Melissa Scott - Shadow Man

“ Liquertie , mir?” Derebought said, to Warreven. “Or perhaps coffee?”

Tatian let the ritual wash over him, wondering just what Warreven wanted. No, that’s obvious, 3e wants Reiss’s statement; the real question is what 3e’ll offer to get it. Or maybe I’m misreading the whole situation, and 3e’ sjust here for the harvest. Derebought wouldn’t have brought out coffee if she didn’t think a deal was a solid possibility . He accepted a cup of the coffee—the real thing, imported from Atalanta, too expensive to drink more than once a week—and waited until the door had closed again behind Derebought. “NAPD is usually able to acquire worthwhile items, either craft or harvest. Do you—does Stiller, forgive me—have something on offer?”

Warreven smiled. “The harvest has been good this year generally, which you know, and the Westaern sea-harvest particularly so. Which you also know. Stiller has significant surplus, and the mesnie s have agreed that it should be placed on offer in a single lot, to be handled by the seraaliste . I wondered if NAPD would be interested.”

Tatian blinked. The sea-harvest had been unusually good; if Stiller was offering the entire surplus as a single block, the harvest was likely to be extraordinary. Reiss’s statement wouldn’t be an unreasonable payment, for such an unheard-of offer. He put that thought aside and said cautiously, “We’re interested, of course. But I understood your contract was with Kerendach.”

“The mesnie s have voted me full bargaining rights,” Warreven answered. “In effect, it’s mine to do with as I please, and I’m not fully satisfied with Kerendach right now.”

Plus you want something from me , Tatian thought. He said, “As I said, we’re always interested. I’d like to see some details first, of course. Then I can make a rough offer.”

Warreven set an old-style disk on the desktop and slid it past the tray of liquertie s. “I think everything you’ll want is there. I’ll be frank with you, I would go to one of the Big Six, but they tend to stick together. I doubt they’d offer me much more than Kerendach would, and that hasn’t been adequate for less.” Ȝe hesitated, as though 3e would say more, then leaned back in 3er chair.

Tatian took the disk, then ran his hand over the shadowscreen to activate the multiformat reader. He slipped the disk into the cradle, and there was a pause while the system sorted through competing formats. Then the first of the summaries flipped into view. It was enough to make him catch his breath—that block alone would increase NAPD’s potential income by about a tenth of the current total—and he paged quickly through the file, dizzying himself with the possibilities. Warreven was offering broad-leaf kelp, and cutgrass and wideweb, the staples of the Haran sea-harvest, but 3e was also offering crumbling coral, coral fish, and even half a dozen false-kelp holdfasts. Those were worth over a thousand concord dollars apiece, more if they were close to whole: the false-kelp grew too deep for Haran divers easily to reach its base, and in any case, harvesting the holdfast killed the plant. Most of the holdfasts that reached the off-world markets came from storm wrack, and the Big Six bought and sold most of them; for Warreven to be able to offer six as surplus was extraordinary—and a tribute to the negotiating skills of the previous year’s seraaliste , who had set the contract quotas with Kerendach. It also made it easier to contemplate giving Warreven the extras 3e was sure to want. Tatian paged slowly back to the top of the file, imagining the Old Dame’s response to this bounty, and said, “Has Kerendach made an offer, or are we getting first chance?”

“They have a standing offer for surplus,” Warreven said. “It’s in the secondary file.”

Tatian flipped that open, eyebrows rising. “It seems—less than generous,” he said at last. In point of fact, it was ridiculously low for the surplus of an excellent harvest, and he wondered who at Kerendach had made the tactical error. If it had been his business, he would have doubled the standing offer sight unseen—but somebody had been operating on the assumption that Warreven’s inexperience amounted to stupidity. “I think we could—would— better it.”

Warreven smiled again. “There is another matter, of course.”

Tatian matched the smile. “Of course.” And here we go , he thought. Shan Reiss’s statement for the chance to bid on the surplus, which is one of the best block offers I’ve ever seen—except that I’ve been told explicitly, by the Concord agency, that letting Reiss testify can do most to ruin my company, that I cannot not let Reiss get involved in this case . “Reiss?”

“Reiss.” Warreven looked at him, suddenly serious, face gone from exotic beauty to sudden stony gravity in one of the instant changes so typical of a herm. “I owe my partners this one last thing. It seems a fair trade, the statement for your chance at our surplus.”

Tatian didn’t answer for a moment, marshaling his own arguments. “I’m not autonomous, you know. And my ultimate boss has made it very clear that none of us on Hara are to get involved in trade. That includes Reiss.”

“So Reiss said,” Warreven answered. “But this needn’t be a question of trade. Reiss is a Black Casnot by courtesy and custom, and so is Destany—the person in question. It’s Reiss’s obligation to speak for him, since he can give testimony that would be useful, not a matter of trade at all, since Destany hasn’t done trade for seven, eight years—local years, too. I don’t know how many kilohours. I’m sure NAPD is quick enough to make use of Reiss’s kinship when it’s convenient; this is the other side of that obligation.”

That was accurate enough, Tatian admitted, he had made good use of Reiss’s myriad connections, friends and relatives and clan-cousins all up and down the Main Continent, but kept his face without expression. “It’s not just my boss. The IDCA will see this as trade, and they’ve already said they’ll put a stop to it.”

“IDCA profits from trade themselves,” Warreven said, with the hint of an old bitterness. “They’re not going to give that up without a fight.”

“That’s not true,” Tatian said involuntarily, and wanted to take back the words as soon as they were spoken. That was an old charge among the indigenes; nothing any off-worlder said to contradict it seemed to convince them, and there was no point in antagonizing 3im over such an ancient grievance.

Warreven said, “IDCA does profit from trade, or do only direct payments count? It’s trade that makes all the permits so profitable, that lets them keep, what, over two hundred people on planet, on their payroll; if it wasn’t for trade, they’d be the same size as Customs, what’s that, fifty people? And don’t tell me that some of that two hundred don’t take payments to look the other way, pass questionable documents, little things like that. Why shouldn’t they, when their bosses play trade with Temelathe to justify their existence?”

“The IDCA is here to protect all of us, you as well as us,” Tatian said, goaded. “You may not have HIVs now, but let one person in with just the right strain, and your immunity may not last.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Warreven answered, but 3er anger was fading as quickly as it had flared. “No, I understand how the mutations work, I understand that whatever it is that’s keeping us safe may not always work, but at the same time, IDCA is using that excuse to keep us trapped here. We can’t win. Anyone who wants to go off-world, unless they’re connected to one of the corporations, they’re assumed to have done trade, and so there’s a forty kilohour waiting period, that’s over three years, before they’ll even consider the application, which they can enforce because we’re not fully of the Concord and the Colonial Committee agrees with IDCA. And all the while, trade goes on. And there still aren’t any HIVs on Hara.”