Trade Secret (eARC) Read Free Page B

seeing more of the same . . . and flicked his fingers.
    And next was another of the curious pans, with a mark he recognized: this side down.
    Struck by an idea, and still feeling the call of fractins, he could see the outline of the pan in the leather sheet; saw what might be alignment points, judged that if filled with properly aligned fractins . . .
    He flicked fingers, to find the next sheet of leather to be pocketed, with nine pockets, and in each pocket showed a portion of similar but not identical . . . things. Devices. Kahjets. They were built on the scale and size of the weather device he'd handled to such strange effect on Irikwae, a device that called an unseasonable wind-twist to the vineyards and indirectly led to Miandra's banishment to Liad. These, too, felt like they were interested, as if they recognized hands that knew . . .
    He flicked his glance to the man's face, where there was now sweat. Jethri realized the trader was at risk and his own melant'i as well. He had not, of course, promised to the Scouts he would unmask other owners . . .
    "Not these machines, Trader, nor others like them if there are more in your stock; I have clear instructions about such."
    The trader's eyes got big and his hands shook. He glanced down, looked up, hopeful.
    "Yet these will be treasures, I understand, in Terran markets. These are . . ."
    Jethri offered a placating motion and conciliatory bow.
    "Alas, as you may not know, given the circumstance of your retirement, my ship aims for no such market in this voyage, Trader, and I am not of an age or melant'i to carry devices such as this aboard my ship, nor to secure them, against the hope that sometime I might visit a Terran port. Show me other things, if you have them, since we are here, and you have sought me out."
    The trader, crestfallen, flipped past two more sheets, and now there were other oddities, more than a dozen keys in the style used by Terran ships on one of the sheets, and a trade calendar on a flexible sheet, some two hundred standards old, with illustrations of--of star systems.
    Practicality and necessity warred--lunch and a rest break called, even more so since he knew that the trader was offering contraband amidst this trade lot.
    "Against time we run," Jethri said emulating one of Norn ven'Deelin's phrases. "Let us proceed with pace,"he suggested--and there, the next page was shown, a very, very skinny, blade looking perhaps Terran, and flick--
    A page passed over, and another, and then a small flat guidebook, with real pages, the title, in Liaden: Dealing with Terrans . He signaled stop, requested and received the opportunity to look at it. The book was of the age as the trade calendars, and produced by a trade station he'd never heard of, offering hints on language and demeanor, and showing known and anticipated trade routes . . .
    "Enough," he said, entranced. "My time presses. Price me this, the two shipping plates and the calendars, as a unit. Also, the firegem ring, which is interesting, but hardly a rarity in these days, if ever it was. Honest price gets honest return."
    "Trader, I'd hoped to sell the lot--"
    "I hear this from your lips, Trader, but from mine you have heard I will not touch the items from the old machines, nor will I have the squares such as I had as a child for toys."
    "Four cantra for the whole I was asking . . ."
    Jethri bowed from his seat and stood.
    "I'll not have the whole. The partial lot I have outlined only. Only the items, with the firegem--altogether an eighth-cantra, paid now. I cannot use the others and there's no market to test their value or their worth."
    There was nothing in the broke-lot that he knew he could sell, but for his own uses, say the information that such concentrations of Old-Tech might exist among the Liadens--that was worth much--and the old trade route information. He'd had the same feeling when he'd discovered the vya that had gone to pay for the Market 's overhaul. Even the firegem, silly as it was