'Various. Food items from Botany and oddments. We expect to trade for items available only on Barevi.'

'Yes, Supreme Emassi Kamiton told me' - the commander paused for Zainal to recognize the significance of his having had a personal interview with such a personage as the Supreme Emassi - 'that you were coming and you must be accorded the respect and privileges of a trader. However, I will have no personal disputes settled in my market space.'

'Will you also police the market to be sure we are allowed to trade freely?'

'I'll have you know we allow no brawling or bullying within the confines of the marketplace,' Kapash said, straightening at the implied slur on his management.

Zainal had known the man from his previous tour of duty on Barevi. Kapash was running more to fat than muscle for his extra flesh strained his uniform and destroyed the fit of it.

'My! How Barevi has changed,' Zainal remarked and noticed the smug grin on Kapash's blunt-featured face as he accepted the keys to the enclosure he had just leased and left the office. He didn't fail to see Kapash give a sign to one of the huge Catteni in the outer room and knew that all his movements would now be reported back to the chief. Nothing new in that. May the fellow at least have the intelligence to understand what he saw. Zainal hadn't run Barevi's market for a full Catteni year without learning a few tricks and the counters to them.

His next task was to apply at the hiring hall for a tutor for Bazil and Peran. The two boys were running a little too wild for his liking. He knew they flagrantly disobeyed Kris and that they had got a little out of hand by the end of the long journey here. That must stop.

The hiring hall had the usual number of unemployed, some with the unmistakable look of 'command' about them, but he required more than authority to control and shape his sons. He filled out the form, specifying a younger man, preferably one with pilot training, and definitely with a good educational background in the sciences. Considering the current situation with no new exploratory expeditions, there was surely some young man who would meet his requirements.

On his return to the ship, he passed by storage sheds with doors ajar, and men working among cartons displaying Terran manufacturers' logos. Yes, Chuck had been right. Most of what they urgently needed was here. To acquire tyres and batteries and the spark plugs required to repair Terran ground vehicles might be less of a challenge than getting the comm-sat components. He passed by a large locked unit that smelled aromatically of warm rubber, for the sun was hot enough to heat many of the inadequately vented warehouses.

He took one last look at his new premises, checking first on the electrical system and taking pictures with a small camera. Bayes had also supplied him with a unit that would test the circuits and power available. They did have some step-down transformers for Eric's equipment. The shop was equipped with a stout reinforced door, though only a broken chain and lock dangled from the latch. Well, there were many ways to lock a door. A tap slightly askew on its pipe let out rusty water, which gradually cleared. When it did, Zainal filled a small bottle so they could analyse it in the ship's little medical station. Generally speaking, such resources were potable and the rust was only from long disuse. He was within his rights to insist on properly filtered water, and the last thing they needed was to distribute anything contaminated to their customers.

He also rented the largest lift platform that he spied in the street in front of Kapash's office, available from its owner, an old, one-armed ex-soldier whom he thought he remembered from his Barevian year as market manager. The man certainly recognized him. Veterans were allowed to work on the docks as compensation for their loss of limbs. A name came to mind - Natchi - and seemed to be accepted by the garrulous veteran. The poor devils all looked alike, distinguishable only by the parts they were missing.

'They'll all be watching you, Emassi Zainal,' Natchi remarked out of the side of his mouth. 'We have heard rumours of your return. And how you single-handedly accomplished the end of Eosi domination. This has not made you popular in all places. Do not lower your guard for a moment,' the veteran muttered as he handed over the lift control hand unit. 'You kept Barevi relatively calm the year you were here. May you prosper.'

Zainal nodded in acceptance of the warning. 'If you hear more, come to my shop. We shall always have a hot drink for you, Natchi, and a seat in the shop whenever you need to rest your old bones.'

'Old they are, Emassi. Return the lift when you have no further need of it, and my gratitude that you remembered my name.'

Zainal nodded and, guiding the lift in front of him, went back to the BASS-1's berth. He assumed his most aloof manner as he made his way, glad, after Natchi's warning, that he had already put Chuck on an alert status at their berth.

'They been around like flies,' Chuck said, scurrying to join him when he spotted Zainal approaching. 'I was improving Bazil's and Peran's targeting skills.' He pointed to the dartboard hung from a convenient loading spike, and the number of green-fletched darts lodged in the King ring. 'Peran's got the keener eye but what could be more typical than me teaching two kids an old game?'

'Nothing,' said Zainal, though he suspected that Chuck had removed the boisterous youngsters to give Kris a break from their bickering. 'Much interest?'

'Think most of the other ships in port sent someone to take a gander and had quite a few not so subtle inquiries.

Merchants' reps, all of 'em, trying to figure out what we're going to sell.'

'Make me a copy of these,' Zainal said, tossing Chuck the keys. 'And do we have digital locks with us?'

'I've got locks aplenty. I'll set up several, in fact, because I heard rumours that there are some who have bones to pick with Emassi Zainal.' Zainal nodded for he knew many Catteni considered him a traitor, even if he had managed to end the restrictive Eosi domination. 'Who's market manager? Vitters?'

'Kapash is market manager.'

'Had dealings with him before?' Chuck asked. 'Don't know him but Vitters was useless. Kept forgetting who took the biggest bribes from him. Wonder who killed him?'

'Not our problem, and we'll have more than our share, I suspect.' Zainal gave a shrug. 'I know of Kapash, let us say. He may not be an improvement over Vitters. And once we have goods on the premises, I'll want to be sure nothing is missing the next day. Natchi, a one-armed veteran, has also warned me. Natchi is to be given as much coffee as he wishes. He'll do more than cool his drink with his breath if he hears anything we should know. Is Clune the biggest man we've got? Or Ninety Doyle?'

'It'd be a toss-up, Emassi.' Chuck grinned and, with a flourish, gestured for Zainal to precede him up the ramp and into the KDM. 'Even the biggest Catteni would think twice before tangling with either of them unless they were totally nuts.'

'Have I still got the spy on my tail?'

'Big ugly son, straggly beard, wearing dirty yellow pants and a blue vest?'

'You've seen him. The very one.'

'Wouldn't like to upset that fellow!'

'I don't want anyone leaving this ship alone. Only in groups of two, preferably three. The women are definitely not to leave without a male escort.'

'What would they leave for?' Chuck demanded. 'All the comforts of home.'

As Zainal reached the main corridor, he could smell the fragrance of fresh coffee and made his way quickly to the wardroom, where, as if she had known his exact moment of return, Kris had a cup ready to hand him when he entered.

'The boys saw you coming,' she said, smiling. 'I was roasting more coffee beans. Tell me what you think of this brew. Maybe I can get the right balance yet. Could you smell it on the dock?' He could hear the exhaust fan whirring but he hadn't smelled the aroma on the dock. Other things had been redolent: hot grease, oil and stale ship fuel: the usual compound in this sort of area.

'They'll all know by tomorrow.' Zainal shrugged with an indifference he didn't feel. In fact, he was seething with anticipation to witness the stir they would make in the unexpectedly torpid atmosphere of what had once been a hectic and active marketplace. He had also trodden on parts stuck in the mud of the market aisles. The one he dug out was indeed a spark plug but too dirt-encrusted to be saved; another was a circuit board of some type. What Chuck had reported was correct: merchandise was being wantonly and casually destroyed. So much for Kapash's boast that he kept the facility in order.

Chuck came in then, hanging the dartboard back on the wall in its usual spot.

'Another cup, please, Kris, before I take a casual' - Chuck grinned that 'casual' was not the most apt adjective - 'stroll around the market.'

'Take Clune and Ninety with you and show them Stall

Ninety-two,' Zainal said. 'Northwest corner. There is a wooden floor to which we can attach Eric's equipment.

We'll need new bolts and, of course, the locks.'

'Is that far from what you Catteni euphemistically call a drinking spot?' Kris asked hopefully. She remembered all too clearly the brawl she had nearly been embroiled in the last time she'd been in Barevi.

'Yes, and not near the main intersections,' Zainal added, satisfied. 'On a good wide aisle.'

'Did you catch the names of any merchants?'

Zainal handed Chuck the hand cam he had been using on his tour of the market areas. 'Which one of our crew can develop film?' he asked, taking out the film he had used up on his return to the KDM. 'Then we can see who our neighbours are.'

'Gail,' Kris said, and, going to the wall unit, depressed a toggle. 'Lieutenant Sullivan to the wardroom, please.' 'Coming,' was the cheerful reply.

It didn't take her long to arrive, almost breathless, at the door. She raised her arm to salute, but changed the motion to pushing her hair back from her face. Zainal had long since requested that formality be reserved for those times when other Catteni were present, but service habits were hard to break.

'Can you please process these, Gail?' 'Certainly, sir. Are they urgent?'

'Reasonably. And no one is to leave the ship alone. Especially you women. Never leave without a man with you... preferably Clune or Ninety. Pass the word along.'

'Yes, Zainal. I will.' She widened her eyes briefly and then flicked her fingers at him in a salute and turned left down the passage. Kris took a new camera unit from a closet and handed it over. He pocketed it, patting the slim rectangle for a moment.

'Should we all carry one, just in case?'

'No reason why not. Photo proof might be necessary and some of what I shot might not develop because of shadow but...'

'We might be able to identify enough to help find the right ransomables.'

Kris finished the thought. 'We are adding tyres, batteries and spark plugs to the list, aren't we?' He nodded a vigorous affirmative.

'The name of the market chief is Kapash. He would not want the world and Barevi to know that, at one time, he was storing illegal substances: Flip, Strew and Lily.'

'Oh?' Kris said, her tone asking for elaboration.

'Flip destroys Catteni balance. It's a powder and, blown into the face, can cause vertigo. Often illegally used during fights. Too much can destroy balance completely. Strew clings to skin and has an obnoxious stink to it. It also clouds memory. Lily is the worst. It's toxic, especially to the Turs, and was often used to subdue them. In quantity it can be lethal to any of the known species. I don't think it was used on Earth, but it might have been.'

'Lily is your word for a bad drug? I used to love stargazer lilies. They could scent up a room for weeks.' She smiled nostalgically. 'Why did you warn me about such substances?'

'I'm warning you about Kapash. You may threaten him with exposure if he makes any move on you or any of the crew. Dealing with any of those three drugs carries a mandatory sentence to one of the mining colonies. He'll know that.'

'So he wouldn't want that bruited about.'

'No, he would not. Your threat is - if you need to use it - that if you are not back by a specified time, such information will be delivered to the space commander,

Ladade. He knows I know, but he can't touch me. Or hasn't tried to. As I told the lieutenant, no one is to leave the ship alone. I'd rather you,' and he pointed his finger at her, 'went out only with me or Clune.'

'Isn't Alex McColl big enough, too?' Kris asked, grin ning. She knew she shouldn't feel so cocky but she had benefited from sessions with Mpatane Cummings in unarmed combat training, and was adept enough to have floored Clune and Chuck in exercise sessions. Mpatane might look delicate but she was dangerous with hand and foot. She'd had Kris doing some toughening exercises with the edge of her hand. Mpatane could split a hunk of wood with a blow. She'd also taught Kris how to send a man's nose into his brain with the heel of her hand. Not, Kris thought, that a Catteni nose would be as fragile as the human equivalent but a crack there would certainly be smart enough for her to get out of a Catteni's clutch. Catteni used genital guards even when off-duty, so the classic ploy of a knee to the crotch would not be an option. Kris was glad to have other time-tried manoeuvres, and got quite adept at flooring anyone who dared grab her: once you knew how, it was simple to use the force of a rush to the attacker's detriment. Most of the Catteni fighting she had observed had been flailing fists and butting heads. Not much finesse, more pure brute force. She now had countermeasures but would prefer not to have to use them.

'We could get in a few good licks in ten seconds,' Kris said, noticing that the other women bristled a bit at the notion that they couldn't defend themselves. 'But Catteni don't fight fair,' she added.

'Just a safety precaution. Until you know the Barevi market area, you need to have a fail-safe,' Zainal said, accepting their rebuff. When he gave Kris an admonishing glare, she gave him an impudent grin.

They spent the rest of the afternoon getting the bulky dental elements onto Natchi's big lift and checked to be sure they had everything else they needed. They had found a digitally locked strongbox for the smallest gold items. The metal ingots were a little easier to safe-keep, being heavy and bulky in themselves and not something even a Catteni could slip into a pocket. They had more than enough of a crew to leave someone on board on comm watch at all times, and Bayes had rigged a perimeter alert in the berth against snoopers. The KDM, aka BASS-l, had integral shielding against electronic snoopers so one person on board should be sufficient. Possibly two or three. Herb Bayes knew some rudi mentary Catteni.

One of the first things Zainal wanted to liberate was a carton of handheld comm units so that all members of his group could keep in touch no matter where they were on Barevi. He gave each of the women a tiny Mayday patch that would emit a ten-second yowl if they got cornered. The sound was one that was particularly irritating to Catteni ears and was guaranteed to let them escape while their would-be assailant was battered by the noise.

The water tested 99 per cent pure without any unusual bacteria or noxious minerals. It was a bit high in iron but that would be temporary, as Zainal knew from his term as market manager that the piping was all properly done. The tap only needed to run a bit. Sometimes just to be awkward, the market manager would do silly things, like health checks on a merchant. A water filter from the survivor kit would let them filter enough water for the first urnful of coffee - just to be on the safe side. Zainal hoped that the coffee could be made quickly enough so that he'd've collected some local credits before Kapash figured out a new way to derive income from their stall. Zainal surely hoped that Kapash would prove to be a caffeine addict. That would be useful. After reading the manual for the roaster, they had been able to dry several more sacks of beans on their flight to Barevi, and the results had brewed into a decent coffee. They'd do more once they found out how the beans were selling. Kris was keen to try some blending of the two bean types.

The next morning, when Zainal woke up early, he could already smell the onboard coffee. Dressing quickly, he went to the galley and found Kris pouring cups for those already gathered in by the delightful aroma. She had made pancakes, too, from the last of the flour, milk and eggs on board. There were ripe bananas to start with and he was becoming quite fond of the fruit. They had several big stalks of bananas slowly ripening in the hold along with the oranges they had taken on board at Santa Lucia. They would see how things went before they offered the fruits in the market. But there was a threeweek limit to the bananas and they might well have to trade them for what they could get, even if Kris had hopes of returning with some to Botany as a special treat. The oranges would keep and some of the other fruit had been bought green enough to make the trip back to Botany.

'I made another big pot of coffee,' Kris was saying now, as Floss and the boys joined them in the galley, 'so we could bring some to the stall just in case we have early customers,' she told him, jerking her chin at the big padded thermal bottle.

'Good thinking.'

'Do my best with the first cup of coffee,' she replied. One of the things Zainal particularly liked about Kris was her ability to wake up in a good mood. It certainly started the day off well for those working with her. She had toasted the last of the baked bread she'd been able to make from the flour they had brought from Botany.

If Zainal remembered correctly, there had been a bakery in Barevi market, unless a fight had trashed it. The one he remembered had done good business, especially after some of the Terran breads had been offered for sale, when different types of flour became available following the mass looting of Earth. Coffee and bread from Terra were good things.

'We're ready when you are, Zainal,' Bayes said. 'All loaded on the lift.'

Despite the heat of the coffee, Zainal managed to drink it down, felt it slosh in his belly and hoped it would have its usual stimulating effect on his system. Kris carefully handed him a nicely browned slice of bread, spread with some of the sweet stuff he liked. He smiled at her.

'Take the hottle,' she said, nodding to the padded affair.

By its convenient handle, he swung it off the worktop and followed Herb Bayes, Chuck, Captain Harvey, Sally Stoffers and the two Doyle brothers, who were on the first shift of the ransom team. His sons followed him, eager for their first glimpse of famed Barevi. Zainal hoped that someone would apply for the job of tutor. While experience in the market - as well as their command of both languages - would be useful, they badly needed training in other areas. They wouldn't like it, but then, he hadn't enjoyed his schooling either. Piloting was always good training to have.

Other merchants were beginning to open their stalls one by one, pausing in the process to talk to their neighbours and assure waiting customers that they would be ready presently. His team made short shrift of setting up, since they would be buying, not selling merchandise. Even the coffee wasn't for sale, offered only as a courtesy to those who came to show their goods.

'Filter the first water that comes out, Ninety,' Zainal murmured to the heavyset Doyle brother.

'Smart, too,' Ninety muttered back as the tap spat rusty water into the filter material, but there was soon enough to fill the big urn. Bayes nodded assurance that the power conduit was good and they wouldn't need a transformer to handle the electrical current, while Kathy Harvey set out cups, brown sugar and the Botany sweetener and every spoon from the galley. Kathy had taken it upon herself to be sure the spoons did not go missing.

Zainal hadn't liked milk in his coffee when they'd had enough to use it, said it ruined the full coffee taste, which he preferred dark and sweet. Thinking about it made him pour a cup from the hottle. Second one was nearly as good as the first, and he could savour the taste. Then Natchi appeared at his elbow.

'Does that smell like I think it does?' the old man murmured, inhaling deeply. 'Oh, it does. It's coffee, isn't it?' He was salivating in anticipation.

'Coffee', being an alien word, sounded the same from Catteni lips as it did from Terran. Zainal had noticed that the Kenyans called it kahawa.

'I brought my own seat,' Natchi said, holding up a battered crate as he reminded Zainal of the previous day's promise. Zainal poured him a cup.

'Put your seat where you will be comfortable, Natchi, behind the stall where you won't be trampled in the rush,' Zainal suggested when he saw that sharp noses down the line were picking up the unmistakable aroma from his pouring.

'We have a list of items we are looking for,' he said in a carrying tone, glancing down the row of stalls and catching the gaze of several other merchants, 'and those who wish to peruse the lists might enjoy a warming cup.'

By then, the others with the dental equipment lift had arrived, with Eric Sachs hovering at the tailgate, anxious that his precious equipment not be harmed. Only if it fell on someone else's toe, Zainal was sure, gesturing for Eric to use the cubicle they had rented for that purpose. Ferris and Ditsy had offered to see if they could find men in the drink shops who might need Eric's skills and persuade them to come and see the wonders of tooth repair and restoration. As aids, Gail, who had a gift for printing and sketching, had done a flip chart depicting examples of the dental care Eric could provide, even putting a small diamond in one crown when she had heard that Mike had included some flat-cut stones in their barterables.

'You say you have a list?' asked a low voice at Zainal's side, and he saw a man, ostentatiously wearing a communications badge, standing beside him.

'Yes, we do, please step up,' Zainal replied, remembering what Peter had told him of the ways of treating prospective sellers.

'Who speaks Catteni besides yourself, Emassi?' Clune had mentioned on the journey here that no one would ever mistake Zainal for anything but Emassi class, no matter what he did or how he introduced himself.

'All who are here, merchant. Captain Harvey, I think list two,' and he held out his hand to Clune for a copy of that list. They had printed up lists of units and numbers, as well as logos of the various manufacturers whose items they were eager to find. 'And would you like a cup to sip?'

'The aroma attracted me first, Emassi,' was the unusually candid reply, and Bazil was quick to pour another cup from the hottle and present it with suitable dignity to the merchant. 'I grew accustomed to this Terra drink, but it is hard to obtain in any quantity.' Zainal chose to ignore the subtle request for more information about his sources.

'It may be stronger than the brew you drank on Terra, merchant, and you may wish to add sweetener.'

The man took a sip and let it drain down his throat with an expression of delight and relief. 'No, it is fine as it has been poured, Emassi.'

Kathy was holding out a copy of the list to the prospective trader. She had also put out a little bowl, and totally without shame, she caught the merchant's eye and rubbed her thumb against her forefinger suggestively. 'Have as many cups as you desire,' she said very graciously. Zainal watched the man's face, but he showed no offence and, indeed, dug into his pocket and flipped a coin into the bowl, which already held some small change.

'We try to serve only the very best brew. This is called robusta, grown in the mountains of Kenya and considered the best of the best. It is, however, strong and you might prefer a milder brew.'

The man cleared his throat and swallowed. 'True, but exactly what is needed to start a chilly morning and a day's trading.' He held out his hand to take the list from Kathy. 'Ah, these all seem to be electronic parts from Terra.'

'We are looking for spare parts to repair damaged machinery,' Zainal said cautiously. 'Do you know if you have any of these items in your stores?' According to the reconnaissance Chuck had done, this man did.

The man raised one hand over his shoulder, twiddling fingers, and suddenly two younger men were by his side.

'Check our stores and see if any of these items are in stock.' He passed the list over. The clerks ran off but not without a longing sniff in the direction of the coffee.

'Return swiftly,' Zainal added to their retreating backs, 'and have a drink.'

'Do not be so quick to offer enticements, Emassi,' the merchant said, 'or you will have all the raff and scaff of the market begging.'

'The raff and scaff,' Zainal said, gesturing towards Natchi, who was savouring each sip of his cup, 'often know local gossip and fact. Natchi and I have known each other a long time and I find his talk is informed and genuine.'

'I am Zerkay, Emassi,' the merchant said, 'and it is right that you should treat him with respect.'

'As a veteran, he is due some preference.' Zainal was not going to get into an argument about the treatment of ex-soldiers when he knew very little about the man to whom he was speaking.

Zerkay had finished his second cup, and when he would have added another coin, Zainal stayed the gesture and beckoned for Kathy to replenish his supply.

'Have a cup of the freshest brew, Merchant Zerkay, and from different beans and grind. Let me know which you prefer,' she said in Catteni. She even had the right inflection of inferior to superior in words and cadence, and Zerkay raised his eyebrows in appreciation.

'Your Terrans speak good Catteni.'

'They practise,' Zainal replied, not without a touch of pride.

'Amazing,' Zerkay said, lifting the freshly made coffee close enough to his nose to sniff appreciatively. 'Hmmm. Yes, I can smell the difference. Lighter, milder.'

'Arabica beans, grown on the highlands of Santa Lucia,' Kathy replied.

'Highlands?' Zerkay asked.

'There are many sorts of coffee beans grown in Terra, Zerkay, and nearly as many ways of preparing the cup you drink.'

'Are there? How interesting. I did not know. But then, I have had little chance to enjoy Earth.' He inclined him self first towards Kathy and then towards Zainal, obviously quite eager to be indoctrinated.

'We can supply you with the beans you like best,

Zerkay, that is, if we can agree on the items I require.'

'Have you enough coffee to satisfy both your needs and my tastes?'

'That is what we must discover, Zerkay.' Zainal held his cup up to Kathy for a refill.

'Ahhhh!' Zerkay raised his hand, signalled with his fingers for another of his young minions to attend him, and this one placed a stool by the table for his senior to use.

There was a bustle and reshuffle of people at the far end of the broad market corridor, and for a moment Zainal was afraid that the advancing pile of cartons would tumble off the lift that transported them. The cargo had not been tied to the lift bed and Zainal feared for the safety of all the so-irreplaceable items. Then the two young men appeared, one towing the lift, while the second made frequent adjustments to the piled cartons to prevent any from falling off.

Zainal caught Kathy Harvey's glance and the flick of white paper in her hand, doubtless a copy of the list. He made a flourish with one hand for her to check the items proffered. Most of the cartons were prominently embellished with the Terran Motorola logo, and some were indeed cell phones. Another carton seemed to hold switching mechanisms, vitally needed for the satellites. Zainal had memorized some of the relevant alphanumeric combinations of parts used by the various manufacturers of what he most needed, and these looked right: three letters and six or more numbers with a final letter.

Kathy Harvey was calling out the codes on the boxes to Bayes, who was checking them off.

'Pay dirt, boss,' she said in English. 'How about we give the nice man his own bean grinder as a special offer? Bayes hooked one up on an extension and we can give a demonstration. And let him smell the difference in the roasted beans. He has a big enough nose.'

'Not that it'd work with all the stinks around here,' Bayes remarked sotto voce.

'Coffee has its own indescribable smell. He may not catch the nuances but would he admit that he doesn't when we give him the pitch?' Kathy replied.

'Which cup did you prefer, Zerkay?' she asked at her most deferential.

'The one I just had,' the merchant replied, noting that

Bayes had finished checking off the list and handed it with a bow to Zainal. Zainal nodded approval and settled himself on the edge of the stall top to see what was the most vital on this list to bid for.

'We must decide a fair exchange for this merchandise,' he said. 'Since you like coffee, are happy to find a supply, would you consider trading in coffee beans?'

'You have the beans themselves?' Zerkay was impressed.

'With great difficulty, but we have managed to obtain a small quantity,' and Zainal thought of the hold full of fragrant beans in their sacks, 'which I will offer for the specific goods I have been sent to find.'

'Sent by whom, might I be so bold to inquire?'

'Why, by Botany, of course,' Zainal replied. Which, at one level, was true enough.

'Ah yes, the planet that you have discovered.'

'No, Zerkay, the planet on which I was dropped.'

This information appeared to stagger Zerkay to the point where Zainal was afraid the man might tumble off his stool.

'You? An Emassi? Were dropped?' 'Like a common criminal' was the unuttered qualifier.

'I was dropped, and I stay,' Zainal replied firmly.

'Yes, I see,' Zerkay said, and perhaps, Zainal thought, he really did. One day Zainal would discover who had made sure that a Catteni had been included in a disparate lot to be left to live or die on an unknown planet. However, Zerkay recalled himself to the business at hand, leaning an elbow casually on the stall, glancing at his half-empty cup and then at the list dangling in Zainal's fingers. 'And how shall we judge the worth of each carton? For I think your friendly veteran will have already told you that trade has been very slow.'

'Surely not slow for a man of your acumen.' Zainal gestured towards Zerkay's obviously large and expensive stall, with its well-built amenities and outbuildings. 'And trading finesse.' Zainal indicated the fine fabric in which Zerkay clothed himself. So, Zainal thought, the initial courtesies were over. He had to play a very delicate balance now between desire and acquisition. His first encounter with a Barevi merchant was all-important... at least on what Kathy called their 'coffee' standard.

'Is coffee another of those items no longer available on Earth?' Zerkay asked casually.

'What use could you possibly have for these parts?' Zainal countered, flicking his fingers towards the pile of cartons. 'We Catteni are an inventive race, to be sure, but...' He let his tone drop off.

'But you would surely be searching them out to deliver the units into the hands of those who can assemble them effectively?' shrewd Zerkay replied.

'It is, of course, a tentative venture,' Zainal said, lifting his hand in a diffident manner.

'There is uncertainty all through the system,' Zerkay admitted. 'But you have more command of particulars than a minor merchant on Barevi.'

'Minor?' Zainal infused his tone with disbelief. 'No merchant on Barevi has ever lacked up-to-date information.'

Meanwhile, some of the younger people in the marketplace were sidling up to Eric's stall. One of them was bold enough to flip over the cards Gail had made. They giggled at the golden teeth. Instantly, Ferris stepped forward to give an explanation of dentistry and to forestall any attempt to make away with the cards in the spirit of mischief. For a little fellow, Ferris had learned from the Masai how to act with imposing authority.

Two pounds a carton was what Zerkay accepted to make the trade a deal. As well as samples of the other grinds, which Kathy packaged up before his eyes, making the measures generous. She marked the bags and advised him to keep track of those he preferred so they could supply him with his preference.

'And then I must produce more cartons for your inspection?' Zerkay was slightly amused. 'This is not the way business is ordinarily conducted at Barevi.'

'No?' Zainal asked politely, his eyebrows arched above an incredulous expression.

'Buyers do not set up stalls and woo the sellers to return items collected on another planet. You the man who brought about the end of the Eosi?'

'I am.' Zainal dropped his voice to a sombre tone of regret.

'You have already achieved much. I, as one of many, am in debt to you.'

'Then do me the courtesy of telling other merchants that I deal honestly for the goods I require,' Zainal said with great dignity.

'That will be my pleasure,' Zerkay said, rising from his stool. It was retrieved by one of his escorts and neatly folded up. 'Good trading, Emassi.' He inclined his upper body respectfully and then, turning on one heel, walked back to his own stall.

As he was just out of sight, two of the young Catteni began to struggle over who had the right to look at the dentistry display. Eric came out and, by the simple expedient of removing it from contention and glowering at the miscreants, settled the problem. The younger Catteni withdrew before this unusual man took punitive measures. 'If you should happen to know of someone with loose teeth, or who has lost teeth and wishes replacements, I am ready to supply the need,' Eric said after them with a great deal of dignity.

'I could go to the drinking places. That's where most of the damage takes place, according to what Natchi says,' Ferris suggested slyly to Eric. The dentist was somewhat taken aback by such a direct, if practical, method of finding customers. 'I could speak to the owner and tell him where men who lose their teeth can come to have them repaired.'

Discreet advertising was, of course, legitimate, so Ferris went off to see what he could discover.

While Ferris seemed fascinated by Eric, Ditsy seemed more interested in running errands and generally keeping his eyes open. It was he who remembered about the lift power packs and, somewhat diffidently, came to Zainal the next evening with an idea.

'We did pretty well swapping those lifts, didn't we, Zainal?' he began tentatively.

'We wouldn't have had as many coffee beans and the other good things we traded them for, that's certain,' Zainal replied encouragingly.

'I know which merchant handles sales of new packs,' Ditsy said.

'We shall need more, certainly, to take back with us,' Zainal agreed.

'Couldn't we use more lifts?' Ditsy asked. 'We could.'

'They don't recycle anything in Barevi. Did you know that?'

'Yes, I did,' Zainal replied, thinking of the piles of waste gathered up by Rassi workers on a daily basis.

'Natchi said that's how he got his lift. He makes a living from it, even if he did get it from a stinking old garbage dump.'

Said in Ditsy's crackly voice, 'dump' sounded more final than ever.

'And you'd like to get one from the dump and see if you can fix it?'

'Well, they are useful items, and we don't have any now, do we, 'cause you traded the ones we had.'

'That's right, I did. And I know that Jelco wanted one of ours very badly.'

'Yeah, he was almost drooling over it,' Ditsy said with a bit of malice in his smile. 'Asking us stuff like its service longevity and capacity 'n' stuff that I didn't know. Natchi's been telling me about a lift's versatility and showing me how to make full use of one.'

'Has he?' Come to think of it, Zainal had seen the two in deep conversation together. He wished that his own sons would find something honourable in the old soldier, rather than the usual contempt of the healthy for the infirm. But then, as Kris reminded him, his sons had had a very tough time for a few years and were probably still recovering from the 'trauma'. Certainly they were a little confused about where they belonged. A tutor would help them find their way.

'Yes. He says with the tools we got, he could fix any we could find and have them in first-class working condition. You see,' and now Ditsy's demeanour changed, 'no offence, but Catteni don't take care of their machinery at all well.'

'I know that.'

'Natchi said that there is normal wear and tear on any machinery, but a lot of that could be avoided with a simple servicing or minimal care. Mostly, in the case of the lifts, just not dumping the lift on its side in the dirt and muck around here.' The boy had contempt for such irresponsibility. But then, he had lived through the terrible times of the occupation and his personal values came from that experience.

'So me and Natchi was-'

'Were,' Zainal corrected without thinking.

'Were - thank you - wondering if we had your permission to bring a few things, like basically sound lifts, back to the BASS-1 and fix 'em?'

'I think that's a very good idea.'

Then Ditsy added forthrightly, 'Between what I get in my hand for running errands now and then, which Kris said I don't have to throw into the coffee bowl, me and Natchi can get some bargains. We could use a coupla more lifts back home, couldn't we?'

'In Botany?'

'Either Botany or Terra,' was Ditsy's response.

'That's a very good idea, Ditsy, and you have my permission, indeed my assistance, as well as my encouragement.'

After that little chat, Ditsy was most often gone from the stall on pursuits of his own, and Ferris looking for the toothless, to the point where running errands fell to Bazil, Peran and Clune. Zainal was not so fond a father that he did not realize that it was his sons who complained about Ditsy and Ferris not doing their fair share.

It was not unusual to have to roust the boys from whatever discarded mechanical wonders they and Natchi were involved in to help bag beans for the next day's sales. And, to Zainal's momentary chagrin, Ditsy had to remind him about trading for new power packs. Ditsy said that, in point of fact, he needed several types.

'Natchi knows a great deal about machinery,' Ditsy informed him, 'and we got several things working real well but they need power packs. Are they like our old batteries?'

'The components are entirely different and the power more intensified.'

Zainal was almost amused by Ditsy's careful separation of our as in Terran, and yours, as in Catteni. No harm in that since Ditsy was very careful about his manners in addressing any Barevian.

Two days after Ditsy and Natchi had successfully restored four lift panels, a young man appeared at BASS-l, asking to speak with Emassi Zainal. Natchi surveyed the man with shrewd eyes.

'Come from the hiring hall?' he said.

'Yes, sir. A position for tutor is said to be still open.'

Liking what he saw, for Natchi was a good judge of men, the old veteran gave him directions to Stall Ninetytwo in the marketplace.

Not long afterwards, Zainal saw a tall young man coming directly towards him, a tentative smile on his face. Could this fellow be a potential tutor? Observing him carefully as he approached, Zainal saw that he walked like a pilot, with a buoyancy, like someone not quite accustomed to a lighter gravity and yet with the balanced stride of an athletic person.

'Are you Emassi Zainal?' he asked, coming directly to Zainal. 'I understand that you are looking for a tutor?'

'I am,' Zainal replied, looking the young man over.

'My name is Brone.' He offered Zainal a firm hand and shake. He stood squarely on his feet but out of the main flow of those using the aisle. Nor did he draw aside when several shabbily dressed Catteni passed by, as some of the other passers-by did, as if not wishing to be infected by the lesser ranks. Zainal did not wish for his sons to be taught by a judgemental personality. They had endured enough of that sort of mental bias at the hands of their relatives.

'Tell me something about yourself, Brone,' Zainal said and motioned for Kris to pour two cups of coffee. 'And enjoy a cup of our coffee.'

Brone reached into his belt pouch and withdrew several items: a sheet of paper, which turned out to be his educational background, neatly written, and an up-to date licence allowing the person (the ID picture was a slightly younger Brone) to pilot any inter-system craft.

'I see you passed in your first attempt,' Zainal said, studying the card.

'I reviewed old test runs and studied hard,' Brone replied, attempting to belittle what had been a sensible notion.

'Would you consider the position of tutoring my sons until such time as you might move on to captain your own ship?'

Brone smiled, an unusual response between two Catteni who had just met.

'I doubt, in today's economic situation, that I will have much chance to pilot a ship. Also, you must realize that I can only teach what I already know,' Brone said.

'Your duties might include flying, for which you would get credit.'

A look of hungry hope flashed on the young man's face and was quickly controlled.

'I want my sons to learn the basics and the protocols that every young Catteni must learn.'

'That much I can teach, as well as navigational mathematics and port law,' Brone said.

'You would not object to spending time on Botany?' 'I hear that it is a very beautiful planet, with a light gravity.'

Zainal chuckled. Born on a heavy world and physically adapted to the problem, it was amazing how every native Catteni dreamed of living on a light-gravity planet. Of course, their gravity-bred muscles then gave them more advantages over the indigenous species. It was one of the main reasons they had been able to overcome soldiers pitted against them in the invasion.

'My sons should not lose any more of their heritage,' Zainal said. 'We are leaving shortly, Brone, to return to Botany. My sons are standing over there by the two

Terran women. Would you be able to join us at short notice?'

'They are well-grown lads,' Brone said noncommittally.

'Bazil is the elder and Peran the younger.'

Brone nodded. 'I did not like my tutor.'

'Nor did I,' Zainal admitted.

'They wish to be pilots like their father? I heard that you were a scout.'

'They have shown interest but they are too young to know their own minds.'

'I didn't at their ages,' Brone admitted candidly.

'I had no option,' Zainal remarked.

'I heard that you were unable to answer your Eosi call.'

That was a polite way of putting the matter, Zainal thought. And it also indicated that Brone had done some discreet questioning about him as a possible employer.

'I had been dropped on Botany at that point,' Zainal replied with equal candour, holding the young man's steady gaze, though not the whole truth of the affair, which was no one's business. Zainal still had no clue as to who had included a Catteni in that hapless load of unwilling colonists.

'Which appears to have been felicitous,' Brone replied diplomatically.

Zainal found that he liked the candidate's appearance, attitude and answers. He saw Natchi coming in the back of the stall and nodding encouragingly. He saw Kris looking over at the close conversation they were having and decided on one last test of the candidate and beckoned her to join them.

'This is my mate, Kris Bjornsen, Emassi Brone,' he said, and the young man acknowledged the introduction with a respectful bow.

'Lady Emassi Kris, it is my pleasure to meet you.'

'Oh?' Kris drawled, slightly amused that he knew her by rank.

Brone bowed again. 'I knew one of the families you sheltered on Botany. They spoke highly of you and were delighted with your rank award.'

'Did they?' Kris replied, astonished, for the Catteni ladies had not been at all appreciative of her efforts during their stay on Botany.

'Come, Brone, I shall introduce you to my sons. Then, if you have no objection, we can quarter you on the BASS-l. They can help you bring your belongings.'

'What text and study books do you have on the ship, Emassi?'

'Few, and no more than is usually carried on a KDM.' Zainal scooped up what Catteni coins were in the coffee bowl and pressed them on Brone. 'Find what you want to use from the second-hand bookstall. Spend as you see fit. You will be the one teaching. I shall reimburse you for any extra you spend. This evening we can discuss study subjects and hours at our leisure.'

Brone agreed and went off with the boys.

'You know, Chuck, it's odd. There wasn't the usual brawl last night,' Kris said as she watched the two boys walk away with their new tutor.

Chuck gave a snort. 'No, because Natchi tells me Kapash really does keep order in the market. Of course, I wouldn't like to be caught.'

'Oh?' Kris prompted.

'I don't approve of his methods.'

'Which are? I wouldn't think Catteni would be impressed by his punishment triangle.'

"Tisn't that. He locks brawlers up and sells them to the next slaver in. Gotta keep those mines supplied, you know.'

'Oh!' She almost tripped she was so surprised. 'That would be quite a deterrent, wouldn't it?'

That was not as much reassurance as she thought a fight-free Barevi would be. However, there were customers awaiting their cups of coffee and queries about what could be traded for the beans. As Kris finished serving a new customer with the last cup of the current urn, Zainal decided it was time to close. As they packed up the things to be taken back to the BASS-l, Chuck told Zainal what he'd learned about Kapash's disposition of brawlers.

At dinner, Brone talked just enough to impress his new shipmates as well as his tutees with his basic understanding of current affairs on both Barevi and Catten. Natchi had the street gossip, but Brone had an overview. As Zainal had suspected, Kamiton had had trouble with his new government. No one had expected it to be easy. The Eosi were, as Kris might say, a hard act to follow since they had exerted such a strict, fear-based control over their underlings and total authority over their doings.

The loss of any new planets, rich with mineral assets, bit hard into the Catteni economy. Nothing ran as smoothly without the threat of Eosi disfavour. There were shortages at the existing mining planets and colonies. Catteni mines had not been producing their expected quotas since the Eosi, who had employed subtle ways of ensuring that quotas were met, were dispatched. No new products in the markets meant fewer buyers. Kapash's management of the market had indeed reduced the destruction caused by drunken spacemen, but they, in turn, found little to buy in the markets with their accumulated wages. Coffee, therefore, had an unusual popularity with those for whom it was a novelty and with those who had tasted it while occupying Earth.

While there was no place on this planet where coffee beans could be cultivated, there were jungle highlands on Botany. Kris had mentioned that this was a labourintensive crop, since the beans had to be handpicked when ripe, but Zainal thought there would be plenty of hands to pick for assured supplies of the beverage. And if the Catteni addiction remained strong, they would have a solid market for export of Botany-grown beans. The very idea of exporting to the Catteni amused him. They could hold out for any price they cared to put on the commodity. 'Black gold', Kris said they had once called coffee beans. Earth, of course, could export to Barevi but first they needed cargo ships, which Botany happened to have several of for cargo runs. But first things first: like the spare parts that were needed. It might be decades before Earth could gear up its production lines.

The next morning started very well indeed, with an impatient clutch of people waiting for them to start serving the coffee. There were even some wanting to trade, and Zainal managed to obtain a carton of Nokia cell phones, a real prize.

'And most of them will do anything to secure a supply of the drink,' Zainal replied, pointing to the everincreasing diversity of cartons that were piling up as fruits of his labours to trade coffee for spare parts. 'Gold and dentistry are doing well enough but take time.' He waved to Eric's stall and the rat-tat-tat of his hammer on the gold he was pounding into the proper thickness for the crowns that had already been ordered: half payment on signing the contract and half on completion.

'Ah, another customer,' Zainal said as a tall uniformed Catteni walked up to Eric's office, looking about for whoever manned it. He gestured to Clune to tell Eric that he had an interested party. There was a brief silence from the hammer, then Eric emerged and evidently Clune took over the flattening, though his blows weren't spaced as evenly as Eric's were and the rhythm of the rat-tat-tat was uneven.

'May I be of service?' Eric asked with the deference of a professional to any uniform.

'I have heard of your services and wish to avail myself of them.'

As the man spoke, Zainal could see the empty spaces in his teeth - the four central ones. That seemed to be the usual applicant for Eric's skills. Three out of four, or so Eric had once remarked, adding, 'Don't your people ever duck?'

'Now, sir, what may I do for you?'

'I am Emassi Ladade.'

'I am Emassi Doctor Sachs,' Eric responded, courteously proud. 'If you would step this way where I may conduct a quick private examination.' Eric ushered him into his 'office'. Much better for potential patients.

Ferris was proving extremely useful in sussing out genuine leads and had already saved Zainal from spending time with sellers who had nothing he wanted and were only there for the free coffee. But Zainal recalled an earlier conversation he'd had with Kris.

'We must watch him, Zainal,' she said, her anxiety getting the better of common sense.

'Why?'

'He's a magpie. A klepto,' she said, trying to burrow into his shoulder.

'A what?'

'A magpie is a Terran bird who will grab anything that sparkles and take it off to its nest to play with.'

'And the other word? Klepto?'

Zainal had excellent aural memory so she wasn't sur prised that he queried an unfamiliar word. 'That is a human who keeps taking things that do not belong to him or her, for a variety of reasons: sometimes it's merely envy of someone else possessing a pretty or valuable thing; other times it's just a psychological compulsion, the acquisition of the object as a one-sided game, played against the legitimate owners of the item. Or a denial of other people's rights to possession. It is considered a minor crime but a genuine obsession. The kleptomaniac often steals for the fun, not the need of the object stolen. Ferris is the second type, stealing for the fun of it and to win pleasure by giving it to someone.'

'And he does not understand that stealing is wrong?'

'He understands that, but doesn't stop doing it. He became very deft, and I fear he was encouraged by his circumstances during the invasion to acquire things without paying the legitimate owners.'

'The Catteni?' Zainal asked with remarkable charity.

'Not just the Catteni. He really is a Human sort of magpie, thieving because he likes the look of something or to outwit the owner.'

'And you worry that he might start using his craft here?'

'I don't think Commander Kapash would turn a blind eye if Ferris were caught in the act.'

'Is he often caught?'

'Now, only by those who know he has acquired without payment. Ferris has a grave character flaw. He really cannot understand buying and selling when he likes something or knows it's needed.'

'Knowing it's needed might cause us more harm than good. I am glad you advised me about Ferris.'

Even with that earlier conversation in mind, Zainal couldn't help thinking that the boy had been extremely useful on this mission. Ferris had supplied the numbers and names of store shed holders with whom Zainal could most profitably invest time and effort. However, Zainal dealt from a stronger position if the sellers came to him first. If he made known too publicly what he wanted, prices would be driven up. To date, Barevi merchants had found buyers thin on the ground so many had scrutinized him.

He had dealt as shrewdly as he could with those who had approached him, with beans and more carefully with what materials they had brought with them.

The morning when Eric started up his dental unit for the first time a new whirring sound broke through the usual noise of the marketplace. Zainal swivelled around, towards the sound made by Eric Sachs's equipment, and saw a huge Catteni sitting in the dental chair, his mouth wide open and the broken stubs of his upper teeth visible. There were also more merchants waiting to receive a cup of coffee and more coins in the little dish Kathy had put out.

There were three other very burly Catteni, guards from the look of their gear and clothing, watching as Eric attended to the man in his chair. The man did not dare flinch or squirm, and shortly Eric told him he could sit up. Then he began to tell him his options, with pictures he had provided himself for just such demonstrations, while Ninety Doyle did what translations he could with the technical terms involved.

'I can provide you with new gold teeth,' Eric said. 'It will take several days as well as quite a few visits to me to prepare and fit the crowns. And the work is not cheap.'

'I have plenty of money,' the Catteni said with a shrug, fascinated by the photographs of the step-by-step process he was about to undertake. From the textbooks he had removed from his office, Eric had, with Gail's help, organized some illustrative examples of treatment on yet another set of flip cards. 'I am told you take cartons of things. I have cartons. I was a Catteni cargo captain. I took much from storehouses.'

Eric snapped his fingers and Ferris, who had been hovering at his elbow, immediately produced copies of the lists. The man glanced down the columns of alphanumerically listed items and shook his head. Ditsy then produced the various logos for the companies that manufactured the spare parts wanted. The man tapped a finger on several, including, Zainal noticed, the NASA and Boeing logos.

'Have some cartons with these on them. You want?'

'First,' Zainal said, stepping closer, 'we will have to check the cartons to see if they are what we require.'

The man grunted. 'I am told you will buy anything.'

'Not anything,' Zainal said with a dignified contempt for such an assumption. 'We have specific needs, and the services you require - as well as the gold for the teeth - will be expensive.'

'I have gold,' the man said with typical Catteni arrogance.

'It must be of a certain weight and purity,' Zainal said, and Eric grinned at him - as much because Zainal had been relatively certain they would be required to supply the metal as because of his patient's attitude. Eric rummaged around in his supplies and brought up the gold testing equipment.

'However, if you will show us your gold, we will see if it is of the quality that can be used for this unusual purpose.'

'Gold is gold!' the Catteni protested.

'No, it is not,' Eric replied, for he understood that much Catteni and the spirit of the remark. 'For proper work, we need a certain quality of gold.' He reached for his testing equipment that their erstwhile customer recognized as such.

The man rose from the chair, signalled brusquely to one of his friends to stay and observe, then removed a nugget of gold from his pouch and handed it to Eric, as if certain of its intrinsic value and suitability.

'You come with me, then, and see what I have.'

'Ditsy, if you will accompany me,' Zainal said as he had no intention of wasting his time checking inventories.

'My pleasure, Emassi,' Ditsy said with just the right touch of deference due a superior officer.

The man, who gave Zainal his name as Luxel, led them into the very depths of the marketplace, down rows of storage places, most with heavy metal doors and locks with complicated knobs and spikes.

'The kind you lose hands from trying to open,' Zainal murmured in an aside to Ditsy, who then kept his hands close to his sides.

Luxel finally halted at an intersection of corridors.

'Stay, until I call,' he said, pausing only long enough to be certain they stopped before he turned right.

They could clearly hear the snick of metal, a rasp of hinges, and then Luxel called them to come.

Ditsy ran on a little ahead of Zainal, but when he stopped by Luxel's side he gave a whistle that Zainal had heard expressing surprise or amazement.

'Opensezme,' Ditsy murmured. 'Ali Baba!' He was clearly impressed. And so was Zainal when he joined him.

Hughes and Lockheed logos dominated the mess of cartons in Luxel's little shed. Ditsy had his list out and was delving into its depths when Luxel suddenly yanked Zainal across the entry, himself assuming a blocking pose as three Catteni appeared in the alley. Zainal was quite willing to drape himself across the doorway, obscuring its contents from the passers-by, who fortunately did no more than glance in their direction and quickly away, visibly picking up their pace to make speed past them. Luxel glared at Zainal as if he were to blame for their unexpected passage. Zainal returned his angry glance with an indifferent shrug. What did it matter if anyone saw what he had stored there? No one but Terrans could use it, much less buy it.

Clearly stencilled on the boxes were numbers and contents, and Ditsy had no trouble picking out items on the wish list. Solar Panel Array Assembled, HG-SP-88373B05, Expandable dish antenna: HG-MW-7712- d15-2-5. High on the list were circuit boards #A.05, but all Ditsy could find were A.01 and A.02. But that was a start.

'Jeez, Zainal, it's all the solar panel stuff,' Ditsy said, shielding his jubilant remark from Luxel's hearing.

'Calm down, lad, calm down. Just check them all off as if they were quite ordinary.'

'Oops, sorry, boss. Shouldn't have given myself away like that.'

'No, you shouldn't have. Rule number one in bargaining: pretend you don't really want the items.'

'I know, sir.' Ditsy was most chagrined. 'I'm sorry, Zainal, but most of the items are on here.' He flicked the list as if it were annoying him. As they were speaking English, Luxel was unlikely to have understood. He then crammed the list in his pocket as if he were discarding it but could not presume to litter the slab floor with his trash. He went to the doorway and lounged negligently against the frame.

'There are some items here that might interest me,' Zainal said, ignoring the disbelief in Luxel's expression. 'But these are crates' - he mimicked their shape - 'and the dentist man requires payment worthy of his skill, practice and hard work, which is not as easily quantified as a mere crate.'

'It is what the crate contains, Emassi,' replied Luxel, still feeling he had the upper hand.

'You say you are a ship captain?'

Luxel nodded.

'How much are you paid by the day?'

'It cannot take a full day's captaincy to pay to replace a tooth - when I have provided the necessary gold metal,' was his protest.

'And how long was it before you were allowed to dock a ship at Barevi port?'

'I had to serve only the minimum time before I got my full ticket,' Luxel replied stoutly, expecting Zainal to be impressed.

'How long was that?' Zainal insisted.

'In my fourth year.' He still felt Zainal should be impressed.

'It was in his seventh year in the practice of his profession that Eric Doctor was allowed to contrive gold crowns.'

'Seven years?' Luxel was impressed. 'It can't be that hard to do.'

'Watch and see how cleverly he will shape the metal.' Zainal ticked off points on his fingers. 'Then, how carefully he prepares your tooth, which will take several days' work, how he makes a mould to fit exactly in your face.' Zainal's expression suggested that this 'face' was not worth so much effort. 'And then fits the tooth. That is not as easy as parking a ship at Barevi port and takes much more skill and training.' Zainal gave a nonchalant shrug and, jerking his chin at Ditsy to follow him, walked out into the alleyway, paying no further attention to Luxel. They did hear the click and snick as the captain secured his shed and his footsteps as he hurried after them. As much, Zainal thought, to be sure they were going to quit the sheds as to catch up with them.

On their return, Zainal was instantly disquieted when he saw the gaggle of folk, some in the tunics of the market police, clustered in front of their stall. Ferris had been anxiously awaiting their return for he darted towards Zainal, pointing out Kapash, who was speaking to Peran and Bazil with menace. 'Questions, questions, and your sons have been answering in the negative. Which, of course, is only correct. You, Captain, must inform the merchants that you are the owner of that piece of gold and where you came by it.' Ferris looked very worried and indeed, Zainal thought, had good reason to be.

The market security people were very careful to apprehend any thieves who might roam the market, and they were also on the look-out for suspicious quantities of any metals that might have been smuggled in without benefit of the percentage that by law the market should have on the sale of such commodities. Zainal had taken the precaution of making an inventory of all he had brought with him and the fact that it had been mined on Botany. He would not be subject to the tax if he used the gold in exchange for other items. But he knew the rules and he knew that Kapash was aware of that. Especially since Kapash had known of Zainal's time spent in command of Barevi. There were subtle differences between gold from disparate worlds, and the market had experts who could differentiate. Luxel's gold would obviously not be part of Zainal's inventory. Zainal just hoped that Luxel's sample had been appropriately declared by him.

As Zainal strode quickly to join his people and defend their innocence, he noticed that Eric had a very tight knot of young men around his place.

'Your father, all respect to him,' Kapash was saying to a staunchly defensive Bazil, 'knows that gold must be taxed.'

'Not in exchange for goods and services,' Zainal said, charging right up to Kapash, making his squad break apart. He pulled Bazil back to him, hands on the boy's stiff shoulders, tightening his fingers to show approval.

'Whatever,' Kapash retorted angrily, aware that he had possibly overstepped his duties by bullying the son. 'There is the matter of dispensing an unknown beverage that was not stipulated as the purpose for this stall.'

'We are not dispensing a beverage for a price, but as a private refreshment while a bargain is being made,' Zainal said crisply. He did not wish to antagonize Kapash but it was clear that the man wanted to cause trouble for him if he could.

'And the matter of that unusual equipment.' Kapash gestured with a thumb over his shoulder at Eric's appliances. 'They must be checked as possibly hazardous.'

Zainal heard Eric's snort. 'You obviously did not have a chance to visit Terra,' Zainal retorted, 'or you would know that this is dental equipment, to repair teeth.'

'You there.' Kathy Harvey pointed to a man in the forefront of the crowd that had now assembled to watch the scene. He had a grin on his face in anticipation of watching a fracas and it clearly showed his gold crowns.

'You have gold teeth, so you can reassure Kapash that this equipment is useful.'

'Me? How would I know that?'

'By the smile on your face. You have had similar work done on your teeth that Eric is beginning for the Catteni.'

Kapash now gestured for the man to step forward. He did with great reluctance, jamming his upper lip down over his teeth. Eric stepped forward and met the man, putting his fingers on the man's chin.

'Open! Wider! Ah yes, good work,' Eric said in Catteni, judiciously peering into the man's mouth. 'And halitosis, too. Remarkable diet your folk have, Zainal. Whatever you paid for it, you got a bargain for that work,' he added, amiably slapping the Catteni on the shoulder.

'But,' and now he waggled his finger at Luxel, 'I do better work. Does he have the goods, Zainal? Because his gold is the proper quality. I would ordinarily cut it with platinum, but I think the piece will go far enough to provide him with the caps those tusks of his require. How do you grow teeth like that?' The last was said with admiration.

Eric shot Kapash a quick, measuring look and then resumed his place on his own dental chair and, folding his hands serenely across his chest, went back to observing the scene with amused detachment.

'You did not say that you were selling services, Zainal,' Kapash accused him.

'You did not ask. We are selling services in exchange for goods, which is quite legal and requires no further licensing.'

'But you are dispensing a beverage.' He flicked dirtynailed fingers at the cups on the table.

'We are, as I said, providing private refreshment for our customers as we discuss terms and prices.'

'Would you care to discuss items with us, Market Commander Kapash?' Kathy Harvey said, with such a winning smile that Zainal hoped he'd remembered to tell her that the man was a known lecher. She offered him a cup she had just poured, and although he made a show of fighting with his principles, he took it quickly enough, savouring the smell of the coffee before he took a sip.

'That is splendid coffee. From Earth?'

'Yes indeed, a scarce commodity these days.'

'And what are you trading it for? I need such facts for my report.'

A report Zainal was certain would never be written, much less filed.

'We are looking for spare parts that were transported here during the recent occupation of Earth.' 'Ah yes, Supreme Emassi Kamiton remarked to me that you might be seeking to purchase some bits and pieces.'

'Yes, well, my success would mean that he' - Zainal lowered his voice and leaned towards Kapash -'would be able to improve his own communications network.'

'How?'

'Ah.' Zainal stepped back. 'Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?' He gave a slight smile.

'What exactly do you wish to bargain for?' There was a little emphasis on the 'bargain', and since Zainal knew that as market manager Kapash would know exactly who might have what, including items he might have secreted in case they became valuable, Zainal allowed his smile to broaden. Zainal thought rapidly of a diplomatic way of diverting Kapash, a man known for his greed.

'This and that,' he said with a negligent flick of his fingers. 'What have you to tempt us?'

'How do I know that when you do not tell me what you seek?'

Zainal thought quickly and noticed Ferris fondling his prized handset.

'Such items as this,' he said, unclipping the unit from Ferris's belt and displaying the cell phone. 'Invaluable communications unit. See, I am in contact with my ship at all times.'

He depressed the panic button and instantly a voice, made tinny by the cheap handset, answered.

'Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar One.'

'Zainal. Testing. Above board, out,' he responded and closed the connection before offering Kapash the instrument to examine. They had devised a number of passwords for different situations. 'Above board' was 'Things are proceeding well', while 'Mayday' meant 'Emergency'. 'Marines are coming' would indicate immediate physical help would be appreciated.

Between finger and thumb, Kapash accepted the unit from Zainal and turned it over.

'Connects across miles of empty territory so even the fastest advance units may be in touch.'

Kapash handed it back with an air of disdain. 'I can do that with any unit on Barevi.'

'Certainly. I would expect you to be so equipped. But Botany is not so well supplied. Nor could we find more in the few unlooted storehouses on Terra. Most of the type we need on Botany are probably,' and Zainal paused to swing his glance around the market, 'here. However, coffee, too, is in short supply on Terra.' Which was basically a truth since there was no transport to bring the beans to foreign marketplaces.

'No more?' Kapash was startled and sipped eagerly at his cup.

'No. Much of Earth's agriculture was laid to waste. It takes time to grow proper coffee and it takes experts to harvest the crop and process it. There will be no more until the industry recovers from the occupation.' Zainal didn't think the Catteni had looted all the items required for the production of coffee, but he was reasonably certain that he'd find some spare parts languishing here on Barevi, apart from those needed to repair the plantations' vehicles.

'None?' Kapash seemed genuinely upset.

'We have the last of the roasted beans.' Which was certainly true of the beans they had acquired from Kenya and Santa Lucia.

Kapash continued to look dismayed, but also a flicker of thought behind his eyes told Zainal that, not only was the man fond of his coffee, but he would also wish to enjoy it without stint.

'What standard would you use to trade for more of the hand units?'

Zainal hefted his. 'Equal weight of beans for the unit seems fair.'

Kapash turned towards the stall, saw the scales, and peremptorily gestured for Zainal to bring the unit over. He did and Kapash put it on one side of the scales. Zainal gave Kathy the sign to pour beans in the other side. She was scrupulous in making up the weight, even to the last bean, which edged on the side of generosity. Then she spread both hands out to indicate it was up to Kapash.

He looked at the beans, picked up a handful, and sniffed them.

'They make a rich cooked coffee,' Kathy said winningly. She used 'cooked' for 'roasted' since there was no equivalent Catteni word to describe the exact process.

'How many cups of coffee would that lot make?'

'If you grind properly, this should make four large pots of good, strong, black, rich cooked coffee. You probably have a nut grinder at home.' She showed him the one she had brought from the BASS-l.

'Is that what those are used for?' Kapash remarked, lifting his eyebrows.

Zainal wasn't sure which he meant but it had been a wise precaution to bring along grinders and what was left of the glass drip-filter cafetieres. They even had a carton of the glass insets on board the BASS-l.

'A special brew requires perfect equipment, as I'm sure you have discovered, Manager Kapash,' Zainal said suavely. Bazil was beginning to jiggle in front of his father, restless now that the adults were so obviously absorbed, but Zainal tightened his hand on the boy's shoulder to remind him of the respect due Catteni adults.

Kapash's coffee was now cool enough for him to take a bigger swallow, which he seemed to be rinsing around his mouth, savouring. 'This is different from other brews I have sampled.'

'You are currently enjoying a mild roast of arabicas,' Kathy Harvey said and reached for another pot she had recently made and a clean cup. 'Now this is from robusta beans, which give a much stronger taste.'

Kapash's eyes widened with appreciation as he smelled the steam and, blowing on the liquid, attempted a sip of the new coffee. 'Mmmm, much stronger and far more to my taste.'

'There are many different types of beans, and combinations of them, Manager Kapash, for those subtle and sophisticated enough to appreciate the finer flavours,' Zainal said. 'What else have we brewed, Captain?'

Kapash actually seemed to have sophisticated taste buds because he was able to distinguish the milder roasts that Kris had made from the stronger robusta. He summoned a minion and sent him off to collect the proposed merchandise. Of course, the use of handsets on Botany would be of no good unless they could put up the satellites, but Zainal was encouraged by the possibility. Leave it to the market manager to have set aside choice trading items.

Meanwhile, Eric was already at work on Luxel, pouring a substance into those wide jaw trays he had insisted he must have, and making Luxel open his mouth so wide it looked as if he might lock his jaw hinge. Then Luxel had to sit, those things in his mouth, while Eric consulted his wristwatch and fingered a little blob of the green substance he had placed in Luxel's mouth.

What a bizarre way to regain possession of the spoils of invasion! Zainal wondered exactly what deal Eric had fashioned with Luxel. Four teeth to be replaced? How could they get Luxel to give them items from eight cartons, instead of only four? How many had Eric bargained for? And then there were the larger necessities: the framework on which the individual units would be hung as well as the thermal protective material. That didn't come in a carton but was as necessary for the satellites as the major units that powered, controlled and directed them in orbit. There were moments when the magnitude of the task he had committed himself and the others to completely overwhelmed him. Sometimes, he thought very privately, so he couldn't hear it himself, that his success as executioner of the malignant Eosi was leading him to think he was invincible. He could be vincible on another mission, but NOT this one! So much depended on his success here on Barevi. It would certainly set a precedent.

'There.' Zainal pushed the six bags of coffee beans towards Kapash. 'You will deliver the hand units tomorrow?' Kapash blinked, and at first Zainal thought the man considered the beans a bribe. 'We shall be looking forward to your messenger.' He had completed a subtle bribe with Kapash, giving him the coffee beans before taking ownership of the hand units that had been the object of the trading. They could also expect more busi ness from Kapash: he was definitely a coffee addict.

There were more sacks of coffee beans in the capacious hold of BASS-1, and they knew where to get more. Then he saw Captain Harvey trying to get his attention and he strolled over to her.

'We'll need more beans, Zainal.' Her eyes sparkled with this evidence of success. 'While you were gone, we had a coffee fiend who has delivered us five Motorola crates of orbiting controllers. We definitely need more beans.'

'Do we have any coins to pay for a hire lift?'

Harvey thrust a hand into a pocket and emptied the contents into his hand: small coins, to be sure, but sufficient in number to pay Natchi's modest charge. He signalled the veteran from his box and then looked round for Bazil.

The boy materialized beside him. 'Return to the ship and ask Floss to come back with ten sacks of assorted beans. Here are tokens for Natchi's lift.'

The veteran was almost as prompt in attending Zainal as Bazil had been. 'May we hire your lift again? Bazil, my son, requires it for an errand.'

'Such a sturdy lad, Emassi. Surely he will captain ships when he has finished his training.'

Bazil was agreeable to having such a future assigned him, and he straightened his frame to make himself appear taller, more worthy of such rank.

'Indeed, when his tutor approves his lessons,' Zainal said, and Bazil's face fell. 'Now he must go about his father's errands.' Zainal slipped Bazil the tokens, which when he had offered them to Natchi, the old one-armed man had cheerfully waved aside.

'I owe you service for the many fine cups of coffee I have received, Emassi. I also need to walk. I will accompany your son.'

'My thanks, Natchi, for your courtesy.'

Natchi performed a manoeuvre more salute than bow. Then, with smartness reminiscent of other days, he turned and followed Bazil to where he had stored his lift.

8

By the time they reached their stall the next day, a goodly crowd was waiting. So they scurried to get the next urn of coffee started and poured out what was in the hottle for the impatient customers. Among them were interested sellers, and Zainal and Chuck began again checking their lists against the proffered items. Much coffee was consumed: Zainal was beginning to think that he was getting all Barevians addicted to the beverage. Well, there was nothing wrong with supplying a desired substance.

About mid-morning, when Zainal was winding up a good deal with someone who had twenty-volt truck batteries to trade, Peran appeared, a very anxious expression on his face. Unwilling to interrupt Zainal at what was obviously a crucial time, Peran approached Kris, pulling her sleeve urgently.

'My father must help. It's Ferris. He's being hauled to Kapash's office as a thief,' Peran said.

For a moment, sheer funk robbed Kris of any strength.

'Where is he? What did he take? Do you know, Peran?'

'He's been visiting all the drinking places, talking to the servers. Like he told Zainal he would do, to advertise Eric's services. Then a big guy arrived this morning, swearing Ferris had robbed him. He didn't say what, but Ferris ran, and one of the market guards caught him. They're hauling him off to Kapash's office. Oh, Kris, if he's put in that triangle, he'll be killed.' Peran was almost sobbing with fear.

Kris was really torn about interrupting Zainal. Maybe she could handle this. She beckoned to Chuck. Clune, having heard what Peran had said, stepped forward.

'I'll come, too,' he said, pumping up his biceps.

Chuck also saw how deeply involved Zainal was in the business of trading and he took Kris's arm.

'What could he have stolen? And yes, I know his history, Kris, but we'll get him out of it. I know Kapash has just been waiting for the chance.' Chuck scooped up something from the digitally locked box before he slammed it shut and passed it over to Sally Stoffers, telling her to guard it. She knew it contained gold flakes and the smaller nuggets. 'We'll just see if we can deal with this.' Kris saw the marked hesitation on Peran's face.

'I am Lady Emassi, Peran. I can deal with a mere market manager. Tell Zainal we've gone to the manager's office, Sally, but only when he's finished dealing. It's this way, isn't it, Peran?' Kris said, striding down the long side of their square.

Peran still looked scared and dubious but he ran to catch up with her, worried about Ferris. While she knew that Peran might be feeling cheated of his father's support, she also knew that Zainal would be annoyed with his son for interrupting him.

There was an interested crowd around the manager's office but Kris, with Chuck and Clune beside her, formed a wedge and pushed her way through, alarmed to hear Ferris sobbing.

'I stole nothing. It was on the floor. The man said I could have it,' he was saying.

'Who are you?' the man demanded, and she saw the gap in the front of his teeth.

'I am Lady Emassi, a rank conferred on me by Supreme Emassi Kamiton,' she announced, squaring her shoulders and trying to control her panting, for they'd rushed to get there. 'Ferris is one of our young people. What do you allege he has stolen from you?' She knew she was imitating Dame Edith Evans at her most regal and repressive but perhaps it would work.

The man pointed at the gap in his teeth. 'My toof.'

Kris managed not to grin at his lisp. 'How could a slender lad like Ferris steal your tooth?' she asked, managing to retain her Evansian pose.

'It was on the floor,' Ferris said, as if that conferred legitimacy on his action.

'And that's where you found it?'

'Yes. On Sicrim's floor. This morning.'

'But the toof is mine,' the fellow insisted, becoming more agitated.

'I was just taking it to Dr. Sachs,' Ferris said, looking penitent and put-upon.

'But it is mine!'

'If it was left on the floor since last night, sir, it may be presumed that you had abandoned it,' Kris pointed out.

'Therefore, the lad has not knowingly stolen from you as an act of bad faith. He was, in fact, bringing it to the one man on this planet who can replace it in your jaw.'

'He can?' the man exclaimed.

Now Ferris shoved his hand in his pocket and dis played a tusk neatly bagged in one of the little plastic envelopes that Eric had brought with him.

'That's mine!' The fellow lunged to repossess it.

'A lot of good it does you in the bag,' Ferris said contemptuously, recovering some of his usual impudence, and he folded thin arms across his chest. 'I cleaned it off, which Eric says is necessary, and put it in the bag for safekeeping. I did not know who it belonged to.' Ceremoniously, a look of creditable innocence on his face, Ferris handed it over.

'It belongs to me.' The man slipped the item into his pocket, leaving one hand protectively over the tooth, as if Ferris might somehow regain it.

Kris swivelled squarely to face Kapash, who had been listening and watching the proceedings with an odd expression on his face.

'How could Ferris have known the owner, Manager Kapash?' Kris asked earnestly. 'Now that he does, he has returned it. No theft has occurred. There has been honourable restitution of a missing object.'

'But he took what does not belong to him,' Kapash said, his face severe and threatening. 'He is a thief. Nor did he properly attempt to find out who owned the tooth.'

'But Sicrim said I could have any teeth I could find,' Ferris said plaintively. 'I wasn't doing anything wrong. Ask Sicrim.'

'Is this Sicrim present?' Kapash asked after briefly mulling that over.

He is trying to be reasonable, Kris thought, in these ludicrous circumstances, but Sicrim was not among those who crowded around the office.

'He is a thief!' the tooth owner said unforgivingly, pointing down at Ferris with a dirty, broken finger.

'He is a boy,' Kris said, giving the plaintiff a long and sour look for his bullying attitude. 'And the sooner you get to the dentist to replace that tooth, the better. The longer you wait for treatment, the less chance you have of getting it back into your jaw, you know.'

'Aha!' Kapash said, pointing at Kris. 'So this is how you get business for that expert of yours?'

'What? I'm not the one knocking teeth out, Kapash. He has to get that done for himself,' she said, jerking her thumb at the plaintiff. There was a ripple of amusement from those so avidly listening to the discussion. She wished she'd thought to bring some packets of beans, although dropping some on Kapash's desk would have been too obvious a bribe. But, to judge by the onlookers' attitude, she also sensed that she had made a good argument.

'Let it be, Kapash,' someone from the crowd said.

The faint wail of a siren was audible after that remark. 'Besides, there's the riot alarm. That's your business, Kapash.'

Kapash held up his hand to silence those in the office. Plainly heard were aggressive shots and calls as well as the bray of the siren.

Clearly Kapash had to investigate, and with a glare at

Kris, he rose and stalked out of his office, gesturing to his guards to fall in behind him as he went in search of more culpable and lucrative targets. Most of those gathered followed him to see what amusement the new diversion would provide.

Kris held out her hand to Ferris and led him out of the office.

'I did have Sicrim's permission, Kris, I did. I know you won't believe me.'

'But I do, Ferris. You have more sense than to get us into any trouble with your taking ways. Especially after this,' she said as they walked as quickly as possible out of the square.

Whistles, more sirens, and startled, hurt cries could be heard, and served to hurry them out of the vicinity. They met Zainal, hurrying in their direction, in the main corridor of the next square.

'What happened? What's happening?' He pointed in the direction of the audible disturbance.

Kris gave him a quick summary while Ferris hung his head in shame for having caused the emergency and bringing trouble to his friends.

'I think Kapash would have loved to press charges, but...' Chuck added.

'It was a good notion, Ferris, but you can see how careful we have to be here, do you not?' Zainal said, one hand jiggling the thin shoulder, making the boy meet his eyes.

'Yes, Emassi, I do. I will not cause you more trouble.'

'Good lad. Now, we will not mention this to Eric,' Zainal began when a stranger intruded on their circle. Ferris quickly took refuge behind Zainal because it was the toothless man who had barged into them.

'You!' He pointed severely at Ferris. 'You will take me to this man who can put my toof back in my jaw!'

'Of course,' Zainal answered pleasantly and gestured in the proper direction.

'I heard of this fellow,' the man said amiably, as if he hadn't nearly caused Ferris considerable bodily harm. 'But first I needed my toof.'

The word still came out with a lisp but no one dared grin.

'The procedure takes a little time, does it not, Ferris?' Zainal said, since he knew very little about such matters whereas Ferris had been in constant contact with Eric, absorbing everything the genial dentist said.

'It does,' and there was a little gleam in Ferris's eye that suggested to Kris that it was not all pleasant either. 'But I washed it as Eric told me to do, and kept it safe in that little bag.' He pointed to the man's pocket, where he had seen him deposit his errant tooth.

'I am indebted to you, young man,' the fellow said,

'and I apologize for the market manager's zeal.'

'It has been well resolved,' Kris said.

'I am Mischik,' the Catteni said, and the others were required by courtesy to name themselves. 'You are the

Botany folk.'

'We are,' Zainal said proudly.

'And you are truly a Lady Emassi?' Mischik said, lisp ing more than ever on the double sibilants.

-312

'I am.'

'Remarkable,' he said.

'I know,' she replied equably.

By then they had reached their own aisle and Ferris ran ahead to tell Eric of a new customer. Zainal and Kris hastened to the stall since there seemed to be quite an influx of clients wanting to sample the coffee. More likely, Kris thought, to see if the Botany lad had survived the confrontation with Kapash.

'Nothing like a mild emergency to spread the word,' Kris murmured to Zainal as they served coffee as quickly as they could pour it.

Word indeed had spread - though the riot Kapash had gone to suppress had not - and Eric had many inquiries about his services. He had ministered to Mischik and arranged for him to come back the next day and see if the tooth was settling in. Eric was forthright in saying that the sooner he could restore a tooth the better the chances of success, but Mischik was happy enough to be able to speak without the annoying lisp. Eric assured him that failing the natural re-establishment of the tooth, he could make a bridge to close the gap.

Everyone was tired when Zainal announced that they had better close and, after today's episode with Kapash, everyone was determined not to arouse any further attentions from the market commander.

9

Among the many goals Zainal had set for himself, gaining entrance to the port commander's office - and the port commander's files - to access the information on the destinations of the slave-carrying ships was topmost on his list. He needed only to get into the facility and find an empty office with a control board to access the information. Another ransom to be executed. It was his responsibility to right that massive wrong done to Kris's people, even if she felt he was carrying responsibility too far. These Terrans should have been allies, not slaves, to the Catteni. There was the unassailable fact that unless he did something, he doubted those enslaved would ever return home, and with all those captives exiled from their home world, would Humans ever be on good terms with the Catteni?

He was glad that Kris had managed to save Ferris. The boy had been invaluable for discreet reconnaissance and had already saved Zainal from spending time with sellers who had nothing he wanted. Any excuse to waste time and have the chance to drink the fine coffee obviously motivated some of their visitors.

Trading continued briskly all morning and well into the afternoon, when the more prosperous merchants retired for the midday meal, leaving their goods and stalls in the charge of their seconds. A few came to buy a cup of coffee when their masters had safely disappeared. Zainal hoped it would escape Kapash's notice that coffee was now for sale. He thought privately that it would take many busy days for what they earned for the beverage to make a substantial profit.

He had to discard that opinion later, after Floss, with Clune very close to her, took over from Kathy Harvey at the coffee bar. Kris had breezily told him that's what they had invented: the first Barevi coffee bar. There were also rumours that complaints had been issued to the market manager that people were obstructing the way to and from other stalls by gathering thickly in front of the 'coffee bar'. By late afternoon, however, they had enough money to rent another stall, which came equipped - for a price - with tables, chairs and a proper catering area. Floss, safely ensconced behind the 'bar', dealt capably with the flow of customers and ignored the laughs and remarks from the idlers gathered at Eric's office.

By early evening, Zainal began to watch for signs of the usual rampage of guards and spacemen who would have spent most of the day drinking. When he felt the time would soon be upon them, and he noticed that other merchants were beginning to close their stalls, he called a halt to the day's work. Ferris chattered away to Eric as he and Peran helped pack away the dental office, adding the coffee urn and cups from the main stall. Zainal had seen to it that all the goods they had bartered for had been taken to the BASS-1 as soon as the deals were completed. So it was a relatively simple matter to pack up and return to the KDM.

Everyone was hungry and exhilarated by the success of the day, and full of ideas about how they could accomplish more the next.

Even Eric was in good form, having acquired several clients, besides Luxel, for gold crowns. Ditsy had said he should hire the man with the golden smile who had so fortuitously been there when needed.

'If word gets around, Zainal,' Eric said, waiting until Kris could fill his plate again, 'I will need an assistant. My clients do not strike me as patient men.'

'Gino and I aren't doing anything much,' Ninety Doyle said. 'If it's just muscle work you need...' He made a pantomime of tapping a hammer.

'Well, not exactly muscle work, but it does take time to pound even the softest gold into a malleable foil.' Then Eric perked up. 'Old Natchi, what a talker. I understand about three words out of a dozen. I could fit him with a set of dentures that would do him better service than what he has left in his mouth.'

'Most of the time in the drinking places, when people get their teeth knocked out, it's after market hours,'

Ferris said. 'For emergency treatment, do I give them this berth number?'

Zainal did not like that idea, for he wished to be as private as possible on BASS-1, but he countered with a suggestion. 'You can present yourself, and your qualifications, to the local medical men. Then, if they think your services are necessary, they can make an appointment for the patient to see you. Preferably at the market. As soon as we can, I will try to find a better place in which you can work, Eric.'

'That would save us from being a raree-show, certainly,' Eric said, accepting Zainal's offer.

'Does Floss have to go back?' Clune asked plaintively. The pair of them were holding hands under the table.

'I don't mind, dear,' she said, soothing him with a hand on his much bigger one. 'At least they can't pinch me when I have the coffee bar in front of me.'

'Do not take any overt action, Clune,' Zainal felt obliged to warn him.

Clune snorted. 'I'm not crazy, Zainal. Every one of them there today outweighed me, and a lot would have had the reach on me. Stupid I ain't. Taking on one of those guys would put me out of action. I gotta stay on duty, pet.'

'You could lick 'em one-handed,' Ditsy said with misplaced loyalty. 'You got skill! And Chief Materu taught you some dandy moves.'

'There will be no competitions with Catteni brawlers,' Zainal said, eyeing Clune, who nodded willingly enough, and Ditsy, who finally settled as far back in his seat as he could, as if trying to make himself less visible.

'I know it was a wearing day,' Kris said, 'but we have to pack more coffee beans for tomorrow. Having them on hand is very useful.' She nodded towards Kathy Harvey, who had put forth the suggestion. Everyone groaned but even Ferris and Zainal's sons roused themselves from the table to attend to the chore, packing the beans in bags they had taken from a deserted Terran Starbucks cafe.

'We're running out of the sacks we brought with us,' Ferris remarked. 'They ought to pay us for universal advertising rights.'

'Can we find anything as useful here as these bags, Zainal?'

'Quite possibly. You boys, see what you can find tomorrow morning once we've set up the stalls. And look around for something that will suit Eric's furnishing requirements.'

'You mean we can prowl?'

'Just keep order, Dits,' Zainal said.

'We can look, too, Father,' Bazil volunteered eagerly.

'Perhaps, after your lessons with Brone, you may take a walk.' He nodded at Brone, who accepted the suggestion with a nod.

Zainal was loath to let his sons loose since, as Catteni boys, they would come under the scrutiny of all male adults, but with Brone in attendance, he could be sure that their natural high spirits would not lead them into trouble.

'We will think Masai and ask ourselves if the chief would permit his band to do whatever it is we think of doing.'

'Chief Materu was very strict but fair,' Peran said helpfully, 'but by the Gods, he could scowl something fierce and that always meant extra duty.' He wrinkled his nose in dismayed remembrance of such disciplinary frowns. 'A question, Father?' he added, raising a tentative index finger. When Zainal nodded, he went on. 'In most African tribal lands, if things get stolen, they get stolen back right fast. I mean, we all know the market's full of things stolen from Earth. Couldn't we just steal them back without all this bartering?'

Zainal cleared his throat. In some of the very primitive societies he had seen as a scout, the stealthy reclamation of stolen goods was considered part of training. The idea being to get in, get the purloined things and return unseen. The Turs had made that into an art, and many had died following that tradition elsewhere.

'We abide by the laws of the planet we're on, Peran. And, however tempting, theft is brutally punished on this planet, and Kapash would relish a chance to apply the full measure of the law against any one of us.'

'Oh!' Ditsy and Ferris echoed Peran's stunned response faintly.

'But if they didn't know it was us?' Peran persisted, jabbing his thumb in his chest.

'Who else would they suspect, Peran?' Chuck asked, frowning darkly as he lent weight to Zainal's comment.

'However, you may wander but just within the market area,' Zainal replied. 'And check in hourly with me or Kris,' he added, pointing to their comm units.

'I got offered gold coin for mine,' Peran replied.

'Accept nothing less than forty,' was Ferris's fast response until he noticed Zainal's frown.

'Do not suggest they are for sale,' he said firmly.

'I saw where we can get more,' Ditsy said, hauling a scrap of paper out of his pocket. Zainal leaned forward eagerly. 'Iridium hand units, Stall Seventy-two-K. At least I think it's a K.' Ditsy passed Zainal the scrap, a dirty finger pointing to the logo.

'Right. Good for you, Dits,' Zainal said. 'I wonder if Kapash will tell me who rents the stall.'

'If he doesn't, Natchi will,' Ferris said. 'He knows everything there is to know about the market.

At that, Kathy wrinkled her nose. 'I don't know about the male facilities, but the ones for us are deplorable. Really, what does stall rental go for if not cleaning up the toilets?'

'Repairing the damage the drunks do,' Ferris replied with contempt.

Zainal gave Kathy a little nod. Such negligence could be a useful talking point in his next discussion with the market manager. But then, Kapash might have little interest in amenities for women. Zainal was certain Kapash held the traditional Catteni views on women: they should be grateful for what they get.

'I volunteer to do some cleaning there tomorrow,' Floss offered. 'I can't stand the stench, and who knows what I'd pick up from it.'

Zainal wasn't sure why Kris looked so pleased by Floss's offer but she clearly approved of the girl's will ingness.

'Let's fill those sacks-'

'Tote dat barge, lift dat bale,' Clune sang in a deep, rich bass that startled everyone.

'Git a little drunk and you lands in,' Ferris sang in a cracked tenor voice and pointed to Clune to finish the song.

'Jay... ill...' was his response, dropping into the deepest part of his lush voice. A burst of applause ensued, which he hushed with his hand. '01' Man River, he just keeps rollin' along.' He finished the impromptu recital with a flourish and a bow and was accorded another round of applause before he waved his friends to continue with their chore of packing beans.

Zainal did not know much of singing, but the work did go more swiftly as others asked Clune to sing their favourite songs. By the time Kris called a halt, they had worked their way through twenty-five pounds of dark roasted robusta beans, and the same of the milder, washed arabicas, sufficient to meet unexpectedly high sales the next day. Sally finished adding up their income from the day's work and Eric reported on how many appointments he had made for dental work. He had insisted on being paid half of the cost of the work in advance - a fact that kept them solvent for local purchases - and half on completion. The dentistry was going to be a profitable asset of this tour. Zainal went through what he had done with the day's income and what he needed to do with tomorrow's.

'Then, we can take some profit,' he figured.

'With any luck,' Kris amended, and then covered her lips in apology for the negative comment. 'However, I get the feeling that they are all holding back.'

'I do, too,' Kathy said.

'As if they were testing us, somehow? Or perhaps simply not willing to trade?' Chuck asked.

'But from what Natchi and that footless friend of his, Erbri, said, they have had no buyers for what's in their storage rooms, so why are they not willing to come forward and make what profit they can from us who are willing to buy?' Zainal remarked. 'In fact, Natchi's bringing in two more mechanics besides Erbri to help fix the lifts and other reparable things left to rust. We've a good business going in repair and mechanics as a side venture.'

'Could Kapash be inhibiting the merchants for all he pretends to help?' Kris asked.

'He's not been helping,' Zainal said. 'He's determined to thwart us. Be wary of him, all of you.'

'Why does he have it in for you, Zainal?' Chuck asked, expression bland.

'I knew him when he dealt in illegal drugs, and he knows I know it.'

'So he's the one made sure you were on that colony transport?' Kris asked.

Zainal let out a long breath. 'I don't know that but I have been asking some discreet questions through Natchi, Erbri and their coterie. Remember to give any disabled vet at least one cup of coffee, team.' Everyone nodded.

'What better way to get rid of a possible informer than to put him where he might die from indigenous causes or, with any luck, be executed by angry slaves?' Kris remarked irritably.

Clune spoke up with great dignity. 'Chief Materu said that you make your own luck.'

'Chief Materu is a great leader,' Zainal said. 'Then let us make our own luck!'

'Right!' Chuck seconded firmly, and there was agreement in the circle of tired bean packers before they rose stiffly to their feet and scattered to their on-ship quarters.

'Is this truly a good beginning?' Kris murmured to Zainal when they were abed.

'You can't exactly say they beat a path to our door,' he replied, smoothing her hair down, once again revelling in the silk of it, before he cuddled her close to him.

'Where'd you get that expression?'

'Ferris, of course,' Zainal said, giving her a little hug.

He closed his eyes to get on with the business of falling asleep.

It was a long while, despite her appreciation of his proximity, before she could follow his example. And the morning came far too quickly.

Everyone was awake on the call and came out quickly to eat their first meal of the day. Then Bazil went to see if Natchi had arrived with his lift as he had agreed the previous evening. Bazil had sneaked a piece of good Botany bread, well slathered with honey, to give to Natchi. They had struck up quite a friendship. Natchi was there and grateful for the bread, which he said he had never tasted the like of. Bazil had accessed a recipe for the stuff from the ship's library but didn't know where some of the ingredients might be had. He didn't know what 'butter' was, or 'flour' or 'yeast'.

However, Natchi knew a great many things and would work on the problem. At least they had the method to make bread and knew its ingredients. You couldn't know if you could make things until you knew what they were composed of. Which was why Bazil's father was here on Barevi - to find the component parts needed for the comm satellites and other such highly technical things, which were supposed to make a vast number of things

'better'. Bazil already thought 'life' was different and 'better' when he recalled - which he did not often do

- that time of his life spent without his father and being punished by his aunt and grandfather for things that, for the most part, Bazil didn't even know he'd done wrong. He'd warned Peran and thus prevented his brother from receiving like measures of 'corrective' discipline. Now that his father was here, it was always 'better'. He would have liked being with his father sooner, but life in the Masai camp had been very interesting, too, and Chief Materu fair in his judgments. He never had understood what his father, who acted in all ways honourably, had done to deserve being an outcast from his family.

Bazil, with Peran's assistance, transferred the cartons of packed beans to the lift. By then everyone was ready to go, Clune carrying the hottle of coffee left over from breakfast. He had poured a cup for Natchi, who was quite willing to drink it down with the bread Bazil had given him.

'The last of the bread is in today's sandwiches,' Kris announced as she deposited the basket - a hand-woven one from Botany - on the lift bed.

'Is it hard to make bread, Kris?' Bazil asked, winking at Natchi.

'No, but you need certain things one can't find here on Barevi.'

'I thought Barevi had everything,' Peran replied, eyes wide in surprise.

'Not quite everything,' Zainal said, laughing and ruffling his son's hair.

'What, for instance?' Bazil asked.

'Milk...'

'That white stuff you made us drink. The cow's milk? From Kenya?'

'Very nutritious,' Kris said firmly.

'Doesn't it come in cans, too?' Ferris asked.

'It does, but I haven't seen any here in the food stalls,'

Kris replied.

'What else?'

'Flour, usually fine ground from wheat or corn.'

'And?' Ferris prompted since Kris's intonation suggested flour was not the final missing ingredient.

'Yeast. Which I haven't ever seen here. Yeast is a leavening, which causes the bread flour to rise in the baking. Similar, I think, to your meal cakes.'

'Meal cakes. Phooey,' Peran said, having eaten too many under- and overdone meal cakes as a child.

'But you like bread,' Kris countered.

'Botany bread, yes,' Peran agreed amiably, qualifying his taste.

'Surely we can find a substitute for yeast, and maybe cans of milk,' Ferris said, rolling his eyes.

'Quite likely,' Zainal replied, noticing Ferris's specu lative expression. 'But these are not things easily found or

... acquired.'

Kris rolled her eyes because Ferris was not above proving doubters wrong, and Zainal had probably just piqued him professionally. She devoutly hoped that Ferris would take the hint, and he must have, because he shot her a hurt, accusing look. She wondered whether she should warn Floss and Clune to reinforce her warning to curb his acquisitive tendencies. On the way to their stalls, she made sure to point out the triangle, where minor market offences were punished with lashes of a particularly nasty whip. There were no such things as trials or sentences in Barevi. Corporal punishment for infractions of the market laws, like thieving, was swift and did not allow for appeals. While Ferris looked sturdier than Ditsy, his undernourished bones were fragile. She didn't want to think of him under the whip.

10

The next morning started very well indeed, with an impatient clutch of people waiting for them to start serving the coffee. There were even some wanting to trade, and Zainal managed to obtain a pallet of truck batteries, a real prize.

Captain Harvey was attempting to repair the damage to the iridium comm sat they had scooped out of the skies above Earth. In her talks with John Wendell, she had learned that many of the satellites the Catteni had damaged could be repaired in situ. The one they had in the BASS-i needed only the necessary LNB, low noise block-down converter. They now had the solar replacement vanes that would power the comm sat once it was back in space. They had found two antenna 'ears' that had been sliced off, but needed two connecting boards so the individual units of the satellite could exchange information. The controlling mechanism, which Harvey called the mission package, had survived and was operational.

'That's the most delicate of the stuff on board,' Captain Harvey told him. 'It'll keep the comm sat in the orbit where we place it.' She cleared her throat. 'Replace it, actually, because it's already programmed to stay in its proper orbit... except when Catteni use it for target practice. But then, they have to practise on something, don't they, to keep their edge?'

Harvey could surprise him with some of her wry comments and Zainal tilted an amused expression up to her. He hoped they could find more relatively undamaged comm sats on their return. They also needed to build some from the spare parts in the lower cargo level.

'What're the part numbers for these needful connector boards, Captain?' he asked her, wondering yet again at the greed that had occasioned looters to take such unusable items back to Barevi. The merchants could not sell everything: there had to be buyers who wanted the items. Of course, they now had them in Zainal's mission.

She yanked a scrap of paper out of her top pocket and handed it to him. 'Got them from the schematics last night.' She aimed the small tool in her hand at a bunch of twisted plastic on the floor. 'That's what was left of them, so's you got an idea what you're looking for. Spiders, only you don't have spiders, arachnids, a multilegged creature on Barevi, do you? Once I have those to hook the system up, we can test to see if all parts are running. You can see the part numbers, loud and clear.'

'I can?' Zainal cupped his ear, though he suspected she was using one of those maddening vernacular phrases Terrans so enjoyed.

'You're some kidder, Emassi,' she replied with a grin and a waggle of her elbow.

The Terrans had so many of these little sayings, cryptic comments that confused him. It was as well that his sons were being exposed to such verbal wordplay. They would be able to speak Terran very well. So far he was quite pleased with Brone. The young pilot had proved firm with them and had gained their respect. Zainal brought himself sternly back to the work at hand: he must list the numbers for Ferris, in the hope that the boy could discover who owned the relevant storage shed. Zainal had also told Clune and Ditsy to be on the lookout for anyone holding parts with the HCA logo on them and briefed both Natchi and his sidekick, Erbri, a footless man whom Natchi presented as thoroughly trustworthy and who knew every alley in the market. Why didn't the Terrans assign just one worker to the completion of a project, and then one would only need to find the worker and know from which 'industry' - the word came to him - he had acquired the original parts? Of course, a single man could not construct an entire spaceship by himself but a comm sat, once the components were collected, would be within a good workman's compass.

So Zainal mused as he passed on the numbers for the connector units, explaining to Ferris how important they were before he resumed his bargaining position. His next client was a burly man named Kierse, a Drassi who had left space for the more secure port life. He had brought with him a list of the items he wished to sell, and Zainal felt a thrill of anticipation as he saw so many HCA listings.

'I do not know what good these Terran bits and pieces will do you, but I have developed a taste for this coffee, and you are apparently in possession of many sacks of the cooked beans. They are ready, I understand, to be ground and filtered.'

'You understand correctly.'

From a pouch Kierse wore on one shoulder, he took out a handful of what Zainal now easily recognized as vacuum-packed plastic sleeves, each containing a bouquet of wires of different colours with tips of different shapes, including several bars of tiny holes on a black plastic strip. As little as Zainal knew about comm-sat innards, these looked like the blackened discards that Captain

Harvey had pointed to on the floor of the cargo hold.

Zainal covered his excitement by asking Floss to fill a cup for Emassi Kierse.

'I am not Emassi,' Kierse said with a twitch of irritation to his lips. 'I am but Drassi.'

'You have the manner, however, and should be treated accordingly,' Zainal said graciously, knowing that many Drassi were of the Emassi class but had failed some part of their training and thus were unable to use their birthrank.

'These are useful to you?' Kierse asked, neatly dealing the packets of parts into a line across the table so the identifying part label was clearly visible.

Zainal quickly scanned his eye down the labels, having committed to memory the numbers of the ones he sought.

'Possibly,' he murmured discreetly.

'They have the numbers I am told you are seeking,' Kierse replied, settling into his chair to haggle.

Zainal wondered who had given that information to the market. Clune and Ditsy were notably close-mouthed. What had Kris been warning him about? Ah yes, Ferris stole. Or were Natchi and Erbri not as trustworthy as advertised? No, Zainal reassured himself, Natchi definitely was and he had vouched for Erbri. And here were the connectors Captain Harvey required.

'What good did you think these leggy things would do you when you bought them?'

'Wait for someone who needed just such oddities,' Kierse replied, then refreshed himself with a sip of the mountain mild that was currently on offer. As Zainal considered his next gambit, the sounds of the marketplace closed around them - the rat-tat-tat of Eric's eternal hammering, the scurry of feet on the dry aisles between stalls, the occasional raised voices as people pounded out a suitable bargain.

Zainal hefted one of the packets experimentally. 'Not very heavy. Since you like coffee, perhaps beans would be acceptable.' He leaned forward. 'We have been trading weight of beans for weight of the packets. Is that satisfactory to you?'

'You may weigh them and we will see what the total comes to - in beans and then in the gold I understand you are using for barter.'

'Coffee beans have been referred to as "black gold", Drassi Kierse.'

'I thought that was the thick stuff they put into barrels. Oil.' Kierse, who was much sharper than he looked - certainly for one of Drassi rank - pronounced the word in two syllables: Oy-yill.

'I have heard the term "black gold" used for both,' Zainal said blithely, 'though I believe the barrelled stuff is undrinkable.'

Kierse chuckled and Zainal worried about the bargaining abilities of this client. Beans he had in plenty but the gold was in much shorter supply. Still, that standard would be in keeping with the value - to him - of these particular parts and he wanted to conclude a deal with Kierse.

It didn't take long to put the packets into the weighing pod and the scales swung past and then settled on 50 grams. Zainal did not wish to part with that much gold no matter how essential the parts were to repair the connectors. It would take most of the dust they had in the little safe. And since the man had specified gold, he would probably not consider the lesser ores that Zainal still had available.

'If we deal with the beans, I am willing to throw in a grinder. The filtered bean gives a finer taste and goes further.' Zainal hoped this would tip Kierse in his favour.

'I know how one makes this brew,' Kierse said, dis missing Zainal's suggestion. 'But, in truth, I do not have a grinder. Let me see it working. I prefer the filtered drink to the boiled grounds.'

Floss, who had been listening to the exchange, immediately stepped forward with sacks of several varieties of bean.

'Which would you prefer, the milder roast or the hearty robusta bean?'

Floss, skilled now at tipping a handful of beans into one of the little saucers, filled two packets, one with the mild mountain and the other with the richer roast and offered each in turn to Kierse. Zainal made a little bet with himself and won. Kierse preferred the stronger brew.

'There are, as I am sure you know, Kierse, several methods of obtaining coffee. The percolator provides a stronger flavour. Grind the beans,' Zainal began but Kierse waved off a discussion of the process and the percolator pot, which Floss displayed for him.

'Filtered. And that darker bean.'

Floss withdrew the dismissed ones from consideration and reached under the table for the appropriate packages. These she placed in the other scale, casually adding a trickle of beans until a balance was achieved between the product and its payment. Zainal held his breath. Kierse looked longingly at the casket of gold, which Zainal had left on the table. Then he took another sip of the coffee in his cup.

'I have more packages. We will deal with the gold then,' Kierse said and extended his hand to Zainal, accepting the barter.

Quickly Floss transferred the bags of beans to a carrier, wrapped the grinder and placed it on top, handing the convenient package to the new owner.

Zainal rose and gave the obligatory courtesy bow, which Kierse mirrored, though there was a smile in the man's eyes that Zainal read as anticipating a return with more valuable stock. As Kierse left, Zainal signalled for Ferris to follow him. He might merely go to his home with such a package, but he might also return to his stall to gloat over what valuable merchandise he still wished to sell to the bean man. Perhaps Ferris could discover exactly what else might be of value to them.

The tone of voices abruptly changed. There was some sort of a fuss coming down the aisle, much shouting and warnings. Zainal was instantly alert but relaxed when he saw what was becoming a daily occurrence, someone with a bloody mouth coming to see the tooth man. The victim had a bloody rag over his face as friends escorted him to Eric's booth. Zainal called out Eric's name for he was busy rat- tat- tatting.

Eric quickly emerged and, taking in the scene in one glance, ushered the Catteni into his stall, twitching the curtain across it.

'Good fight?' Zainal inquired, as Catteni courtesy permitted.

'I won,' replied a burly man with the ship insignia of a minor duty officer. 'Oh, this is where the coffee is. I could certainly use a cup.'

Zainal gave him a wave towards Floss, who smiled engagingly up at the fellow and put the cup in his hand and indicated the coin pot.

'What's it worth?' he asked Floss.

'What you care to put in,' Floss replied flirtatiously.

Floss might have learned vocabulary from Bazil and Peran at the Masai camp, but she had certainly not learned how to flirt from them. Clune stepped forward from where he was drying cups and lingered just beyond her. The officer did not mistake the warning in the young man's manner and moved judiciously towards Eric's office space, just as a bellow and a kicking foot stirred the curtain.

'It would not have lasted past the first thing you chewed,' Eric shouted. His command of dental Catteni was now comprehensive enough for such remarks.

In her role as part-time dental assistant, Sally arrived with a glass of water and a bowl for the man to spit into. She disliked that part of her job but was becoming inured to it. She did like appearing in the form-fitting white uniform that Eric had said went with the duties. The uniform had been one of the things Eric had stuffed in at the last moment at his office, and fortuitously it fitted Sally very well indeed.

Zainal then noticed a slight figure who had been parading up and down the aisle most of the morning.

'May I help you?' he inquired politely as he tapped the man on the shoulder.

The grey-skinned fellow, rather scrawny for a Catteni, jumped and whirled, his hands up in a defensive position.

'This is where the man who does teeth works?' he asked, slightly breathless.

'Yes.'

'I wish to learn how to repair teeth. It would be a very good business for me to get into,' he added. And indeed, Zainal noticed that his upper teeth protruded in a way that made him look like a burrowing animal the Terrans called a rabbit. Catten had a similar burrowing vegetarian creature, named a sukey. Then the man fumbled in a pouch and held out for Zainal's inspection some odd objects - squarish at one end and broken off at the other.

'Teeth?' Zainal asked in surprise, remembering Ferris's recent brush with Kapash.

'Yes, I saw him,' and he looked about, evidently for Ferris, who was away from the stall on his errand for Zainal. 'He was here earlier, but I've seen him collecting broken teeth after a brawl in a drinking place. So I followed him. I have a friend who has loose teeth.'

Ferris was still collecting teeth in the drinking pits? At least this fellow was anxious to avail himself of the service, rather than attack Ferris, and had found the right place.

'Training to be a dentist demands many years of studying and can only be learned on Terra.'

'But he practises here,' the man objected. 'I am Tavis,' he added by way of introduction. 'I would do anything to learn such a profession. And if he does, he teaches.'

There was indeed a Catteni assumption that he who could do, could teach.

'I do not believe that the medical school where he learned is still functioning, and it is an expensive undertaking.'

'But if he does, I could watch and learn.' 'Do you read Terran?'

'I do,' said the man, and Zainal saw that, for all he was young in face, he was not a boy. 'And I have studied much.' There was a sudden slump to his shoulders as he admitted, 'Learning is all I can do.'

'Learning is itself something that can be practised. Have you ever considered being a tutor?'

The man shook his head. 'Emassi and even Drassi find my appearance laughable.' He pointed to his teeth. 'I heard that the tooth man is able to alter the shape of teeth while still in the mouth.'

While Zainal had heard from Eric that orthodontics was possible, it required long hours of work and much money.

'He can, but it is a long process,' Zainal said noncommittally, only now aware of how much he had absorbed of Eric's evening dental lectures.

'But it is possible?' The man's hand travelled halfway to his mouth before he restrained the movement, dropping it self-consciously.

'I believe so but you had best discuss this with the doctor. And how was your friend injured?'

'Took a fist right in the mouth. His teeth feel loose, he told me, and I thought of the tooth man.'

'I am sure that Dr. Sachs,' and Zainal paused to let that name sink in, 'will be able to save his teeth. But sometimes the nerve in the tooth itself has been damaged and it is wiser to remove it before it can fester in the jaw.'

Tavis blinked, as if that possibility had never occurred to him. Indeed, it would have been news to Zainal if he hadn't had a crewman once whose two front teeth, loosened in a marketplace brawl, had turned dark, with the gum above swelling from some unseen injury within the jaw. Zainal himself had had to yank the teeth before the man got some respite from the fierce pain in his mouth. There had been little nodes attached to the root of the teeth that smelled vile. So had the crewman's breath.

'First, bring your friend here.' From Tavis's expression, this was not a suggestion that appealed to him. 'Well, he will have to bring his teeth himself if they are still in his head,' Zainal said a little impatiently.

Tavis nodded but was still lacking in confidence.

'Tell him Emassi Zainal requests his presence.'

'Emassi Zainal requests his presence.' Tavis considered this for a few moments and then drew himself up in resolve.

'You are doing your friend a favour. Fear not.'

'I am not afraid of him,' Tavis replied stoutly, as if convincing himself of that.

'Nor need to be, since you are doing him a favour.' 'Yes, I am.' With that, Tavis dashed off, leaving Zainal abruptly. Zainal shrugged and turned to other matters.

The day before, Chuck had exchanged a lump of their copper for a carton of Toyota brake linings and two cartons of spark plugs for truck transmissions. 'We did promise Vitali we'd get such things,' he had informed Zainal.

'I know. And we must prove reliable to the coord.'

Indeed, they must. And thanks to Ditsy's enterprise, they also had both a supply of power packs and more of the coveted lifts to bring back. Erbri had been useful in this sideline, as well, bringing in damaged equipment that he also helped repair. So Erbri could be useful on Botany as well as Natchi, and Zainal had half-decided that he'd bring the two veterans back to Retreat rather than leave them to live out their hand-to-mouth lives. In fact, Zainal thought he had done better, in many ways, for the Terrans than for the folk on Botany. He had thought they would have had more buyers for the metals, which Zainal knew were in short supply on Barevi, but considering the green coord's trade with him, they could use the remaining metals to better advantage on Earth.

Zainal enjoyed a moment of peaceful reflection, wondering how much advantage he might wring from such insights. Barevi's main function had always been as a trading planet and only secondarily as a place for longhaul spacemen to vent excess energy and for sporting Catteni to hunt live creatures. However, one of Kris's cryptic phrases came to mind: something about a mountain coming to a man.

'What is that you say about the mountain and a man?'

She blinked for a moment, shook her head, and then her expression brightened. 'If Mohammed won't come to the mountain, let the mountain come to Mohammed. Is that the one you mean?'

'The very one,' and he smiled at her, just as a man stepped up to the stall.

'Excuse me, Zainal,' she said and offered a cup to the Catteni.

The man had a noticeable squint and an unpleasant expression on his face but, watching him for a moment as Kris explained how to prepare the bean properly, she seemed to have soothed him. He sipped the coffee and turned to survey those passing by. Kris gave an exasperated look at Zainal but smiled pleasantly at the Catteni. Then he said he wanted to purchase a bag of beans and evidently could not make up his mind between the arabica and the robusta. Kris offered to give him a quantity of both so he could savour them in his own house. They meant to stop selling the beans as a separate commodity since they were better used as barter but, as in the case of this pompous person, it was easier to comply than deny. And they acquired sufficient Catteni coins to defray other costs.

'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 become de rigueur. All the best home: 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 possibility. 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 meantime, 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 survived 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 unusually 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 assistant?' 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 book-keeping.'

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 tyres 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 delayed his departure, using the time to memorize the sizes of the tyres 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 Bazil and Peran. 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 towards Kapash's office, 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.

11

Kris had more sense than to struggle as she and Kathy were hauled away, Floss and Jax weeping, while Chuck had to restrain Clune and the boys from giving the bullies accompanying Kapash any excuse to knock them about with the heavy cudgels they carried: part weapon, part symbol of their function. The last thing she saw was Ferris, disappearing from view, undoubtedly 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,' the girl was saying, sniffling with fear and wringing her hands.

Chuck disliked hand-wringing women almost as much as weeping 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 ensure that

Kris and Kathy were on it, a nasty result of the specious charge levelled against them.

Where was Zainal? Oh, and here was the merchant he was to see today! Speaking more calmly than he felt, Chick 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 someone accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Rather like Zainal, in fact, Chuck thought, wondering where the big Catteni was.

'I was indeed a captain,' Nilink replied, 'as was Zainal, I understand.'

Ferris came running back, almost careering into Nilink but halting just in time with an apologetic bow to the Emassi. 'I caught Zainal. He has gone to Kapash. My pardon, good Emassi,' he added.

Kris 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 forcefully 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 squinteyed fellow from yesterday, d'you suppose?'

Inadvertently she trod on someone's arm and the man tried to knock her feet out from under her, cursing.

Kris steadied Kathy and motioned her to the wall, where they might find a safer place to wait.

'Zainal will come for us, won't he?' Kathy asked.

'Yes, of course he will, Kathy,' Kris said positively. 'Chuck will have sent Ferris running for him.'

They found a place to sit but they were not far from the communal slop pots and the stench was overpowering, so they moved, carefully, through the other prisoners to find a less redolent place.

Most of the inmates were sprawled, getting what sleep they could. The air certainly stank of stale beer and whatever alcohol had been consumed: the stench was incredible.

'He will come?' There was understandable anxiety in Kathy's voice.

'He will come!' Kris replied in an unarguable tone of voice and then, finding a space against the wall in the corner, pulled Kathy down to sit beside her.

'I'm thirsty,' Kathy said.

'Don't think about it, Kathy.'

Kris did not think Kathy's courage would improve by being told that prisoners in Barevi prisons were rarely fed or watered: at least not until prior to being forced onto a slave ship. She composed herself to remain calm and await Zainal's arrival. Ferris would have found him, no matter where Zainal had been.

But barely had they got themselves settled when the prison doors swung open and jailors, cracking nerve whips, roused the inmates with harsh commands to stand up and move out. She was startled when a door in the side of the prison was opened to reveal a ramp. She remembered that sort of ramp and tried to suppress a surge of fear. Kathy didn't realize what was happening and Kris wasn't going to tell her. The prisoners were being driven towards the ramp. Kris caught Kathy's arm, holding her back. 'Zainal, where ARE you?' she murmured urgently.

They were among the last to be driven up the ramp, Kris looking over her shoulder at the main entrance, hoping against hope to see Zainal's large form in the doorway and hear his voice commanding the guards to leave her alone. Surely he would come to free them. The tip of the nerve whip caught her arm, though her clothing absorbed most of the painful strike, and despite her reluctance, she was driven up the ramp and into the hold of a KDM.

'We're on a ship,' Kathy said, frightened.

'So we are,' Kris remarked, amazed at how calm she managed to sound.

'What are we doing on a ship, Kris? Where is Zainal?'

'Trying to get us free, I'm sure,' Kris replied, though the smell of the hold was no reassurance at all. This was a slave ship: it stank of fear and human excrement.

The ramp door swung shut and was dogged tight by a guard.

'Find a wall space, Kathy,' Kris said, holding tight to Kathy's hand so they wouldn't be separated as the other prisoners milled about aimlessly.

'Find us, Zainal,' Kris chanted to herself. 'Find us. Free us.'

A sudden movement of the ship as it undocked threw both women to their knees, and Kris barely managed to keep from crying out with fear and pain as her right knee connected painfully with a bolt on the steel floor. There would be no pleasant Botany at the end of this forced journey.

They both felt the surge as the ship took off, sending them sliding into other bodies and pushing them back against the far wall of the hold.