by Blaze Ward
A’Alhakoth smiled when the man leaned forward and put both elbows on the table in front of him. The hammer flexed forward and his mouth smiled in that peculiar way of the Anndaing.
“Well, Commander,” he said. “Let us bargain.”
Twelve
Daniel was exhausted by the time the aliens were put back aboard their transporter and sent home with a selection of fruits, vegetables, and frozen fish that they could sample in their own labs for allergy issues and taste.
The Commander had negotiated in turn a rough stellar map of the forward sectors, including Kanus and the two Kaniea colonies. While the squadron was not that close, the ships could now sail in a more direct route to get there, as well as to several Anndaing trade platforms and meeting places where they could do more deals.
He turned to the other three and let them see the drain in his face.
At least he hadn’t needed to use his powers on them. Nobody was sure what would happen if he did, but they would likely cease to be potential allies if that happened.
“Thoughts?” Kathra asked as they made their way back to the lifts.
“The potential remains good,” Daniel said. “I listened mostly to the trademaster’s emotions. Generally, he stayed positive, once we got past the bits with Urid-Varg. The potential for trade with a new species factored high, as did the sorts of things he could learn from our technology, as well as what he might want to sell us later.”
“And the Sept?”
“I suspect that they discount the danger of a Septagon, since I doubt that they will see one in our lifetimes,” Daniel said. “But if they get into Free Worlds space at some point, that might change. Personally, I wonder if we’ve triggered the larger confrontation between the Sept Empire and the Free Worlds that everyone has been expecting. Has the war already started behind us?”
Kathra paused as the lift doors closed and they began to descend back to the ring.
“Part of my mind wishes that we could turn back and take SeekerStar to raid the edges of Sept space, just to teach them better manners,” Kathra said. “On the other hand, we have a duty to the tribe to protect them. Having just convinced them to leave human space perhaps forever, it would not do to go back on that.”
“How much should we tell the Anndaing?” A’Alhakoth asked. “Or the others, like my people?”
“The truth,” Kathra answered. “Perhaps not all of it, but if you tell no lies, you don’t have to remember them later. We are traders escaping an oppressive regime of humans, and looking for a quiet place we can live. Nothing more. But also nothing less.”
Daniel nodded. The Sept could not chase them this far in a Septagon, and he doubted that even their present anger would cause them to commit the level of Patrol forces necessary to maintain a logistics train this far beyond their borders.
It was the Ishtan that he feared. Not that they could take him. Even having lost some of his strength when the Star Turtle died, he figured he was the equal of the remaining four, at least from a mental standpoint.
But who would they seek as allies, knowing that they were overmatched?
He had nightmares of a Sept/Ishtan alliance. They would not seek to conquer the Sept Empire, as Urid-Varg would have, but at the same time, they could do much to threaten the rest of the galaxy if they saw Daniel as an evil that must be destroyed.
Should he just destroy the gem for good? Cast it into the fires of a star as a way to finally let his ghosts go to their final rest, whatever that was?
Several beings surprised him by stepping forward in his mind as they rode outward.
One of them quietly reminded him of a book of Ovanii poetry and drama that he had just translated, when it would have been lost forever otherwise.
Forever?
The being nodded, so perhaps the Ovanii had been destroyed after all. If you broke their armadas and let the survivors integrate into a larger galactic whole, Daniel supposed that it was possible for a species to die out.
At least an entire culture.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Kathra said, stirring him to come back to the surface.
“Thinking quietly depressive thoughts,” he said simply. “Wondering at the Ishtan and the gem and what I should be doing with it.”
“And?” she pressed.
“My ghosts remind me of the good I can do as well.” Daniel looked up at the giant woman, looming so tall over him.
“As would I,” Erin spoke up suddenly, after being silent for so long that he had almost forgotten the woman was with them. “The tribe exists because of Daniel Lémieux. Several times over. And I require you to continue.”
“Require?” he asked, turning to look at the dangerous woman with the barcode tattoo on her face and the metal replacement for her lower right leg.
Erin surprised him by smiling now.
“You still haven’t opened a restaurant somewhere on a planet and taught Ndidi how to run a bistro,” she laughed. “I’ve seen that in your mind.”
“Are you ready for me to train yet another chef?” Daniel laughed back at her, teasing the woman. “I would need to place her on a planetary surface for at least two years, if that was my task. You’d be back to eating stew and cornbread with every meal.”
He appreciated the shudder of horror that ran through Kathra’s long frame.
“No,” she commanded definitely. “You will have to locate me another Golden Diamond-rated chef to replace you first. Then, perhaps, I will be willing to talk.”
Daniel wanted to argue with her, but he could see the mirth in the back of her eyes.
Wishing for unicorns, as his grandmother would have called such a demand.
As the elevator door opened, Daniel turned to head back to his cabin, unneeded for another hour or so, barring emergencies.
Kathra stopped him with a hand on his arm before he got more than a step. The others watched from a discreet distance.
“You can also translate human poetry and philosophy into Anndaing, you know,” she said simply.
Daniel stopped cold. Kathra smiled, nodded and departed the other direction, trailed by the two women.
He could. All this time, he had been trying to find value in giving Kathra the information she needed.
But he could also bring the better parts of human culture to the places they were headed.
Shakespeare. Lao Tzu. Locke. Socrates.
But Daniel knew exactly where he’d start.
With a cookbook.
Thirteen
Crence considered things as he finally returned to his own bridge.
“Jine, you ready to start reading their map data into our system?” he asked, turning to look at his pilot.
“Are we sure this isn’t some elaborate practical joke?” the man asked. “They’ve listed nearly a thousand inhabited worlds, broken down into what they call Free Worlds, mostly closer, Sept Empire farther out, and a number of new colonies every which way.”
“Which is what she promised us, in trade for a map of the three main Anndaing sectors and five more around them,” Crence replied with a flex of his hammer.
“The trade potential is stupendous!” Jine exclaimed. “Both in cultural goods, but also technology, both ways.”
“Not all will want to trade with us,” Crence reminded the nightflier. “Plus, there will be requirements for factories at both ends capable of turning out the sorts of replacement parts necessary for things to work. That will take time.”
“And we’ll get filthy, stinking rich on the licensing deals and maybe financing for such things, just from being in the right place at the right time,” Jine said.
“I will remind you, yet again, that we might have set out to open new markets, rather than trying to make our margins on the old ones,” Crence smiled. “There is still risk involved, especially if the Mbaysey have enemies that might be coming after them.”
“So do we race home immediately?” Jine said. “Or do we press deeper and travel to one of these weird TradeStations
they described?”
Crence grimaced. Jine smiled back at him.
The nightflier had hit the exact crux of his dilemma. They could not be two places at once.
He owed it to the Merchants Guild to brief them with everything he had learned, but in doing so, he immediately lost his first-mover advantage. Others would quickly load up with everything they thought they could trade and run like hell for human space.
He’d still have an advantage, as long as he was able to recruit translators out there, since he knew what to ask for.
Did Commander Omezi have crew she might be willing to let him recruit? They would need to be bilingual, which perhaps limited him to the two he had met, the Kaniea A’Alhakoth and the human Daniel.
Crence smile wickedly.
He would invite one of them aboard Koni Swift as an ambassador to the Merchants Guild. A teacher who could add another language to his vessel’s current list, so that when they were ready to head to human space, he would be able to communicate with those folks immediately.
Plus, it would give him the opportunity to see the strangers at close quarters, and learn what kinds of people they were.
“Open a communication line to SeekerStar,” Crence said boldly.
Jine was in the process of moving Koni Swift away from the human vessels. Less of an immediate threat, either direction, especially considering that all those tiny vessels appeared to be one-shark combat fliers, highly maneuverable and over-armed for something so small.
None of them threatened Koni Swift individually, but twenty of them could overwhelm his vessel quickly. It would be worse if the massive warship known as SeekerStar chose to be hostile.
Crence thanked his ancestors that he had the luck of the star gods on him, to have encountered a new culture, and the first ambassadors he ran into were friendly.
Running in fear from someone else, if Kathra Omezi’s story was to be believed, but any significant threat to the Anndaing Merchants Guild would possibly trigger the Call to Armada for the first time since…
When? The Ovanii?
No, the passage of Urid-Varg, when that creature had intelligently decided to avoid Anndaing space and eventually destroyed the K’bari instead. Thus this very swath of destroyed systems in a broad stripe several hundred light-years across, when the Armada had finally joined with others to oust that bastard.
Urid-Varg had been eventually driven from known space, disappearing from cognition with that monstrous vessel of his.
Destroyed? Was that possible?
The human Daniel had proclaimed it with such sincerity that Crence was tempted to believe him.
But how? And was it possible that Daniel had been the one to do it? Such had been suggested, since he claimed to have inherited the Urid-Varg’s vessel before it was subsequently lost.
If it had been.
Crence knew serious doubt.
To believe anything else would be to suggest that these humans were dangerous enough to be a threat to Anndaing space all by themselves.
“Crence, I have someone on line, speaking Anndaing,” Dane Roguez got his attention, seated opposite Jine.
Crence opened the line for everyone to hear, rather than digging out the headset. His crew needed to know about this, if not why.
“Greetings,” he said. “This is Trademaster Crence Miray. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“This is A’Alhakoth ver’Shingi, speaking for Commander Omezi,” the Kaniea woman replied in a confident voice.
“I have a subsequent proposal to make to the Commander,” Crence said, marking this as a new stage of negotiations, the previous round having been apparently fruitful for all involved.
“We await your wisdom with joy, Elder,” she said with what he suspected was a smiling, polite sarcasm in her voice.
Crence nearly laughed. Slathering it on a bit thick, perhaps, but this woman also knew how to handle the situation in delicate ways that the humans would lack, at least until they learned.
“Given the broad range of new developments and options possible before us, it behooves me to take a message directly to Ogrorspoxu, to the MasterHall of the Anndaing Merchants Guild itself,” Crence said. “Such a meeting as ours is larger than one trademaster meeting another in deep space.”
“Such was one option we anticipated, Trademaster,” the young Kaniea replied carefully.
“I would inquire with the Commander if she had a bilingual crew member that would be willing to accompany Koni Swift to Ogrorspoxu now, as an Ambassador, in order to make a more complete report of your culture, your message, and your needs.”
The way the line went dead suddenly told Crence that someone had muted the connection, probably so that they could explore all the ramifications of the gift-fish he had just dangled out there like he was an angler.
He smiled and leaned back into his chair. They were likely to be a while, but he would not be offended. The worst thing she could do right now would be to offer a swap, where one of his people joined her vessel, doing the same thing.
It was unnecessary, since they had two speakers now, but it would also give Crence yet another fin up on all those poxy bastards back at Ogrorspoxu.
His grin seemed to be infectious, from the smiles coming back to him from Jine and Dane. But they’d spaced with him a number of times, and understood some of the twisted ways his mind worked.
Careful merchants tended to be successful. Crazy ones occasionally got rich.
He was known to throw the bones down on occasion.
“The Commander asks for the duration of such a mission,” the Kaniea youngster came back on line. “As well as the most efficient means by which such an ambassador might be reunited with SeekerStar later, Elder.”
Oh, good one, young lady. Assume that I’m going to more or less dump them with the folks back home, and then run for deep space and the Free Worlds as soon as it would not be insulting to everyone involved.
With a bilingual crew in hand.
He felt a maniacal laughter threaten to bubble over.
“While the details themselves will be subject to Board Members beyond my immediate control, I believe I can pledge the honor of the Guild that a transport would be put at your ambassador’s disposal. I presume that Kanus is likely your first serious stop?”
“Such is our plan, Elder,” she said. “Please stand by while I translate.”
Again, mute. He couldn’t even record the conversation over there and begin to break down their tongue. At least it wasn’t tonal in nature, so he could do much with written text, he presumed, once he learned pronunciations.
But Crence was hard pressed to remember the last time he’d had this much fun with a translation.
Now, who would he send over, if the woman in charge offered him a trade?
Fourteen
Kathra nodded as A’Alhakoth finished her translation.
Kanus made the most sense, from the several hundred worlds the trademaster had offered for her map of human space. It would allow her newest comitatus member a chance to visit her home again, and give Kathra the option of finding more like her.
Neither the Anndaing nor the Kaniea were as sexist as the Sept, but the Kaniea were still a little primitive in such things.
Only by being born the daughter of a Jarl had A’Alhakoth been trained and educated as she was.
At the same time, there would likely be more women out there Kathra could recruit, both for the Clans as well as the comitatus, possibly. Kaniea women that might have a chip on their shoulder.
Kathra smiled.
“Let him know that we have understood his offer, and that I need time to communicate with my crew before proceeding,” Kathra said. “That way he’s not waiting. We’ll call him back when we have an update.”
A’Alhakoth dutifully translated the message and then Ife cut the line.
Ife turned to Kathra with a smile on her face.
“Should I call him to the bridge, or did you want to meet him i
n the dining hall?” the woman asked.
Kathra glared at her, but Ife was invulnerable, it seemed.
“If we go to Kanus, that practically demands that A’Alhakoth be aboard SeekerStar,” Ife said simply, grinning ear to ear. “That leaves Daniel as the most obvious candidate, if we can be assured that those silly merchants can protect him from whoever wishes him harm.”
“He can take care of himself, you know,” Kathra said. “But yes, confirm that he is in the hall or ask him to join me there. Ndidi probably has him cutting vegetables by now.”
Kathra turned to launch herself toward the hatch.
“Ife, you’re in charge for a while, or grab Erin if you need something,” Kathra said with a laugh. “A’Alhakoth, you’re with me.”
They found Daniel waiting for them out front, rather than back in the kitchen itself, chopping up a large tray of carrots and potatoes on his left into a bowl on his right.
“Ndidi did not feel she could spare me, even for the Commander,” he grinned as he looked up.
“She might have to,” Kathra glanced around, but it was just the three of them at the moment.
Someone would probably wander in for a snack at some point, but that was a comitatus prerogative, anyway.
“Oh?” Daniel asked, still chopping without looking down.
Kathra was certain she would lose fingers trying something like that.
But Daniel was an expert. She sat across from him, with A’Alhakoth beside her.
“The trademaster went ahead and asked for an ambassador to the Anndaing, as I suspected he would eventually,” she began. “Someone to accompany him directly to their main world aboard their vessel, to meet with his Board. He would then, I presume, drop our ambassador there so that he could beeline to someplace like Thrabo, in Free Worlds space, to start making trade deals before anyone else, with the added advantage of learning languages along the way.”
“I see,” he said, but it looked more like a placeholder than an agreement.
“My preference is to keep A’Alhakoth with me, so that we can draw on allies on Kanus,” Kathra continued. “Would you be interested in visiting their world? What was it called?”