“Absurd,” snorted Garthkint. “I cannot do business with you. Either you are insanely rapacious or you have been pitifully misguided as to the value of your wares. I am well-known for my charity; I will assume that the latter is the case. I trust you will not be too downcast when I tell you that five hundred of these muddy, undersized out-of-round objects are worth no more than two hundred credits.”
“If you are serious,” said Alen with marked amazement, “we would not dream pf imposing on you. At the figure you mention, we might as well not sell at all but return with our wares to Cepheus and give these gems to children in the streets for marbles. Good gem trader, excuse us for taking up so much of your time and many thanks for your warm hospitality in the matter of the wine.” He switched to Cephean and said: “We’re dickering now. Two thousand and two hundred. Get up; we’re going to start to walk out.”
“What if he lets us go?” grumbled blackbeard, but he did heave himself to his feet and turn to the door as Alen rose.
“My trader echoes my regrets,” the Herald said in Lyran.
“Farewell.”
“Well, stay a moment,” said Garthkint. “I am well-known for my soft heart toward strangers. A charitable man might go as high as five hundred and absorb the inevitable loss. If you should return some day with a passable lot of real gems, it would be worth my while for you to remember who treated you with such benevolence and give me fair choice.”
“Noble Lyran,” said Alen, apparently almost overcome. “I
shall not easily forget your combination of acumen and charity. It is a lesson to traders. It is a lesson to me. I shall not insist on two thousand. I shall cut the throat of my trader’s venture by reducing his price to eighteen hundred credits, thoupVi I wonder how I shall dare tell him of it.”
“What’s going on now?” demanded blackbeard.
“Five hundred and eighteen hundred,” said Alen. “We can sit down again.”
“Up, down—up, down,” muttered the trader.
They sat, and Alen said in Lyran: “My trader unexpectedly indorses the reduction. He says, ‘Better to lose some than all’ —an old proverb in the Cephean tongue. And he forbids any further .reduction.” ‘
“Come, now,” wheedled the gem dealer. “Let us be men of the world about this. One must give a little and take a little. Everybody knows he can’t have his own way forever. I shall offer a good, round eight hundred credits and we’ll close on it, eh? Pilquis, fetch us a pen and ink!” One of the burly guards was right there with an inkpot and a reed pen. Garthkint had a Customs form out of his tunic and was busily filling it in to specify the size, number and fire of gems to be released to him.
“What’s it now?” asked blackbeard.
“Eight hundred.”
“Take it!”
“Garthkint,” said Alen regretfully, “you heard the firmness and decision in my trader’s voice? What can I do? I am only speaking for him. He is a hard man but perhaps I can talk him around later. I offer you the gems at a ruinous fifteen hundred credits.”
“Split the difference,” said Garthkint resignedly.
“Done at eleven-fifty,” said Alen.
That blackbeard understood. “Well done!” he boomed at Alen and took a swig at Garthkint’s winecup. “Have him fill in ‘Sack eighteen’ on his paper. It’s five hundred of that grade.”
The gem dealer counted out twenty-three fifty-credit notes and blackbeard signed and fingerprinted the release.
“Now,” said Garthkint, “you will please remain here while I take a trip to the spaceport for my property.” Three or four of the guards were suddenly quite close.
“You will find,” said Alen dryly, “that our standard of commercial morality is no lower than yours.”
The dealer smiled politely and left.
“Who will be the next?” asked Alen of the room at large.
“I’ll look at your gems,” said another dealer, sitting at the table.
With the ice-breaking done, the transactions went quicker. Alen had disposed of a dozen lots by the time their first buyer returned.