for dealing fairly. There was no reason to expect less of his
sister. If the Queen's representatives kept then" wits about
them, they could come out of this with something to show
over and above the gains they had already made.
No one spoke again for several seconds. Dane broke the
silence. He had seen the famed Trader once but could not
place the woman with whom they would be dealing. "I
don't recall seeing anyone with Cofort at the Survey auc-
tion. Was she there?"
Tang Ya smiled. "If she had been, put credits down that
you'd remember her."
Alt stirred. "Beautiful?"
Thorson frowned but immediately felt ashamed of his
reaction. The Engineer-apprentice himself was strikingly
handsome, to the extent that he almost seemed a carica-
14 Andre Norton & P.M. Griffin
ture, the video stereotype of the daring star-roving hero.
Why shouldn't comeliness in others interest him? As for
the rest, Kamil was not to blame that his appearance and
the poise that accompanied it occasionally annoyed Dane,
and no one could fault his competence or his courage when
the need to display either arose.
The Com-Tech shrugged. "Beauty is common in the uni-
verse. She has that, but there's something unique about
her, strange even. ч No, she wasn't at the auction. Rael
rarely accompanies her brother when he's conducting sur-
planetary business. That's why none of you children has
seen her yet."
"She does attend gem markets now and then," Jellico
informed them. His usually cold eyes laughed as they
flickered to Van Rycke. The shot was deserved payment for
the surprise he had been given.
The Cargo-Master growled and then sighed. "I had the
misfortune of trying to do some business on a day when the
pair of them were out buying," he informed the others. "I
might as well have stayed home. Between Cofort's store of
credits and her eye, nothingчand I mean absolutely noth-
