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Updated: June 29, 2025
In the end the natives won and Kosti was summoned to carry on board the chest which the servants had brought. Having seen it carried safely inside the spacer, the aliens departed, but Van Rycke was frowning and Jellico's fingers were beating a tattoo on his belt as they came up the ramp. "I don't like it," Jellico stated as he entered. "It was none of my doing," Van Rycke snapped.
Compared to a bleak sentence at the moon mines such demotion was absolutely nothing and he knew that Van Rycke was breaking the worst news first. "You also forfeit all pay for this voyage," the Cargo-master was continuing. But Jellico broke in. "Board fine?" At the Cargo-master's nod, Jellico added. "Ship pays that." "So I told them," Van Rycke agreed.
Yes, I'll transfer, sir." The Captain was turning about in his fingers the beautifully shaped figure of an Astran duocorn. "Pity to trade these here," he mused aloud. "Will Paft or Halfer appreciate more than just their scent?" Weeks smiled shyly. "I've filled this case, sir. I was going to offer them to Mr. Van Rycke on a venture. I can always make another set.
"What happens now?" Ali inquired. "Do they declare all deals off?" "That might just be the unfortunate answer," agreed Van Rycke. "Could be," Rip commented to Dane, "that they'd think we were in some way responsible " But Dane's conscience, sensitive over the whole matter of Salariki trade, had already reached that conclusion.
On another stool placed at Van Rycke's right hand, as that bearing the Koros stones was at Paft's, was a transparent plastic box containing some wrinkled brownish leaves. Dane moved as unobtrusively as he could to his proper place at such a trading session, behind Van Rycke. More Salariki were tramping out of the forest, torch bearing retainers and cloaked warriors.
Consequently they had produced and forced upon the reluctant Van Rycke the Koros collection of their order, with instructions that it be sold on Terra and the price returned to them in the precious seeds and plants. In vain the Cargo-master and Captain had pointed out that Galactic trade was a chancy thing at the best, that accident might prevent return of the Queen to Sargol.
And to the Free Trader it was the extra and invisible crewman on every ship that raised. But there were deaths and deaths And Dane could not forget the gruesome legends Van Rycke collected avidly as his hobby had recorded in his private library of the folk lore of space.
Van Rycke and Captain Jellico had handled the first negotiations and the process had taken most of a day the result totaling exactly nothing. In their contacts with the off world men the feline ancestered Salariki were ceremonious, wary, and completely detached. But Cam had gotten to them somehow or he would not have returned from his first trip with that pouch of Koros stones.
Tolling the younger man with him by a crooked finger, he went out of his combined office-living quarters to the domain of Medic Craig Tau. "Problem for you, Craig." Van Rycke seated his bulk on the wall jump seat Tau pulled down for him.
Van Rycke burrowed in his belt pouch and then held out his hand. On the broad palm lay a flat disc of metal. "Very interesting " he repeated. "I shall treasure this recording " The sight of that disc wiped all satisfaction from the Eysie faces. Grange's purplish flush spread up from his tight tunic collar, Kallee blinked, and the unknown third's hand dropped to his sleep rod.
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