“It can’t hurt,” the Cargo-Master said. He touched one of the packages he carried. “This local stuff’s nice. I wouldn’t object to having a few loose stones on hand.”
That part of the big market given over to unmounted gems and the metals used to complement them was not extensive, and there was almost no variety in the type of jewels offered. Canuchean amethysts and red garnets made up more than 90 percent of the stock. Most of the rest consisted of surplanetary fancy garnets, all of them flawed and none of good color, much to the woman’s disappointment.
The remainder were various small, imported semiprecious gems common throughout the ultrasystem. There were no sunstones at all that day.
The Free Traders bought a few stones, fewer than they might have if the quality had been better. All were single specimens. The sets, presorted packets containing from two gems to three dozen or more, they left alone. Most such lots were of very low grade, and they had plenty from which to choose at reasonable cost without having to settle for the patently inferior.
One stand featuring them did catch Cofort’s eye. It was a small, uncovered operation specializing in both imported and on-world stones plus a smattering of the more interesting readily available minerals. The array of colors was wonderful and was rendered more striking still by the masterful arrangement the merchant had employed to display his wares.
She picked up several of the clear packets encasing his goods and held them high so that Halio’s light might play over the contents before carefully replacing them again.
When she seemed to linger over one lot labeled rose tourmalines, the Canuchean was quick to pick up on her apparent interest.
“Those have better than average color. They go for fifty a carat.”
The spacer’s arched brows lifted even higher. “Hedon’s Gem Guild wouldn’t get that for stellar-quality synthetics, which these are not.”
The man drew himself to the full of his not inconsiderable height. “If they were stellar quality or anything approaching it; they wouldn’t be selling in sets. As for the rest, these tourmalines are natural …”
“Save it for the locals,” the Medic snapped. “Preferably the visually handicapped. It’s painfully obvious that just about every stone on this table is manufactured. — If you wish to argue the point, Canuche has thoughtfully supplied appraisers to settle such disputes. Their booth’s just over there. One of my comrades can fetch—”
“Power down, space hound. I’m only a salesman, not a gemologist. It’s as easy to fool me as anyone else. This stuff looked good to me, and I took it on faith, that’s all.”
“Of course,” she responded dryly. She had figured he would back down quickly under that threat. The official appraisers were noted for doing their job, and the penalties for fraud were severe. The merchant might have bluffed his way out of this, but he would then be under close observation for a very long time, which would seriously handicap the questionable enterprise he was running.
“Look, I’ll sell at a loss to prove my good intentions. Take what you want for ten a carat.”
“Ten? We do this for a living, too, remember? You got them for a quarter a carat, maybe half for a few of the best. You’ll be making a good profit at one credit.”
“One! I won’t be able to meet my rent!”
“Stow that debris, my friend. By rights, I shouldn’t go higher than three-quarters. Besides, we’re only taking a couple of sets as curiosities, one for me, one for my comrades to split. Synthetics like these wouldn’t move too well, and I really don’t believe your style of doing business deserves the reward of a big order.”
She looked over a number of the sets before selecting two, one containing all rose-colored stones, the other a mixture of rose and green. The gems in both were cut as cabochons rather than with light-firing facets.
After watching carefully while the discomfited merchant weighed her selection, she paid him based upon the scale he had named and, much to his relief, withdrew with her companions.
Cofort caught the way Dane was looking at her and laughed. “You didn’t think I had it in me, Viking?”
He started. That was the nickname some of his more insufferable classmates back at the Pool had used to taunt him. There was no barb in it now, though. In fact, he rather liked the sound of it… “Well, you usually come across as a rather quieter individual.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I wasn’t loud back there, either,” she teased.
“Neither are Patrol lasers,” Jellico told her. “They make their point, too.”
Her manner grew grave again. “I didn’t think Mr. Van Rycke would mind my taking the helm. The sum involved was infinitesimal, and one set is for me. I’ll keep the other as well if you really don’t want it.”
“Not at all,” replied the Cargo-Master. “As you said, it’s a curiosity.”
“We’ll see just how much of a curiosity when we get back to the Queen.”
There was such an air of mystery, of superiority, about her that his eyes narrowed. “That’s where we’re heading right now, Doctor Cofort. On all burners.”
15
Van Rycke ushered his companions into his office. The panel had scarcely closed behind them before he turned to Rael. “All right. What treasure have you found for us amid the debris?”
“Maybe none,” she replied, as she accepted the shears he held out to her and slit open each of the packets. She spilled then- contents out in two carefully separated piles.
“Which does the Queen want? The cost was the same.”
“The bicolored one.”
“Good choice,” she said as she separated two pink stones from it. “These appear to be the only ones,” she remarked after a few seconds’ examination of the rest. A similar study of her own packet produced another prize, this one somewhat larger than the first two.
Rael peered closely at all three, holding them so that they caught the full of the bright light from the desk lamp.
Her head rose in a gesture of triumph. “Star rubies,” she announced. “Very old and unquestionably the real thing. They’ll have to be tested for quality, but I suspect it’s first rate.”
“So that’s why you chose cabs rather than faceted stones,” Miceal said softly.
She nodded. “I’d spotted them right off. I couldn’t be entirely sure without examining them more carefully, but I knew I did have something out of the ordinary. I just had to be careful not to arouse his suspicion by paying too much attention to those particular sets.” She made a wry face. “I’d probably have been vacuum-brained enough to tell him if that son hadn’t tried to give us such a doing. Fifty credits a carat for those little mass-produced toys of his!”
“What if we had refused the packet you picked up for us?” the Cargo-Master asked.
The Medic answered Van Rycke, but it was Jellico’s eyes that she met and held. “Temporary hand or permanent, I am part of this ship, and I’m entitled to your trust. I’d proven my knowledge of gems. If you couldn’t go along with me blindly, or at least indulge my whim if you suspected nothing more, when the outlay was so insignificant, then you’d deserve to take your loss.”
“You’d have just held onto both packets and kept mum about the rubies?” Jan asked.
“Naturally. What else would you expect me to do?”
“Fair enough,” the Captain said. “We were testing you. You had the right to return the compliment.”
Dane fingered the rubies, although he did not pick them up. It would be too much like him to drop one of them— Cofort’s probably—and send it skittering into some crevice from which it could not be extracted short of dismantling the ship. “What’re they worth?”
“That I couldn’t venture to say with certainty, not until they’ve been tested,” she replied, “but if they’re as good as they look, they’re worth plenty. Mr. Van Rycke will be the better one to lay the proper valuation on them once he has the necessary information to do it.”
“They’re old to judge by the way they’ve been polished, probably Terran . . .” The Cargo-Master stopped speaking.
His breath caught. “Spirit of Space!”
“What’s the matter?” Miceal demanded.
“Most of Terra’s good star ruby sources were played out long ago, the best of them centuries ago, and there’s never been anything to equal their output since anywhere in the Federation. If these stones originated in one of those old mines, we’re looking at the stuff of legend. They’ll go for whatever the market’ll bear.”
“If we can locate that market,” his Captain said gloomily.
“Hedon. We keep our mouths shut and fire all our tubes to get there. Our small constellation here, our double star,” he corrected, recalling that one of the three did not belong to the Queen, “could well pay for that voyage and a number of others after it even if we moved nothing else at all on any of them.”