What kind of trade?” Xenaxis shouldn’t find that question suspicious, Ethan thought. It was his business.
“What you’d expect.” The portmaster leaned back in his chair. Ethan heard the faint hiss of posturic compensators. Xenaxis had a bad back, it seemed. But he appeared anxious to talk. New faces were no doubt an infrequent sight in Brass Monkey.
“Mostly luxury goods: art works, carvings, furs, gemstones, handicrafts, some of the most remarkable ivory sculptures you’d ever want to see. The natives look clumsy, but they’re capable of fine work.” Ethan thought of a stavanzer tusk and what a good local artist might make of one.
“You know all about such things, of course,” the portmaster continued. “When a civilization grows as modern as that of the Commonwealth, excellently crafted machinery and the mechanisms necessary for day to day living become cheap. People have a lot of excess credit to dispose of. So they spend on luxuries and art works and other nonessentials.” His chair returned to the vertical, his tone to businesslike.
“As far as your taking passage off-planet, I’m assuming you require shuttle space for the both of you and the du Kanes.”
“And one other, a teacher, name of Williams,” Ethan said.
“Five. Should be able to manage that, given your unusual circumstances. I don’t know a shipmaster who’d refuse you space.” He turned to his tridee screen again and pushed buttons. “I’ll put out notification of your survival to anyone you want to know about it, place it on the outpost bill. You’ve probably both got friends and relatives who’ll be happy to hear you’re still around. Maybe you’re not as important to others as are the du Kanes, but you’re important to yourselves.”
Despite his possible dislike of the Tran, Ethan decided he liked the little portmaster very much. “I was told by Colette du Kane to use the code 22RR. She said it might help you expedite matters.”
“If that’s the family financial code, I’m sure it will,” agreed Xenaxis. He checked a hidden readout. “The next ship due in stop orbit is the freighter Palamas. I’ll make your boarding arrangements via satellite relay as soon as the Palamas is in range.” He sounded apologetic. “We’re not nearly big or important enough here to qualify for a deep-space particle beam. The Palamas is a border-run ship, if I remember right. But she eventually orbits Drax IV, and you can make passage to anywhere from there.”
“When’s she due in?” Ethan was startled by the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.
“Oh, six fifteen on the twenty-fourth.” Xenaxis studied the two blank faces a moment, then smiled slightly. “Sorry. I forgot you probably haven’t been aware of local time since you touched down.”
“A couple of us had chronometers,” Ethan explained. “They didn’t survive the crash. Those that did didn’t survive the climate. Mine survived both, but didn’t survive …” He held out his right hand, showed the portmaster where the gash in his survival suit had been patched from hand to shoulder.
“Lost it to a stavanzer.”
“You mean those shipsized herbivores that weigh a couple of hundred tons each? Never seen one myself, only tridees taken by the scientific survey.”
“We had to turn one around.”
“Yes.” Xenaxis eyed them both respectfully. “Palamas should break out of space-plus in a couple of days. Leave another two days, three at most for her to decelerate and insert. I’m sorry I can’t offer you passage out of here any sooner. We don’t even have a habitat station I can ferry you up to. But if I can break away from my own duties, I’ve a request to make.”
“What’s that?”
Rising and walking around his desk, the portmaster moved to the side window, stared out across the roofs of Arsudun. Snow skipped like fat white fleas across the insulated transparency. “I can see the masts of the ship you arrived in from here. It’s much bigger than anything we’ve recorded so far. I’d love to have a close look at it.”
“Talk to her Captain, Ta-hoding,” Ethan advised him. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to show you around. He’s proud of his ship.”
“He has reason to be.” Xenaxis turned reluctantly from the window. “I suppose I’d better get back to work. Forms to fill out.” He made a face.
“If you like, you can stay the five days until departure here in the post. We’ll make room for you.”
“Can’t speak for the others.” September was moving toward the door. “Myself, I think I’ll stay with our Trannish friends.”
“As you like.” Xenaxis resumed his seat, turned toward Ethan. “Just a moment, Mr. Fortune. As I recall, there are two or three small cases consigned to you waiting in Number Three warehouse.”
“My sample goods. One of them contains a dozen or so small, inert-element heaters. A year ago I’d have given a thousand credits for one. I guess I’ll try and sell a few over the next couple of days. Thanks for reminding me.” Odd, he mused as they exited from the portmaster’s office, how he’d completely forgotten his sale goods. For some inexplicable reason, things such as profit margin, customer acceptance and territory expansion seemed childish to him now. Had Tran-ky-ky modified more than his tolerance to cold weather?
II
WHEN THEY REACHED THE first floor, September put a restraining hand on Ethan’s shoulder, halted him. “Sir Hunnar and his companions won’t mind waitin’ a bit longer, feller-me-lad.” He pointed down the corridor, in the direction away from the main entrance. “Let’s go have a gander at your samples.”
“Skua, I’ve got so much fighting for attention in my skull right now I really couldn’t care less about those cases.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t want you to open up shop in front of me, lad,” September spoke softly. “I’ve another reason for wantin’ to get inside that warehouse.”
Ethan eyed him curiously, but the big man had already turned and was moving down the hallway. Ethan hurried to keep up with him.
“Should be a heated tunnel taking us out to the storage complex, once we find the right lift. Warehousing should be above surface like everything else.”
Warehouse Three was a utilitarian rectangle of windowless metal. September was right about its location. Despite the cold, it was cheaper to build above ground on Tran-ky-ky. Easier to put up a prefabricated structure that could withstand the wind than to excavate the permafrost and frozen ground.
The warehouse was insulated but not well heated inside. Ethan would have been shivering without his survival suit. A glance at a wall thermometer indicated the interior temperature was just above freezing. Outside, that would amount to a severe heat wave.
Two guards were posted at the warehouse doorway. When pressed for an explanation of their rather incongruous presence, one explained readily. “There’ve been stories about the natives stealing anything they can get their paws on.” The man looked indifferent. “It’s a cold job, but what the hell ain’t on this world?”
“Have you ever caught a local stealing?” Ethan couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice, and the guard noted it.
“Hey, look, I don’t make policy, friend. I just enforce it, me and Jolene here.” The other guard put a self-important hand on her beamer. “Let’s see your authorization slip.”
“Call the postmaster.” Ethan wasn’t feeling too cooperative. Maybe the Tran weren’t the most outgoing people in the galaxy, but it didn’t seem to him that anyone here was making much of an effort to learn otherwise.
“Oh, dierd! What’s your name or crate code?” Ethan told him. “Yeah, your stuff’s about four rows back, then turn right. Section twenty D.” He stepped aside. September gave him a pleasant smile, his coguard a larger one. She didn’t smile back.
“I don’t understand this,” Ethan grumbled as they made their way back through the tall shelves of crates and packages. “All the Tran we’ve encountered have been honest; in fact, I never heard Hunnar or anyone else even mention thievery in Wannome.”
“They haven’t had sufficient interaction with the corrupting influence of an acquisitive civilization,” September commented half-seriously. They turned right at the fourth row.
Ethan found his three small seamless plastic crates. Only his sealkey could debond the molecular structure of the blue material forming the square shapes. The house of Malaika overseals looked intact and untampered with.
“I can pick them up anytime, Skua. What did you want to look at in here?”
“I’m already looking at it, lad.” September’s gaze was taking in the ceiling-high stacks of crates. “I’ve seen what I wanted to. Time to go.”
They left the chilly chamber, passing under the hostile eyes of the guards. September didn’t speak until they were nearly back to the main port entrance.
“Something bothered me about Xenaxis’ comments concernin’ the local trade,” he explained. “Now that I’ve seen inside, it bothers me more. According to the markings on those crates, the trade going on here strikes me as awfully one-sided.”
“One-sided how?”
“Lad, those crates back there were new moldings, and the markings on them confirmed it. There’s a lot more going off this world than is comin’ in. Course, it’s hard to measure how many duralloy or ceramisteel knives equal one carving. But I don’t think the Tran know the value of their exports. How much is a hundred liters of water worth to a man in a desert? For that matter, how much is a hundred liters of dirt worth to a man in an ocean?
“Someone’s making a lot more than an honest profit here, feller-me-lad. Your packages were the only ones I saw in the whole place with a merchant family crest on ’em. Someone else, maybe unlicensed, is running a fine little monopoly here, and cheating the Tran in the bargain. Of course, they don’t think they’re getting cheated, because they don’t know any better. But I know, and it makes me mad, lad. These folks are my friends.”
“Our friends,” Ethan said quietly.
“Sure, our friends … for another five days.”
“So what can we do about it? No, wait. I do represent the House of Malaika. I’ve never met the old man himself, but from what I know he’s a bit more honest than many of the family heads. The injustice of the situation here wouldn’t move him to action. Profits would. I’m sure he’d be willing to come in and make the Tran a better deal.”
“I’m thinking of something a bit different from spreading the lucre, lad. Tell you about it later.” With that the giant lapsed into introspective silence as they made their way toward the entrance.
Just before reaching the doors they passed a pair of thranx. The meter-tall insects who with mankind co-dominated the Commonwealth were bundled almost beyond recognition in survival suits designed for their eight-limbed bodies. Even within the building they wore specially woven fur-lined sleeves over their feathery antennae. Apparently they were willing to forgo a loss of sensitivity for acceptable warmth.
Hailing from hot, humid worlds, the thranx were especially uncomfortable here on Tran-ky-ky. They walked past, muttering to each other in High Thranx. Ethan wondered what horrible misdemeanor the two had committed to be assigned to this world. Tran-ky-ky would be a fair realization of the thranx concept of Hell.
“Wonder what’s going on?” September pointed outside as they passed the inner set of doors.
A crowd had gathered on the entryway ramp. There seemed to be an argument taking place in its center. The two men hurried through the outer doors.
It seemed as if a million lumens hit Ethan’s eyes photons-on. The exterior doors were chemically tinted to make the outside glare bearable. Passing through, Ethan had neglected to pull down his goggles. Quickly he lowered them, opened his eyes. Gradually his sight returned and he could discern something besides white. It still felt as if someone had taken a file to his optic nerves. He lowered his face mask, not quite fast enough to prevent a couple of tears from freezing solid on his cheeks. The face shield melted them away.
Words of the argument reached him as he followed September forward into the crowd. Some of them he couldn’t translate. The ones he could embarrassed him. A couple of Tran were expressing enormous dislike for one another.
One of them was Hunnar. The other Ethan didn’t recognize. The combatants faced each other in a small open space, exchanging imprecations with unfaltering volubility. Suaxus and Budjir stood nearby, fingering the hilts of their swords nervously, their teeth half showing. Those, in the crowd nearest them were murmuring threateningly.
“… off-spring of a crippled k’nith!” the strange Tran growled at Hunnar. Ethan noted with some surprise that the stranger was taller than the knight, though not nearly as muscular. In fact, he looked soft. Green and gold metal-fabric sashes were draped importantly across his chest in diagonal pattern, shoulder to hip below the dan.
Metal-fabric: imported trade goods, he knew. Strapped to the richly-dressed Tran’s left leg was a short sword made of stelamic instead of the barely adequate local steel that formed Hunnar’s blade. Its handle was made of intricately molded plastic.
“I will not fight with you.” The stranger tried to muster some officious dignity. “I do not fight with …” The last word he used had an ambiguous meaning, one which could identify any outlander, or indicate the lowest form of peasant.
“I hight Sir Hunnar Redbeard,” the knight replied with a half-snarl. “Conqueror of Sagyanak the Death, destroyer of the Horde, and knight of Wannome of Sofold.”
“Never heard of either,” someone in the crowd snickered. There was degrading laughter all around. Suaxus and Budjir tried to spot the quipster, failed.
“You will hear soon of it,” Suaxus muttered. “It will make a fine inscription for your wan
dering time.”
“Speaking of fertilizer,” Hunnar continued, “that is undoubtedly what your family trades in, to obtain those shiny trappings you wear and that flashing new sword. So new, in fact, it seems not to have seen use. But then what use has one who dabbles in shit for a sword?”
The Tran opposite stiffened. Ethan knew that on Sofold, at least, natural wastes froze instantly as soon as they were exposed to the outside air. They were then collected by people who dealt in such produce and resold to various farmers, to be reheated and spread as fertilizer. The precarious island ecologies of Tran-ky-ky were kept in balance only by rigorous recycling of any available soil nutrients. The necessity of the profession, however, did not mitigate the offense of Hunnar’s remark.
Everyone in the crowd recognized the insult. Snickers and comments gave way to angry mutterings and the movement of hands toward weapons. No adult Tran and few cubs were ever seen without at least a dirk attached to outer thigh. Though Hunnar and the squires were considerably more battle-trained and experienced than the mob of citizens, they were badly out-numbered.
September and Ethan stepped into the circle. “We are visitors here and we wish no trouble.” Ethan studied the assemblage. “These three are our friends.”
At that announcement a remarkable change came over the mob. The one Tran who had been arguing with Hunnar made apologetic gestures to Ethan. His manner changed abruptly from offensive to obsequious.
“May my cubs be taken by guttorbyn if I have offended you, sky outlanders! I did not know that these,” he almost used the word for peasant again, “others were your personal friends. Had I so known, this would not have happened. I beg my family’s forgiveness.”
“Well,” Ethan began, a bit confused by the unexpected speed of the other’s apology, “I forgive you, if that’s what you want.”
“Tell Hunnar you’re sorry.” September grinned.