He took a step toward the case . . . another, and a third, which put his nose level with the top display row. Off his center by two degrees was a slim dagger in matte black, quiet among its flashier, bright-bladed cousins.
"Shan . . ." he said
"Hey, you kids, get away from there!" a voice said in loud Terran.
Val Con jumped, startled, and bumped his nose against the glass.
"No weapons sales to anybody under twenty years, Standard," the voice continued, somewhat less loudly. "Pomerlooport rules." There was a small pause. "Your friend okay?"
"I believe so," Shan said. "Val Con?"
"I'm well," he managed, turning slowly, and resisting the urge to rub his nose. The person who had shouted was taller than Shan, dressed in a dusty dark sweater and baggy pants. He had a quantity of ginger hair standing on end, as if he, too, had more pressing things to do than bother with combs. His eyes were brown and very wide open.
"Either one of you got twenty Standards?" he asked, looking especially at Shan.
His brother smiled and shook his head. "Alas."
"No," Val Con admitted as the wide brown gaze moved to him. He cleared his throat. "I was . . . interested to see a Monix," he added.
The warehouseman—for he must be, mustn't he?—grunted softly. "Good eye, kid. That's a Monix, all right, an' a fair price on it, too. Problem being, like I said, I can't let you heft it to see if it suits your hand, much less sell it to you if it does. I do that, not only do I get hit with a stiff fine, you arrested an' held 'til somebody old enough comes to pay your fine and take you back to your ship. Ain't fair, but that's how it is."
"I understand," Val Con said. "The law must be honored."
"That's the ticket," the man said, and looked back to Shan. "Interested in anything else?"
"Possibly. May we look about? We promise not to touch any weapons we may find."
"You find a weapon on the floor, you sing out," the warehouseman told him. "There ain't supposed to be any but what's in that case."
"Then my brother is safe from arrest," Shan said, smiling. He reached out and took Val Con's arm in a surprisingly firm grip.
A buzzer sounded from the rear of the warehouse, and the man turned toward it.
"Have fun," he said over his shoulder. "You break anything, you own it."
"Thank you," Shan said politely, "we'll be careful."
The man disappeared down an aisle barely wider than his shoulders. Shan released Val Con's arm and looked at him, eyebrows arched over light eyes.
"Was it the knife?" he asked, his voice low, speaking Liaden, now, rather than Terran.
" I. . .don't—" He paused, considering the jitter inside his head.
"No," he said. "But I don't know what it is."
"Do you know where it is?" Shan asked, patiently.
Val Con took a deep breath . . .
"I know that these things take time," Shan said after a moment. "However, we are exactly pressed for—"
"I know." Val Con looked about him, seeing the thin aisles overhung with boxes, cables uncoiling and drooping down like vines. "Shan, this is your time to trade. If this isn't promising—" It certainly didn't look promising . . .
"We can leave and I can carry you to the shuttle because you'll have a sick headache from not heeding your hunch," Shan finished. "That sounds like even less fun than being scolded by Father for wasting my time on port."
Val Con bit his lip, and spun on his heel. It seemed that there was a . . . very small . . . tug toward the center aisle. He walked that way, ducking beneath a cascade of tie-off filaments. Behind him, he heard Shan sigh, then the sound of his brother's footsteps.
They skirted two sealed plastic boxes that had fallen from a low shelf onto the floor, and the worker 'bot that was trying to put them back.
The aisle opened into a wide space, where a desk sat, drawers akimbo, papers fluttering in the breeze from a ceiling fan.
Drawn up to the desk like a chair was a packing crate; a flattened pillow on the side nearest the desk. Val Con felt something snap inside his head and he walked forward to kneel at the side of the crate.
It was slatted, not sealed tight, and between the slats he could see a solemn red blinking, like a low-power warning light.
He bent closer, intrigued, made out what looked like a battery array, and something else, that glimmered sullenly in the shadows.
He'd seen something like that—yes, signal-deadening wrap. He'd helped Shan and Master Ken Rik wrap some equipment they'd on-loaded a couple ports back in muffles, not wishing to chance that even the sleeping signal might interfere with any of the Passage's live systems. There'd been a power light on that unit, too, but it had glowed a steady gold, indicating that the charge was strong.
"Val Con?" That was Shan, quietly.
He patted the crate. "This," he said, perhaps too loudly.
"Excellent," Shan said. "You'll be a subtle trader."
"I'm going to be a Scout," he said reflexively, and heard Shan sigh.
"What, exactly, is it?" he asked.
Val Con looked at the outside of the crate for a tag; found one almost at floor level, squinted at the faded words, and read them outloud.
"Environmental unit operations module with connectors."
He turned the tag over, found an ancient date and read outloud the rest of the information: "R. Spode Estate, Misc. Eqpt. Auction Lot 42."
Shan looked dubious.
"You're certain," he said.
Val Con nodded, and his brother sighed.
"All right, then. Stay here with it for a moment, will you? There was something in that aisle we just came down that I want a closer look at."
* * *
There had been a burst of brilliance, disorienting. Perhaps it was pain. In its wake came lethargy and a weakening of the will. Not sleep, this, but something more dire. He struggled against it, expending energy he ought best conserve, listening.
Listening for an answer.
No answer came.
He felt. . .movement, or perhaps it was his dying intelligence describing its last spiral. He sank, struggling. . .
Perhaps, indeed, he slept, for suddenly he wakened.
Wakened to a slow and steady trickle of energy. He sought the source, found the physical connection.
Humans wept at such moments. He—he swore an oath, whatever such things might mean in his diminished estate.
Whoever had come, whoever had heard, and heeded his call. That one he would serve, as well as he was able, for as long as he could.
* * *
Shan unsnapped three of the slats and Val Con skooched partway into the crate on his belly, jump-wire in hand. There was a bad moment when it seemed like the battery connection to the shrouded unit was frozen, but a bit of patient back-and-forth dislodged it. The jump-wire slid into the port and seated firmly. Val Con waited a long moment, chin resting on his folded arms, and sighed when the status light snapped over to orange.
"Meter shows juice flowing," Shan commented from outside the crate. "Rather more than a trickle."
"He's thirsty," Val Con said, dreamily, then shook himself out of the half-doze he'd fallen into. "I wonder if we ought to unwrap the main unit."
"We ought not to unwrap the main unit," Shan said firmly. "You do recall that we don't have the faintest notion what it actually is?"
"It's an environmental operations module," Val Con said.
"With connectors. Thank you. Do you see any sign of those connectors, by the way?"
Val Con looked around the cramped space. "I don't—no, wait. The slat directly opposite me is deeper than the one next."
"Oh, is it?"