Catseye Read Online Free PDF Page B

shown directly to Kyger’s private office. And should the merchant be busied with customers, a certain signal of gong notes was to be sounded.
    At the conclusion of one of these visits Troy, or a yardman, would be summoned to take away a purchase. But the majority of these were sheltered in the yard, not among the rarities of the inner shop. And it appeared to Troy that the number of such sellers did not match the number of visitors—as if some of those unobtrusive men might have visited the ex-spacer for another reason. But that too might have an easy explanation; shipmates from old runs could well drop in while in port. Or there might be still a third reason—one that fitted the attack made upon Zul himself with the interest Varms had shown.
    Tikil was a luxury port. And the luxuries were not always within the bands of legal imports. Troy could name four forbidden drugs, a banned liquor, and several other items that would never arrive openly on the planet but would promise high returns for the men or man reckless enough to run them through port scanners. If Kyger had activities outside the port laws, however, that was none of his cage cleaner’s concern.
    On the fourth afternoon after he had taken contract, Troy was called to the showrooms. Two customers were present, and Kyger’s attention had been claimed by the one who, with her party, was in the outer lounge. He waved Horan to the man waiting.
    â€œShow this Gentle Homo the box of tri-dees from Hathor. Yes, Gentle Fem”—the merchant turned back to the glittering party he was serving—“there are many other Terran beasts which one might consider, fully equal in beauty and intelligence to cats. Let me show you—”
    When Troy would have led the way to the next lounge, the man he was to assist stopped him with a shake of the head. It appeared that he also wanted to see the wonder Kyger was about to reveal.
    The merchant pressed a button. A small viewing screen moved outward from the wall at a comfortable eye level for the woman in the foreseat of the party. She was older than Var’s consort, and far more elaborately dressed, affecting the semitransparent robes of Cynus, though they were not in the least flattering to her emaciated figure. Her voice was a shrill caw, but as Troy caught sight of her sharp-featured profile, he knew her for the Grand Leader One from Sidona. That was a matriarchate in name only now, a cluster of three small planets about a dying sun. But it still occupied a strategic point on an important star lane, and what power the Grand Leader Ones might have lost in battle they still possessed in alliances.
    â€œThis, Gentle Fem”—Kyger clicked thumb and finger together and was answered by the instant appearance on the screen of a tri-dee—“is a fox. I have already a pair in transit so I can promise an early delivery.”
    â€œSo?” The Grand Leader One leaned forward a little, the corners of her pinched mouth drawing down to deepen lines from a beak nose. “And how many credits will the coming of such take from my purse, Merchant?”
    Kyger named a sum that five days earlier would have made Troy incredulous. Now he merely wondered how long the bargaining would continue.
    â€œA fox, now,” the man standing beside him said very softly, his observation hardly above a whisper, as if he were thinking aloud.
    The animal in the tri-dee was clearly depicted life-size, the usual procedure for smaller beasts. It had a thick coat of Orange-red, black legs and feet, a white tip on its brush of tail. The head was almost triangular with sharp-pointed ears and muzzle, and greenish eyes slanted in that alert and mischievous mask. It was larger than the cats, but its expression of sly intelligence was most marked.
    But something in the way his own waiting customer had said “fox” suggested to Troy that the other was not unacquainted with the Terran exotic. However, he did