Gibraltar Earth

by Michael McCollum

  As they neared the cavern wall, a snakelike tube came out to meet them. An amber beacon illuminated the end of the tube. The pilot rotated the ship and pressed its dorsal airlock against the end of the tube. There followed a slight bump and the sound of rushing air. Then, the airlock opened and the pilot said, “Go!” in Broan trade talk.

  That was the first and only sound he had made during the entire flight.

  #

  They found a Voldar’ik waiting for them as they pulled themselves single file through the station airlock. Dan Landon was first out of the tube. He used a netlike series of cables to pull himself hand over hand to where the Voldar’ik was anchored.

  “You are of the Vulcan trading ship Wanderer?” their reception committee asked.

  “We are. My personal label is Dan Landon and I am the One Who Rules aboard our ship. This is Mikhail Vasloff; he is The One Who Trades. Behind him are Lisa Arden, a female of our species, and The One Who Speaks for Others. Finally, we have Mark Rykand, the One Who Operates Computers.”

  “Greetings, Vulcans. I fear that we do not have your customs in our database, so I cannot greet you in proper fashion. My apologies if this gives offense. It is not my intent.”

  “No offense taken,” Landon said. “I apologize that we also lack knowledge of your species and can therefore not give you a proper greeting.”

  “It is not important,” the Voldar’ik replied. “My personal label is Zha and it is my function to aid those who come to this system to exchange value with us.”

  “We thank you for your aid, Zha.”

  “It is not necessary. As I have told you, this is my function.”

  “We are strangers here. How do we begin?”

  A silence lasted three seconds, almost as though the Voldar’ik greeter was sizing them up. Then his tympanic membrane began to vibrate and he said, “There is the matter of fees for use of our facilities.”

  “There are always fees,” Mikhail Vasloff said in his most unctuous tone, which produced just the right effect, but which was unfortunately lost on the alien. “How much?”

  “One twelfth of your cargo.”

  If the alien had intended to provoke a surprise response from the humans, he was not disappointed. Vasloff pulled himself up to his full height (or rather, length, in microgravity) and said, “If you will call your little ship back, we will leave your system now.”

  “Perhaps we can discuss it later,” the greeter said.

  “Perhaps we can,” Vasloff agreed. “What arrangements have been made for our visit? Do we return to our ship each day after our discussions, or do you have accommodations for us?”

  “We have quarters suitable for your species type, although you will have to provide your own food. Without data concerning your dietary needs, it would be foolish for you to experiment with our foods. Besides, it has been my personal observation that beings with an intake orifice such as yours find our nourishment unpalatable.”

  “We have our own supplies,” Landon said. “Space with the proper atmosphere control equipment and a means of communicating with our ship will be all that we require while we are aboard.”

  “That we can provide you. Will you be traveling to Klys’kra’t?”

  “That depends on our discussions with Those Who Trade among your people.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does. Be aware that we need at least four of our planetary days to arrange such travel. Travelers do not appreciate the difficulty associated with introducing aliens into the Klys’kra’t biosphere.”

  “We will try not to be a bother. Shall we go to our compartment now and speak of our exchange of value later?”

  “If that is your custom.”

  Lisa held up her hand as the captain had instructed her to do aboard ship. “Don’t forget the offering.”

  “Of course,” Landon said. “It would not do to forget the offering.”

  “What is this offering?” Zha asked.

  “It is a custom among our species. Whenever we enter a new system, we make an offering to the ruling administrator, some small gift to acknowledge his authority and to gain his good will.”

  “What sort of gift?”

  “Whatever the administrator judges has value. Perhaps we could discuss the matter with him or her at some time during our visit.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, with considerable waving of tentacles, the Voldar’ik said, “We are a distant system, at the end of a long series of stargates, and on the outskirts of Civilization. The Overlords only visit us occasionally. There are none in the system now. I will be happy to accept your offering and save it for the next time one of the Broa arrives here to oversee us.”

  “I am sure we can work out something mutually beneficial,” Landon said. The thrill that went up his spine at hearing the word “Broa” was evident only to his crewmates. They felt it too. They had been in conversation with one of the locals for less than five minutes, and they had already confirmed one important piece of Sar-Say’s story. Whatever else they were, the Broa did, indeed, exist!

  #

  With a little work, their quarters would have made a first-rate flophouse back on Earth. They consisted of a five-meter by five-meter bare cubicle with an overhead three meters above the deck. In addition to bare deck and bulkheads, they had a microgravity attachment for dispensing water and the same sort of waste disposal facilities that Magellan’s spacers had found aboard the Ruptured Whale that first time they boarded her. There were raised platforms that might (or might not) have been intended as anchor points for sleeping. There were no interior partitions, doors, or any hint that privacy was of concern to the Voldar’ik.

  “Is this satisfactory?” Zha asked after ushering them into the quarters.

  “Is it possible to change the temperature?” Mark asked the alien. Like Lisa, he was beginning to get goose bumps on his exposed skin.

  “You may change the temperature, composition, and water content of the atmosphere using the control panel on the bulkhead. I will demonstrate. Be assured that the safety constraints are in place that will prevent you from making an adjustment that would be harmful to creatures of your type.”

  “Then we will raise the temperature to a level our species finds more comfortable and the quarters will be acceptable,” Landon said. “What of communication?”

  Zha gestured to an instrument that was obviously a communicator. It was similar in design to the communications stations onboard ship, and very like a number they had in their cargo bay. “The station computer is aware of your identity. If you activate the communicator and ask for “Wanderer,” you will be able to speak to your crewmates.”

  “Are such communications monitored?”

  The Voldar’ik hesitated for long seconds before responding, “I am afraid that I do not understand your question. Could you please restate it using another formulation?”

  “Never mind,” Landon replied. “I think you provided me with all of the information we need.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “We would speak to those who wish to trade with us as soon as possible. When can it be arranged?”

  The greeter answered with a time span that was the equivalent of four hours.

  “That is acceptable. There is one other thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Because we are far from home, we wish to learn all we can about the local region of space in order to see what opportunities exist here. He Who Operates Computers would like access to your databases in order to explore the possibilities for exchange of value.”

  “Such access is not without cost.”

  Vasloff slipped smoothly into his role. “We are a trading people, Zha. We understand the concept of giving value for value, and will see that anyone who helps us is properly rewarded for both time and effort. Now, how much will it cost to gain access to your database? Nothing confidential, just the information that any Voldar’ik can access … and, of course, only those things recorded in trade talk.” />
  “I suppose we will have to work out a rate of exchange between our two species’ products before we can set a price,” Zha replied. “What sort of goods do you have to exchange?”

  “It has been a long voyage and we have traded away our own products. Our current cargo consists mostly of goods from the star system of Vith.”

  “That is one star that I have heard of.”

  “Our Shangri-La is twelve stargates beyond Vith.”

  “Twelve, you say? That does put you a good distance to the other side of Civilization.”

  “Yes, it does. It is a shame that it takes so long to reach your beautiful world. Obviously, if we are to trade value for value, we will have to find something that is worthwhile shipping that far. That is why we need access to your computers. Who but a Vulcan can predict what other Vulcans will prize?”

  “True,” Zha said. “One species’ prize is another species’ offal.”

  “Very true,” Vasloff said. “However, there is no reason why individuals from both systems cannot participate in a mutually beneficial arrangement if we are able to find the suitable items to exchange…”

  Lisa suppressed a smile. She did not think that she had ever heard a bribe offered so skillfully, and in an alien language to boot!

  #

  Mark Rykand floated in front of his Broan computer and rubbed eyes that were beginning to feel like boiled onions. It had been two weeks since he began searching the Zal’trel database for facts of interest to humanity. It seemed more like two years. For 20 hours out of 28, he watched the Broan symbology scroll across the screen. Save for periods when he hurriedly gulped down rations, or visited the Voldar’ik “facilities,” or grabbed a few fitful hours of sleep, he had spent his time glued to the screen. Oh yes, there had been two glorious trips back to the ship to upload what he had recorded and free his portable instrument’s memory for new searches.

  It had been a successful two weeks, but also frustrating. Initial success had come early. Almost from the moment he first input the symbol for “Broa” into the computer, he had been awash in details about Klys’kra’t’s place in the Sovereignty. There was no doubt in the Voldar’ik mind whether the Broa existed. The overlords occupied approximately the same position in their culture that Jewish culture assigned to Jehovah. Except, a heretic who doubted the existence of these particular gods learned the error of his ways much more quickly than anyone in the Old Testament had.

  Indeed, not only had Sar-Say been telling the truth about the Broa, if anything, he had not painted them black enough. The Voldar’ik records were full of cautionary tales about what happened when the Overlords were displeased. Mark had recorded several hours of scenes showing burned-out cities and dead worlds. At first, he wondered why the Broa would allow such records to exist. Then he realized that were he the master of a million-star galactic empire, the one class of information he would not suppress was the fate of rebels and others who had displeased him. In fact, he would make it required viewing for all of his subservient species.

  Despite the ample evidence that the Broa existed and controlled every star within reach, there appeared to be a dearth of information regarding the overlords themselves. The closest he had yet discovered was a library of their published decrees. Most of these involved rules for the use of stargates, but the decrees ran the gamut from banned information to restrictions on the aliens’ reproductive practices. There seemed to be no command too invasive for the Broa to issue or the Voldar’ik to follow. Remembering some of the biologists’ initial theories about Sar-Say, namely, that he viewed the overlords much as a pet views its master, Mark wondered if the same were not true of the Voldar’ik.

  However, try as he would, Mark could find nothing on the Broa themselves. There were no descriptions, no pictures, no regal portraits hung in government offices, nothing. For example, inputting “Broa-species-biology” had yielded no response from the station computer, not even a chiding notice that the data in question was classified. It was as though the idea that the Broa were biological organisms was a null concept in the computer’s brain, and perhaps in the brains of its masters.

  Unfortunately, the paucity of personal information on the Broa made sense. Just as a galactic overlord would want his subservient species to understand the consequences of revolt, he would want to limit their access to data of a personal nature. Take Broan biology, for instance. A subservient species unhappy with the local Broan ruler could use their knowledge of his physiology to poison him. By denying the Voldar’ik biological information, the Broa were protecting themselves from harm. More to the point, they were denying their subjects information that could even suggest there were ways that an overlord might be killed. Furthermore, if keeping one class of personal knowledge from their subjects was beneficial, why not all such knowledge?

  That, at least, was Mark Rykand’s working hypothesis. So far, it seemed to be holding up. Of course, he would have been better able to test it if he had not been so constrained in the questions he could ask the computer.

  No one really knew whether his caution was warranted, but they all agreed that it was needed. Presumably, the Voldar’ik either were monitoring his efforts or had the capability to do so. To prevent the aliens from learning too much about humans by analyzing the questions they were asking, Mark had to approach matters of interest indirectly. If he were asking questions about Broan biology, for instance, that question had to come at the end of a long string of other queries in which he appeared interested in matters of trade. To do otherwise risked leaving a record of human ignorance, a record that would strongly intimate that they were from somewhere beyond the Sovereignty.

  It was this need for indirection and obfuscation that had slowed Mark’s efforts to a crawl. What they needed, Mark had long since decided, was a copy of the vast Voldar’ik database of their very own. Once back aboard the Whale and at Brinks Base, they would be able to ask pointed questions directly. They could seek out all the Voldar’ik knew about the Broa and their empire. They could probe, and correlate, and hypothesize at their leisure, with no concern that hostile eyes might be peering over their shoulders.

  It had been the third day of their stay aboard Zal’trel Station that Mark explained his problem to Captain Landon, who had turned the matter over to Mikhail Vasloff. By Day 3, Vasloff was deep in negotiations with his Voldar’ik counterparts and it had seemed only natural for him to inquire as to the price of a copy of the station database. Asking the question had proved the easy part. Ten days later, Vasloff was still haggling with Zha over how much the information was worth.

  The sociologists’ predictions about the Voldar’ik personality had proven uncannily accurate. As Raoul Bendagar had remarked during one of their calls to the ship, “Certain principles are universal. The Law of Greed is one of those.”

  Such observations were interesting, but they did not get the job done. What Mark needed was someone far more knowledgeable than he on this particular snipe hunt. What he needed was Sar-Say’s help.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  “Come on, Captain. Be reasonable. He has told us the truth so far, hasn’t he?” Lisa asked in a hoarse whisper.

  She and Dan Landon were on a tour of Zal’trel Station and had stopped in the middle of one of the wide fields where the Voldar’ik grew bottle-plant tubers, their primary source of sustenance. Overhead, the sky was black save for the glowing yellow ball of the star they still called Orpheus. Some indefinite distance above their heads was one of the giant windows they had observed during their approach, a window so clear that it looked as though the field was open to space. Only the frigid, alien-scented air that curled around them in long streamers of exhalation fog proved that their eyes were deceiving them.

  “I have to admit that everything he has told us has checked out so far,” Landon whispered back in Standard. If the Voldar’ik had a voice pickup focused on them, all they would hear was alien gabble. “Still, he has no reason to be loyal to us, and therefore, we have no re
ason to trust him.”

  “He’s a trader. We can give him reason to trust us. We’ll offer him the sole trade concession in the Solar System if he helps us.”

  There was a flash in the captain’s eyes that told Lisa she had triggered something unintended with her comment. “Trade? What trade is that?” he asked, his voice a hoarse murmur. “How do you think they will react at home when we report what we have found? Do you think any human starship will be allowed near the Perseus Arm after this?”

  She frowned. The captain was right. Just a few of the pictures Mark had dug out of the Voldar’ik database would cause Parliament to run screaming for cover. So long as the Broa ruled the Sovereignty, there would be no trade with humanity.

  “Right. Then we will gain his cooperation some other way. How about if we agree to leave him here with our cargo when we go?”

  “Do you think he will promise to keep quiet about us?”

  “We can ask.”

  Landon’s scowl deepened. “Really, Miss Arden! Do you think I would risk the safety of the human race on the word of one small alien?”

  “What could he tell them? He doesn’t know where Sol is.”

  “He knows we exist. That is enough. Besides, how do you know he is ignorant of our location? Has he been studying our astronomy books?”

  “Some,” she agreed, nodding.

  “Tell me, where is the zero-zero point in all of our astronomical position data?”

  She frowned, not liking the way this conversation was going. “Earth, of course.”

  “So, if Sar-Say happens to have memorized the right ascension, declination, and distance data for the Crab Nebula, how difficult will it be for the Voldar’ik to make the correlation?”

  “Not difficult, I suppose.”

  “Not difficult at all. I suspect they will know where Earth is located about two minutes after Sar-Say tells them we exist.”