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wording on it— McWhortle's Special Wake-Up Blend —and it should be taken just as the directions instruct. Shall we plan on dining at Ongit's this evening?"
      "I would enjoy that," he said truthfully. "Very much."
      "Then that is what we shall do," Luken declared. "Until soon, my son."
      "Until soon, father," Pat Rin responded and rose to bow Luken to the door.
     
    * * *
     
    IT APPEARED THAT Luken had been correct in his assessment of the lot of rugs from the Southern House, as well as in his understanding of the utility of McWhortle's Special Wake-Up Blend.
      The tea was surprisingly tasty for something avowedly of Terran extraction, and equally efficacious.
      The rugs... He sighed. Not all of the pilots of Korval—put together!—knew what Luken did of rugs, and some had, alas, displayed an amazing lack of both color sense and fashion awareness.       The first rug, indifferently rolled and protected by nothing more than a thin sheet of plastic, was synthetic. He threw it across the flat onto the show-zone, where the mass and size were automatically recorded—the overhead camera recorded detail, but really—there wasn't much to say for it. Machine stamped in a small, boring floral pattern, backed with nothing more than its own fibers, with a density on the low side, it might as well be sent as a donation to the Pilot's Fund used-goods outlet in Low Port.
      Pat Rin dutifully entered these deficiencies into his clipboard, slotted the stylus, and touched a key. The clipboard hummed for a moment, printing, and a yellow inventory tag slid out of the side slot. Pat Rin picked up the stitch gun and stapled the tag to the corner of the rug, before rolling it, bagging it in a bel'Tarda-logo light-proof wrapper, and dragging the sorry specimen over to the storage bin which he had marked with Cousin Er Thom's number and the additional legend, "Southern House."
      Straightening, feeling somewhat better for the tea and in fact much more clear eyed—he looked suddenly to the shelf above the bin, where a long-haired white cat with excessively pink ears lounged, very much at her leisure. Likely she'd been there the while; that he hadn't noticed her was a further testament to his excesses of the evening before.
      "Niki," Pat Rin murmured, extending a finger, but not quite touching the drowsing animal.
      Her eyes slitted, then opened to full emerald glory. Yawning, she extended a pink-toed and frivolously befurred foot to wrap around his fingertip, her claws just pricking the surface of his skin.
      Pat Rin smiled and used his free hand to rub the lady softly beneath her delicate chin. Niki's eyes went to slits again and her breathy purr filled the air between them. The claws withdrew from his captive finger and he let the freed member fall to his side, while moving his other hand to her ears. His exertions there were shortly rewarded with an increase in her audible pleasure, and he smiled again.
      One's mother did not keep cats, or any other domestic creature, aside the occasional servant. It made for an oddly empty feel about the house, even when it was full with guests.
      "Thank you," he whispered, giving her chin a last rub and stepping back. Niki squinted her eyes in a cat-smile, purring unabated.
      Pat Rin turned back to his work.
      The next rug was intriguingly and thickly wrapped in what must have been a local newspaper. He fussed the sheets off and found the rug rolled backing out, tied at intervals with what might have once been elegant hair-ribbons. He sat on his heels and smiled. This, he would examine last. It had good weight and somehow the smell of a proper rug—and would be his reward for doing a careful inventory of the rest of the obviously unsuitable specimens tumbled about them.
      He used a utility blade to slit the plastic sealing the next rug, noting the