Trade Secret (eARC) by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

the table, though the pillowed top was near as dark as any portion of the room. He blinked: the light was slowly changing in the room, cycling in a way he couldn't measure, the colors and intensities from each source altering moment to moment. Those changes changed the shadows--now the pillows at the top of the bed were in more light, and the center was mellowed . . .
    Too, there was an undersound, not of a regular ventilation but something else he couldn't quite place. It rose quietly, then swelled to a hiss that almost became a slap, and then receded; in its midst were other sounds he couldn't place, not unpleasant, but not ship sounds, and not music of a kind that he knew. Certainly the rising and falling of the swelling sounds were orderly and cyclical while the others were not, but sounded purposeful nonetheless, and sounded familiar.
    He wondered if the lights and the sound were coordinated, but his eyes were drawn to a portion of the room with steady illumination, and his name writ large.
    Standing on the small bar were several fancy cases as well as a tea set, glasses of a number of sizes, and a box, all fancied up with glowing striped ribbons, and a sign on top that with hand-drawn letters that were hand tall spelling out jethri.
    Drawn there, he saw the note under the sign, and opening the fragrant sheet tied to the package he discovered, handwritten in Terran--
    To Be Opened on Sight by Jethri! Wear if you dare! Wear for joy!
    The seal was the ribbon itself, a single ribbon which was a knotted puzzle, too, and he studied the knot before working it, wishing to keep the ribbon intact if he might. There was a way to do a quick pull, but he'd felt that would be cheating if he could . . . yes! His fingers fumbled now that this goal was in sight, and he wondered if he really was vibrating or not. There was a slip, there, a small spot where he'd relieve all the tension and still be able to free the box, and he did that, an inordinate sense of accomplishment making him smile.
    "For Jethri for our own first Festival, a gift, for this trip or for lift. Wear and share with joy."
    Out of the mysterious box, then, from within a fine and worthy keepsake silky sack, came layers of a soft and wonderful cloth, all in shades of blue. He'd hardly touched such, for it was meant to be a personal kind of a thing, the like of which he'd seen before on specialty tables, and once, heart-stoppingly, on Khat as she'd left the Market for an assignation, her unsealed overcloak revealing the shimmer and cut of it, though thankfully not the full measure of the things.
    It was what he could only think of as "an outfit" or a "getup"--both labels used among the traders he knew to mean clothes for quiet get-togethers or rowdy parties where the parties were meant to end up in bed or other handy place with the object being to be spend as much time twisted up in each other as they could, with the clothes being a transition phase not meant to last on a person much beyond getting to and from the athletics.
    And there--he'd dressed himself up in what were quality onboard clothes, thinking of the admonition that this was a private party, and that none need know--and now she'd provided these clothes, recalling her promise to be with him shortly after he arrived.
    He felt an adrenal, hormonal surge, wondering just what clothes Gaenor might bring . . .
    "Wear if you dare"was certainly a challenge; he retired immediately to the sanitary facilities and dressing areas on the left--seeing one on the right as well--and closed himself quietly into the well-mirrored room.
    *
    The clothes were amazing: a brief lower undergarment of a fine foggy blue, silky smooth, shimmering and near transparent, and slightly stretchy. There was a shirt, of the same color and fineness, and there were trousers of a sort, with a drawstring, and then an overrobe of the same foggy blue . . .
    He laid them out on the slick counter top, looking at himself in the mirror.
    His thoughts were