Free Halfling Moon by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page A

here. Mr.
Shaper, the only practical place for the clan house to go is
someplace very close to the road, yet not in someone else's
territory. Boss Gabriel tells me he has no plans for the place you
call World's End. Boss Sherton says the same. Your claim here is
perhaps the strongest claim on a piece of land on all of Surebleak,
the Port notwithstanding. It is impractical for us to move the
Port, as you must know. We tried to reach you sooner, but you were
not speaking with visitors."
    "This is sudden --"
    He stood up, did Yulie, jerkily, pushing
away from the table with a clatter. Pat Rin wished he'd brought
Anthora or Shan, or Priscilla, all of whom were Healers. Clearly,
there was need here for calm --
    Yulie spun around, touched the cat. There
was a pause, and Pat Rin wondered if the gun on the wall could
actually be loaded, since the man looked at it, touched the cat
again, before he sat down heavily in the chair, pulled it to table,
eyes staring into the distance, troubled.
    The fist that hit the table was firm, and
not impudent.
    "Didn't answer," Yulie said.
    Pat Rin bowed. Boss Conrad sighed.
    "Mr. Shaper, my kin
will
be taking over that location. They
will
put the clan house and all that comes with it there. And
they will do it soon. What we ask is for an access road. The
contract is clear: ten cantra now and one per Standard Year in the
future to lease access as long as the clan uses it."
    He paused, suppressed the pilot's
clear-the-board hand motion, continued.
    "If you say no, the clan will put the house
there and take away a hill or hills and do whatever else is
necessary to reach the city over on the farside, through
wastelands."
    "Why don't you just take it?"
    Pat Rin sighed, then.
    "Mr. Shaper, I have done many things to make Surebleak
workable. I
have
taken things. What I wish to do is to make things work
well, and to deal honorably with the world. I wish not to take it.
I wish to trade for it, just as you wished to trade your cabbages
for what you need."
    Yulie was holding on to his coffee cup now
as if he was afraid it would jump from his hands, a lucky thing
that he'd had so much of it already.
    Pat Rin stood up, bowing.
    "
I will not just take it,
" he said so quietly that it might have
been for his ears rather than Yulie's, and reached for the pile of
cantra on the table.
    Now it was Yulie's turn to show placating
hands. Pat Rin saw them, left the coins where they were while
Yulie's unschooled face showed decision crossed with doubt before
finally giving way to words.
    "Promise me -- write it in the contract --
that your people won't shoot my cats. And I want you here when they
put the house in, and you'll tell them so there won't be any --
accidents. Write it and sign that, and I'll sign it."
    Pat Rin glanced up at the cat on the
counter, thought about Silk, thought about Jonni, who some called
his son . . . and nodded.
    "I can do that, Mr. Shaper. I may need a
moment or two in order to compose it, of course."
    "Take your time. But when do you think
you'll be back?"
    Pat Rin lifted an eyebrow.
    "Be back?"
    "Yes. When will they put the house in?"
    Pat Rin lifted a hand to stay the query as
he wrote, and then signed with a flourish, which became an offer of
the stylus.
    "Here, Mr. Shaper, do you agree as well, if
you would."
    Yulie read the words several times and
mumbled "Good cats," or something like, after reading "welfare of
cats shall not be imperiled" and nodded, and signed a scrawling
hand that nearly filled the bottom of the sheet.
    "Good, here." Yulie handed the sheets back
as if they were precious, then asked "When will they be here -- I
should move some of the rocks on the edge and . . . "
    "When? I expect just before dusk."
    "But
when
? What day?"
    "Oh, I expect before dusk today, Mr. Shaper,
today."
    * * *
    The rock, the moon, was almost down now;
they'd followed it bright in the day, and then seen it shine
through from behind light clouds. Now it was half enveloped as the
light faded,