The volatiles distillery sat at the end of its slow trek across the dark side of the rockpile. Its towers and retorts glistened with frost in the Arachna-light; in other places, it glowed with dull red heat where fractionation and recombination occurred. What came out was the simple stock materials for their factory and the organic sludges for the bactries. The core of the L1 distillery was from the Qeng Ho fleet. The Emergents had brought along similar equipment, but it had been lost in the fighting.Thank goodness it was ours that survived. The repairs and new construction had forced them to scavenge from all the ships. If the distillery core had been Emergent technology, they'd've been lucky to have anything working now.
Qiwi tied down her taxi a few meters from the distillery. She unloaded her thermal-wrapped cargo, and pulled herself along the guide ropes toward the entrance. Around her lay the sweeping drifts of their remaining hoard of volatiles: airsnow and ocean ice from the surface of Arachna. Those had come a long way, and cost a lot. Much of the original mass, especially the airsnow, had been lost in the Relight and chance illuminations since. The remainder had been pushed and balanced into the safest shadows, had been melted in a vain attempt to glue the rockpile together, had been used to breathe and eat and live. Tomas had plans to hollow out portions of Diamond One as a really secure capture cave. Maybe that wouldn't be necessary. As the sun slowly dimmed, it should be easier to save what was left. Meantime, the distillery made its slow progress—less than ten meters per year—through the drifts of ice and air. Behind, it left starglint on raw diamond, and a track of anchor holes.
Floria's control cubby was at the base of the distillery's rearmost towers. As part of the original Qeng Ho module, it had been nothing more than a pressurized hutch to eat and nap in. Over the years of the Exile, its various occupants had added to it. Coming in on it from ground level...Qiwi paused a moment. Most of her life was spent either in close-in rooms and tunnels, or in open emptiness. Floria's latest changes made this something in between. She could imagine what Ezr would say of this: It really did look like a little cabin, almost like the fairy-tale pictures of how a farmer might live in the snow-covered foothills of an ancient land, close to a glistening forest.
Qiwi climbed past the outriggers and anchor cables—the edge of the magic forest—and knocked on the cabin door.
Trading was always fun. She had tried so many times to explain that to Tomas. The poor fellow had a good heart, but he came from a culture that just could not understand.
Qiwi brought partial payment for Floria's most recent output: inside the thermal wrap was a twenty-centimeter bonsai, something Papa had worked Msecs to build. Micro-dwarf ferns grew out into multiple canopies. Floria held the bonsai bubble close to the room's overhead light and looked up through the green. "The midges!"—submillimeter bugs. "They have colored wings!"
Qiwi had followed her friend's reaction with carefully pretended neutrality, but now she couldn't help herself, and she laughed. "I wondered if you would notice." The bonsai was smaller than Papa's usual, but it might be the most beautiful yet, better than anything Qiwi had ever seen in the library. She reached into the thermal wrap and brought out the other part of the payment. "And this is from Gonle, personally. It's a clasp stand for the bonsai."
"It's...wood." Floria had been charmed by the bonsai. Her reaction to the wood plate was more like amazement. She reached out to slide her fingers across the polished grain.
"We can make it by the tonne lot now, kind of a reverse dry rot. Of course, since Gonle grows it in vats, it looks a little strange." The stripes and whorls were biowaves caught in the grain of the wood. "We'd need more space and time to get real rings." Or maybe not; Papa thought he might be able to trick the biowaves into faking growth rings.
"Doesn't matter." Floria's voice was abstracted. "Gonle has won her bet...or your father has won it for her. Imagine. Real wood in quantity, not just twigs in a bonsai bubble, or brush in the temp's park." She looked at Qiwi's grinning face. "And I bet she figures this more than pays for past deals."
"Well...we hoped it would soften you up." They sat down, and Floria brought out the tea she had promised, from Gonle Fong's agris and before that from the mounds of volatiles and diamond that surrounded the distillery. The two of them worked through the list that Benny and Gonle had put together. The list was not just their orders, but the result of the brokering that went on day after day up in Benny's parlor. There were items here that were mainly for Emergent use. Lord, there were items in here that Tomas could have simply demanded, and that Ritser Brughel would certainly have demanded.
