"But that is more than a bottle of the best wine would cost," the man complained when Kris quoted him the price.
"Ah, there are some who maintain that good coffee is better than wine," was Kris's smiling reply. "It is the beginning of the day you should ensure, rather than the end."
He grunted as he deposited the half-bags in the pockets of his loose jerkin before he stalked away, still annoyed at the cost.
"Be sure to grind them properly, as we showed you," Kris called cheerfully after him. Then to Zainal she said, "Serving coffee has be-come de rigueur. All the best homes serve it." Then she grinned.
"What's so amusing? He was not," Zainal said, for the squint-eyed man was an arrogant type of Catteni and possibly had not even liked being served by a Terran woman.
"No, and what do you want to bet he doesn't explain to his wife that she has to grind them, much less that the water must be boiled to make a proper brew"
"I wouldn't bet," Zainal said. He knew how careful the women were to explain the correct process. Maybe next time they could bring proper pots and more grinders.
He was astonished that he was thinking in terms of "next time." But he was beginning to think of a fairly complex business possibil-ity. He needed to turn it over in his mind before he voiced it to the members of his current crew, to say nothing of the Botany colonists, who were expecting so much from this venture.
Later that morning, Zainal saw Tavis accompanying a Catteni, stalwart even among their species, to Eric's office. The sort of man, Zainal thought, who was in the middle of brawls. Though it seemed true that the threat of transportation to a slave colony had remarkably reduced the number of brawls. Evidently Kapash had made good on that threat. The most recent fracas had involved two Catteni crews who had just landed on Barevi and had started by picking quarrels with each other even as they walked from the dock to the settlement. Ditsy had heard that half the crew had already been arrested and thrown into prison. Whether or not their captains would be able to bail them out of Kapash's reach remained to be seen. In the mean-time, if the slave ship arrived, they would be transported unless their captain ransomed them. Either way, Zainal thought, Kapash won. He wished fleetingly that, when he had been market manager, he had had that option. But in that year, there had been plenty of captive species to send to the work camps. Idly he wondered how long Catteni sur-vived in those conditions. Not all the quarrelsome crew members had been rounded up, so Zainal called a halt to their business early, in case the remaining men were still in the market before they went off to hunt or do whatever form of enterprise they considered suitable for relaxation.
They all got back to the BASS-1 with no problem and ate their evening meal-Gino enjoyed cooking and had put together some un-usually tasty meals. Eric was very pleased with his new patients and said he could easily support himself with dentistry on Barevi.
"What about that young fellow Tavis?" Zainal asked.
"The one who wants to apprentice himself to me as a dental as-sistant?" Eric asked with a smile. "Nice, earnest young man."
"I think he fancies that you can teach him how to be a dentist, too," Zainal said by way of cautioning.
"Hmmm. Fancies indeed. Not"-Eric paused to raise his hand-"that he isn't intelligent enough. I shall happily train him in the skills I need in an assistant, and Sally can go back to bookkeeping."
The next morning, Zainal was to meet with a merchant named Nilink, whom Ferris had brought to his notice as the owner of a large storage complex full of tires with the Goodyear and Michelin logos on their paper wrappings. Zainal was extremely eager to do business with the man but knew better by now than to appear keen. So he de-layed his departure, using the time to memorize the weights and sizes of the tires on the list he had compiled on Terra. It was always wise to know exactly what he was seeking.
As he moved through the morning crowds to their location, he was surprised to hear a commotion. Then Ferris came dodging through the crowds and all but ran into him.
"Zainal! Zainal!" The boy's face was terror-stricken. "Kapash's men have taken Kris and Kathy! Taken them," he gasped.
"Why?" Zainal grabbed the boy by the shoulders, holding him upright.
"'Misrepresenting goods' is all I heard. Chuck was arguing with them and so were Peran and Bazil. Brone tried to help, too. But they were taken away!" He had something more to say and not enough breath to spew it out.
"Steady, lad, steady! We can fix it."
"But they have Emassi Kris," the boy said. "And Natchi says there's a slave ship in. He says they load fast and leave."
"Go back, Ferris. Tell Chuck I have gone to attend to Kapash," he said before he started running through the crowd toward Kapash's of-fice, pushing people out of his way when they were not fast enough for the pace he set himself. Kris! Not Kris! Not on a slave ship again. And Kathy. She, too, would be frightened, but it was Kris he could not do without.
Chapter Seventeen
Kris had more sense than to struggle as she and Kathy were hauled away, Floss and Jax weeping, while Chuck had to re-strain Clime and the boys from giving the bullies accompa-nying Kapash any excuse to knock them about with the heavy cudgels they carried: part weapon, part symbol of their func-tion. The last thing she saw was Ferris, disappearing from view, un-doubtedly running to find Zainal. And Ferris would, wherever her mate was.
"Misrepresentation of products, indeed!" she muttered to Kathy. "You know how careful we are to explain exactly how to grind beans and brew coffee," Kathy was saying, sniffling with fear and wringing her hands.
Chuck disliked hand-wringing women almost as much as weep-ing ones, but he felt like weeping in fear himself. Natchi had warned him that morning that a slaver had made port early and would leave as soon as it was filled. Frankly, he wouldn't put it past Kapash to en-sure that Kris and Kathy were on it, a nasty result of the specious charge leveled against them.
Where was Zainal? Oh, and here was the merchant he was to see today! Speaking more calmly than he felt, Chuck greeted the man and asked him which coffee he preferred.
"The stronger bean," Nilink said with an easy smile. "I shall need my wits today, bargaining with Emassi Zainal. It is amazing to find coffee on Barevi. I should have filled my hold with the beans and I'd've done well with such spoils."
"You are a spaceship captain, Emassi?" Chuck asked politely.
The man's clothing gave away little about him, though it was well cut and of good, durable fabric. He also had the air of some-one accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Rather like Zainal, in fact, Chuck thought, wondering where the big Cat-teni was.
"I was indeed a captain," Nilink replied, "as was Zainal, I un-derstand."
Ferris came running back, almost careening into Nilink but halt-ing just in time with an apologetic bow to the Emassi. "I caught Zainal. He has gone to Kapash. My pardon, good Emassi," he added. ris and Kathy, still professing innocence of whatever it was the head steward accused them of, were thrust into a dark, dank prison cell, already well filled to judge by the number of people they disturbed by their entry.
Oh Lord, not again! Kris thought, for the ambience put her force-fully in mind of the first time she had been in this situation, before she had been dropped on Botany-when she and Zainal had been gassed during the riot of Terrans. Only this morning Chuck had mentioned that a slave ship had docked, and the thought filled her with dread.
Beside her, Kathy was trying to rearrange her clothing after the rough handling they had received from Kapash's police.
"We didn't misrepresent anything. Was it that squint-eyed fellow from yesterday, d'you suppose?"