Ribbon Dance, page 3
part #26 of Liaden Universe® Series
“I find it noteworthy,” Shan said, taking his seat next to Padi, “how often simply doing the work will accomplish wonders. Do you find it so, Councilor?”
There was a flicker of something as the man lifted his dark gaze to Shan’s face.
“Master Trader, my life has been built on the belief that work is the foundation of success. Thank you, Trader.”
The last was directed to Padi, as he accepted a cup of tea from her.
“Please,” Shan said, “make free of the cake. We have both just come from a reception at the port market.”
“And you are therefore replete, with tea and with cake,” Councilor ziaGorn said, humor lifting a corner of his straight mouth.
Shan received his teacup from Padi with a smile, and looked at the guest with approval.
“Exactly. Trader yos’Galan was only just now remarking on how very much cake is on offer, everywhere we go.”
“Well, but it must be, mustn’t it? No one wants an incident. And cake is a very simple thing.”
“Very true,” Padi said. “And so we follow the path laid out for us, and offer tea and cake.”
She raised her cup and sipped, Shan and Councilor ziaGorn following suit.
“I appreciate your hospitality,” Councilor ziaGorn said seriously, when he had put his cup down.
“And we are pleased to offer it,” Padi said. “Please don’t imagine that I am going to force you to eat cake; it is merely there, should you desire it. I don’t wish to give the wrong impression.”
That won an actual laugh and a further settling of the councilor’s unruly emotions.
Shan hid his smile behind his teacup.
Well done, Padi, he thought.
He put his cup down and leaned forward somewhat, to meet the councilor’s eyes.
“What I propose, sir, is that we share contact information, and find a mutually agreeable time to introduce you to the rest of the team. Is this satisfactory to you? I assure you that I intend to do the work. Trader yos’Galan oversees me sternly in that regard.”
“I believe we all intend to do the work,” Councilor ziaGorn said. “I know that I’ve come to you, unexpected, at the end of a long day. Truthfully, I hadn’t hoped for an introduction so soon. I was only appointed by the Council this afternoon. Portmaster krogerSlyte has given me copies of her notes, but I haven’t had the chance to review them as yet.”
“Then we are agreed.”
Padi rose and went to the desk, returning with their general information packet, and the local card.
She put those items at the councilor’s elbow and resumed her seat.
“Those will give you some background on Tree-and-Dragon, on Clan Korval, and on the members of the trade mission,” Shan said. “Our local addresses and comm codes are on that card. Ah—”
He produced his case, extracted a card and handed it across to their liaison, who received it with wide eyes, and a return of some emotional tumult.
“Those codes are linked to Dutiful Passage. If you cannot find me locally, do not hesitate to use them.”
“I thank you,” Councilor ziaGorn whispered, and cleared his throat. “I am honored. I do know that master traders are not free with their cards, sir.”
Shan raised an eyebrow.
“You are our liaison, and we have all quite agreed that we are committed to getting the work done. You may never need it, but I would rather you had too much information, than too little.”
“Yes.” Councilor ziaGorn slipped the card into the tunic’s sleeve pocket. “I have nothing so organized to offer. I can give my codes and my address, if—”
Padi pulled out her notepad.
“Please,” she said. “They will be most helpful.”
“Majel ziaGorn,” he said, and recited his personal code and the one that would reach the offices of the Citizens Coalition. “You might also find me at my business, though it is somewhat out from the port. Cardfall Casino, on Riverview Street, in the Citizens Sector.” He recited that code, as well.
Padi inscribed it all while Shan fetched the screen from the desk, and brought up the team’s common schedule.
“The entire team is promised to the market manager for a tour of the facilities, first thing tomorrow. We are told that this will consume the better part of three hours. How are you fixed for the midday meal tomorrow?” he asked. “A working nuncheon is already on the schedule, and we may easily accommodate one—or even two!—more, should you have a second that you wish brought current. We will provide the meal, proper introductions will be made, and a list of topics and protocols drafted.”
“I believe we may also promise,” Padi murmured, “that there will be no cake.”
“Surely not!” Shan eyed her. “The cake must at least be present, Trader Padi.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Of course it must. What was I thinking?”
It was a fair imitation of him at his most vacuous. He gave her a nod and looked back to their new liaison, who had gone so far as to look—amused.
“Tomorrow, here, for the midday meal, introductions, and preliminary planning,” he said. “I anticipate it with pleasure.”
“Excellent,” said Shan, making a note in the calendar before he looked up and met the other man’s eyes. “Is there anything else that we ought to address immediately?”
“I believe we have made a good beginning,” said Councilor ziaGorn. He rose, bringing the information packet with him, and bowed, this time in the common Colemeno fashion.
“I leave you now to your rest.”
Shan rose and saw him to the door with another bow and murmured well-wishes.
When he returned Padi had already carried the tray into the kitchenette.
He put the cake tin away, and tidied the table.
Home, he thought, or at least the suite they had been granted, and some time in the company of his lifemate. A glass of wine would also be a comfort. Then, he had work to do.
“I’ll confirm our order with the caterer before I leave,” Padi said, recalling him to the present. “Shall I meet you here tomorrow, or at the market?”
Ah, yes, he thought; the facilities tour. And Padi was promised to her friend Tekelia this evening.
Shan took a breath and smiled.
“I think that we risk nothing with a separate arrival,” he said. “They will need to become accustomed to seeing us solitary at our work.”
“And it is not too soon to begin,” Padi said with a smile. “I will meet you at the market.”
She stepped to his side and rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek.
“I wish the master trader will allow my father some rest this evening,” she murmured, and Shan laughed.
“I’ll tell him you said so.”
* * *
“Yes, that is correct,” Padi told Catering Manager jakValin, at Skywise Provianto. “And that is against the Tree-and-Dragon draw account.”
“Yes, Trader. Will you wish servers?”
“We will serve ourselves.”
“Very good, Trader. The order will come to the Tree-and-Dragon office suite at the midday meal hour, tomorrow. Is there anything else?”
“Not at present, I thank you.”
“We are pleased to serve. Good evening to you, Trader.”
“Good evening,” Padi answered, and closed the connection.
She rose, and crossed the room, to be certain the door was locked, then returned to the table, where her case awaited her. She did have work to do this night, but Tekelia was an easy companion, and apt to have work of their own, after the evening meal was done. It would seem that the universe did not lack for work to be done.
She smiled slightly, picked up her case and murmured, “Tekelia.”
Mist swirled, or smoke, and Tekelia stood before her, in sweater, tough pants, and boots, dark hair caught back with what had been the extra hair ring Padi carried in her belt in case of need. There was a smile on the round, tan face, and the eyes at the moment were one amber, and one green.
“The meal is prepped and the wine is breathing. Will you join me?”
“With the greatest pleasure—yes,” Padi said, and stepped forward to take the arm offered to her.
Mist swirled, glittering briefly.
The office was empty.
Colemenoport
Wayfarer
“Good evening, Priscilla.”
Smiling, she looked up from the desk in the window. He felt her regard sweep over him even as she pushed back her chair and rose.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll pour the wine.”
Shan raised his eyebrows.
“As dire as that?”
She moved across the room to the refreshment stand.
“Only half as dire,” she said. “Sit down, love.”
“Since you ask so nicely.”
He put his case on the chair near the door, slipped off his jacket and hung it on the back before crossing to the U-shaped half-sofa that had become their preferred meeting spot.
He sat with a sigh.
“Truly, Priscilla, I don’t mean to disturb your work.”
“It’s scarcely work, and well worth interrupting. Portmaster krogerSlyte sent me a list of lectures on the topic of the mosaic depicting the Landing at Colemeno that we had all admired on our arrival, and professes herself at my service as an escort to any I might care to attend.”
She came to the sofa, handed him a glass of the red, keeping a glass of mint tea for herself, and sank down next to him.
“Ought the portmaster’s attention concern me?” Shan inquired.
“I’ll try not to break her heart,” she answered dryly.
“You are always so nice in these affairs, Priscilla,” he said earnestly, and raised his glass.
“To work worth interrupting.”
Priscilla tipped her head, though she raised her glass and touched it to his just hard enough to waken a ring.
“Hardly the most auspicious of toasts,” she murmured.
“Well. I fear I may be instructed by my daughter, who expressed her wish that the master trader would allow her father some rest this evening.”
“Not so ill a wish. Do you think the master trader will grant it?”
“In some measure, I believe he may. There are documents to review, but I believe most may wait upon tomorrow.” He sipped his wine and sighed. “Indeed, ought to wait until we have toured the facilities, and know for ourselves what is in hand and in what condition. This whole venture being sky-pie, there’s surely no need to make more.”
“Not entirely pie in the sky,” Priscilla said. “Unless the Dust hasn’t actually receded?”
“Oh, no, that seems to be a certainty. Whether Colemeno wants to open itself and boldly rejoin the rest of the universe—that remains at question.”
He sipped his wine, and leaned forward to put the glass on the table.
“On that topic, you may be gratified to learn that the Council has assigned one of its number as the liaison to the trade mission.”
“That is news. When will we meet her?”
“Padi and I met him briefly this evening. The entire team will meet him at nuncheon tomorrow, after the tour.”
He moved his shoulders.
“His name is Majel ziaGorn, and his honor is Chair of the Citizens Coalition. Portmaster krogerSlyte places great confidence in him, and brought him herself to make his bow. We have exchanged contact information, by which I find that he also owns a casino.”
Priscilla lifted her eyebrows.
“A casino?”
“You don’t approve of casinos?”
She did not dignify that with an answer, and nor, Shan thought, reaching again for his glass, should she have.
“It only seems very odd that there would be casinos in a place where everyone is Talented.”
“Yes, but do you know? Majel ziaGorn isn’t Talented. He is quite refreshingly normal.”
Priscilla’s brows knit; she sipped her tea, and put the glass aside.
“And the Council of the Civilized assigned him to us,” she said. “That’s interesting.”
“Isn’t it? And a casino argues that he is not alone in lacking a Talent.”
“So it does. I’ll be pleased to meet him tomorrow.”
“Excellent. Speaking of tomorrow, Padi will be meeting us at the market. She is tonight promised to Tekelia.”
Priscilla tipped her head.
“And that distresses you?”
He half-laughed.
“I would put it no higher than concern, but that would merely be a quibble,” he said.
“Yet Tekelia stood as a staunch ally, and assisted you, and Padi, when there was need.”
“And in addition seems a person of honor, if quite appallingly strong for even a dramliza.” Shan moved his hand. “Forgive me, Priscilla; I fear I am coming the parent.”
She laughed gently.
“As a parent, my love, you must trust your work. You have raised a strong, sensible woman, who is both generous and fierce.”
He sighed.
“She is all of that,” he allowed.
“So,” Priscilla said, after a moment. “Padi will not be joining us for the meal. Dyoli and Mar Tyn have already said that they will dine in their rooms. Grad, Karna, and Tima are reviewing a new training module that came down from the ship today. Tima told me that they would order some cold trays and browse.”
“Which leaves us alone for the meal,” Shan said.
“So it would appear.”
“Then I have a proposition for you, Priscilla. Allow the master trader an hour to read the documents necessary to tomorrow’s tour. We may then follow the excellent examples before us, and retire to our room to dine tête-à-tête and take whatever recreation may seem good to us.”
“I accept your proposition, sir, and note that the captain still needs to read that same documentation.”
“We might read it together, then,” Shan said.
“So we might. Let me refresh our glasses while you get your case.”
On-Grid
Cardfall Casino
Majel had gone through the trade mission’s info-packet once, and left the pages spread over his desk while he got up to go to the window.
His apartment on the casino’s third floor gave him the view promised by the address. At this hour, the river was dark silk, the reflections of the lumenberry trees twinkling in its depths.
Normally, it was a view he found soothing and renewing.
This evening, however, his thoughts were occupied with the information in the packet, seeking to rectify it with the traders he had met.
The traders—in a word, the traders had been charming. The master trader was not an elder, despite the white hair. His manner had been easy; his whole aspect open and frank. The younger trader—the master’s daughter, according to the info-packet—had been at pains to put him at ease, which argued that she had been privy to his initial dismay at the speed with which everything had happened, from the moment he had brought his new business before the Council. That was not a surprise; he had been fairly warned that the mission’s principals were Talents. They were ethical persons, so Portmaster krogerSlyte had been at pains to assure him—and certainly they had seemed so, to him.
Portmaster krogerSlyte…In Majel’s experience, the portmaster had been a stolid sort of councilor. She voted with the majority more often than not, and introduced nothing more than the quarterly port budget into the Council’s business.
Her partiality for the trade mission might be seen as worrisome, Majel thought, until one recalled that the portmaster’s concern had always been the port. If Colemeno became a hub, or merely expanded to accommodate a permanent Tree-and-Dragon trade office—then Portmaster krogerSlyte’s worth to the Redlands increased.
Looked at from that angle, her eagerness to have the mission succeed made a great deal of sense.
Nor was the portmaster the only one who stood to benefit from the success of the master trader’s work, he thought wryly.
Why, only see that upstart, Majel ziaGorn, newest councilor at the table, who had been vinsEbin’s aide for a scant six Standard Years before being seated in her chair—practically leaping out of that same chair in order to grasp a position of influence.
Majel half-laughed. Yes, well. Durella had warned him that ambition would be his downfall.
And to be perfectly fair, he had not fallen. He had placed himself into a position of trust, the like of which had never before been held by the Chair of the Citizens Coalition. If he were careful, and honest in his duty, he stood to gain much, not only for himself, but for those he represented. If the Council—if the Civilized could be brought to see that being Deaf meant nothing more than an inability to interact with the ambient, and did not also carry a meaning of vulnerable, half-witted, or frail—that would be success. For the Deaf to become accepted fully as citizens into Civilization—that was where his ambition led him.
So. The traders were charming, mannered, and Civilized. The info-packet had outlined some difficult times for Tree-and-Dragon Trade family and Clan Korval, directly preceding their arrival at Colemeno, including banishment from Liad. In that trouble, at least, they held solidarity with the Redlands, the ancestors having been likewise banished from the homeworld.
He was minded, here, of tryaBent’s assertion that Clan Korval was known to promote violence, and the archivist’s counterproposal of “unlooked-for events,” backed by cites. That was information that might also be of value to the liaison to the trade mission.
He turned from the window toward the desk, intending to make a note to ask ivenAlyatta for the cites regarding Tree-and-Dragon’s propensity for—trouble.
The on-floor comm buzzed, and Majel slapped the button, stylus forgotten.
“ziaGorn.”
“Sir, we’ve got a chizler down here at the security station. Do you want to talk to her, or should we just call the proctors?”
Majel sighed. This was the fifth chizler in the last twelve days. They’d turned the previous four over to the proctors and pursued full penalties. Word of that must have gotten to the siblinghood of rascals by now. Truly, after the fourth, he had expected to see no more.
