many Humans were reluctant to do business with T’cheria, claiming that their strong accents made their Common barely intelligible. But Vandien had developed an ear for the way they turned and sharpened the consonants of Common, and found dealing with them no task. Now he strove to match the creature in courtesy.
‘I would not propose to judge a beast by its appearance. If you tell me they can pull, I am sure that they can, however foreign they may be to me. May I ask if they drive in the same manner as horses, or is a special skill involved?’
‘A special skill to driving such as these? You honor and flatter a poor farmer like myself. No, they are the mildest creatures, so easy to control that one of your egglings would find it as play. With a driver behind them with my turns of experience, you will find that there is little we cannot do. Even the heaviest of loads will yield to our tenacity. Would you have a field freed of rocks? Pull logs down from a hillside? They are equal to the task. And no thrifty person could hope for a better team. Having fed three days ago, they will not hunger for two more spans of days.’
Vandien worked the math swiftly in his head. The beasts went for nineteen days between feedings, a particularly useful trait in his situation. Delicately, he broached the touchy part of his bargaining.
‘I doubt not that your years of experience make your team the fine one that they are. But for the task I face, I would be the driver, and must be assured that they would obey a stranger. For ten days you must trust them to my care. Would you agree to such a bargain?’
The T’cherian’s eye stalks moved slowly from side to side in a learned pantomime of the Human gesture for ‘no.’
‘I regret that I must refuse. My team are my children to me, and the sole means of my livelihood in these days of dry weather and Windsinger animosity. I dare not entrust them to a stranger, no matter how sincere of countenance and noble of carapace. Yet happy would I be to join you in any task you might propose. You, too, would be gladdened to see how the difficulty of any labor would be dissipated by my experienced handling of the team. Beasts always pull better for the master they know and trust. Cannot we still find a bargain here?’
Vandien heaved a tremendous sigh. He let his hands rise to shoulder height, and then fall away in a mimicry of a T’cherian’s drooping eye stalks when saddened. ‘I must respect your reservations. My respect honors the one who feels the responsibilities ownership puts upon one. I understand the concern of the wise master for his beasts. Sure I am that no coin could dissuade you from your views. For no amount of coin would you entrust these worthy creatures to a stranger.’
‘No coin could buy my honor,’ the T’cherian repeated. He and Vandien both knew that the stage was being set for the bargain. The T’cherian waited.
‘Nor would I demean your sensibilities by even offering such coins to you. What do you know of me? How can I gain the trust and thus the service I seek from you? These questions I have asked myself as we have stood here, in this unpleasantly noisy place, seeking to make a bargain like civilized folk in the midst of this most uncivilized din, in this whorl of disruptive movement and unharmonized noises. In this blatting of beasts, this heat, this caking of dust upon our countenances, in these body smells of those who pass disrespectfully close to us, how can I prove myself to you? How can I show you that I, though a Human and not endowed with those superior sensitivities that are the racial treasure of the T’cheria, am not totally without sensitivities myself?’
As Vandien slowly catalogued the discomforts that he knew annoyed the T’cherian to a far greater degree than he could imagine, he could almost see the creature shrinking back within its carapace. He shared the T’cherian preferences for coolness, dim lights, and muted sound. But in a town dominated by Human and Brurjan populations, this T’cherian must brave all discomfort to earn his algae for the day. That discomfort would turn this bargain for Vandien.
‘For no coin?’ the T’cherian mumbled. A T’cherian mumble consisted of aspirating the words, with almost no vocalization. But Vandien picked them out. It was the perfect opening.
A brown sash belted Vandien’s short tunic and supported his purse. Vandien’s hand went to it now, but he did not touch the purse itself. What he sought could not be bumped about with coins. He carefully spread the rolled cloth of the sash, until a small object wrapped in a soft grey cloth dropped into his waiting hand. The T’cherian had followed his every move. At first, his eye stalks had lengthened and begun to track Vandien’s hand, until he recalled himself to Human courtesy and retracted them. But Vandien was sure of his interest, and played his moment for maximum suspense.
Carefully he readjusted the sash that had cradled the fragile object. That done, he allowed himself a moment to straighten his tunic, and to wipe each hand in turn down his breeches. Only then did he begin to unfold the soft thin grey cloth. Slowly he unwound the wrapping, using both hands to remove the cloth as if fearful the object within would be lost. Vandien’s fingers gave the cloth a final twitch. The T’cherian gave a sudden rattle of its mandibles. Neither spoke.
Revealed on Vandien’s palm was an orange crystal, about the same length and diameter as his ring finger. With gentle fingers he held it to the light, as if the delicate thing would crumble at a touch. Held to the sun, the light touched the individual facets that made up the many crystals joined into one structure.
Vandien made a show of lifting the crystal to his nose and sniffing it delicately. To his nostrils, it gave off almost no odor. The T’cherian remained desperately silent. His agitation was betrayed by a bare tremble in the fingerlike pincers of his primary limbs. The clatter of the market went on, but Vandien let the T’cherian listen to the silence that had fallen between them. When he finally spoke, he whispered.
‘For no coin.’
‘What do you propose?’ the T’cherian hissed. ‘It is a very small crystal,’ he added hesitantly.
But Vandien was not to be fooled by the size of his ware. ‘Yes. It is. And of the deepest color. A crystal such as this would be an ornament to the richest of queens, small enough to be carried about with one, to be enjoyed whenever the turmoil of this workaday world threatened the inner peace so vital to any civilized creature. I have been in the home caves of wealthy T’cheria, who graced their walls with crystals, and hung them in ranks from their food grids, but seldom have I seen a crystal to match this one for color or bouquet. Long have I treasured its comforts upon the open road. To see its blinking light, to draw in its sweet odor of drowsy peace; these have solaced me in many trials. By this sign, I show you that I am a civilized creature, just as you are yourself. I am to be trusted, even when I come to rent your team away from you, and am forced by commercial convention to offer despised coin to you.’
Vandien’s brown eyes met the T’cherian’s stalked ones, radiating open sincerity. He casually began to wind the grey wrapping around the crystal again. The tremor of one T’cherian eye stalk betrayed him. He followed every shifting of the crystal. His mandibles rattled briefly before he recalled himself to Common.
‘Your sign impresses me, Human. Never before have I seen one of your kind with a sopor crystal, other than as a trade item. My name is [a hissing rattle here], called by your kind Web Shell, for my carapace markings.’
‘I am Vandien.’ Together they bowed gravely at this formal introduction that marked the true beginning of all T’cherian bargaining. What had gone before was but a prelude, an arranging of forces. ‘Then, Web Shell, you find out today that not all Humans are barbarians. Some of us treasure peace as dearly as yourselves.’
‘What is the job you would hire my team to do?’
‘A small bit of work in False Harbor.’
‘A rough town that is, with little to recommend it. No T’cheria reside there; and I have heard evil things of the Humans that make it their home. What surety will I have of the safety of my team? How can you guarantee that they will not be stolen, or poisoned, or maimed for sport?’
Vandien slowly waved the hand holding the crystal before his face, the Human equivalent of a T’cherian showing distress at the mere thought of something. ‘May the Moon forbid such evil deeds!’