Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67092 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
An awful thought occurred to her. What if she started getting hot and slippery as she pressed against him? Raak was sure to feel it and wonder what was going on. How embarrassing! What would she do if that happened?
She wanted desperately to ask him to stop so she could get down and adjust herself somehow. But they were almost to the town’s borders now, and they couldn’t risk being seen out of disguise by one of the Yi’pisselons. Reluctantly, Kara decided she would just have to try and ignore the distractingly sexual sensations.
“Hey, baby girl—you all right?” Raak turned his head and she saw his nostrils flare, as though he was scenting her. Knowing how easily he could smell her heat made her feel flustered and embarrassed.
“Fine,” she said quickly. “Just…a little nervous—that’s all. I’ve never gone undercover like this before.”
Raak shrugged.
“I do it all the time when I land on closed planets. The trick is to imitate the mannerisms and speech patterns of the person you’re talking to. People like it when you mirror them—even if they don’t realize you’re doing it. It also helps to agree with their opinions and throw in a few compliments. You get them to like you and before you know it, you’ve got a lucrative deal.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Kara remarked. “I thought you didn’t care what other people thought of you?”
“Oh, I don’t.” He laughed. “But it’s good to pretend you do when you’re making a deal. You know, baby girl, once we make a few trades here, you’ll have enough credit to do anything you want—go anywhere you want,” he told her.
Kara thought about saying she didn’t want to go anywhere except with him, but she managed to bite her tongue and not speak the words aloud. After all, it wasn’t like they could be together on any kind of a permanent basis.
Instead she just nodded neutrally and looked around the town.
At first glance, the Yi’pisselons didn’t seem to be a very advanced society. They lived in wooden huts with straw roofs and the few vehicles Kara saw on the packed dirt roads didn’t even have motors of any kind. Instead, they were drawn by animals—large, slow-moving beasts that looked a little like a giant tortoise from Earth with the head of a Bassett Hound.
The Yi’pisselons themselves appeared to be in no hurry to get much of anywhere either. They plodded along, their lumpy, two-headed bodies almost seeming to move in slow motion. Some of them were bartering in the market square she and Raak were approaching, but even there, the speech was slow and ponderous, punctuated with much wagging of heads and deliberate gestures.
“Where is this amazing art you were talking about?” Kara muttered in Raak’s ear. “All I see are wood huts and primitive vehicles.”
“Look closer,” Raak told her. “Have you noticed the carvings on the sides of the huts or the paintings on the shells of the beasts that pull their vehicles?”
Kara had to admit she hadn’t. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the side of the hut they were passing.
To her surprise, she saw a geometric pattern of multi-dimensional prismatic shapes carved into the simple wood. It was done with incredible precision and accuracy and had a subtle but complex beauty she would never have seen if she hadn’t looked harder at it.
Looking around, she saw that the other huts and buildings had the same kinds of carvings, though no two were exactly alike.
A closer examination of the shell of one of the huge Bassett-tortoises pulling a cart beside them, showed the same kind of thing. The shell was a pattern of grays and greens and browns that Kara had assumed were just the animal’s natural coloration. But now she saw that their real shell color was black and the subtle pattern of colors had been painted on—again in rows and columns of geometric patterns that must have taken ages to do.
“Oh,” she murmured in Raak’s ear. “I see now—it’s subtle but it’s really beautiful in a minimalist kind of way.”
“Exactly.” He nodded approvingly. “Just because something doesn’t scream, ‘look at me!’ doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking at.”
Kara could see his point.
“Got it,” she whispered. “So what kind of art are you looking to buy here?”
“That.” Raak pointed to a stall where a slow-moving Yi’pisselon merchant was standing behind a table filled with carved wooden bowls and serving platters.
“Oh.” Kara stared curiously at the display. “They’re beautiful but why those things specifically?” When he’d said he was looking to buy art, she had imagined a more literal interpretation like a painting or a sculpture.
“Because,” Raak murmured back. “It’s exactly the kind of thing the bored house-mistresses of Tava Prime will go crazy for. They’ve got nothing to do all day but spend their husbands’ credits and compete with each other over who has the most exclusive possessions. I bring them something like this—a set of serving bowls and platters from a closed world that no one else can get—and they’ll start a damn bidding war to see who can get them. The winner will pay me ten times what they’re worth so she can host a dinner party for the losers and make them eat off the plates they couldn’t get for themselves. They’ll all have to pretend to be happy for her while inside they’re eaten up with envy.”