That comment was so far from what he had been expecting that Dane was startled out of his own gloomy thoughts.  Rip’s brown face was one wide smile, his black eyes danced—­it was plain he was honestly elated.

“Get a move on, fire rockets,” he urged, “or Van will blast you for fair!”

Dane did move, up the ladder to the next level and out on the port ramp.  What he saw below brought him up short.  Evening had come to Sargol but the scene immediately below was not in darkness.  Blazing torches advanced in lines from the grass forest and the portable flood light of the spacer added to the general glare, turning night into noonday.

Van Rycke and Jellico sat on stools facing at least five of the seven major chieftains with whom they had conferred to no purpose earlier.  And behind these leaders milled a throng of lesser Salariki.  Yes, there was at least one carrying chair—­and also an orgel from the back of which a veiled noblewoman was being assisted to dismount by two retainers.  The women of the clans were coming—­which could mean only that trade was at last in progress.  But trade for what?

Dane strode down the ramp.  He saw Paft, his hand carefully covered by his trade cloth, advance to Van Rycke, whose own fingers were decently veiled by a handkerchief.  Under the folds of fabric their hands touched.  The bargaining was in the first stages.  And it was important enough for the clan leaders to conduct themselves.  Where, according to Cam’s records, it had been usual to delegate that power to a favored liege man.

Catching the light from the ship’s beam and from the softer flares of the Salariki torches was a small pile of stones resting on a stool to one side.  Dane drew a deep breath.  He had heard the Koros stones described, had seen the tri-dee print of one found among Cam’s recordings but the reality was beyond his expectations.  He knew the technical analysis of the gems—­that they were, as the amber of Terra, the fossilized resin exuded by ancient plants (maybe the ancestors of the grass trees) long buried in the saline deposits of the shallow seas where chemical changes had taken place to produce the wonder jewels.  In color they shaded from a rosy apricot to a rich mauve, but in their depths other colors, silver, fiery gold, spun sparks which seemed to move as the gem was turned.  And—­which was what first endeared them to the Salariki—­when worn against the skin and warmed by body heat they gave off a perfume which enchanted not only the Sargolian natives but all in the Galaxy wealthy enough to own one.

On another stool placed at Van Rycke’s right hand, as that bearing the Koros stones was at Paft’s, was a transparent plastic box containing some wrinkled brownish leaves.  Dane moved as unobtrusively as he could to his proper place at such a trading session, behind Van Rycke.  More Salariki were tramping out of the forest, torch bearing retainers and cloaked warriors.  A little to one side was a third party Dane had not seen before.