Read Trader's World for Free Online

just sit and be entertained by me."
    * * *
    While most of the other trainees went at once to the back of the room, Cesar Famares and his two friends stayed at their desks. They had seen the Rule Book long ago in a pirated copy from Cesar's brother; already they knew it by heart.
    "So where on earth is Cissy?" Jake Kallario asked. "First she didn't arrive two days ago, then she didn't come yesterday. She told me she had a few things to take care of back home, but if she's not careful she'll miss some of the real training. What's keeping her?"
    "That's part of the bad news," Cesar said. "Cissy won't be coming. She didn't make the final cut."
    "What!" Kallario was open-mouthed. "She said she had the whole thing fixed—that it was a certainty."
    "I know." Cesar bit at his thumbnail and shook his head. "I'm really sorry, Jake. I thought that you and Cissy were—well, you know. It seems there's less certainties here than we realized."
    "She can appeal it, can't she?" Melinda asked. "Sure she can. She'll get in later."
    Famares looked at her unhappily. "You know, Melly, my brother understands the Admin system here inside out. I asked Davy if there was any way Cissy could appeal, or get a second chance." He shook his head. "He said even if she tries again and makes it, the next batch will go to the Cook Islands training camp instead."
    "But that's terrible!" Melinda flopped back down into her seat. "They can't do that to us. We've been a team , all these years—ever since First Application. To break us up now, when we know each other so well—"
    "And we'll have to have a fourth person for the combined trials," Jake interrupted. "They're always performed as a quartet. If we don't have Cissy, we might get some real loser."
    "That's another bit of bad news." Cesar Famares turned to face the back of the classroom and gestured unobtrusively toward the right wall. "We're not supposed to know them yet, but the preliminary groupings have already been decided, based on the test scores. The three of us will be together, just the way we expected. But we'll be getting him as partner."
    Melinda followed the jerky gesture of his arm. "Which one? The tall one, or the little one?"
    "The runt."
    Melinda looked, and recognized the ill-fitting jacket and untidy hair. "Him! Mikal Asparian. I noticed him at roll call."
    "So did I." Jake was staring with contempt at Asparian. "Don't joke me, Cesar—you mean we'll be working with him?"
    Melinda was taking a longer and closer look at their proposed partner. "Well, if we're stuck with him we'll have to make the best of it. He seems harmless enough. But he's a funny-looking bird, isn't he? Look at his hair! At least he's an Asparian—that's a good Trader family, not some dogsbody from a Pacific school. I wonder why we've never seen him around?"
    "That's the third piece of bad news." Cesar shook his head. "I was late getting here because I hung around while Davy ran a check on backgrounds. He's not an Asparian at all! He was given that name by Daddy-O, only four years ago."
    "By Daddy-O ," Jake said. "Nobody gets their name from Daddy-O."
    "He did. Before that he was an outsider. A Hiver, would you believe?"
    "On our team? I won't stand for it."
    "Steady on, Jake." Melinda had seen the color rising in his face. "He can't help being what he is, can he?"
    "A Hiver! They don't even wash; he'll be a stinker, as well."
    "He couldn't have got into this training program without being smart and reasonably presentable," Cesar said. "Calm down, Jake—it's bad news, but it's not the end of the world."
    "He probably eats mud. What sort of screwup assigned him to us ? I'm telling you, for Cissy to lose her place to some moron Hiver from the Lostlands—I won't take it."
    "Calm down, Jake." Cesar gripped his friend's arm. "We can't do a thing about it."
    "Can't we?" Jake Kallario's face had gone from red to white. "We'll see about that. I'm going to the instructor, to protest."
    "No, you're not." Melinda took the