Eidolon (7 page)

"Will Charleschow do for you, Joshu?
Charleschow at fifteen? Con Rad asks us to be his guests."

He looked at her sharply.

"Will he leave us with the bill after
all?"

"No. I'm sure he won't."

Joshu sighed.

"The lady with the chains would have been
easier," he said.

"The lady with the chains stank of sweet
things she cannot afford. This Liaden, this Con Rad, why as you
say, he may solve it all. Else Management will see us, deport you
penniless, and jail me for my genes, which solves another set of
problems."

She'd meant it flippantly but he just bowed
his head, all the colors of gloom running across his face. He stood
then, and nodded.

"Charleschow it is. I wonder if Con Rad
knows his wine."

*

"No, thank you, it
is
Conrad
, flowing
together completely," the man said gently, "though I thank you for
your efforts."

They'd arrived at the stroke of five before,
to find the big man towering above staff in the lobby, waiting for
them. Staff was remarkably unaware of them as they moved toward the
quiet rooms one hall inside--and they did not stop there, but found
yet another hall with deeper carpeting and lower lighting, and an
additional interior space that Beba had not known existed.

She heard the briefest of Joshu's near
tuneless whistles, barely louder than a breath. He, too, had no
idea that the sanctums got this inner, and now the large man made
no attempt to hide his grace. While perhaps no match for the Essa
or for Con Rad, he was silent in ways that were surprising, and her
attempted read brought only the vague purple of concentration and
the distant green of well-being.

"Conrad, like the carpets?" she asked
experimentally, and he bowed lightly, in unoffended agreement.

"Indeed. You may make what you will of the
coincidence!"

It was a joke of many layers, for she could
see it on his face as the colors quickly washed by. The
conversation quickly fell to Joshu, who requested Conrad's opinions
on the wines.

Those opinions were
informed and extensive, permitting the ordering of the meal, and a
sampling of wines, to go forth before any hint of business. As host
Conrad had the menu with the prices and Beba was pleased to order
freely, though perhaps not quite as freely as Joshu. The big man,
who she discovered to be
Pilot
Cheever
, was quite comfortable ordering
large portions, and if Conrad was less large and thus ordered less,
his choices were obviously dictated by desire and not by
price.

"You have an interesting mix of
products,"Conrad said eventually, nodding toward both Joshu and
her, his colors going bland, "and as it would be easier for all
concerned if we might single source our purchase, I am much
inclined to work with you. In fact, it would be good if we might
conclude our business this very shift, if you are able to return to
the hall after dinner."

Beba saw the alert colors rise in Conrad's
associates, but the man himself was still showing cool.

He looked to her, and she looked pointedly
to Joshu, who was showing a true flash of surprise in his colors,
and a scent, a rare scent, of--wine.

Her partner raised his hands from the meal,
palm up.

"The draymen and longshore, the packers,
they are not available so late in the evening, and there will be a
charge to open, and perhaps some . . . issues with Management."

The woman Essa nodded, her alert colors
fading somewhat. Her glance was accepted by Conrad, with whatever
message it held for him, and he brought his attention back to Beba
first, including Joshu with a side-glance.

"I will speak with Management, should they
appear," said Conrad, "and we will proceed. There are two essential
things, however, that we must be clear upon."

Joshu's expression said it all: here was
where he thought things would fail.

The elegant man leaned forward, watching the
pair of them, hand enumerating his points as if he threw dice.

"First, this will be a cash purchase. I will
give a single hardcopy list of the items and types we will have,
and one or another of my associates will see them and count them
with one of you. This will occur once, when we are through I will
retain my list and the invoice will will indicate that Cash Buyer
acquired Lot 1 and Lot 2, assuming that is the case. Is this
clear?"

"If you discover discrepancies after, how
will you ask for adjustment?"

Joshu was concerned; it did not take a
talent to hear it in his voice.

"My people and I are our own witness, gentle
sir. We agree on the count with you as we work, and that is the
agreed count. There will be no discrepancy."

Beba shrugged. The buyer wished no name on
the invoice and no record of exact purchases. Perhaps when the time
came, Cash Buyer might agree to lower the recorded purchase price
as well, that Management would not extract a tithe.

Joshu paused, glancing at the associates,
then to her.

She repeated her shrug and added a nod,
Joshu forwarded the nod to Conrad.

"Price being agreed on site, I have no
problem with this approach."

"Yes. We are agreed on this."

"The second requirement is
Lot 2. I must be able to put hands on one of the objects I would
purchase, for the sake of determining authenticity. The catalog is
quite convincing, of course, but you could hardly allow a Sinners
Rug to be in the open, where believers might yet cause it harm.
You
are certain
,
are you not? You have the provenance . . . "

He looked at Beba. The colors in his face
got steely rather than angry, and his question was not to be
ignored, whoever he was. She felt a flutter of dread and
deliberately calmed herself. The customer had done his research. Of
course he had.

"
I
am
the provenance,"she said quite evenly.
"The rug we have on hand, and on sale for the right price, that rug
has been in my family for most of four generations, sir. I have the
affirmations, the court actions, and the family images from start
to finish, if they be required."

"You keep it for more than the curiosity
sake then? It is not merely an artifact to show off to top
buyers?"

His colors wavered and for a moment Beba
wondered if he could read her so well as she could read him, if her
colors showed through to him, or her scents, or if her muscles had
betrayed her.

She sighed, and sipped daintily at her wine.
Her very good wine, sitting with the unfinished portion of her very
good meal."Sir, that is a question I ask myself. Yes, the rug is
for sale. It is my inheritance, and since my mother, and her mother
too, have left this place, it is mine to deal with. Having not sold
it, I cannot say we have used it for more than show."

He looked at her with interest, the steel
gone now, and he bowed.

"I do not mean to question your heritage,
lady, yet, as carpets are what I learned from my father, I must see
before I may buy, in his honor."

She shuddered even as she nodded. Under
that, under all of that so gently said, was blood.

*

The room was quieter than at full-shift,
with the lighting at quarter except in their own brightly lit area.
The carpet hangers were locked as they'd left them and it took both
Joshu and Beba to unlatch the sealing bar for the high-end items.
As they were doing that Conrad was giving instructions and copies
of his list to his associates, and inspecting the floor carts that
Joshu commandeered from the hall fleet. Conrad clearly planned to
buy and load tonight enough goods to furnish a small planetary
store's opening; if that was the case and he was paying in cash,
there ought be no impediment.

As they finished unlimbering the specialty
show rack Joshu murmured, "Life's work, Beba, for a family. Know
your worth! No less than three cantra for the rug if his cash is
Liaden!"

Three cantra clear had long been their plan;
how often had they had an entire extra cantra in place when
necessity would appear and eat it away? Yet such a sum!

She thought of her family, and of Joshu,
still firmly with her as they were not, and nodded.

The high-end items unlatched, Beba looked to
Conrad, who caught the glance, and Joshu, then, went to deal with
the associates, while Beba received a bow of respect from
Conrad.

"These other items,"she said carefully, "are
all worthy of purchase as well, sir; if you will pay them
mind."

"Surely,"he said, the color rising in him
was not the calmness she'd expected, but the yellow orange of
alert.

The Sinner's Rug was the last on the rack,
and each ahead of it must be pulled out and admired. His hands and
eyes told the tale: he was no mere salesman seeking stock, but a
man who knew fine carpet like he knew fine wine and fine food. His
hands touched the right spots on the binding and against the nap;
his eye looked for the trim spots if any were to be found, and
studied the backing where such was utilized. He named two of the
first five on sight, both maker and era, and three of the next
four. He was curious of one, and his colors went very strange
then.

She caught a scent, but it was not the scent
of this rug but some other deep in his memory, for he said without
preamble, "This rug is of an old pattern from Brulandia, yet it
varies. They have always had excellent teachers there, and the best
museum. Have you any information on the source?"

She did not, meekly pointing to the
potential dating marks, and-- "I have been in close proximity to
such a rug, which was deemed genuine," Conrad said. "This feels
genuine, yet, yet my references are not to hand. This may be a
prototype or a fork. Very nice. Your partner has my bid on Lot 1,
which is one cantra solid. Consider this a possible addition to Lot
2. Let us move on, if you please."

Now the fogs flitting across his face were
anticipation, alert, and the underlying steeliness.

Joshu's whim was to let
several of the early rugs sell later ones, as if the rack were in
order of value. At the twelfth and thirteenth hanging rugs Conrad
touched edges and made a noise very much like
snarf
while muttering, "These are
sturdy commercial offerings, aren't they?"

The next two interested him not the least,
and the following one somewhat, since he felt the binding and
sniffed it, and startled her by stretching his hands at shoulder
height as he stood with nose to the rug center.

"This is off-size, I think; either a test
piece or an excellent forgery from the same period, for the
materials are correct. I applaud Joshu's Superb Surfaces for an
interesting show."

She nodded, murmured, "Thank you," saw the
alert level go up as she tugged that interesting carpet aside,
revealing the last rug on a well illuminated unswinging display
rung.

The Sinner's Rug.

Of course it was
a
Sinner's Rug and not
the
only
, it was
the subject which made it notorious. It did not display the mere
sins of food, or of theft or any such inglorious thing. This
rug--her rug--was unique: an illustrated guide to sexual
possibility as revealed in the dreams, thoughts, and actions of
those Great Grandmother had known when her talent was discovered
and controlled by the very court that had stripped her of her
lands, leaving her and her family a duty to warn people what their
thoughts might reveal to mind-reading wantons.

Conrad stood transfixed, and the alert color
faded to--

"It is exquisite. May I touch?"

Beba started; she'd been watching his colors
at the same time she was celebrating the great work of her family.
Look! The joy, the rapture of love and lust and life. The
possibilities of touch and desire, the urge to join in so many
ways, to --

"Yes," she said, wanting it, for the rug
ought to be touched by one who understood it. "Yes, please."

"This will serve me," he said as soon as his
hands touched the nap, and then he moved closer, allowing his left
hand to touch the front while his right hand pushed and kneaded
from the back. The binding, the warp and weft, the colors . . .

Beba looked at him and the steel color was
there again, and the sense and scent of blood, and behind all of
it, she saw a man who looked not at all like the man before her,
and the man was saying, "Dear boy, no house is a proper home
without a good rug!" And beneath it was the sense of weapons
prepared, of blood already flowing.

Which of course was
impossible, She could
not
be seeing so far into this man's mind, into his
intent . . .

"This is beautiful. This is perfection! This
will serve me!" he said again, and now there was the scent of blood
and steel, and the knowledge that some mighty work required the
great work of her family.

Conrad turned and looked at her with a
killer's eye and said softly "I grieve, and it colors my thoughts.
Forgive me, that I must take from you. All I can offer you in
exchange are cantra. For this rug--I have five cantra. It will be
an honor to pay you, and you will honor my father, who loved rugs
as much as life."

*

Beba started forward when
Joshu did, her hand firmly clasping his right, her day bag slung
jauntily over shoulder, striding as if she always did this kind of
thing, as if
they
always did this kind of thing.

Joshu now, he had traveled and come home,
learned whatever he needed to be sure of by coming home, and was
set on his plan.

Beba had never been away before, and her
first glance of the stars sprinkled randomly among dozen of
anonymous gridwork structures with the incongruously slow movement
of elegant star vessels as counterpoint stunned her. She'd stood
for moments, no doubt impeding experienced travelers, yet around
her were others just as star struck at the view.