Asach, Zia, Ollie, Michael, Nejme, and later Mena, lullabies complete, huddled around a table in the kitchen, with Lena on the periphery tending refills. And oh, did Michael spill. It had all been the opal meerschaum trade, he said. Lillith wanted in on the action; the TCM had a lock; and good son Michael had been dispatched to ooze his way around the margins and insinuate himself.
He’d insinuated as far at Bonneville. He’d sniffed and sniffed, and found that the TCM seemed to hold a bunch of warehouses there. Officially, they were tithe-houses, secured for the annual collection. Michael wasn’t so sure. Seemed to be a lot of to-and-fro, especially this past year, and well before the collection and debtor’s assizes.
So he’d gone to Bonneville. Bought the house. With Lillith’s money, not his. Found a staff. Settled in. Put it about a bit, quietly, that he’d broker. It was Nejme, really. Nejme and Mena. People came, spoke with them. It trickled in. Never much. Never much from one seller. No really big chunks. Bits and pieces, packed in sand, direct from wherever it came from. But nice quality. Even a few pieces of black—old family pieces, you know? It trickled in.
“What did they want for it?”
“Excuse me?”
“The meerschaum. What did they want? Selenium?”
Michael looked confused. So did everyone.
“Selenium?
“Vitamins? Fertilizer?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. No barter. Strictly cash.”
“Crowns?”
“Whatever. Crowns, local, credits, scrip. TCM tithe credits are favorite here. Sort of cuts out the middleman.”
Everyone nodded.
“And the other end?”
“There was no other end. I only worked here.”
“So you still have it all?”
“No.” He looked over at the grim-faced woman in the conservative black dress. “That’s where Zia comes in.” He re-told the story: the meeting; the Bonneville warehouse; the twenty-two kilos, sold, supposedly, fair-and-square, to a TCM contract buyer from something called Orcutt Land and Mining. The promissory voucher for full, one-to-one tithe credit. The notice of the impending auditor descent, and the subpoena to the debtor’s assizes. His hideously expensive, panic-driven flight to Saint George. Zia’s deal for salvation.
Asach thought for awhile in the exhausted quiet. Looked over at the plump, tough little woman with the pinched, grim face cowled by her severe, black frock and bonnet.
“And, you had in mind—?”
Zia felt nothing. Business was business. Hugo was dead.
“The warehouses,” she said. “I had in mind the warehouses. The warehouses for Orcutt Land and Mining.”
Ollie started. “Zia, No!”
She shrugged. ‘What does it matter now? Hugo is dead.”
“But Deela! And—”
“What does it matter? If they have them, if they want them, they are gone now too, no matter what we do.”
She turned back to Asach. “I know when the warehouses will make delivery to the TCM in Saint George.”
Michael jumped in. “But how can you? That’s what you never explained. How can you know when? I’m telling you, there isn’t enough product out there! There isn’t—”
“There will be. Very soon now, it’s coming.”
“But how do you know”
Zia glowered at him, her face pinched, and hard. She detested him. Detested his patrician manners; detested his phony Bonneville whites, detested his caviling clinging to his Mama’s purse. She barely, just barely, refrained from name-calling.
“I know, because we all know. Anyone from here. Anyone from Bonneville. Don’t we?”
She scanned the table. Nejme, Mena, Lena: they met her gaze briefly, then averted their eyes. But everyone nodded, slightly.
Asach knew too, of course, albeit in a different way, and from the other end. Had been briefed that much. Knew that a neutron star, in an eccentric orbit, opened a tramline—an Alderson point—from New Utah to Maxroy’s Purchase on a roughly 21-year cycle. Knew that the True Church had, every twenty years or so, briefly registered some mining company or other on Maxroy’s Purchase, and used its books to mask illicit shipments of fertilizer, vitamins, medical supplies—and in return pull in prime opal meerschaum. In between those decades, the price would climb and climb. The end game speculation was the stuff of dreams for small players.
And now, the Jackson Delegation was more-or-less hanging around, awaiting Asach’s report; awaiting the opening of the tramline, ready to offer free trade in fertilizer, in exchange for the munificent benefits of Empire membership. Munificent for some. Not so very munificent at all, if you had neither planetary government nor space travel. In which case, you enjoyed all the benefits of being colonized, as on Makassar.
But this seemed a different conversation. This was not a question of TCM stockpiles waiting to ship out. This seemed a question of TCM warehouses expecting goods in. And everybody here seemed in on it.
Asach took a stab in the dark. “So, what you mean is, you know when the opal meerschaum will start coming in?”
Zia nodded.
“As in, in to Orcutt Land and Mining?”
Zia nodded again.
“And that is—how?”
Zia did not answer. Shifted her glower to Nejme, who still did not meet her eyes.
Finally, Mena spoke. “It’s just a bit—embarrassing.”
“Ma, there’s nothing wrong with it, you know! That’s just a superstition. There’s nothing wrong—”
“No, nothing wrong at all,” affirmed Nejme. “Which is why we all agreed, together, to work with Michael.”
All three of them raised their eyes to the Eye above the doorway.
“We call them tangiwai—His tears.” Nejme nodded. Mena continued. “They come from the Gatherings. We pick them up—pilgrims pick them—on the way too and from the Gatherings. They are just—souvenirs—you know? To show that you have been?”
Lena nodded enthusiastically. “And they’re stony cool, you know? Elthazar found a big, flat chunk once, and carved it into a fire screen. Carried it all the way back, and carved it into a fire screen. It’s really beautiful at night. You light the fire, and—”
Nejme glared. “Now that’s going too far! You should treat tangiwai with respect. Just because—”
“Oh, like selling them to offworlders and carving pipes is more respectful?”
“That’s different.”
“Different how? Different because—”
Mena spoke, softly. “Different, because people need the money.” She turned to Asach.
“It is hard to come by cash, you know? For the tithe? And so of course in the end most of them keep the littlest pieces, but sell the best to a broker.”
“Like Michael.”
She smiled, softly. “Yes, like Michael. None of us would do it, you know. Take the stone in exchange for money. Not from another islander. It would just—in the end—it makes trouble, you know? People get jealous? And we don’t deal with the TCM if we can help it.” Her face suddenly clouded, saddened. “It’s too dangerous for us. They hate us. Anyway,” she brightened, “somebody from outside. Somebody—”
“Like Michael.”
“Yes, High Church, like Michael, or Muslim—somebody like that, is better. Even Mormon LDS—Sixers, I mean, not True Church. Just not TCM. We weren’t brokers, before, but Michael—”
“needed someone he could trust to run a House, ” finished Nejme.
Asach nodded, doodling idly with one finger on the table. Didn’t look up.
“Michael?”
He jumped.
“Michael, why were you messing about with middlemen in the dark of the night?”