Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon Read Free Book Online Page B

half so far along. Take the afternoon off.”
    Two hours later, Ky lay stretched on a towel by the pool. An hour’s swim had worked out kinks she hadn’t realized she had, and now she dozed in the warm shade. Her father had been right. She had needed the break.
    “Kylara Vatta, what do you think you’re doing?” That voice, harsh as a parrot’s cry, nearly sent her rolling into the pool in a defensive maneuver.Aunt Gracie Lane.Aunt Gracie Lane, who disapproved of idleness at any time, and also had strong views on appropriate bathing costume. “Anyone could see you!”
    Anyone who was a member of the family, or a guest. Possibly a lascivious gardener peeking over the wall of the pool enclosure, but certainly no one else.
    “I’m resting after swimming, Aunt Gracie,” Ky said.
    “You’re lazing about doing nothing useful,” Aunt Gracie said. “Get some proper clothes on and get busy. You’re supposed to be helping your mother arrange your wardrobe.”
    Her mother, just coming to the pool behind Aunt Gracie, shrugged.
    “Yes, Aunt Gracie,” Ky said, scrambling to her knees with the towel clutched to her.
    “I would have thought the Academy would teach you some discipline, but clearly… I suppose that’s why you quit.”
    Too many things wrong with that to argue. Ky held the towel between her and Aunt Gracie’s disapproval, and sidled around, pricking herself on one of the gardenia bushes, to back gingerly toward the house. The moment Aunt Gracie transferred her gaze to something else, she whipped the towel all the way around her and scuttled for the veranda. Some things never changed.
    Clad in slacks and shirt, she emerged from her room to hear Aunt Gracie’s voice down the hall. “—do something about that girl, Myris, you’ll be sorry! I can’t believe you and Gerard are actually letting her go off alone, unsupervised—”
    Ky thought of running away, sneaking out through her window, but Aunt Gracie would certainly have something to say about that, too. It was going to be a very long four days. Three point threeeight, her implant said.

Chapter Three
    Most of the ordering could be done remotely. The next day Ky flew the single-seat herself toHarborTownwhere Bond Tailoring’s senior fitter checked her mother’s measurements and admitted that they’d been correct. Ky picked out ship boots, dock boots, formal and informal shoes for nonbusiness wear. Despite her mother’s complaints about her shape, she was close enough to stock measurements that only slight alterations would fit her for most things. The captain’s tunic, however, had to be custom-made.
    “Still, that cuts a day off our estimate,” the fitter said. “Only four items. We’ll have them tomorrow evening.”
    “What time?”
    “Oh, you should plan on picking them up the next day,” the fitter said. “Just in case.”
    Ky left the shop with her footwear, stopped by Amerson’s for some personal items her mother didn’t need to know about. If she was going to be off on her own alone, and not under military discipline, she could choose the lotions and scents
she
preferred, ignoring her mother’s ideas of appropriateness. Her crew would just have to put up with it. Then she walked back up the street to catch the shuttle to the airport. She was back home by lunch… or rather, back at the home airfield. She stopped by the office to tell her father when the clothes would be ready.
    “Gracie’s on the warpath about you,” her father said.
    “I know.”
    “You might want to do your bookwork here today,” he said. He didn’t quite twinkle at her, but there was an edge of humor in his voice.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Where’s an empty workstation?”
    “San’s off checking yield in the young plantations; you can use his office. Don’t answer the phone.”
    Ky dumped her shoes and boots in the corner of San’s office, and pulled up more of the data she needed on his station. Facts flowed into her mind: the history of