CHAPTER
EIGHT
John toweled off his face and hands and feet from the rain and moved to flop onto the foam sofa. He stopped when he saw that it was covered with short, spiky, red-brown hairs. “Ani’s shedding, I see.”
“Give her a couple of weeks, and she’ll be a different color.” Ruth handed John coffee and they moved to the kitchen table.
The khat had turned out to be lightly furnished with a few tables and chairs, with a box full of inflatable foam sofas, beds, and chairs. There was no printer-disposal unit, but a set of printed cups and utensils for eight places, and a small cupboard full of actual linens—plain, but serviceable.
Including cloth towels.
It all felt so twenty-first century. Or maybe even twentieth.
“I’m sure we can get a printer in the house,” John said. He’d lost count of how many times he’d already said that.
Ruth sipped her coffee. “No rush. As far as I’m concerned, disposable towels and plates come after getting the business started.”
“And redeeming your jewelry.”
Ruth shrugged.
“What else?” John asked. “What’s our list?”
“Material things?” Ruth shook her head. “I don’t need toys. I’d like to find a community to be part of here. Friends for the children.”
“School. Church.”
“Whatever we can find.” Ruth nodded. “Or build, if we have to.”
“That’s the girl I married.” John held his hand out and Ruth squeezed it.
He heard giggling from the girls’ room, and the voices of a flick.
“You know,” John said, “if I’d joined the Space Force, we might have been living out in orbit around Jupiter, in Zero-G, sleeping strapped into hammocks.”
“I knew you’d never fly for the Space Force,” Ruth told him.
“Not up to the standards of my dad and his brothers, eh?”
“That’s not it,” she said. “I just knew. As long as I’ve known you, I’ve known you’d end up walking your own path. And here we are.” She took a sip. “Much better than the Space Force. For one thing, Zero-G is bad for the physical development of children.”
“If you end up teaching here, our arrival would be Arrowhawk Post’s biggest stroke of luck in its history.” Ruth had taught in New York, until she’d given birth to Sunitha and they had decided they’d rather have their children raised by their own mother than Ruth’s salary.
“What if I took up preaching?” she asked.
“Or preaching,” he agreed. “People would love you.”
“You had a long day at work.” Ruth pulled wet hair away from John’s forehead.
John nodded and looked down at his coffee.
“You’re not done,” she said.
John nodded. “I think eventually this job will have reasonable hours. But for now, I need to invest some time in figuring out how things work. And especially, I need to invest time in learning how to buy and ship Weave, to get our business started.”
“Does that mean going back to the office tonight?” she asked.
“It means going to meet traders.” He felt embarrassed. “Do you want to come with me?”
She shook her head quickly. “There’s no one else to watch the girls.”
“There’s Ani.”
She laughed softly. “Go and do what you think you need to do, John. Just remember that you should invest time in the children, too.”
“And in you,” he said. “I remember. And I will.”
The bar was called the Commissar’s Daughter. Its front door looked like the entrance to a hole-in-the-wall kiosk business, sandwiched between a motor vehicle repair shop and a nameless gambling den. The smell of marijuana wafted from the gambling den; the air from the Commissar’s Daughter smelled like cheap gin and sour sweat.
After a few paces, though, the bar’s entrance widened and its floor sank. Its common room was high-ceilinged and roomy, if dimly lit. John sipped a beer—glass bottle, no label—and slowly cracked his way through a bowl of peanuts at a small, square table. He raised his hand in greeting when Faisal arrived.
The interpreter sat down lightly, staying on the edge of his seat and smiling. “Thank you for calling me, Mr. Abbott.” Seeing the man more calmly now, John noted delicate, playful eyebrows, high cheekbones, and full lips that constantly hinted at a smile.
“I have many questions,” John said. “But the first is, what are you drinking?”
“My father did not approve of alcohol,” Faisal said, “but my mother was a Jew who was fond of the occasional beverage, and Moses taught us that we must honor both our father and our mother, if we wish to live a long life. Lord of Lights, but that beer looks very good.”
John signaled to the waitress to bring a second beer.
“So, a lot of people tried to get me to hire them this afternoon,” John said.
Faisal pursed his lips. “People are not always very sophisticated, Mr. Abbott, especially country-setties in need of work. They saw the khat being cleaned out, and then the lights came on last night, so they knew there was a new Company man in town. They hoped you might be an executive or a successful trader, rather than, say, an auditor.”
“How did you know I was an auditor?”
Faisal’s beer arrived and he cracked off the metal top on the table’s edge. “I observed you. I saw you going into Keckley’s office, and then counting boxes in the warehouse.”
“You were in Company House?”
“Company House has windows, and I have binoculars.”
John grunted. “There can’t be very much need for Hebrew-language interpretation services in Arrowhawk Post.”
“All of my services are niche,” Faisal admitted. “Which is why I have to advertise them all on the card. I cannot afford to lose a single customer.”
“So you found out I was an auditor,” John said. “Why would you think an auditor needed your services?” Did Faisal know why John had been assigned to Arrowhawk? Or did he know of corruption at the post?
Faisal shrugged. “One never knows who will need my services. They are so exotic. But you did call me tonight.”
John laughed. “Okay. So tell me what your fees are.”
“It depends on what you need translated, or done, or acquired. If you need an old engine part, and I have to spend several days traveling to Nyoot Ipetsoot or Nyoot Waaset to find it, that will cost you. I charge for my time and trouble. If you need me to help you through a five-minute conversation, it won’t cost you much.”
“Nyoot Ipsetsoot?” John asked. “Nyoot Waaset?”
“Country-setty villages,” Faisal explained. “Not especially close.”
“You helped me this afternoon,” John said.
“That was not a paid service,” Faisal said. “That was helping my fellow man. You will notice that human stepladder is not listed as a professional service on my card. But, if you are more cynically inclined, you can say that I helped you as an act of marketing.”
“And you’re answering my questions now.”
“You have given me a beer. And peanuts.” Faisal took a nut, as if to demonstrate the point. “And I am going to answer your questions this evening, to show you my value, so you should ask the best questions you can. And after tonight, if you need me to come up with additional answers or objects or people, we will discuss the price, in advance, if at all possible.”
“Fair enough.” John finished his beer and signaled to the waitress for two more. “Who are the country-setties?”
Faisal nodded. “Traveling through the wormhole is expensive, so sometimes people get stranded on this side because they cannot afford the fare to Earth. Take your wife and children, if you will forgive the presumption. If you die, what happens to them?”
“I have life insurance,” John said.
“Is it enough to pay their fare back to Earth?”
“Maybe not. So maybe if I die, they wind up here. Ruth takes a job locally.”
“And if there is no work in the post, maybe she goes to Henry Hudson, or maybe she goes out into the countryside, into one of the country-setty villages, to find work there.”
“They’re farmers? The country-setties?”
“They also hunt. And they have craftsmen, and teachers, and priests, and all the other occupations that spring up in human settlements.”
“Accountants?”
“Perhaps not yet. There are three country-setty villages within a long day’s walk of Arrowhawk Post. Nyoot Wawat, Nyoot Abedjoo, and Nyoot Zenenoot.”
“Does ‘nyoot’ mean village?” John had already forgotten the village names.
“Or town. Or post. A country-setty might refer to this place as Nyoot Arrowhawk. Also, ‘nyoot’ is the Sedjem word for a Weaver nest.”
“And some of those people come in to work at the post.”
“Yes. A menial sweeping khats and making beds earns enough to be respected and prosperous in his nyoot.”
“I don’t make enough to hire a whole staff,” John said. “Yet.” And, for the moment, any surplus cash he earned needed to be saved up for investment, or to pay down debt.
“Hang a sign on your gate,” Faisal said. “Make it very simple, few words. I would suggest ‘no work.’ ‘Nee kat’ would be the Sedjem phrase, or ‘nee kat ees,’ if you want to be really emphatic.”
John nodded.
“When you do hire someone, make certain it is someone whom you trust. Earth lost its last frontiers a long time ago, but out here, there is nothing but frontier. Take care of your children.”
“Sedjem,” John said. “Where do all the . . . non-English . . . words come from? Are they Weaver words?”
“Lord of Lights, I have accidentally given you the impression that I am an academic.”
John laughed. “I withdraw the question.”
“You wished to meet traders?” Faisal prodded.
“Yes. I want to understand how to trade in Weave, and I think I need them to take me out on an expedition.”
Faisal nodded.
“Do the country-setties buy and sell Weave?” John asked.
“Very few. Weave is expensive. And mostly, the Weavers want the kinds of trade goods that the Company brings to Sarovar: canned food, plastics, forged metal tools.” Faisal leaned in close. “I know for a fact that some traders have purchased Weave using knives. I have heard it said that traders have purchased Weave with firearms.”
He leaned back, took the second beer from the waitress, and had a sip.
John frowned. He hadn’t seen any firearms in the crates of trade goods he’d opened. Trading weapons to the Weavers seemed like a bad idea. Perhaps, after all, the rumor was false. Or perhaps he should check more of the crates.
“So country-setties can’t compete in that market,” John said. “But . . . who would the Weavers need firearms to fight?”
Faisal shrugged. “Each other? The traders call the places they live ‘nests,’ but for all we know, the Weavers call them ‘kingdoms.’ The Weavers are sentient and have language, so they probably also have politics. Or do they need guns to fight the country-setties? Or predators in the forest? Or do we run the risk, as we arm them to buy up their single export, that one day they turn those weapons on us?”
“I don’t like the thought of that at all.” John stared glumly at his beer.
“Well, perhaps it isn’t true.” Faisal grinned. “Perhaps the Weavers only have knives, and they use them to eat with. Perhaps, even if an uprising of the Weavers should happen, it would not be your problem or mine.”
“I’m here with my wife and two children.” John frowned. “So it is my problem.”
“So you need to get rich, Mr. Abbott,” Faisal said. “Make your fortune and get out of here, before the tensions inherent in this place crush you.”
“You can call me John.”
“No, I cannot. You are a client. Even if, so far, you are only paying in beer.”
“And peanuts.”
“So, I brought you here because this is the bar where the traders come to get drunk. The home-brewed liquor is acceptable, and for traders who are flush from recent wins, there is even Earth-brew for sale. At ridiculous prices, of course. I know a factor who paid for his journey to Sarovar by packing his cabin full of booze on the journey here and selling it on arrival. Now, at that table in the corner, there are four men. I don’t know whether you recognize any of them, but they are traders.”
John turned to look. “I recognize Jefferson.” The other faces were strangers, but they all wore blue and buff—jackets and kilts.
“Ah, Jefferson,” Faisal said. “The handsome one. He appears ready to ride off to rescue the princess this very minute, does he not?”
At a separate table, though, in a different corner of the bar, John saw the trader called Rock. He was bearded and both beard and long hair were streaked with gray, and he reminded John of trappers and frontiersmen in old flicks. Rock sat with a woman in a cotton dress, eating bread rolls and plates of stew and drinking from wide-mouthed clay cups.
“One last piece of information,” Faisal said. “Call it advice, even. Carry a gun. If you do not feel comfortable doing that in the post, at least do it when you leave. Sarovar Gamma, I have heard, is a world of luxury cruises and rejuvenation treatments, but Sarovar Alpha is a dangerous place.”
John nodded. “We ran into one of Hausman’s Bears.”
“Hmm?” Faisal asked.
“A six-legged bear,” John said. “We saw one back at Henry Hudson.”
“A country-setty would call such a creature a ‘shay.’ It is possible, Mr. Abbott,” Faisal said as he stood to go, “that in order to win the traders’ respect, you might have to get roaring drunk. Just once.”
“I’ll call you,” John said.
Faisal left.
John approached Rock. Jefferson had been more forthcoming in their previous conversation, but John felt daunted at the thought of tackling conversation with four traders all at once.
The woman with Rock had straight, black hair that fell down to her shoulders but was cut short over her caramel-colored forehead. She and Rock were laughing as John approached, holding his half-full beer bottle.
“Rock, isn’t it?” John asked. “I’m John Abbott. This is a very lovely lady you’re with.”
Rock’s face curled instantly into a fierce snarl. “What do you think, I’m with some coochie-setty, and you can just come muscle your way in and talk to her, because you’re a big Company man?”
“Whoa.” John took a step back and raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I was just being polite, making conversation. If I said something offensive, I take it back.”
“You are offensive! I didn’t come forty light-years from Earth so every pencil-necked geek in the system could interrupt my dinner!”
“Listen, I . . . can I buy you a drink?”
“Get the hell out of here, you stupid desk jockey!” Rock barked.
John stumbled away, heart thumping.
Someone unseen caught his elbow and he yanked it away. Spinning, he raised his fist to punch his assailant . . . but it was Jefferson.
“Easy,” the mustached trader said. “Man, if you’re this feisty when you’ve had one beer, what are you like when you’ve had a fifth of gin?”
John took a deep breath. “I’ve had one and a half beers, technically.”
“Hey, come sit with us,” Jefferson said. “Hams, in Sedjem. Rock is champion asshole of the system, I apologize on his behalf.” Jefferson ushered John toward his table and grabbed the passing waitress by the arm. “Let me get my friend’s tab,” he said, “and bring us another bottle.”
Chairs were scooted a few more centimeters from the table and another seat was dragged across the concrete floor for John. He waved at the three men he didn’t know. “John Abbott,” he said, “accountant.”
“Gonzalez,” said a portly trader. “Jefferson here was telling us that you’ve signed up to trade Weave under his account. He probably told you that five percent was a good deal, didn’t he?”
“Takahashi,” the second trader said. He had long black hair tied into a neat queue at the back of his neck. “The problem with Gonzalez is that he’s going to try to offer to do the same work for a mere seven percent.”
“Hager,” the third trader introduced himself. His face was merry and youthful, though his beard was streaked with gray. “And the problem with Takahashi is that he’ll tell you four percent, but he’s such a poor trader that all he ever ends up with is the scraps, and so he gets bad pricing Earthside, and you’ll have half as much money.”
“And the problem with Hager,” Jefferson said, “is that he has so much of his own money to invest, he can never be bothered to actually invest yours.”
“Not my fault you guys spend all your money on drugs and women.” Hager sipped clear alcohol from a glass.
The waitress deposited a tall, square bottle on the table, and a printed tumbler in front of John. John poured himself a drink.
“I guess there’s no help for it,” he said. “I’m going to have to ask you to submit written competitive bids.”
“Boo!” they shouted, and: “Bean counter!”
John took a drink, and they all drank with him. He already had a slight buzz from the beer, but the clear alcohol was much stronger, and burned going down. It had a faint taste of black licorice.
“I want to come out and observe,” he said. “I want to see how it really works.”
“So you can see which of us to invest with,” Takahashi suggested.
“Yes.” John smiled.
“No,” Jefferson said, “you idiot. It’s because he wants to make trader someday, but to do that, he needs to know how the trades actually happen. Abbott here wants in on the action.”
“It’s the best reason to come to Sarovar,” John said.
“You mean, you didn’t come for the liquor?” Gonzalez asked.
John sipped more of the clear liquor. It burned less, this time. Gonzalez drank with him.
“That, too,” he said.
“Or the women?” Takahashi asked.
Raucous laughter.
“I’m married,” John said. “Fortunately. Or the ladies of Arrowhawk Post would really have to watch out.”
They laughed again, and Jefferson poured John another drink.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s distilled from a local weed,” Takahashi said. “Tastes like anus.”
“Anise,” Gonzalez corrected him.
“I stand by what I said.” Takahashi belched.
“You’ll hear this stuff called hanket-vodka,” Jefferson said. “Though that’s a stupid name—”
“Because hanket is beer.” John knew that one. He took another drink. Was he drinking too fast? The goal wasn’t to get hammered, the goal was to find his way in with the traders. But they laughed and clapped him on the back, and drank with him, so it seemed to be working.
“Look at that, the man can already sedjem a bit.” John lost track of which trader was speaking.
“It’s possible,” John said, “that I might just be fasting a little too drink.”