Day 35
Standard Year 1118

Gobelyn’s Market
Dockside

In which Jethri finds his ship.

I can never decide whether Jethri’s tendency to assume a person is being straight with him until proven otherwise is a testament to his own honor or just a sign of naivety. I’m not saying it’s wrong to give people the benefit of the doubt, but to never even consider the possibility of a deception seems like a weak point in a trader.

You probably know that “Balance of Trade” was originally a short story that ended up as chapters 2 through 5 of the novel. This being chapter 5, it seems like the right moment to cast an eye over the differences. There is some tweaking of wording and punctuation, unsurprisingly, and it’s expanded a bit with extra details that will be relevant after the point where the story ended: most of the mentions of Jethri’s family apart from his mother and uncle, and all mentions of fractins and of Combine trade keys. So far as those go, they might be regarded as storyteller’s choice of what to include or leave out, but there are also parts of the story that are flat-out different. The details of Arin’s death, what few there are, are different (and fewer) in the novel, and most of the fine details involved in the trades, of who bought how much of what for which price are changed. The numbers being thrown around during the negotiation over the cellosilk are an entire order of magnitude lower.