Brone agreed and went off with the boys.
"You know, Chuck, it's odd. There wasn't the usual brawl last night," Kris said as she watched the two boys walk away with their new tutor.
Chuck gave a snort. "No, because Natchi tells me Kapash really does keep order in the market. Of course, I wouldn't like to be caught." "Oh?" Kris prompted.
"I don't approve of his methods."
"Which are? I wouldn't think Catteni would be impressed by his punishment triangle."
"'Tisn't that. He locks brawlers up and sells them to the next slaver in. Gotta keep those mines supplied, you know"
"Oh!" She almost tripped she was so surprised. "That would be quite a deterrent, wouldn't it?"
That was not as much reassurance as she thought a fight-free Barevi would be. However, there were customers awaiting their cups of coffee and queries about what could be traded for the beans. As Kris finished serving a new customer with the last cup of the current urn, Zainal decided it was time to close, and they packed up the things to be taken back to the BASS-1.
At dinner, Brone talked just enough to impress his new shipmates as well as his tutees with his basic understanding of current affairs on both Barevi and Catten. Natchi had the street gossip, but Brone had an overview. As Zainal had suspected, Kamiton had had trouble with his new government. No one had expected it to be easy. The Eosi were, as Kris might say, a hard act to follow since they had exerted such a strict, fear-based control over their underlings and total au-thority over their doings.
The loss of any new planets, rich with mineral assets, bit hard into the Catteni economy. Nothing ran as smoothly without the threat of Eosi disfavor. There were shortages at the existing mining planets and colonies. Catteni mines had not been producing their expected quo-tas since the Eosi, who had employed subtle ways of ensuring that quotas were met, were dispatched. No new products in the markets meant fewer buyers. Kapash's management of the market had indeed reduced the destruction caused by drunken spacemen, but they, in turn, found little to buy in the markets with their accumulated wages. Coffee, therefore, had an unusual popularity with those for whom it was a novelty and with those who had tasted it while occupying Earth.
While there was no place on this planet where coffee beans could be cultivated, there were jungle highlands on Botany. Kris had men-tioned that this was a labor-intensive crop, since the beans had to be handpicked when ripe, but Zainal thought there would be plenty of hands to pick for assured supplies of the beverage. And if the Catteni addiction remained strong, they would have a solid market for export of Botany-grown beans. The very idea of exporting to the Cattem amused him. They could hold out for any price they cared to put on the commodity. "Black gold," Kris said they had once called coffee beans. Earth, of course, could export to Barevi, but first they needed cargo ships, which Botany happened to have several of for cargo runs. But first things first: like the spare parts that were needed. It might be decades before Earth could gear up its production lines.
Chapter Ten
The next morning started very well indeed, with an impatient clutch of people waiting for them to start serving the coffee. There were even some wanting to trade, and Zainal managed to ob-tain a carton of Nokia cell phones, a real prize.
"And most of them will do anything to secure a supply of the drink," Zainal replied, pointing to the ever-increasing diversity of cartons that were piling up as fruits of his labors to trade coffee for spare parts. "Gold and dentistry are doing well enough but take time." He waved to Eric's stall and the rat-tat-tat of his hammer on the gold he was pounding into the proper thickness for the crowns that had al-ready been ordered: half payment on signing the contract and half on completion.
"Ah, another customer," Zainal said as a tall uniformed Catteni walked up to Eric's office, looking about for whoever manned it. He gestured to Clune to tell Eric that he had an interested party. There was a brief silence from the hammer, then Eric emerged and evi-dently Clime took over the flattening, though his blows weren't spaced as evenly as Eric's were and the rhythm of the rat-tat-tat was uneven.
"May I be of service?" Eric asked with the deference of a profes-sional to any uniform.
"I have heard of your services and wish to avail myself of them." As the man spoke, Zainal could see the empty spaces in his teeth-the four central ones. That seemed to characterize the usual applicant for Eric's skills. Three out of four, or so Eric had once re-marked, adding, "Don't your people ever duck?"
"Now, sir, what may I do for you?" "I am Emassi Ladade."
"I am Emassi Doctor Sachs," Eric responded, courteously proud. "If you would step this way where I may conduct a quick private ex-amination." Eric ushered him into his "office." Much better for po-tential patients.
Ferris was proving extremely useful in sussing out genuine leads and had already saved Zainal from spending time with sellers who had nothing he wanted and were only there for the free coffee. But Zainal recalled an earlier conversation he'd had with Kris.
"We must watch him, Zainal," she had said, her anxiety getting the better of common sense.
"Why?"
"He's a magpie. A klepto," she said, trying to burrow into his shoulder.
"A what?"
"A magpie is a Terran bird who will grab anything that sparkles and take it off to its nest to play with."
"And the other word? Klepto?"
Zainal had excellent aural memory so she wasn't surprised that he queried an unfamiliar word. "That is a human who keeps taking things that do not belong to him or her, for a variety of reasons: sometimes it's merely envy of someone else possessing a pretty or valuable thing; other times it's just a psychological compulsion, the acquisition of the object as a one-sided game, played against the le-gitimate owners of the item. Or a denial of other people's rights to possession. It is considered a minor crime but a genuine obsession. The kleptomaniac often steals for the fun, not the need of the object stolen. Ferris is the second type, stealing for the fun of it and to win pleasure by giving it to someone."
"And he does not understand that stealing is wrong?"
"He understands that, but doesn't stop doing it. He became very deft, and I fear he was encouraged by his circumstances during the in-vasion to acquire things without paying the legitimate owners."
"The Catteni?" Zainal asked with remarkable charity.
"Not just the Catteni. He really is a Human sort of magpie, thiev-ing because he likes the look of something or to outwit the owner."
"And you worry that he might start using his craft here?"
"I don't think Commander Kapash would turn a blind eye if Fer-ris were caught in the act."
"Is he often caught?"
"Now, only by those who know he has acquired without pay-ment. Ferris has a grave character flaw. He really cannot understand buying and selling when he likes something or knows it's needed."
"Knowing it's needed might cause us more harm than good. I am glad you advised me about Ferris."
Even with that earlier conversation in mind, Zainal couldn't help thinking that the boy had been extremely useful on this mission. Fer-ris had supplied the numbers and names of store shed holders with whom Zainal could most profitably invest time and effort. However, Zainal dealt from a stronger position if the sellers came to him first. If he made known too publicly what he wanted, prices would be driven up. To date, Barevi merchants had found buyers thin on the ground so many had scrutinized him.
He had dealt as shrewdly as he could with those who had approached him, with beans and more carefully with what materials they had brought with them.