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marketplace, that can be a tradable commodity, as ye may discover someday. They think you’ve a sharp eye and a sharper tongue. The reality be something more, though I wouldn’t argue ye can cut words with the best of them. Keep your Talent to yourself. Remember, our secret.”
    “Our secret,” he repeated solemnly.
    “Can ye do anything else?” she asked him, trying not to sound eager. “Anything besides feeling what others be feeling?”
    “I don’t think so. Though sometimes it feels like—I don’t know. It burns, and it makes me afraid. I don’t know how it happens to me, or why.”
    “Don’t trouble yourself about it, boy.” She didn’t press the matter when she saw how it upset him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” She drew him close, held him next to her thin, warm frame.
    “Ye utilize your mind and everything else ye own. That’s what it all’s been given to ye for. A Talent be no different from any other ability. If there be anything else ye want to try with yourself, ye go ahead and try it. ’tis your body and brain and none other’s.”

3
    T he couple came from Burley. Mother Mastiff could tell that by their rough accents and by the inordinate amount of gleaming metal jewelry they wore. They were handicraft hunting. The intricately worked burl of black caulderwood in Mother Mastiff’s shop caught their attention immediately. It had been finely carved to show a panoramic view of a thoruped colony, one of many that infested Moth’s northern-hemisphere continents. The carving ran the entire width of the burl, nearly two meters from end to end. It was a half meter thick and had been polished to a fine ebony glow.
    It was a spectacular piece of work. Ordinarily, Mother Mastiff would not have considered parting with it, for it was the kind of showpiece that brought passers-by into the stall. But this couple wanted it desperately, and only the impossibly high price seemed to be holding them back.
    Flinx wandered in off the street, picked at a pile of small bracelets, and watched while the man and woman argued. Quite suddenly, they reached a decision: they had to have the piece. It would complete their recreation room, and they would be the envy of all their friends. Hang the shipping cost, the insurance, and the price! They’d take it. And they did, though the amount on their credcard barely covered it. Two men came later that afternoon to pick up the object and deliver it to the hotel where the visitors were staying.
    Later that night, after the shop had closed, after supper, Mother Mastiff said casually, “You know, boy, that couple who bought the caulderwood carving today?”
    “Yes, Mother?”
    “They must have been in and out of the shop half a dozen times before they made up their minds.”
    “That’s interesting,” Flinx said absently. He was seated in a corner studying a chip on his portable viewer. He was very diligent about that. She never thought of sending him to a formal school—rental chips had been good enough for her as a child, and they’d damn well be good enough for him.
    “Yes,” she continued. “They barely had the money for it. I pressed them. I backed off, I did everything I could think of to convince them of its worth once I saw that they were really serious about buying the thing. Every time, no matter what I said, they left the shop and went off arguing between themselves.
    “Then ye put in an appearance and stood there and watched them, and lo-de-do-de, sudden-like, their sales resistance just crumpled up and went aflight. Be that not interesting?”
    “Not really,” he replied. “Doesn’t that happen lots of times?”
    “Not with an item as expensive as the caulderwood, it doesn’t. It hardly ever happens that way. Now I don’t suppose ye had anything to do with the sudden change of heart on the part of those two? ’tis not likely ye sensed their hesitation and maybe did something to help them along?”
    “Of course not, Mother.” He looked