Trading in Danger Read Online Free PDF Page B

airplane… but that was also true.”
    “All right, all right.” She stared out at the blanket of cloud. Ahead, it frayed into puffs more and more isolated… and as they flew nearer that edge, the blue sea showed below. There to starboard, the distinctive hook shape of Main Gumbo, from this altitude a flat outline of white surf filled in with dark vegetation. She looked sunward… the wakes of ships showed clearly as darker ripples against the even pattern. In the passage betweenMainand Little Gumbo, a tanker surrounded by its attendants. Crawdad, beyond Little Gumbo, was a many-legged dark blot.
    An hour later, the dark blue lightened as they neared the Necklace Reefs. From cobalt through every shade of turquoise, as the water grew more shallow, until at last the ragged brown tops of the reefs broke through white surf.
    Corleigh showed at last: a dark line that thickened, surrounded by shallower water that looked, from this height, like bands of blue and turquoise, each shade defining a depth. They flew over the main harbor, with its guardian headlands rising sharply from the water; surf broke white on the rocks. Ky counted two cargo ships, the interisland ferry, and a thick cluster of small craft before they were past the harbor and over the warehouses of the harbor district. Beyond those, the neat little town, with its central park, a green square with the spire of the War Memorial glinting in the sun. Corleigh’s small commercial airfield had a scatter of small craft parked in a row; Ky knew that the daily Island Air service would be two hours behind them.
    Inland,HarborValleysloped gently toward the central ridge; Gaspard banked left and Kylara looked down on the vast tik plantations between the coastal cliffs and the higher ridge with its mixed scrub. Not a monoculture: these were old plantations, interplanted with secondary and tertiary crops in a careful balance to maximize both production and resilience.
    On the far side of the ridge, she knew, were the newer plantings. She had imagined bringing Hal to meet her family, on graduation leave; he was a mainlander and had never seen the far islands. She would have been explaining it to him, the order of the plantings, the yields of the different ages… She pushed that thought back.
    Ahead, the island narrowed and the central ridge sloped abruptly down to end in a rumple of lower hills; she could see the outer reef’s ruffle of surf beyond them. Taller trees, the sheltering groves of the Vatta household, cloaked the landward side of the hills. Gaspard called the Vatta home field as he eased their plane down, neatly countering the predictable gusts that swept between the twin hills. Ky felt her throat close. She had been able to let her mind drift, while in the air, but soon she would have to face her family.
    She stared out the window, noting that the jabla trees were in bloom, pink fluffy puffs among the darker green of the haricond and jupal. The red tile roofs of the house and outbuildings showed among the green, with a sudden flash of light from the big pool. Nearer to the runway were the office buildings, utilitarian cream blocks topped with solar panels, but neat, with a ruffle of red and blue flowers on either side of the main door.
    “Give us a hand, Ky,” Gaspard said. Ky yanked her attention back to the instruments, and called out items on the checklist as Gaspard made the final approach. Then they were down, and rolling. Ky turned her collar right side out, and reached back for her uniform jacket. She was not going to come home disheveled and disorganized. By the time Gaspard had taxied to the parking line, where old George waited to hook up the tie-downs, she was ready to pass—well, not any official inspection, but any of the staff.
    “Good to see you home,” George said. “You didn’t belong with the likes of them slimes anyway.”
    Ky knew it would do no good to tell him they weren’t slimes. George, veteran of the Second War, loathed