Patternmaster

“If you were trading with anyone else, I’d advise you to trade for compatibility within the Pattern,” said Joachim. “With more compatibility, you wouldn’t have any of the Clayarks who attacked you still alive and dangerous. But you’re trading with me and I don’t have anyone even close to you in the Pattern.”

“Would you be willing to trade Jer, the outsider you brought with you?” Coransee asked. Teray frowned. It seemed to him that the Housemaster was less serious than. he should have been. Teray got the feeling that he had no interest at all in Jer.

“Jer’s young,” said Joachim, going along with him. “Only two years past transition. But he has the strength you’re looking for.”

“You would trade Jer?” asked Coransee softly.

“If you wanted him.”

“I don’t, of course.”

“No.”

“I just wondered. You’re sentimental about your people sometimes. But you want this artist. I can see that. You’d trade anyone short of your lead

wife for him.”

Joachim looked uncomfortable. Coransee was playing with him. Dangling the artist temptingly before him, but refusing to name a price. And doing it all in a mildly insulting way.

“Coransee, for the third time, will you tell me what you’re trading for?”

“Of course,” said Coransee. “Of course. I offer you Laro for Teray.”

The words were said so casually that it seemed to take Joachim a moment to digest them. More likely, though, Joachim used his moment of “surprised silence” to think of a negative answer that would not close the trading.

Teray looked from one man to the other. He had known what Coransee was going to say just an instant before he said it. Joachim had probably known too. Coransee had been a little too eager, had not concealed his thoughts as carefully as he might have. In his carelessness, he had permitted Teray to learn one other thing—a thing that was somehow part of the reason why the Housemaster wanted Teray badly enough to trade a talent like Laro’s. A talent that had surely cost him several of his people.

But perhaps it would not matter. Already Joachim was turning down the offer.

“Coransee, I’ve told you this man is an apprentice, not an outsider. He’s not my property. In fact, as an apprentice he’s still under the protection of the school. I can’t legally trade him.”

“And you wouldn’t if you could.” Coransee spoke lazily, as though he had gotten the answer he expected and was merely playing another game. “Let’s be realistic, Joachim. You want my artist, I need your apprentice. Laro is much closer to you in the Pattern than Teray is. And law or no law, Teray would have no power to object if you traded him.”

Surprisingly, Joachim seemed to reconsider for a moment. Teray, watching him, felt the beginnings of fear. He had waited so long to avoid being taken as an outsider. If now, on his first day out of the school, all his waiting was to prove in vain …

“You were talking about strength,” Joachim was saying. “Now that the Clayarks have found a way to get into the sector undetected, I’ll be needing Teray’s strength myself.”

“For what? That miniature Pattern of yours would wipe out any Clayarks who haven’t heard what a waste of time and lives it is to attack you.”

“Even a miniature Pattern can always use additional strength.”

“I protect the school,” said Coransee. “I need the strongest outsiders I can get for the good of the school.”

Joachim made a sound of disgust. “You don’t even expect me to believe that. What is it really, Coransee? Why do you want my apprentice so badly?”

“Perhaps because he’s another son of

Patternmaster Rayal?” Teray spoke for the first time. “One of my many brothers?” His questions were not really questions but he looked toward Coransee as though expecting him to answer.

Coransee stared at him blankly for a moment. Then he smiled without humor and spoke to Joachim. “You see? Already he proves his usefulness to me. I was careless about maintaining my shield, and immediately he reminded me.” And to Teray, “What else did you pick up… brother?”

By now Teray knew that he had made a mistake. He should have kept his findings—and the strength and stealth of his probe—to himself. But it was too late now. No lie would get past an alerted Coransee.

“Only your determination to make me your outsider, Lord.”

“And how do you feel about that determination?”

Perhaps it was the condescending man-to-child tone of Coransee’s voice that made Teray shut out the urgent warnings Joachim was sending and answer in his own way.

“Slavery has never appealed to me, Lord.”

Something hardened in Coransee’s voice. “You consider outsiders slaves then. And, of course, you would never voluntarily become a slave, would you?”

Teray! Joachim finally managed to make his

thought felt. Stay out of this! You don’t know what you’re doing. The more you antagonize him, the less chance we have.

I won’t become his outsider, Joachim. Teray screened heavily, protecting the thought from Coransee’s interception.

You will if you don’t stop talking and let me handle it. I’ve got the rest of the day to talk him out of it.