"Andre Norton - Moon Singer 1 - Moon of Three Rings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

eyes open, having a good memory for things recorded on past voyage
tapes, and probably having something which our elders called flair and
which was a natural gift and nothing learned by study, no matter how
doggedly pursued.

Of course, there were always the easy, spectacular things—a new fabric,
a gem stone—eye catchers. But these were usually right out in the open.
And the fair steerer made very sure that the cargomaster saw them at the
first sighting when the big merchants met. On such sales as these
depended perhaps all a planet's lure for off-world Traders, and they were
publicly hawked.

The others were "hiders," things you nosed out on spec, almost always
an obscure product some native merchant had brought to the booths on
spec himself—small items which could be made into luxury trade for
off-world, light, easy to transport, to sell for perhaps a thousand times cost
price to the dilettanti of the crowded inner planets, who were always in
search of something new with which to impress their neighbors.

Foss had had a storied success on his second voyage with the Ispan
carpets, masterpieces of weaving and color which could be folded into a
package no longer than a man's arm, yet shaken out in silken splendor to
cover a great-room floor, wearing well, with a flow of shade into shade
which delighted and soothed the eyes. My immediate superior, Lidj, was
responsible for the Crantax dalho discovery. So it was that a very
insignificant-appearing, shriveled black fruit had now become an industry
which made the League a goodly number of credits, put Lidj on secondary
contract, and benefited a quarter of a struggling pioneer planet. One could
not hope for such breaks at the start of course—though I think that deep
down inside all of us apprentices did—but there were smaller triumphs to
bring a commendation for one's E record.

I went with Lidj and the captain to the in-meeting on first day. It was
held in the Great Booth, which was really a hall of no mean dimensions on
a field beyond the walls of Yrjar, now the center of the fair. While most
Yiktorian architecture tended toward the gloom and dark of buildings
which must always be ready to serve as fortifications in time of siege, the
Great Booth, being free of such danger, was somewhat less grim. Its walls
were of stone but only part way. Inside there was an open space almost the
entire width, broken only by pillars which supported a sharply peaked
roof, the eaves of which extended far out from the walls to afford good
weather protection—though it was the dry season in which the fair was
held and usually fine weather. The light thus given to the interior was far
more than you could find in any building elsewhere on Yiktor.
 We were the only Free Trader in port, though there was a licensed ship
under Combine registry, carrying, by contract only, specified cargo which
we did not dispute. This was one time when there was truce between
off-worlders and no need for sharp maneuvering, our captains and cargo
masters sharing the high seats of the senior merchants in amicability .
The rest of us lesser fry were not so comfortably housed. We rated on a