And that was where Becker found the cat later, entertaining the strokes and pats of the children of the stone vendor and idly batting one of the smaller and more precious stones back and forth between his paws. The rock glinted blue, green, aqua, then back to blue again as the cat rolled it from paw to paw. “Nice cat, mister,” a boy of about five said. “What’llya take for him?”
Becker cocked an eyebrow at him. “That’s the second offer I’ve had today.”
“Don’t be dumb, Deeter,” a girl of about seven -with the same red hair and freckles said. “You don’t buy and sell cats like this. Can’t you see he’s a Makahomian Temple Cat? They’re sacred, you know. Probably part of this man’s religion.
I bet he’s a priest or something.”
“Pope at least,” Becker agreed. “Him, I mean. I just work for him.”
The vendor himself was rooting around in a box and when he stood up this time, Becker finally remembered his name.
“Reamer! You’re Rocky Reamer!” he said.
“You got it, buddy,” the man said. It was clear he was the daddy of these kids. He had the same red hair and freckles. “And say, I thought I recognized you, too, but if you’re the guy I’m thinking of, you look a little different. It’s Joe Becker, isn’t it?”
“Joe, Jonas, whatever,” he said. “Yeah, that’s me, Becker. You know what? I just remembered why those stones I was looking at earlier sounded so familiar. What were the names again? Giloglite, bairdite, and nadezdite?”
“That’s it,” Reamer said. “They’re from new deposits the kids on Maganos found and named for the Lady’s uncles. See, that one with the red and yellow in it that has a kinda plaid look to it? That’s for Calum Baird, who’s a Caledonian Celt like me. We had a geology class together once. The serpentine looking one is for that Iroid partner of his, Declan Giloglie, and the flashy one for his noaveau richenw himself, the heir and current manager of the House of Harakamian, Rafik Nadezda.”
Becker grinned. “That’s what I thought. So Rafik’s uncle made him heir, huh? I never could tell if he hated the old man or admired him.”
“A little of both, I guess. You know those guys, then?”
“Yeah, we been chasing each other around the same big rocks for years. They were looking for the unoccupied ones and I was looking for the occupied or formerly occupied ones, so we didn’t get in each other’s way much.”
RK had knocked the stone he was playing with off the table and was allowing himself to be distracted by a string dangled by Deeter.
Becker picked the stone up from the ground. “And what did you call this one?”
“That’s acornite.”
“Where’s it from? A planet where all the plant life is also mineral? You maybe grow already petrified oak trees from it?”
Reamer s face was blank for a second, and then he grinned and chuckled.
“No, silly,” the little girl said. “Don’t you know anything? It’s named for the Lady, of course!”
“I thought her name was Epona …” Becker said. “If it’s the same one, I mean. I was told that was who was on Maganos, anyway, and you said that’s where Gil and Calum and Rafik are these days.”
The little girl looked unsure of her information at this point and turned to her dad, who said, “Nah, that’s one of what you might call her titles. See, she and old man Li-he died this year, did you know? “
“Delszaki Li died? Shards, I thought he was immortal in spite of the wheelchair.”
“Nope, he finally died. Turned out he was head of the Liberation Movement that saved Kezdet. Li had already done some of the groundwork for the revolution, but nothing really got moving until Gil and his buddies brought the Lady down here. She didn’t know much about politics, but she knew for sure she didn’t like to see kids being sold into slavery. Took her about a year to bring down the houses and the Piper and start up the education and mining center on Maganos. Of course, it helped that she also forged an alliance between the houses of Harakamian and Li so she had almost unlimited money behind her. Anyway, the kids got real superstitious about her and some of them thought she was some kind of goddess, depending on the religions they’d had where they’d come from. So they call her Epona, Lady Lucia, or the Lady of the Light, but her name’s really Lady Acorna Harakamian-Li.”