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going on here.”
    “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” she asked as we started off again.
    “You mean for myself? Or to sell?”
    “Either.”
    “I’m always on the lookout for trade goods, but those I just kind of stumble on. It’s not like I’m looking for something specific but I know it when I see it.”
    “Yeah,” Brill agreed. “It’s the excitement of the hunt that makes it fun as much as anything else. But what about personally? Anything in that department?”
    “Well, I’d like to upgrade my wardrobe. These were my going out clothes back on Neris.” I indicated my civvies. “They seem a little—tired.”
    “It’s hard to find clothes that fit at the flea market,” Brill said wistfully. “Not just for me. I’m impossible to fit no matter where I go, but flea market items tend to fall into the one-size-fits-all category to appeal to the most people. Finding anything that is really good is basically luck.”
    “That makes perfect sense, now that you said it.” I sighed. “Well, maybe in Dunsany I can find a tailor and a boot maker.”
    “Maybe you won’t have to wait that long,” Brill said with a grin. She could see over the heads in front of us, and when the crowd cleared a bit, I saw what she was referring to.
    A large banner hung on the drape behind a booth that proclaimed: Bresheu et Fils . An impeccably dressed, portly gentleman with a bald pate surrounded by tufts of brown hair dominated the space with his presence. He held court, directing a small platoon of boys and girls in their tasks. Some measured. Some cut. But all moved with a common purpose. A table set up in the back of the booth held several machines, all humming merrily under dexterous fingers and sharp eyes. The booth—and I realized that it was actually a triple—boiled with activity.
    I laughed out loud at the sight and Brill clapped her hands girlishly in delight. The chrono said we had less than a stan before closing, so this had to be our last stop. It was going to be memorable. I flashed a digital for Pip.
    Brill touched my arm and murmured into my ear, “My turn to find the head. I’ll be right back.”
    “I’ll be here,” I said, distracted by the commotion. I turned back to the booth and tried to figure out where to begin.
    As I started thumbing through the racks, a voice in my ear said, “How can we help you today, young sir?” I turned and found the man himself smiling at me. He held out a hand. “Bresheu,” he introduced himself, “at your service.”
    I shook his hand and said, “Call me…that is…my name is Ishmael Wang, Monsieur Bresheu. And I am in need of a better jacket.”
    He beamed a smile back at me. “Just Bresheu, Mr. Wang. May I call you Ishmael?”
    “Of course.”
    “What kind of jacket would you like, then, Ishmael?”
    I pulled at the lapel of my glorified windbreaker. “I’ve outgrown this,” I said. “While the size is adequate, I find that it no longer fits me.”
    Bresheu nodded knowingly. “I understand completely. If you would slip off your garment and try…” He snapped his fingers, and a girl hung an exquisite black sport coat on his hand. “This one?”
    I stripped out of my jacket and Bresheu slipped the coat on for me. A boy immediately began tugging and straightening. A girl, who could not have been more than eight stanyers, plunked down at Bresheu’s feet and started writing the measurements as fast as a different boy could read them out. A tape measure flashed as he read numbers for neck, sleeve, length, chest, and waist. Bresheu tsked and shook his head. “No. This will not do.” Before I could even see whether I liked it or not, the jacket was gone.
    He snapped his fingers again and a different girl, I think, hung a brownish, waist length jacket on his outstretched fingers. He slipped it onto my shoulders while the little girl with my measurements scrambled out from under his feet and the boy with the measuring tools stepped