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. . .  The name looked odd, written out in Terran, approximating spelling across two alphabets that didn't precisely match, edge-on-edge. Norn ven'Deelin, who had given his card—his name —into Sirge Milton's keeping. Jethri blinked. Norn ven'Deelin, he thought, would very likely know how to get in touch with a person he held in such high esteem. With luck, he'd be inclined to share that information with a polite-talking 'prentice.

    If he wasn't inclined. . . Jethri folded his paper away and got out of the booth, leaving the beer behind. No use borrowing trouble, he told himself.
    * * *

    IT WAS LATE, but still day-Port, when he found the right office. At least, he thought, pausing across the street and staring at that damned bunny silhouetted against the big yellow moon, he hoped it was the right office. He was tired from walking miles in gravity, hot, gritty—but worse than any of that, he was scared. Norn ven'Deelin's office—if this was at last his office—was well into the Liaden side of Port.

    Not that there was properly a Terran side, Ynsolt'i being a Liaden world. But there were portions where Terrans were tolerated as a necessary evil attending galactic trade, and where a body caught the notion that maybe Terrans were cut some extra length of line, in regard to what might be seen as insult.

    Standing across from the door, which might, after all, be the right one, Jethri did consider turning around, trudging back to the Market and taking the licks he'd traded for.

    Except he'd traded for profit to the ship, and he was going to collect it. That, at least, he would show his senior and his captain, though he had long since stopped thinking that profit would buy him pardon.

    Jethri sighed. There was dust all over his good trading clothes. He brushed himself off as well as he could, and looked across the street. It came to him that the rabbit on Clan Ixin's sign wasn't so much howling at that moon, as laughing its fool head off.

    Thinking so, he crossed the street, wiped his boots on the mat, slid his fractin manfully out of his palm and into his public pocket, and pushed the door open.

    The office behind the door was airy and bright, and Jethri was abruptly glad that he had dressed in trading clothes, dusty as they now were. This place was high-class —a body could smell profit in the subtly fragrant air, see it in the floor covering and the real wooden chairs.

    The man sitting behind the carved center console was as elegant as the room: crisp-cut yellow hair, bland and beardless Liaden face, a vest embroidered with the moon-and-rabbit worn over a salt-white silken shirt. He looked up from his work screen as the door opened, eyebrows lifting in what Jethri had no trouble reading as astonishment.

    "Good-day to you, young sir." The man's voice was soft, his Trade only lightly tinged with accent.

    "Good-day, honored sir." Jethri moved forward slowly, taking care to keep his hands in sight. Three steps from the console, he stopped and bowed, as low as he could manage without falling on his head.

    "Jethri Gobelyn, apprentice trader, Gobelyn's Market ." He straightened and met the bland blue eyes squarely. "I am come to call upon the Honored Norn ven'Deelin."

    "Ah." The man folded his hands neatly upon the console. "I regret it is necessary that you acquaint me more nearly with your business, Jethri Gobelyn."

    Jethri bowed again, not so deep this time, and waited til he was upright to begin the telling.

    "I am in search of a man—a Terran," he added, half-amazed to hear no quaver in his voice—"named Sirge Milton, who owes me a sum of money. It was in my mind that the Honored ven'Deelin might be willing to put me in touch with this man."

    The Liaden frowned. "Forgive me, Jethri Gobelyn, but how came such a notion into your mind?"

    Jethri took a breath. "Sirge Milton had the Honored ven'Deelin's card in pledge of—"

    The Liaden held up a hand, and Jethri gulped to a stop, feeling a little gone