He opened a drawer and pulled out a small, gray box with an even smaller gray screen, placed it on top of the gold brick and pressed a b.u.t.ton. He read from the screen and typed some numbers into his computer terminal. "Gold, twenty kilograms. Point nine-nine-nine fine. At the current rate of exchange, we will purchase at 808,325 dinars."

The doctor smiled. "That, young man, is yesterday's rate." He pulled out his flipcom, opened it with a flip of his wrist, and touched a few keys.

"At the current rate on the Ras.h.i.+d Central Commodities Exchange, and allowing your establishment the standard 2.5 percent discount/handling fee, the buy price would be 816,052 dinars. But given that this is an unusually large amount of gold to be used in a straightforward currency exchange transaction, and given that the market is unusually volatile due to the present war, I would be willing to accept a price of 815,000 on the understanding that I may have need to exchange gold for currency at some point in the future, at which time I will expect to receive the full current rate of exchange, minus, of course, the bank's 2.5 percent handling fee."

The banker considered briefly. "Agreed, provided that our understanding is not of unlimited duration. It shall apply only to transactions taking place within the next year. Is that acceptable?"

The doctor nodded his acceptance. Hamani keyed a complex set of instructions into his terminal, turned to the doctor, and smiled.

"Our understanding has been entered into the records of this bank and accepted by management. May I have your ID cube so that we may know with whom we have dealt in this matter?"

The doctor handed over the cube, and the young man put it into a reader, ejected it a moment later, and handed it back. "It has been a pleasure transacting business with you, Dr. Sahin. A porter will arrive momentarily to deliver your currency and collect our gold."

Two hours later, the doctor, Fahad, and a third man were sitting in the shady courtyard of a sprawling house about a dozen kilometers from the s.p.a.ceport, drinking Earl Grey tea with sugar and lemon and listening to the voices of three blue-tiled fountains murmuring in the background.

Sahin was enjoying the interesting sensation of carrying on his person what he regarded as a huge sum of money, enclosed in a money belt strapped to his belly under several layers of robes, defended by an M-1911 pistol and a curved sword of moderate length, in the fas.h.i.+on carried by honorable merchants on this world. Under local laws both weapons were perfectly legal for him to carry, and under local custom, perfectly accepted and normal.

The currency amounted, in fact, to the equivalent in local bank notes of nearly three-quarters of a million Union credits. He could, of course, have deposited the proceeds of the gold sale in an account that the amiable young man at the bank would have been pleased to set up for him, but credit chip transactions always left a data trail, whereas cash did not.

"Here, cousin, is a list of the items I require. They need to be loaded on standard cargo palettes and packaged for long-term storage on board s.h.i.+p," said Sahin. "I will pay the current market rates, in cash, in Ras.h.i.+d dinars, plus a fee of 5.125 percent for your trouble, as has always been our family custom."

"That is very generous," said the other man evenly. He took a sip of his tea, and then set it down gently. "However, business conditions are not what they were when you left the family concern. The handling fee is now 10 percent."

The doctor took a sip of his own tea, stirred it with the exquisitely engraved sterling silver spoon in his cup, took another sip, set it in its saucer, and regarded the dark liquid. He briefly mused upon the curiosity of two Turks sitting in a Moorish courtyard on a mostly Arab planet, drinking a British blend of a Chinese beverage flavored with a fruit domesticated in India, sweetened with the sap of a plant from Southeast Asia, crystallized by a process invented in Louisiana by a man born in Illinois and educated in France. Truly, he thought, the civilization being spread by humans through the galaxy was the product of the whole Earth and all her children.

All men are brothers, but business is business.

"Cousin Ya.s.sir, I believe in generosity and fairness in all dealings with members of my family, but that does not mean I intend to treat you with outright charity. I am very familiar with business conditions in this sector, and they are not as treacherous as you make them out to be. Given that the merchandise I am purchasing is entirely ordinary and is sitting in your warehouse right at this moment, and given that some of what I wish has been collecting cobwebs in that same warehouse for more than sixty days and you are already looking for secondary buyers to take it off your hands at a discount, and even further given that you will be paid in Standard Chartered Bank notes rather than in electronic credits or currencies that you will have to exchange at highly volatile rates, I think that a handling fee of 6 percent is entirely fair."

"I would be interested in knowing how you became aware of my inventory situation."

The doctor had gotten his information because the communications section on his s.h.i.+p had intercepted Ya.s.sir's communications with prospective buyers and had needed only about nine and a half seconds to break his commercial level encryption. Ya.s.sir had no idea that his communications were so vulnerable.

"You want information. Like any other commodity, information has a price. I a.s.sure you that you will find this information very valuable."

"Eight and a quarter percent, and you tell me how you found this out."

"Six and one half percent. The price of the information to be separately negotiated."

"Seven and three quarters, including the information."

"Seven. And we trade information. I tell you precisely how I know about your inventory, and you tell me what you know about certain transactions going on in this sector, without giving away any proprietary information about your own business."

An appreciative grin slowly spread across Ya.s.sir's face. "We have an agreement. You bargain like your father."

"And you bargain like yours. We should have been brothers."

"Many have died in both our families. Perhaps, now, we are." They embraced.

Eight hours later, the doctor and Fahad were walking through a bustling marketplace in Amman, the third largest city on Ras.h.i.+d IV, nearly a thousand miles from the s.p.a.ceport. As in Sidon, the city on whose outskirts the s.p.a.ceport was located, they blended in with the locals and moved through the sea of people as though they had been raised in the city, the doctor having spent many years of his life traversing marketplaces such as this, and Fahad because he had a pilot-athlete's natural gifts for moving in a comfortable, easy manner and for copying the movements of others. Neither of them noticed another man, just as un.o.btrusive, making his way through the same crowd at a discrete distance.

Ya.s.sir had given Sahin the names of five people who, according to rumor, had been operating as middlemen, purchasing various heavy metal ores, bulk foodstuffs, and machine tools for sale to yet another set of middlemen who were believed to be selling them to individuals who were striving greatly to remain anonymous. Whereas Sidon was the s.h.i.+ny, upright face that Ras.h.i.+d IV showed to the galaxy, Amman was the rough and gritty side known mainly to the natives and to those outworlders who needed to engage in certain kinds of transactions: the kinds of transactions that, although in most cases not strictly illegal, were best kept in the shadows.

The doctor had already spoken to four of the five middlemen and was on his way to see the fifth. As was typical, these men were far more perceptive and intelligent than the people with whom they did business credited. Although the off-world middlemen thought they had never tipped their hands, all four of the Ras.h.i.+dians knew that the goods were all going-very indirectly, of course-to Philistos, a prefecture of the Romanovan Imperium that was waging a low-intensity rebellion seeking its independence. As Ras.h.i.+d IV and the Romanovans had close trade relations and a strong mutual defense treaty, the parties had a strong interest in preventing the sales from becoming known to the Romanovan government.

These four men also knew that the fifth middleman, the man whom Sahin was about to see, was not dealing in goods bound for Philistos. Rather, they believed he was supplying another buyer whose need for secrecy was even more compelling-so compelling, in fact, that the fifth man's buyer had succeeded where the other buyer had failed. The fifth man did not know the ultimate purchaser's ident.i.ty.

The Navy men walked into a shop, closing the heavy door behind them. The interior was dim and cool and, as their eyes adjusted from the sunlit glare of the marketplace, they could see that the shop was much larger than it looked from the outside, extending far back from the street and widening into what had probably once been the back s.p.a.ces of the adjoining establishments. The merchandise appeared to consist of gla.s.sware. Exquisite gla.s.sware. Hand-blown, brilliantly tinted, intricately shaped gla.s.sware that even the rudest eye could see exemplified the highest order of artistry and could be purchased only by those whose resources allowed them to gratify the most discerning tastes.

The doctor's attention was held by one piece in particular: a vase, standing by itself on a simple Doric pedestal of the purest alabaster. Nearly a meter tall and ten or twelve centimeters wide, its living lines flowed with no trace of symmetry, yet with the seductive, sinuous shapeliness of cascading waters or a desirable woman. It called to the doctor's mind a succubus, an enticing female demon that insinuated itself into a man's dreams to tempt him to dark acts of sinful, sensuous abandon. He stared at it, thinking it the most beautiful creation ever made by the mind and hands of mortal beings. Just as Sahin thought he could not be more captivated, Ras.h.i.+d IV's slow rotation moved a sunbeam from a skylight high above into contact with the edge of one of the object's impossibly graceful curves. In an instant, the vase burst into heart-stopping glory as it bent the light to its will, making every perfect sweep radiant with swirling, glowing currents of luminescence painted from a palette such as G.o.d Himself would wield-cool ceruleans evoking the crisp sparkling afternoon skies of autumn, the infinite blues of the fathomless ocean depths, the s.h.i.+mmering turquoise of a shallow coral sea on Midsummer's Day, purples to make the richest emperor's robes look like rude rags, and violets to cast clear midwinter's star-birthing twilight as a poor, pale imitation.

Sahin had to remind himself to breathe. Some inner sense told him that the work of art in front of him was not merely expensive. It was priceless.

"I have never seen its like." A cultured voice, carrying just a trace of what would, centuries ago, have been called an Oxford accent, gently but irresistibly returned Dr. Sahin to the world of mundane light and ordinary colors.

"It is the work of a Pfelung Vitreusist named Farnim-Shee 121. He worked on it full-time, night and day, for nearly a year, to the near exclusion of sleep, nourishment, social contact. His wife was so desperate to regain his attention that she laid a clutch of eggs, which he refused to fertilize. He nearly died twice from lack of, shall we say, 'congress' with his mate. I could stand here contemplating it for hours on end. We have other works of his around the shop, of course, even some with the same color set, but nothing quite like this one. It is called Birth of the Waters and is considered the greatest work of its kind ever created in Known s.p.a.ce. It is, without exception, the most beautiful art object I have ever seen. And it can be yours. Good day to you. My name is Wortham-Biggs-Ellington Wortham-Biggs, at your service."

The man was dressed like a stereotype of a British art dealer whose clients came from the upper n.o.bility: perfectly tailored dark wool suit, vest complete with pocket watch, and silk tie with matching handkerchief in the pocket of his suit coat. He even smelled of pipe tobacco. His skin and hair, though, were anything but British.

He seemed to be descended from blended Middle Eastern and East Indian stock, with skin nearly dark enough to be African, black hair, nearly black eyes, and finely chiseled features dominated by an almost hawk-like nose. He appeared to be just on the far side of middle age, but had not begun to gray or wrinkle or add weight to his lean, athletic frame. He came to a sort of loose attention, brought his heels together not quite briskly enough to click, and bowed slightly, a salutation used widely on Avalon, Woolcombe, Victoria Regina, and other British-influenced worlds.

Sahin returned the bow in the same manner. "Ibrahim Sahin at yours, good sir. May I introduce my a.s.sociate, Muhara Fahad?" The able s.p.a.cer perfectly, and with no prior practice, copied the bow he had just seen performed.

"Ah, yes, Dr. Sahin, I have been told to expect you by certain mutual acquaintances." He reached into his vest pocket, apparently activating some discrete device. Within five seconds, another man dressed similarly to Wortham-Biggs appeared through a door, which, if not hidden, was certainly not obvious.

"Giles, I will be taking tea with these gentlemen. If you would..."

"Certainly, sir."

"Please come with me, if you would." He led them through the shop, through a carved wooden door marked "Private" in three languages, and into a room that resembled nothing more than a gentleman's study from a nineteenth-century English manor house, complete with leather-bound books, a large desk of dark and deeply oiled wood, paintings in muted colors of various scenes drawn from English country life, and an enormous apricot-colored mastiff sleeping (and snoring loudly) in front of the currently fireless fireplace. The dog raised his head from the floor, regarded the two newcomers placidly, quickly and accurately a.s.sessed that they posed no threat to his master, and promptly went back to his noisy sleep.

"I invited you for tea, to which you are certainly welcome, but I prefer coffee. What would you gentlemen prefer?"

It was coffee, of course, which was promptly and expertly served by a young lady, wearing a simple white silk blouse and a dark, knee-length skirt. She had dark skin and features that echoed those of their host, but with less severity. Her long, glossy black hair hung loose, just below her shoulder blades. A belt made of engraved gold and silver links glittered in the room's subdued light, accentuating her narrow waist and the womanly curves that flowed from it in both directions. Exquisite knees led to perfectly sculpted dancer's calves that narrowed sublimely to shapely ankles.

The woman smiled as she poured the coffee, parting her full lips to reveal teeth as white as piano keys. She was the most beautiful creature the doctor had ever seen. She looked up at him and he spent a breathless eternity, lasting for less than two seconds, gazing into the warm, liquid depths of her dark eyes before she blushed, blinked, and turned away.

When she finished pouring the coffee, she stood attentively facing the host, as if awaiting further orders. Wortham-Biggs said gently, "Thank you, Elisa. That will be all."

The doctor and Fahad exerted a laudable effort to keep from staring at Elisa as she floated out of the room with the unconscious grace of a virtuoso ballerina.

"My daughter, Elisa. If I may say so, a brilliant girl, splendid eye for art. She a.s.sists me."

All three men sipped their coffee appreciatively. It was a fine, rich, dark brew, full of complex aroma and robust flavor, but without any trace of bitterness. "Your coffee is excellent. I have never tasted better," said Sahin.

"Thank you. Coffee is one of the commodities in which I trade. What you are drinking is a blend that I compound myself for my own use and that of certain privileged others-personally selected beans, purchased without regard for expense from the finest coffee estates in four different worlds, carefully roasted at minutely controlled temperatures, freshly ground precisely to the correct grind for the roast, and brewed to perfection. It is-no doubt-far superior to that to which you are accustomed in the Union s.p.a.ce Navy."

When the doctor started to speak, he waved his hand dismissively. "No need to deny it, Doctor, my business, being somewhat more sensitive than that of the gentlemen with whom you have been drinking tea the last few days, requires that I be extremely well informed at all times. And I must admit, my connections are rather better. So, I would very much prefer that our relations.h.i.+p not be soiled with falsehoods, even the pro forma denials required by your patriotism and your duty as an officer." He smiled briefly, as if to signal that he took no offense.

"I know that you, Doctor, are Lieutenant Ibrahim Sahin, Union s.p.a.ce Navy, Chief Medical Officer of the USS c.u.mberland, and I believe or surmise that your vessel is at this moment deeply stealthed and quietly nestled up against one of the more run-of-the-mill icy bodies in this system's Kuiper belt, all the better to conceal its ma.s.s signature and waste heat. I further know that you have been making some not entirely indiscrete inquiries into some business dealings that the parties involved would prefer not to be widely known. You need neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of these statements as, aside from my speculation about the location of your s.h.i.+p, I am quite certain of their correctness. Again, my sources are excellent."

Something told the doctor that, in order to obtain the information he sought, he would have to be forthcoming himself, at least to some degree. "I will simply say that you are better informed that I expected."

"I thank you. Now, to the more interesting and ultimately, I believe, more important subject: What I do not know. At least, what I do not know for certain. First, I should like to turn to what I believe or have surmised but cannot confirm. The pattern of your inquiries is strongly suggestive that you wish to learn more about the activities of certain parties who are the ultimate purchasers in a series of transactions to which I have been a party. The pattern also indicates, not quite so strongly, that, unlike me, you do know the ident.i.ty of these purchasers, Doctor."

"For the purposes of our discussion, you may a.s.sume that your a.n.a.lysis is correct."

"Very good. That moves things along quite nicely. Now, shall we turn to that which I do not know and which I am not prepared even to guess?"

The doctor nodded.

"So we shall. I do not know why you would seek this information or what precise use you would make of it, except that it is a matter of military intelligence. I further do not know the ident.i.ties of my ultimate purchasers. I do strongly suspect, however, that if I were to know the answer to the second question, the answer to the first would be quite apparent. As you might expect, I am quite eager to learn the answers to both questions and would be willing to offer consideration of quite substantial value to obtain them."

Aha. The man is ready to deal. "If you can provide me with detailed information about the movement of the cargo you are selling, or provide me with access to the cargo so that I can place tracking devices in it, I would consider your actions more than adequate payment for my telling you what I know about your purchasers. I a.s.sure you, my knowledge is very precise, and you will find it quite valuable."

"I believe that a trade of the kind you propose would be equitable. I do, however, have one concern. We are both men of honor, and you will understand that honor is an important component of my business dealings. I must be satisfied, as I already suspect to be true, that you are not making these inquiries as part of some scheme to obtain greater profits or some business advantage over a compet.i.tor. The information I have, limited as it is, is considered commercial intelligence, and I could not in good conscience divulge it if it were to be put to commercial use. Given your naval connection, as I said, I am surmising that you are seeking this information as military intelligence, to gain some sort of strategic advantage for your people in their war against the Krag, in which-by the way-they have my entire sympathy and support."

"That is correct."

"Would you be willing to swear an oath to me to that effect?"

"Gladly."

Wortham-Biggs stood and removed a long, beautifully curved sword from a pair mounted above the mantelpiece. The doctor could see that it was not merely decorative: its handle was darkened with the oils it had absorbed in many hours of use, and his experienced eye caught the gleam of a keen edge. He stood and drew his own blade from beneath his robes.

The two men stood facing each other, about a meter and a half apart, and brought their swords together, flat to flat, touching about a third of the way from the tips.

"I, Ibrahim Sahin, swear before Allah the Merciful and the Just, Creator of all things, whose name stirred the blood of my fathers and who is the holy source of my honor as a man, that I seek the information for which I came today for no purpose of wealth or lucre and that I will use this information neither for personal gain nor to obtain advantage over any business compet.i.tor. Should this oath be broken, may He cause these blades to swiftly avenge my perfidy.... Is the oath satisfactory?"

"Perfectly."

"Admirable weapon, you have there, sir," said Sahin.

"Thank you. Yours appears to be quite deadly as well. Have you drawn blood with it?"

"Touched, but not drawn."

"So, a man of restraint. An admirable quality. But not unexpected. It can be very difficult to show your enemy your edge but not cut him with it," said Wortham-Biggs.

"Quite. Now, shall we return to your excellent coffee? I should like another cup before we conclude our business."

"Capital notion." Each man returned his sword to its former place, and Wortham-Biggs poured more coffee for all three men.

"Now, as the one who did not swear the oath, it is inc.u.mbent upon me to show my good faith by making the first offer of information."

He walked over to his desk with his coffee, sat down, and pressed an un.o.btrusive switch. A keyboard in a hidden tray slid out, and a wafer-thin screen rose from a concealed slot in the desktop. He typed rapidly for a few moments.

"There. Doctor, if you will instruct your flipcom to access data channel 113, and input the pa.s.sword 'mastiff,' you will have in your hands the complete cargo manifests and s.h.i.+pping schedules for all of my transactions with the party in whom you are interested, including the future s.h.i.+pment dates along with the names and transponder ID codes of the freighters on which the goods will be placed. Of course, the s.h.i.+pments are always transferred to other freighters in deep s.p.a.ce, but the coordinates of those transfers are in the file I am sending you. From those freighters, the cargo is transferred again at least once, perhaps more times after that. I presume you have a set of tracking devices."

"Yes." The doctor nodded to Fahad, who produced from deep within his robes a small flat case, similar to the kind in which a gentleman carries his cigars.

"Here are six devices of the standard kind. Kindly hide one in each s.h.i.+pment. They are the standard metas.p.a.cial transponders, but coming from Union Naval Intelligence are more sophisticated than most. The tracking signals are impossible to distinguish from background noise unless you know the five-hundred-character encrypt sequence. Before you implant them, simply remove the tip to activate."

"Very well." He took the case.

Fahad had pulled out his flipcom, accessed the designated file, downloaded it, and looked quickly at his screen to see if it was data of the kind promised. He nodded to the doctor.

"And now," Dr. Sahin said, "we come to the answer to your questions. What if I were to tell you that your ultimate purchasers were the worst kind of infidel?"

"They are not People of the Book?" Meaning not Muslim, Jewish, or Christian.

"Indeed not. They are not even, strictly speaking, people at all."

"Biologically absurd. What aliens would have use for human foodstuffs and would be able to use equipment designed for eyes that see the same frequency range as ours?"

"Aliens whose distant ancestors are from Earth."

After a short pause, the shop owner's face hardened, his lips a thin line of fury. "You cannot mean," he said in a voice the temperature of liquid helium, "that I have been selling to the treacherous Demon-Rats." He used the local name for the Krag. "I would require evidence of such a startling conclusion."

"I can provide you with an intelligence report tracing palettes of frozen meat, machine tools with manufacturers' serial numbers, ore still in s.h.i.+pping containers, and even small arms still in the maker's crates, all captured from Krag s.h.i.+ps in Krag s.p.a.ce or from Krag industrial installations, and all traceable to your warehouses.

"In addition, the ion drive on a captured Krag surveillance drone was found to have mercury propellant with an isotope profile showing it as having been mined here on Ras.h.i.+d IV. It is a small mine and you are the only seller of its output in interstellar commerce. Of course, we hold you entirely innocent. The Krag went to great and highly sophisticated lengths to hide their ident.i.ty from you, knowing you were too honorable to sell to them, no matter what the price."

"Have you personally reviewed these reports?"

The doctor knew what the man wanted. Or needed. "Yes. And on my honor, I regard their findings as conclusive."

Wortham-Biggs sighed with resignation. "Then that is the only proof that I need." Under Ras.h.i.+dian custom, if a man's honor were sufficient basis for a Sword Oath, it was sufficient for all purposes. "I presume that the items already purchased must be delivered to these... vermin."

"Yes. They must. But I promise you I will do everything within my power to see that not so much as one grain of corn or one gram of ore ever reaches the Krag. And afterward, you will never again suffer the dishonor of having any dealings with them. It is my sad duty to tell you, however, that the materiel thus far purchased from you have been of substantial aid to their war effort."

"I can understand how that would be so, and it grieves me greatly. Do not be misled by this London shopkeeper exterior-it is a necessity when one deals in the kind of art in which I specialize. Although my ancestry is mixed, my fathers were Bedouin. My heart is Bedouin. These dealings with the rat-faced infidels are a matter of grave dishonor to me and my family. The Krag have killed many of my people, laid waste to whole worlds, ma.s.sacred innocents, desecrated holy places of many faiths. They are a stain upon Allah's holy creation. Having aided them is almost more than I can bear. It is a great dishonor. I fear I shall never be free of its disgrace." He was genuinely and profoundly upset, deep emotion cracking the veneer of British reserve.

"Their rich, warm blood will wash away your dishonor and your family's."

Both men turned suddenly to Fahad, who said the first words he had spoken since stepping into the shop.

"Sir, unless I miss my guess, my captain is going to take the information you gave us and follow those transponder signals to destroy the freighters that carry the goods to the Krag and to destroy the Krag s.h.i.+ps that bring the goods home. He'll get them, sir. He'll blow them to flaming atoms. All of them. Since he took command, we have vaporized every Krag s.h.i.+p we have found, and we have shot every human traitor we could lay our hands on. We'll kill them for you. We'll kill the c.o.c.ksuckers by the bushel f.u.c.king basket. Pardon my Frennish."

"Hear him. Let us be your agent, my brother." The doctor picked up the ball and ran with it. "We shall collect their payment for you. Payment in blood. Dishonor shall stain neither you nor your family."

Wortham-Biggs sighed. "Thank you. Thank you both. Had you not come to me, I might have continued to provide these unclean, unholy creatures with the means to kill my own kind for years to come. I owe you a great deal more than merely the information I have provided to you, as you have kept the additional blood of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocents from my hands. Nothing I could ever do would even come close to paying my debt to you. Please. Tell me what more can I do to express my thanks."

The doctor waved his hand dismissively. "I am here in my capacity as a naval officer and not for the purpose of obtaining anything for myself. If you would, however, care to thank my s.h.i.+pmates by providing at the current market rates fitting foodstuffs to sustain them on their long voyages between the stars, I would consider any debt between us to be entirely satisfied."

"I will accept no payment. I know you have made some purchases already, so kindly let me know the remaining capacity of your microfreighter's hold, and I will see it filled with such stuff as will fill their bellies and gladden their hearts. I already know where you are hangared."

About an hour later, having left the shop with their precious cargo of information, the two men were making their way down a broad avenue with only a few pedestrians on the walkways. It was just after 19:00 local time, and most of the locals were eating their evening meal or watching a highly antic.i.p.ated soccer match between the Crocodiles, Ras.h.i.+d IV's planetary team, and the Jackals, their cross-system rivals from the mining and foundry moon, Ras.h.i.+d V C. Casually, the doctor grasped Fahad by the arm and guided him to a shop window displaying an array of local spices and smoked meats, as if to show him an item there. "Do not look, Fahad, but I believe we are being followed."