"Who else is drinking? My friend Er Thom? No? The bold young apprentice? No? I assure you, it is good wine, sir."

"Thank you," Shan said; "I expect it is. But on Pomerloo, I am too young to drink wine."

"But not too young to trade!" The master trader laughed and raised her glass; her eye falling on Val Con.

"That is a very pretty child, though I am not supposed to see him," she said, speaking to Uncle Er Thom. "And quite taken with the server 'bots, as I see. Of course, Pomerloo is mad for 'bots. This model is not quite the newest, but so elegant! And so very much in demand."

"It serves wine nicely," Uncle Er Thom said, "but how well does it perform other tasks?"

"There are modules," Master Trader Prael said airily. "I daresay one might program it to simultaneously dance a jig and recite the Code. All software, of course; nothing to offend the Complex Logic Laws." She waved her free hand dismissively, and the beautiful device floated away into the press of bodies.

"I fancy those would go well on Liad," she said, sipping her wine.

Uncle Er Thom raised his eyebrows. "A robot cannot sign a contract," he said. "How would one know the necessities of its melant'i? Worse, who is to say that it isn't listening for another master?"

"A human server may listen, and sell what they've heard. Depending, as you say, on the necessities of melant'i."

"This is why one has contracts, of course," Uncle Er Thom murmured.

"Of course," agreed Master Trader Prael, and abruptly straightened, as if she had been physically struck. "But, where are my wits? Have I not heard that yos'Galan only recently suffered an unfortunate loss of service?"

Uncle Er Thom did not go so far as to frown, though his tone in reply was somewhat cooler than it had been.

"Perhaps you heard that pak'Ora's delm called him home."