Chapter 1

It was just a poor market. No surprise, really, there had been no particularly good market in a long while. Still, it was a surprise to find myself three morning hours gone, and nothing gained - unless one counted the breaking-in of a nice pair of brogues. I didn't, really, and my temper was growing ragged. It is never easy for a Born, especially a TrueBorn, to handle the crowds of Market Square without an entourage to preserve personal space. Coupled with the frustration of knowing, deep in my groin, that I truly needed to find something, something good, or risk boredom setting in...

I was growing unhappy, and I was approaching the point where my frustration might erupt in random, unjustified action. Really, that is the only reason I left the narrow aisles of Market Square to wander the wide field where a sprinkling of tents marked the temporary establishments of small Outer merchants and the few odd Hunters handling their own catch. Not a group who, as a whole, I had ever been interested in. I prized the service of the major merchants, the guarantees on marred genetics, on disease, on sound conformation. And the sweetmeats and little cups of thick coffee, the sense of sophistication... There was precious little of any such in the mix of ragged lean-tos and small, neat tents I wandered through. No merchandise to catch my eye, either, the selection too thin to even tempt me to take a longer look.

Then I came to a medium-sized red tent, little more than two meters tall but five times as broad, on the far edge of the field. There was nothing remarkable about it, except for the fact that it posted no signs, and had no hawker to lure passersby. There was a plainly if neatly dressed man reclining by the tent flap, apparently dozing, and that was all. Nothing remarkable, all in all, until I came close and realized the red tent was PlasTex. All of it, not just a few panels stitched here and there, but the whole thing, yards of it. There was no mistaking the shiny seamlessness of the Old fabric, if you knew what to look for. I own a few garments of the stuff, and think myself lucky. I knew people who owned larger items. I had never seen anything like that tent. PlasTex is a technology we have long lost. We don't know how to extrude the long carbon fibers, much less how to coax them into the various shapes it's found in. Even working the material is now a challenge, since it is virtually impossible to cut, and stitching it prohibitively difficult. An artifact of this complexity, and red, not the much more common dark gray... I reexamined the sleeping man. There was nothing remarkable about him. Neat clothes in neutral gray, black, white, simple but tasteful, good useful thick-soled shoes, clean but not ostentatiously polished. A medium complexion, short brown hair and a small beard just a little redder. Even after this close examination I'd have trouble describing him in any terms that might allow a stranger to pick him out, should he change his garments...

"And how may I assist, you, friend?"

The voice was no more distinctive, a pleasant mid-range baritone. Yet I felt there was a bit of... something, maybe in the tone, in the way the flat vowels failed to dip in deference... I'm used to intimidating, sometimes frightening, casual acquaintances. I clearly had no such effect on him. His eyes, now fixed on me, under cocked eyebrows, were no more informative than the rest of him, either, a flat brown that I could only describe as, well, brown. I took a slow breath and gathered myself, analyzing and mastering my unaccustomed discomfiture. I smiled and asked him whether he was the owner of the establishment, and whether I might have known of his business? In what Enclave was he Incorporated? Might I know his name? That, at least, seemed to give him a moment's pause.

"Not Incorporated. Not a Merchant. Just a Hunter. Name of Claude."

And with that he seized the initiative for good. That a merchant should own such a tent was unlikely. For a Hunter, though, even his neat nondescript clothes seemed extravagant. Hunters were most often OutBorn, eking a meager living from their knowledge of the Outside by foraging for a living. Those working for a prosperous Merchant House might do as well as an Enclave domestic, but an independent Hunter would normally be hard pressed to feed and clothe himself. This man's tent could fetch two houses such as mine. And there weren't two houses such as mine to be had in our Enclave. I was visibly perplexed, and he seemed mildly, if courteously, amused by my discomfort. He smiled a small, pleasant smile.

"Maybe you would care to step inside? It's been a spare day for sales, and you seem like a knowledgeable gentleman. I think we might be able to do business."

This bit of transparent patter allowed me to regain my footing. I smiled back, more than half suspecting that had been exactly his intent, and nodded a generous nod, acknowledging the point. He stood up, raised the flap, and waved me inside.

The inside of the tent was much like the man, plain, but in a fashion so at odds with my expectations that it couldn't help but be jarring. A few cushions were strewn about, the only furniture to be expected in a traveling trader's, comfortable and portable. Thick pile carpeting covered the PlasTex of the tent floor, the only decorative touch, a beautiful and beautifully preserved Persian. None of the ostentatious display of the larger Houses, none of the threadbare gaudiness of the independent merchants, yet not much like the lean-tos of every Hunter I'd ever met either. Still, that was not something I dwelt on for long.

He had room for many more items than he stocked, maybe a score, but he had only a half-dozen. Still, to the trained eye, and I flatter myself to think mine is as sharp as any, what I had before me was the worth of a small House, and that at a conservative estimate. I sank slowly to the cushions. I started working out haggles in my head. I had a moment to think that boredom was unlikely to afflict me for the foreseeable future. Then I turned toward his pleased smile, and realized that my responses would put me at a great disadvantage unless I gathered myself, and quickly.

"You have very fine merchandise, Sir!" Disguising my admiration further, I thought, would have been useless. "May I ask how you stock such in these lean times?"

For the first time he seemed uncomfortable. Still, his smile tightened just a little.

"I'm afraid that, Sir, would be something I'd rather not reveal. Surely you'll forgive my rudeness, but these are, as you say, lean times..."

"Of course, of course!" I returned a broad smile, pleased to at least have unsettled him a moment. "Pardon my thoughtlessness!" I paused a moment. "To business, then. Do you carry a catalogue of your wares?"

"No, but we can go over any questions you might have. I've had just a price list printed." He reached into his coat for a large card of heavy stock and handed it to me. I noted first that all six items were on the card. None had sold, then, since the card's printing. And since I didn't know the paper stock, he hadn't had it done at our Enclave. My eyes drifted right, and I understood why. And how the tent, and the neat clothes. I had never seen prices like these. No one, to my knowledge, ever had.

"I... Claude, I mean... These are..." I took a long breath, then let it out. "These prices seem a little high."

"Yes, I expect they do." He was back in the catbird seat, and clearly knew it. "I believe you may come to think otherwise, in time."

"How... I've never paid this for anything. No one has. No one would. These are insane! How do you expect to ever sell anything?"

He looked at me a minute, smiling. He shrugged, clearly amused.

"I always sell my catch. I will sell these as well." His grin broadened. "I think you yourself might buy something today." Then he turned on his heel and walked towards the back of the tent. He paused in front of me, beside the leftmost of his displays. He lay a proprietary hand on the merchandise and looked me over. Then he launched into his sales pitch.

I let my eyes wander a bit, ignoring his words for a moment. It was still hard to believe what he had on offer. Six women, almost grown, all in their late teens, all beautiful, all of different genotypes - and all of genotypes I had never encountered. All clearly healthy, all clearly well fed. And, incredibly - impossibly, really - none of them scarred, injured, blemished.

The wild OutBorn that are caught and brought to market are usually a ragged, frightened bunch. Life outside the Enclaves is never easy, but for Wildlings it is usually very close to impossible. The genetic defects that keep them from becoming Registered OutBorn make many of them a burden on their little bands. Even if they didn't, life was rough, subsistence hard enough to come by, let alone prosperity. Most of the InBorn didn't much care to dwell on the fact that Hunters had a good deal to do with keeping things hard on the Wildlings, keeping them from putting down roots, or gathering in large groups for fear of being caught. So most of the catch each Market were young, early teens or younger, and even then most often badly blemished.

What happened to their elders I didn't dwell on.