Plague Ship Andre Norton (book recommendations website .TXT) đ
- Author: Andre Norton
Book online «Plague Ship Andre Norton (book recommendations website .TXT) đ». Author Andre Norton
âA smooth set down to you,â Jellico gave the conventional leave taking of the Service.
âYouâd betterâ ââ the Eysie Captain began hotly, and then seeing the disc Van Rycke heldâ âthat sensitive bit of metal and plastic which was recording this interview for future reference, he shut his mouth tight.
âYes?â the Queenâs Cargo-master prompted politely. But Kallee had taken his Captainâs arm and was urging Grange away from the spacer.
âYou have until noon to lift,â was Jellicoâs parting shot as the three in Company livery started toward the road.
âI donât think that they will,â he added to Van Rycke.
The Cargo-master nodded. âYou wouldnât in their place,â he pointed out reasonably. âOn the other hand theyâve had a bit of a blast they werenât expecting. Itâs been a long time since Grange heard anyone say âno.âââ
âA shock which is going to wear off.â Jellicoâs habitual distrust of the future gathered force.
âThis,â Van Rycke tucked the disc back into his pouch, âsent them off vector a parsec or two. Grange is not one of the strong-arm blaster boys. Suppose Tang Ya does a little listening inâ âand maybe we can rig another surprise if Grange does try to ask advice of someone off world. In the meantime I donât think they are going to meddle with the Salariki. They donât want to have to answer awkward questions if we turn up a Patrol ship to ask them. Soâ ââ he stretched and beckoned to Dane, âwe shall go to work once more.â
Again two paces behind Van Rycke Dane tramped to the trade circle of the Salariki clansmen. They might have walked out only five or six minutes of ship time before, and the natives betrayed no particular interest in their return. But, Dane noted, there was only one empty stool, one ceremonial table in evidence. The Salariki had expected only one Terran Trader to join them.
What followed was a dreary round of ceremony, an exchange of platitudes and empty good wishes and greetings. No one mentioned Koros stonesâ âor even perfume barkâ âthat he was willing to offer the off-world traders. None lifted so much as a corner of his trade cloth, under which, if he were ready to deal seriously, his hidden hand would meet that of the buyer, so that by finger pressure alone they could agree or disagree on price. But such boring sessions were part of Trade and Dane, keeping a fraction of attention on the speeches and âdrinkings-together,â watched those around him with an eye which tried to assess and classify what he saw.
The keynote of the Salariki character was a wary independence. The only form of government they would tolerate was a family-clan organization. Feuds and deadly duels between individuals and clans were the accepted way of life and every male who reached adulthood went armed and ready for combat until he became a âSpeaker for the pastââ âtoo old to bear arms in the field. Due to the nature of their battling lives, relatively few of the Salariki ever reached that retirement. Short-lived alliances between families sometimes occurred, usually when they were to face a common enemy greater than either. But a quarrel between chieftains, a fancied insult would rip that open in an instant. Only under the Trade Shield could seven clans sit this way without their warriors being at one anotherâs furred throats.
An hour before sunset Paft turned his goblet upside down on his table, a move followed speedily by every chieftain in the circle. The conference was at an end for that day. And as far as Dane could see it had accomplished exactly nothingâ âexcept to bring the Eysies into the open. What had Traxt Cam discovered which had given him the trading contract with these suspicious aliens? Unless the men from the Queen learned it, they could go on talking until the contract ran out and get no farther than they had today.
From his training Dane knew that ofttimes contact with an alien race did require long and patient handling. But between study and experiencing the situation himself there was a gulf, and he thought somewhat ruefully that he had much to learn before he could meet such a situation with Van Ryckeâs unfailing patience and aplomb. The Cargo-master seemed in nowise tired by his wasted day and Dane knew that Van would probably sit up half the night, going over for the hundredth time Traxt Camâs sketchy recordings in another painstaking attempt to discover why and how the other Free Trader had succeeded where the Queenâs men were up against a stone wall.
The harvesting of Koros stones was, as Dane and all those who had been briefed from Camâs records knew, a perilous job. Though the rule of the Salariki was undisputed on the land masses of Sargol, it was another matter in the watery world of the shallow seas. There the Gorp were in command of the territory and one had to be constantly alert for attack from the sly, reptilian intelligence, so alien to the thinking processes of both Salariki and Terran that there was, or seemed to be, no point of possible contact. One went gathering Koros gems after balancing life against gain. And perhaps the Salariki did not see any profit in that operation. Yet Traxt Cam had brought back his bag of gemsâ âsomehow he had managed to secure them in trade.
Van Rycke climbed the ramp, hurrying on into the Queen as if he would not get back to his records soon enough. But Dane paused and looked back at the grass jungle a little wistfully. To his mind these early evening hours were the best time on Sargol. The light was golden, the night winds had not yet arisen. He disliked exchanging the freedom of the open for the confinement of the spacer.
And, as he hesitated there, two of the juvenile population of Sargol came out of the forest. Between them they carried one of their hunting nets, a net which now enclosed a quiet
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