Free Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton Page B

been fingered seemed refuse.
    Then he raised his head to grin at me again as he slipped his hoard into a travel case, clapped his hand twice on the converter, and touched the rest of the goods he had spread out, releasing them all formally.
    â€œTough luck,” he said in Basic. “But you’ve been having that all along, haven’t you, Jern? To expect to fill Ustle’s boots—” He shook his head.
    â€œGood fortune,” I said, when I would rather have voiced disappointment and frustration. “Good fortune, smooth lifting, with a sale at the end.” I gave him a trader’s formal farewell.
    But he made no move to leave. Instead he added the insulting wave of hand signifying among the Lorgalians a master’s introduction of a follower. And that, too, I had to accept for the present, since any dispute between us must be conducted outside the camp. A flare of temper would be swift indication that a devil had entered and all trading would be under ban, lest that unchancy spirit enter into some piece of the trade goods. I was almost tempted to do just that, in order to see Akki’s offerings ritually pounded into splinters, the zorans treated the same way. But though such temptation was hot in me for an instant, I withstood it. He had won by the rules, and I would be the smaller were I to defeat him so, to say nothing of destroying all thought of future trade with Lorgal not only for the two of us, but for all other off-worlders.
    I could take a chance and try to find another tribe somewhere out in the stark wilderness of the continent. But to withdraw from this camp now without dealing would be a delicate matter and one I did not know quite how to handle. I might offend some local custom past mending. No, like it or not, I would have to take Akki’s leavings.
    They were waiting and perhaps growing impatient. My hands spun into the sign language, aided by the throaty rasping my translator made as it spoke words in their own sparse tongue.
    â€œThis”—I indicated the converter—“I have also—but larger—in the belly of my sky lakis.”
    Now that I had made that offer there was no turning back. In order to retain the good will of the nomads I would have to trade, or lose face. And inwardly I was aware of my own inaptitude in the whole encounter. I had made my mistake in ever entering the camp after I had seen Akki’s flitter already here. The intelligent move would have been then to prospect for another clan. But I had rushed, believing my wares to be unduplicated, and so lost.
    Again that hairy hand waved and two of the bundled warriors arose to tail me to the flitter, cracking their whips above us as we crossed the line kept by the lashing guards. I pulled the heavy case from where I had so hopefully wedged it. And with their aid, one protecting us from the devils, the other helping me to carry it, I brought it back to the camp.
    We set it before the chieftain. Either by accident or design, it landed next to Akki’s, and the difference in bulk was marked. I went through the process of proving it was indeed a food converter and then awaited the chieftain’s decision.
    He gestured and one of my assistants booted a lakis to its feet, the creature bubbling and complaining bitterly with guttural grunts. It came up with a splayfooted shuffle which, awkward as it looked, would take it at an unvarying pace day after day across this tormented land.
    A kick on one foreknee brought it kneeling again and the two converters were set beside it. Then proceeded a demonstration to prove the inferiority of my offering. Akki’s machine might be put in a luggage sling on one side of the beast, a load of other equipment on the other—while if it bore the one I had brought, it could carry nothing else.
    The chieftain wriggled his fingers and a second roll of lakis hide was produced. I tensed. I had thought I would be offered Akki’s leavings, but it