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Elizabeth Moon

Trading in Danger

Acknowledgments

As usual, this book reflects more than my own limited expertise; friends, family, and acquaintances all had useful suggestions and vital information. Some preferred not to be named here.

Thanks are due to David, Richard, Susan, Julia, Selina, Joshua, Laura, Ellen, and Sean, all of whom made innumerable helpful comments. Also the economist I met on a flight toTulsa, and whose name I never knew…

David R. Watson deserves particular thanks for his expertise with archery and his willingness to help choreograph fight scenes.

Anne McCaffrey, with a lift of the eyebrows, solved a problem I was having when I talked to her about it. Her words were wise, but the lift of the eyebrows had already done the trick.

The regulars on the news group, with their encouragement, helped me over the rough spots. So did the SFWA Musketeers and Musketeer Auxiliary.

TheFlorenceHigh Schoolfaculty and staff (especially the special education folks) had a part in this toward the end, by doing such a great job of easing our son into high school.

Mistakes and omissions are all mine.

Chapter One

Kylara Vatta came to attention in front of the Commandant’s desk. One sheet of flatcopy lay in front of him, the print too small for her to read upside down. She had a bad feeling about this. On previous trips to the Commandant’s office, she had been summoned by an icon popping up on her deskcomp. Those had all been benign visits, the result of exams passed in the top 5 percent, or prizes won, and the Commandant had greeted her with the most thawed of his several frosty expressions.

Today it had been “Cadet Vatta to the Commandant’s office, on the double,” blaring out over the speaker right in the middle of her first class period, Veshpasir’s lecture on the history of the first century PD. Veshpasir, no friend to shipping dynasties, had given her a nasty smirk before saying, “Dismissed, Cadet Vatta. ”

She had no idea what this was about. Or rather, she hoped she didn’t.

“Cadet Vatta,” the Commandant said. No thawing at all, and his left eyelid drooped ominously.

“Sir,” she said.

“I won’t even ask what you thought you were doing,” he said. “I don’t want to know. I don’t care. ”

“Sir?” She hated the squeak in her voice.

“Don’t play the innocent with me, Cadet. ” Rumor had it that if his left eyelid actually closed, cadets died. She wasn’t sure she believed that, but she hoped she wasn’t about to find out. “You are a disgrace to the Service. ”

Ky almost shook her head in confusion. What could he be talking about?

“Going outside the chain of command like this”—he thumped the sheet of paper—“embarrassing the Service. ”

“Sir—” She gulped, caught between the etiquette that required silence until she was given leave to speak, and a desperate need to find out what had the Commandant’s eyelid hovering ever nearer to its mate.

“You have something to say, Cadet?” the Commandant asked. His voice, like his face, might have been carved out of a glacier. “Do go ahead…” It was not a generous offer.