March To The Stars

merchant fleet seemed to have had something to do with it, but the reason for the shipping shortage itself was, again, unclear.

Kirsti was turning out to be a mystery wrapped in a conundrum. And that was making him irritated.

* * *

Cord pushed his way through the bustling streets with his lower arms set in an expression of disapproval.

'A fine city, indeed,' he growled, 'but this covering of the body is barbarous.' He pulled at the kiltlike affair, then snarled as one of the locals ran into him. 'And the manners are atrocious.'

'Krath, what to say?' Pedi looked around nervously. She was trying to simulate a Shadem accent while speaking in Imperial. Since she was far from eloquent in Shadem and even further from fluent in Imperial, it was tough. But the alternative was to let her Shin accent be noticeable, and she was trying very hard to avoid that. She also knew that there were habits to maintaining and managing a sumei which she simply didn't have. Hopefully, the fact that so few of the Krath's Shadem allies made it as far as Kirsti would mean that no one was familiar enough with the proper way to wear a sumei to recognize her own lapses. She told herself that as long as she didn't have to remove the robes, she should be fine.

In fact, she told herself that at least once every four or five of the humans' 'minutes.'

So far, this combined shopping trip and intelligence mission had gone well enough to indicate that she was probably right. On the other hand, one item she intended to purchase before returning to the quarters the city council had assigned to them might be looked at askance. She wasn't sure if Shadem females knew its use or not. Some Krath did, but it was not looked upon with wide favor. So be it. She wasn't going another day without some wasen.

Cord paused at the mouth of an alley and consulted a map Poertena had drawn. The sawed-off Marine had already 'scoped out' much of the shopping in the western city, and his chart indicated that this would be one of the better places to look for the items Pedi had listed. Now that they were here, though, the opening was a dark cavern, a set of steps downward into a brick-lined tunnel which Cord found particularly unappealing.

'Go,' Pedi whispered. 'People look.'

'I hate cities,' Cord muttered, and stepped into the darkness.

From the bottom of the short set of steps, it was apparent that the tunnel was lit, after a fashion, by high skylights which threw occasional, bright circles on its floor at irregular intervals down its length. It continued with a faint, mildly organic curve to the right, then turned sharply left about fifty meters in. There were doorways to either side, many of them low, and in front of each doorway were groups of Mardukans, most of them sitting on cloth covers. In several of the doorways, one or more of the locals were working on some item—here a metalworker was hammering designs on a pot, there a knife-maker was riveting grips to a tang, and about halfway down the aisle a jeweler under one of the skylights was meticulously setting a teardrop of Fire into a horn bangle.

The atmosphere was thick with a mixture of smoke from coal fires, drifting like wisps of fog through the light from the skylights, and the heady scent of spices. Several of the doorways sheltered Krath, some of them female, cooking over small grills. Most of the food being prepared was seafood, ranging from boiling seaweed to grilled coll fish, along with small pots of the ubiquitous barleyrice.

Cord strode forward, ignoring the looks his outlandish dress and peace-bonded spear drew, until he reached an alcove on the left, decorated with a variety of dried items and bottles of mysterious liquids.

The Krath who ran the apothecary's shop was short, even by local standards. He peered up at the towering shaman suspiciously and babbled a quick, liquid sentence in the local trade patois.

Cord caught only a bit of the meaning, but the question was fairly clear. He settled into a squat as Pedi obediently settled in behind him.

'I need to buy,' he said. 'Need stuff for me. Stuff for wife. Need wasen.'

The merchant made a gesture and grunted another fast sentence. Hand signs were closer to universal on Marduk, where so much was expressed by body language and gesture, than on many other planets. So while Cord had never seen this particular one, he'd seen one very much like it in K'Vaern's Cove.

His motioning true-hand stopped Pedi even as he felt her start to move forward. He waited for a breath or two to be certain she stayed stopped, then leaned forward until his ancient, dry face was centimeters from the merchant's.

'Don't think leather on spear save your life. Keep comments to self, or eat horn through asshole.'

The shaman was beginning to distinctly regret this trip. He wasn't sure what wasen was, but he'd already decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

* * *

Pedi was beginning to wonder if it had been worthwhile herself. It might have made more sense just to forget about thewasen. It wasn't as if she were really going to need it anytime soon, after all. Or, failing that, it might have made more sense to come by herself, or in the company of one of the female Marines. Despreaux perhaps. But it was not permitted for a benan to leave her master, even for a moment.

Not when there was the possibility of danger ... which happened to be the case anywhere in this Ashes- damned city.

She wondered suddenly if Cord lived under those strictures, as well. And, if he did, how he reconciled being away from Prince Roger. Or had her own insistence finally driven him to bend his honor? And, if it had, to what extent was her own honor tarnished by the action into which she had manipulated him?

Wasen was beginning to look less and less like a good idea.

She leaned forward and, keeping her hands draped in the sumei, gestured at one of the dried items. It was a type of sea creature that clung to rocks in the surf zone. Fairly rare on the continent, wasen was one of the major trade goods of the Lemmar Alliance, and one of the reasons for the recent successful effort to take Strem away from the Lemmar. Besides the use for which she intended it, it was employed in various industries, including textiles.

In a place like this, however, it would be bought only for less acceptable uses. Less acceptable, at least, to the Krath.

* * *

Cord looked at the dried bit of what looked like meat and pointed in turn.

'How much?'

He had learned as a boy traveling to far Voitan that along with 'Where water?' and 'Where food?' that was one of the three most important phrases any venturer could learn in the local dialect.

The merchant held up fingers indicating a number that certainly sounded outlandish to the shaman. But that was what bargaining was all about, and he automatically quoted a return price one-third the suggested one.

The merchant screamed like a stuck atul and grabbed his horns. The offer must have been just about right.

* * *

As Cord, with obvious reluctance, pulled out a pouch and started measuring silver against the merchant's weights, Pedi leaned forward and picked up the hand-sized mass of wasen. She noticed immediately that it was unusually hard, and after she brought it under her robes and broke it, she wanted to scream in anger. Instead, she leaned forward and pulled urgently at Cord's arm.

'Not good,' she hissed in the little People she knew. 'Bad quality. Old. Not good.'

Cord turned around and fixed her with a glare.

'You use?' he asked.

'Too much,' she insisted furiously. 'Bad quality. Too old.'

Cord turned back to the merchant.

'She say stuff too old,' he snarled. 'No can use.'

'First quality wasen,' the apothecary spat back. The rest of the sentence was too fast for the shaman to catch, but one word sounded particularly bad.

The apothecary didn't speak too rapidly for Pedi, though. She managed not to break into Shin, but after a moment's spluttering, she launched over the seated Cord and grabbed the merchant by the horns.