Finity's End

A man stood up from behind a desk all but overwhelmed by stacks of oddments, boxes, masks, statuary, shelves with crystal specimens, more of the plastic bouquets, fiber mats and dried plants, dried fish, one truly large one mounted on a board. There was a whole mounted animal with horns, at which Vince exclaimed, “Wild,” and Linda looked appalled.

Jeremy was on to the display cabinets like a junior whirlwind, looking under counters, into cabinets.

“Wild,” Vince said again.

It was impressive. But the man at the counter was on his way to panic.

Fletcher whipped out the card and laid it on the table. “You came recommended,” he said. “Man said you had a good stock.”

“Best this side of Cyteen,” the man said. “Mr…”

“James,” he improvised, the fastest name to any Neihart tongue. But then he remembered the Family name problem, and settled fast on what he knew was a Unionside ship. “Off Boreale .”

“Union.”

“Out of Cyteen. Just doing a little business, here and there, got a few contacts. Man asked me to, you know, pick him up a couple of good items at our turnaround point. He’s government.” He’d heard about Cyteen officials on the take. It was rumored, at least, on Pell docks. “I’m looking.”

“Got any downer stuff?” Jeremy blurted out.

“The kid’s crazy about downers,” Fletcher said, at that nervous dart of the eyes, and the man darted a glance back. “What I’m interested in is just the unusual. The shop that referred us here, you know, said you might have some back-room stock.”

“There’s the warehouse.” Cagey answers. Saying nothing.

“Not interested in what you can see elsewhere. The man gives me money on account, I’m not bringing him junk, you know what I mean?”

“What price range are you interested in?”

“Say my captain knows. Say that kind of finance. Not interested in ru

It was a piece of truth, something somebody who was dealing in downer goods would know. If a mat was smuggled and not passed through sterilization, microfauna came in the reeds. Destruction of whole illicit collections had resulted.

“No fools here. We irradiate everything.”

“Show me,” he said, and shot the kids a be-still look.

The man went to the back door, and left it open while he rummaged just the other side of the door.

He’s got something , Jeremy lip-sent, exaggerated enough to read across a station dock, and he lip-sent back, Shut up .

The man came back with several bundles. Unrolled mats, weavings, old ones. Fletcher’s heart beat fast. He knew which band had produced them.

He managed to brush idle fingertips across the simple pattern and look bored.

Another mat unrolled.

And Satin’s stick landed atop it, unfolded out of tissue.

“God.” From the back of Fletcher’s elbow, Jeremy eeled past Vince and picked it up, held it up to the light.

“Careful!” the man said.

“Jeremy,” Fletcher said severely, and willed the boy quiet, his own heart beating hard. He took the artifact from Jeremy’s hand. “Looks genuine.”

“Riverside culture, maybe Wartime. A lot of stuff got up here then.”

When Mazian’s forces occupied the planet and took what they damn well pleased.

“I’d believe it,” he said easily. He’d dealt in pilfered goods. Never this class of article. Price might be the giveaway of an amateur. “What’s your valuation?”

“Oh, you’ve done this before.”

“I said.”

“You come in here with kids…”

“Good cover.” He shrugged. “Say I could probably meet this. Customs is my problem.”

“I’ll arrange which agent. If you meet the price.”

This man was going to arrange which customs agent dealt with Boreale . This was no small-time operator. And he’d believed the Boreale business.

“So…” he said carefully. “What are we talking about in exchange?”

“Sixty thousand.”

“Fifty.”

“Sixty firm. This isn’t Green.”

“Fifty-five.”

“Fifty-nine and that’s the bottom.”

“Fifty-nine’s fine, but I’ve got arrangements to make.” He was faking it He had no idea how transactions like this regularly passed, and he dreaded any move, any helpful word from the junior-juniors crowded up against the counter on either side of him.

“Arrangements are easy.” The man reached for a paper invoice book. “You arrange your captain does a bulk buy, Earth origin export I’ll give you a certificate. It’ll be included.” The man scribbled on the paper, tore it off, handed it to him. “That’s the total price. It’s in there. You see that clears the bank. It’ll be in the crate.”

He wasn’t such a fool as to trust the system. He gave the man a doubting look. “Got to talk to my captain, understand.”

“The deal’s not done till that payment’s in the account. Anybody comes in here, he could buy it if he meets the price.”

Oldest sales push in the book. In Babylon, they must have used it. He gave the man the eye.

“You get an offer, you go right ahead,” he said. “Takes time to get things set up. Can I reach you mainday?”

“Ask for Laz. My nephew does days. He’ll find me.”

“Got it.” Figure that a place like this had the owner working alterday. Fletcher pocketed the slip of paper, collected the junior-juniors, and left.

They walked out of sight of the door before Jeremy’s patience fractured.

“Let’s get the cops!”

“Wait a minute!” He grabbed Jeremy’s shirt, stopping a rush to justice. “This isn’t a short-change job. This is major.” Jeremy squirmed to be free and he tightened his grip. “You think this guy doesn’t have a deal with the cops?”

Jeremy stopped struggling.

“We’re going to do exactly what we told him we’d do. We’re going to go to our ship’s captains and see what they think.”

“They’re in meetings,” Vince said.

“So we find Bucklin or somebody and see if we can get word to them. You just calm down and let’s get back to the sleepover. They’ll show up there. It was a smart idea, looking in the curio shops. We’ve got the facts. Let’s just use our heads.”

“Yessir,” Jeremy said, rubbing his arm.

He’d probably grabbed too hard. He was sorry about that. He patted Jeremy on the back and the lot of them walked back toward the twos, toward the gathering-place of Boreale crew and Finity crew alike, with their packages and their information.

Found it and found a whole lot else, Fletcher was thinking. He knew operations like this only by what he’d heard by rumor and by his study in planetary cultures. If shops like this existed on Pell, they existed on a far smaller scale.

The warehouse behind the shop, that was likely something to behold. And his instincts reminded him that no local authority had done anything about it. Point two, the man talked confidently about handling customs. About an elaborate system of invoices and cargo packed as what it wasn’t.

All of that said the system was well-organized, didn’t fear the law much so long as he put on a good appearance for the honest officials that might contact the product on its way out, and that cops on the docks didn’t stray into that shop. All his instincts from his own days on the rough side of the docks said that the man was doing what he did fairly well out in the open. There were more curio shops here than anywhere he’d seen, and he’d bet none of them bore very close inspection.

Ordinary theft didn’t shock him. He knew that went on. This, however, the traffic in planet-produced goods, and the stripping of planets of irreplaceable artifacts, artwork, human history and downer faith… this was foul.

And dangerous. Slipping goods past the systems designed to stop it, also happened to slip them past all the safeguards that detected small lifeforms, and transferred biological materials into places they might, yes, die because they were foreign. But they might not, too.