Free Trade Secret (eARC) by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

. . .
    There was a genuine laugh then.
    "Jethri, a bother? At the risk of breaking confidences, let me tell you that you would be such a bother that Gaenor admits to asking Vil Tor of your inclinations--of your intentions --since he also enjoys your company and hers and he often finds you to hand at the library. I gather, she discovering that you also had no liaison with him, they had hatched a plot to make you theirs for the ship's Festival!"
    Despite his best efforts to suppress it, Jethri sighed, a hearty exasperated sigh accompanied by head-shaking and after a moment, a wry grin that he also could not suppress.
    "But, well, I like both of them," he admitted. "But I didn't know how to ask for that kind of company, and I'm not experienced and . . ."
    It sounded like the trader snarfed .
    "Jethri, you have you . People are interested in you. They, some of them, admire your physical self as well as your personality, and the melant'i grows because you are, what is the phrase, low key? And what does a trader ever do? Eh, what does a trader do in moments of doubt?"
    He looked at her with wide eyes, feeling dumb.
    "You do exactly as Parvet sig'Flava did. You ask for the sale!"
    At this there was nothing to do but laugh--indeed, Paitor had told him the same thing how many times in his life?
    The trader again looked at her ring, and then slowly stood.
    "I have told Gaenor, on being very quietly inquired of, magnificently respectful of melant'i that as far as I know there is no physical impediment to your attraction; and also that as far as I know there is neither a spiritual block, nor a love match languishing. If I am wrong--well, you are of Elthoria now and will treat crew kindly and demur gently if that is your aim and necessity. You are your own person and I do not now order you to anyone's bed, as this is not a marriage we discuss."
    Jethri felt another thrill go through him, for indeed, he'd never considered that line of event. If he was a son of the clan as all agreed these days, then Ixin might order him to marry, if he'd read that part right in the rules! What a spot that would be, put down on a planet and left to dangle after a--
    "However, it is my thought you have an offer of lesser complexity on the way, my son, and I, at least, wish to be sure of your social graces before ter'Astin leaves my deck."
    "But that'll be before the ship Festival!"
    "Ah, so you too are counting days?"
    She smiled, not unkindly then, and rose with a bow indicating that he should consider himself dismissed.
    "Be bold, my son. This should not be difficult for you, as you are so often bold, when necessity is right upon you. Be bold for joy, and we shall all be better for it! You will wish to stop at your mailbox, I am sure."

Chapter Five

    Clan Ixin's Tradeship Elthoria , In Jump

    From a Student's Guide to the Basics of Relationship Balance
    as Elucidated by the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct,
    Version Seventeen, Amended

    Relationship Balance is an important part of melant'i at all times and must by necessity change as a person comes halfling and begins to participate more widely in the independent expression of interpersonal dealings ranging from simple friendships through comradeship up to cha'leket and contract marriage and even into the esoterica of so-called Lifemate or Wizard Match situations. All in all potentially hundreds of dozens of varying states of relationships may be diagrammed if required, but the bulk of these fall into the simple ranges we will discuss here. The astute student will understand that a multiplicity of relationships may exist simultaneously with . . .

    Impatiently Jethri stabbed the buttons--yes, yes, this much he knew. And he knew that contract marriages were arranged by delms or thodelms for the purpose of producing agreed-on heirs, and that some people had to be contract-wed multiple times if it made a clan good arrangements, but everyone was supposed to be sure there was at least one heir of their own body to