Colemenoport
Offices of the
Isfelm Trade Union
“Master Trader.” Trader Isfelm bowed from behind her desk. “Thank you for coming to me.”
Shan bowed in return, and straightened, raising an eyebrow.
“Surely, it is my part to thank you for agreeing to see me?”
She grinned, and it struck him, how very much she resembled his Uncle Daav, Val Con’s father—especially that grin, so charming it could melt mountains.
“So we have both said everything needful and polite,” she commented, and moved a hand, showing him the chair next to her desk.
“Please, sit, and allow me to offer refreshment. Is your preference ale? Wine? Tea? Cake?”
“No cake, I beg you,” Shan said, taking the indicated seat with gratitude. “What will you drink?”
“I’ve got a fondness for the local ale, especially when there’s work to be done.”
“Then, by all means, ale.”
“Take a bare moment to fetch,” she assured him and vanished through the doorway in the back wall.
Shan looked about. In design, the Isfelm Union’s office was similar to that which had been opened to the trade mission. However, it was plain that this space had been in use for many years.
There was artwork on the walls—two landscapes and a portrait of a blade-faced dark-haired pilot wearing leather of a long-ago fashion. The tea set on the bureau was not serviceable and retiring, as was the set that had been furnished to the trade mission’s office, but outright idiosyncratic, as if the cups had been purchased one at a time by different people, and none of them matching the pot.
“Ah, you admire the honorable ancestor,” Trader Isfelm said, coming back to the desk and putting a mug half-full of light amber liquid by Shan’s hand.
“Can Ith yos’Phelium, I believe?” Shan murmured.
“Himself and none other.” Trader Isfelm raised her glass to the portrait. “Who ran from his duty, to found our family and our livelihood.” She cast a whimsical glance at Shan. “Not that it was the reason he ran, mind.”
She sipped from her mug, and sighed.
Shan tasted his ale, finding it good, and put the mug down.
“Can Ith had been a Scout,” he remarked. “Scouts go eklykt’i for any number of reasons. Nor would he have been the first of his Line to do so, even so long ago.”
“So the records tell us.” Trader Isfelm sat, and put her mug aside, her eyes still on the portrait. “Thorough records, so they are, and he didn’t stint himself. Though Grandmother Kishara’s account would have him at the beck of his luck.”
“That’s not impossible,” Shan said. “Do the records explain the nature of Clan Korval’s luck?”
“In some part, by way of warning. They also mention that Can Ith had been born with formidable shields. Those have passed down, apparently unchanged, so I make it policy to be wary of things coming too easy. Though on Colemeno . . . ”
She let that drift off, and spun her chair to face Shan.
“But,” she said, “you didn’t come here to discuss our mutual ancestor.”
“Oddly enough, I did,” Shan said. He tapped a finger against his mug. “This is very pleasant.”
“Happy you find it so. But—Can Ith yos’Phelium?”
“My daughter tells me that we—that is, we and you—are by way of being ‘Dust Cousins,’” Shan murmured.
Trader Isfelm laughed.
“Oh, does she read the romances? Come to that, so do I. But I’ve done business with Trader Padi. She’s too sharp to believe ’em.”
“I’m not certain that she has read them, yet,” Shan said. “She had a report from a friend.”
“Who will surely have told her that, as often as cousins long separated by the Dust find each other in the stories, the odds are—in real life, you understand me—much against it.”
Shan had another sip of ale, and put the mug down.
“Here we come to Korval’s Luck,” he said. “You are not the first long-lost cousin we have come across in just this Standard Year. The keeper at Tinsori, though his case is somewhat different than your own, has been returned to us.”
Trader Isfelm frowned. “Tinsori? I don’t—no! I’ve seen the charts.” She raised her mug.
“There was a thankless post, I’m thinking.”
When she lowered the mug, she was frowning.
“Given I have seen the charts—how did the keeper while his time? There’s a couple ghost routes sketched in, but given the space around the station . . . ”
“Unstable in the extreme,” Shan agreed. “So unstable that the same keeper has been at his duty for more than two hundred Standards.”
Trader Isfelm kept her expression grave, though Shan fancied he saw one eyebrow twitch.
“Stars keep the lad,” she murmured. “He’s due for some relief.”
“Which is on the way,” Shan said. “However, my point. Even given the difference in degree, you must allow that two such events inside of a single Standard is—”
“Too strange even for romance,” Trader Isfelm finished. She raised her mug in salute. “I’ll stipulate it.”
“Thank you. We now approach my point, after which I swear I shall leave you to your legitimate work.”
“Two traders speaking together is legitimate work by my book,” Trader Isfelm said comfortably. She leaned back in her chair. “So, your point.”
Shan finished off his ale and put the glass aside.
“I wonder if you indulge in politics.”
“As little as possible, to say truth. Mind, being lead trader of the lead trade union stopping at Colemeno all these years, I’m sometimes called to the Council to help them understand certain things. They would have had me advise them on venturing out, once the Dust had danced away.” She raised an ironical eyebrow. “Being as they had charts.”
Shan took a sharp breath, and Trader Isfelm grinned wryly.
“Yes, but they’re groundlings. I had to be about explaining that space moves. Not that I was believed. I was sent for special when you came to orbit, to have someone knowledgeable at hand. Which isn’t to say that I wasn’t eager to come on my own, for reasons I’ve talked somewhat with Trader Padi about.”
“She said that she had advised you to come to me,” Shan said. “If you have time, we may also address that topic.”
“Oh, I’ve time,” Trader Isfelm said. “But in the case of politics, I stay away.”
“You deal with Civilization, then?”
“I deal with the port, and such vendors who have come to be partners, and regulars. For the Civilized Council, I’m an outside expert on such things as piloting, and charts, and the fact that the charts they had were more likely to get them killed than naught.”
“No one’s tried to leave yet,” Shan pointed out.
“There’s that. P’rhaps they listened, after all.”
“The trade mission has been assigned a liaison,” Shan said. “A member of the Civilized Council, Majel ziaGorn.”
“The Deaf Councilor.” Trader Isfelm tapped her chin. “He’s an up-and-comer is what I hear from my contacts. When such matters come up, which they don’t, often.”
“I understand. I wonder—are you considered Deaf by the Council of the Civilized?”
Trader Isfelm blinked.
“Well, they See the shields o’course, but I don’t recall it ever came up in conversation. What’s to it?”
“Most of the trade mission are Talents. I am a Healer, as is Trader ven’Deelin. Captain Mendoza is a dramliza; Master pai’Fortana is a Luck; and Trader yos’Galan has yet to be Sorted. Councilor ziaGorn advised us that courtesy demands we list our Talents in any literature we give out, so that we may be understood ‘appropriately.’”
Trader Isfelm was frowning again.
“Not something that I was ever asked about, but—the shields, you know. Basics here on Colemeno is Civilization is the largest group. Two sub-groups. The Deaf—of which Councilor ziaGorn can tell you more than I can—and the Haosa, the Wild Ones, who live apart. The law doesn’t permit ’em on-port, and I’ve not got much to do with the city.”
Her frown increased.
“You object to announcing your Talent? They’re going to See it anyway—at least, the Civilized will.”
“It is a matter of—forgive me—melant’i. Trader ven’Deelin, Captain Mendoza, and I have no objection to our Talents being known. We all three have Healing among our skill sets, and will serve if called, that being our training. Trader yos’Galan and Master pai’Fortana are inclined to a different view. They believe that our melant’i as traders on a mission must carry all before it. We did not arrive at Colemeno because we are Talents, but because we wish to advance trade.”
“It’s Civilization you’ll be dealing with there, recall it,” said Trader Isfelm. “The Iverson Union, me and my brother—we’re known. You and yours are new, and—you’ll forgive me for saying what you’ve doubtless already noticed—they’re of two, or even three, minds about you.”
“I had noticed, yes,” Shan agreed. He raised a hand, palm up. “I suppose we will learn as we go. Now—your topic, Trader.”
“I fear it’s topics by now,” said Trader Isfelm contritely. “Let me get us more ale.”
* * *
“So, my first topic, having to do with your main purpose in raising Colemeno, is that the Iverson Union wants to partner with Tree-and-Dragon, and join our Loop into your final design.”
Shan raised his eyebrows.
“Certainly, that can come under consideration, once the whole port inventory has been completed.”
“I wonder if there’s anything we can do, between us, while that work is being done,” Trader Isfelm murmured. “Trader yos’Galan impresses me. How if she takes my place on Ember, and I take hers on Dutiful Passage.” She raised a hand, showing palm and wide fingers. “I’m pitching ideas, here, Master Trader.”
“I understand,” Shan assured her. “You realize that we would need to do a route audit before we can even begin to talk of partnerships.”
“Well, I hadn’t,” Trader Isfelm said frankly. “But now that I do, I’d like to know more. You understand, the routes hereabouts have been set for a long stretch of years. We balance each other—well, the Evrits and the Iversons. Hard to think of a situation where the Mikancy would provide any other than a bad example.”
“So they, too, have their place,” Shan said, and Trader Isfelm inclined her head.
“True.”
“A route audit,” Shan continued after a moment, “means that a Tree-and-Dragon trader and a qe’andra will go on Ember to evaluate the route. Once that is done, we can fairly judge how—or if—we might benefit each other.”
Trader Isfelm raised her mug, and considered the contents intently.
“That can be done, surely, while the audit on Colemenoport goes on.” She met Shan’s eyes. “You and I both know that Colemeno will bring Tree-and-Dragon profit, Master Trader, whether you build a hub here or only braid it into a Loop.”
Shan considered her. Such eagerness ought to be rewarded, he thought, even as he lifted a shoulder.
“I will talk this over with my team,” he said. “I do advise that, even if we do go forward, there will be some delay, as we will have to send for a qe’andra.”
“I understand. Let us not lose sight of this, Master Trader.”
He would not, so Shan strongly suspected, be allowed to lose sight of it, but he inclined his head politely.
“I agree.”
He finished his ale, and raised an eyebrow.
“Yes?” said Trader Isfelm.
“I wonder about those charts you have seen,” Shan said slowly. “Concerning the ghost routes and Tinsori.”
“Old, old charts,” Trader Isfelm cautioned.
“I have an interest,” Shan said, and she laughed.
“In that case, let’s discuss them. Why not?”