What followed was a dreary round of ceremony, an exchange of platitudes and empty good wishes and greetings.  No one mentioned Koros stones—­or even perfume bark—­that he was willing to offer the off-world traders.  None lifted so much as a corner of his trade cloth, under which, if he were ready to deal seriously, his hidden hand would meet that of the buyer, so that by finger pressure alone they could agree or disagree on price.  But such boring sessions were part of Trade and Dane, keeping a fraction of attention on the speeches and “drinkings-together,” watched those around him with an eye which tried to assess and classify what he saw.

The keynote of the Salariki character was a wary independence.  The only form of government they would tolerate was a family-clan organization.  Feuds and deadly duels between individuals and clans were the accepted way of life and every male who reached adulthood went armed and ready for combat until he became a “Speaker for the past”—­too old to bear arms in the field.  Due to the nature of their battling lives, relatively few of the Salariki ever reached that retirement.  Short-lived alliances between families sometimes occurred, usually when they were to face a common enemy greater than either.  But a quarrel between chieftains, a fancied insult would rip that open in an instant.  Only under the Trade Shield could seven clans sit this way without their warriors being at one another’s furred throats.

An hour before sunset Paft turned his goblet upside down on his table, a move followed speedily by every chieftain in the circle.  The conference was at an end for that day.  And as far as Dane could see it had accomplished exactly nothing—­except to bring the Eysies into the open.  What had Traxt Cam discovered which had given him the trading contract with these suspicious aliens?  Unless the men from the Queen learned it, they could go on talking until the contract ran out and get no farther than they had today.

From his training Dane knew that ofttimes contact with an alien race did require long and patient handling.  But between study and experiencing the situation himself there was a gulf, and he thought somewhat ruefully that he had much to learn before he could meet such a situation with Van Rycke’s unfailing patience and aplomb.  The Cargo-master seemed in nowise tired by his wasted day and Dane knew that Van would probably sit up half the night, going over for the hundredth time Traxt Cam’s sketchy recordings in another painstaking attempt to discover why and how the other Free Trader had succeeded where the Queen’s men were up against a stone wall.