The Engineer-apprentice did not respond for almost a full minute. "Maybe I don't know," he said at the end of that time. "I just don't want to wind up in the clutches of the psychomedics as straight Whisperer bait or worse."
"I'm no psychomedic, and I have been around the star- lanes long enough to be aware of some pretty odd things, odd enough not to dismiss an unlikely-sounding theory outright."
Kamil turned away from her. "A number of people have wondered how I managed to survive the Crater War given the fact that I'd only just started school when our community got hit."
When she made no answer, he steeled himself and went on. "I woke up that night, a bit after midnight, terrified, in a cold-sweat panic. If I'd been older, better able to think, I'd have awakened my parents, but that would've ended me.
I'd have been soothed, put back to bed, and been blown to bits with the rest. As it was, I simply ran. The fire ladder was outside my window. I went down it, took to my heels, and so great was my fear that I kept going until I was outside the town limits before it eased up enough to let exhaustion take over. By that time, the bombs were already falling. I was the sole survivor out of thirty thousand and some odd people.
"No one discovered that for some time to come. I was usually hungry and always cold, but I scrounged enough to get by and spent most of my time in hiding for the next couple of years. Something inside me told me to keep away from people. They'd try to help, maybe, but they'd stop me from running if I had to get out fast again.
"I did, too, twice more from air raids and twice from those butchering... When they advanced through our area and when they were being whipped back at last.
"After that, things got quieter. There were still dangers to be faced, but they weren't on the same scale, and I'd learned to look out for those on my own. I didn't get the same kind of warning against them."
Alt began pacing, as if the act of movement helped him to clarify his thoughts. "When I reached puberty, something else started, and that's continued. Whenever I come onto a site where something really bad or some enormous tragedy occurred, no matter how far back, I feel this great weight, this sorrow, settle, not on my shoulders, my body, but on my spirit, my soul as it were. I didn't feel it in that alley—it's got to have a bigger scope than that, I think—but I felt it where the Heaven's Hope crashed, killing all those people. I felt it in the ruins on Limbo and in the Big Burn on Terra, though I made damn sure I kept quiet about it.
Besides, we were in too much trouble of our own at the time to be worrying about the problems of the past."
He risked a look at the Medic. She was standing spear straight, her attention fixed on him as if by compulsion.
The woman drew a deep breath. "You sense the same about Canuche?"
Kamil gave her a grim, bleak smile. "Doctor, I have to actually be on site to feel anything. Aye, I feel it now. I felt it at the moment we entered the outer atmosphere of this accursed planet. Worse, for the first time since those days in the Crater War, the panic's back. — It's with me all the time. Sometimes it's all I can do not to storm the bridge and set the Queen's controls to lift for anywhere as long as it's not here."
He gripped himself. "Canuche of Halio's one big disaster, one huge tragedy. Her past reeks of it, and her future's shadowed by more of the same. This is a true jinx world, and, Doctor Rael Cofort, there's not a thing either of us can do about it, because no one, on-world or off, is going to believe one word I've said, not to the extent of taking any action to get the Solar Queen away from it. Business will be conducted as usual in the usual amount of time, and I just pray to every god in the Federation that the inevitable does not happen before we do finally lift."
13
It took time to shake the chill Ali's dark prediction had put on her, but Canuche Town's huge outdoor market proved to be an effective antidote. Rael Cofort's eyes were bright as she surveyed the long aisles of booths and less permanent stands and open tables filled with items being offered for sale or exchange. The capital boasted enclosed facilities as , well, of course, but those were not designed to draw small Free Traders seeking to supply themselves for a venture among the primitive planets and struggling colonies of the rim.
There was more than enough out here to meet their needs and give delight. She loved prowling around a big market, and this time she was going to be allowed to do some buying for stock, albeit under discreet but definite supervision.
She would look over the gems, certainly, she decided at once, but so much else was available that she resolved to do a quick inspection to see precisely just what was being shown. The mix of goods here had never been the same on any visit she had made to Canuche of Halio. She smiled again. Besides, it was fun to look.
Canuche was a thoroughly civilized industrial planet, and so the din, the intriguing, not always entirely pleasant odors, the basic strangenesSyof an alien or primitive mart were missing here, but it was an interesting place for all
that.
Findings and setters were settled beside the long rows of loose gems, and next to them stood the stands of those selling finished jewelry. Fabrics and the trimmings, tools, and machines required to turn them into completed products were in another area along with clothing. Food supplies and the equipment to prepare them formed yet another section, and large industrial products, chiefly represented by salespeople supplied with illustrative samples, tapes, and literature, formed a major portion of the complex. Only the prepared food stalls broke the pattern of grouping like with like. They Were scattered throughout the huge field so that patrons would not be forced to leave their areas of interest to find refreshment.
Rael drew in and held a deep breath. The aroma of cooking was everywhere, wonderfully tempting although she had eaten only half an hour before. She wondered how Dane Thorson was responding to those beckoning fingers of scent. He could stow food as if he had cargo holds in both of his legs, and this stuff was real. That alone made even the worst of it infinitely desirable to a space hound.
"Let's cut past the cloth booths," she suggested since the lead had been given to her. She had no interest in the finished clothing; Van Rycke already had a full stock of such goods. The fabrics were another matter. Brocades and faux gold and silver cloth rarely failed to interest the wealthier classes and individuals among primitive buyers, and good quality, attractive material could be counted upon to attract attention and customers on most Federation planets, especially when it was blessed with the added allure of being an import. The Queen already had a good supply, but Canuche's market had been particularly good for textiles on each of her previous visits, and they might well run across something. There were other freighters in port, and some of them might be trying to sell off part of such a cargo.
"Rael! Rael Cofort!"
The woman turned quickly. "Deke!" Her voice dropped.
"Deke Tatarcoff of the Black Hole," she explained to her companions. "He's been a rival and a damn good friend of Teague's for years. Do you mind ..."
"Space, no!" Jellico told her. "A Free Trader does not- ignore his friends or fail to make the acquaintance of a potential ally." He also did not neglect an opportunity to size up potential competition.
The Solar Queen party walked over to the covered stand the other spacer had rented to display his wares.
Miceal studied the other Trader. Tatarcoff was short and stocky with a breadth of chest that bespoke some Martian ancestry. His eyes were brown, sharp and steady in their expression. His features were pleasant but well schooled;
they would betray little he did not want to have read.
He was doing well, the Solar Queen's Captain judged by the quality of his uniform and accoutrements and by the thick, three-inch-wide gold luck band circling his left wrist. Just the fact that he had rented an enclosed stall, and a large one at that, was evidence of prosperity.