Trade Wars (The RIM Confederacy Book Book 9)

by Jim Rudnick

  The dean of the Neres University xeno-archaeology department, Nelson Smythe, nodded back and did not look up from his tablet.

  “Then it’d be no surprise to learn that you’re heading up the new xeno-archaeology team to go to Ghayth, would it?” he asked, as if he didn’t know what the answer was going to be.

  Reynolds sat up and leaned forward toward his friend and boss. “Really? They got something there? Heard the planet is rains all day long—gray, gray—but that’s okay. Maybe life started out as amphibians or reptiles. What have they got, Nelson? What have they found?”

  He was eager; that was for sure. He was knowledgeable and had also written several books on xeno-archaeology covering areas all across the RIM and even inward too. He was only sixty or so, and he still had the full vigor of middle age. With any new discovery, that was all he needed.

  “There is little to go on, but from what has been released to me—and now to you—is that they’ve found a ship. A ship that crashed into Ghayth more than twenty thousand years ago. Does that whet your interest, Randall?” he said as he grinned and turned the tablet so that the head of the new xeno team could see a still of the wrecked ship lying in wait for him and his new team to enter … and make finds.

  Randall nodded as this was exactly the thing that got his mind working best—something new to look at, to explore, to expound on … and a new race, no matter how alien and old, was all the better.

  He leaned back and grinned once more. “Nelson, do I make up the team or is there any one already on same?” he asked. That was important to him. Having the complete freedom to pick and choose his team members from the ranks of university staff and students was something to wish for. Having to find places for nepotism add-ons or sweethearts from other departments was a pain in the ass.

  “All yours except for one person—and this was a direct request from the new admiral of the Barony Navy. One Lieutenant Astrin Hartford of the Atlas. Seems like this guy—a Tarvian, you know, big ears and those extra thumbs—is a real whiz at technology. So the admiral insisted that he’d be your number two on this … sorry about that, Randall,” he said.

  He looked a bit sorry at least, the professor thought, but hey, a Tarvian was always a good thing to have along—especially as the technology that they’d be looking at was twenty thousand years out of date.

  He smiled. “Okay, I’m in. Team size, say, of ten, twelve maybe?”

  Nelson nodded and the two of them began to make lists of various needs the xeno team would have to have: language, customs, society, medical, culture, xeno-artifacts, xeno-linguistics, xeno-technology, and more.

  “We will try, of course, to keep the pareidolia and mimetolith phenomenons to a minimum,” Randall said.

  Nelson nodded.

  “Just how public is the team, the nature of our search, and the ship itself,” Randall asked finally.

  Nelson stared at him for a moment before answering. “No one knows—well, navy personnel notwithstanding—about the wreck at all. So I’d ask that you not offer up any info to anyone on the team as candidates ‘til you’ve made your final choices and you’re actually on your way to Ghayth …”

  Randall nodded. “Seems fair and over the weeks of time that such a trip will take, I can slowly get the team on board and all lined up …”

  The dean sat back and shook his head. “Not really, Randall. You’ll have more time on the shuttle that will take you to the wreck site than on the trip between here and Ghayth. Trust me, there is more to learn …” he said, and they went back to their lists, culling and editing and adding names as they went through the best team members to take along.

  #####

  The table was full, and the file clerk was nowhere near finished the sorting of the latest files as she’d been instructed.

  There were, she knew because she kept a running count, at least fifty new ones this week.

  In the past four months that she’d been here as a temporary file clerk, there had been almost seven hundred new applications for Customs to consider the addition of new tariffs on new products all across the RIM Confederacy.

  She knew nothing about tariffs, but she didn’t have to know about tariffs to put files in order by application date and time.

  She’d been told there was a temporary increase in the normal workload in the Customs new application department.

  On her first day, her immediate boss had quit, and there had been three replacements who’d also left in a huff. She had no idea who was in charge today.

  In about ten minutes, the public doorways down in the lobby would open, and there would be Leudie and Faraway citizens, one after the other, marching up the stairs to file new applications. Most of the new applications were simple tablet forms to be moved to her Customs console and entered as to date and time.

  Sometimes, there were arguments right here at the reception desk, Leudies with their neck snakes uncoiling and Faraway citizens with their tails standing straight up in the air.

  Four days ago, the arguments about something on tariffs on passenger meals—rather specifically the fish entrees that had been supplied by a DenKoss firm on liners traveling to Duos—was so heated that she’d had to call security. While it had taken almost twenty minutes for the three rather portly Provost Guards to arrive, they’d simply pulled out needlers, and the line-up in front of reception emptied out quickly.

  Today might be different, but probably not so much.

  She went to the back, retrieved a big tote box, and dragged it up front to sit on the floor beside her post at Reception.

  She would accept the application by tablet, print it out, get it signed, and then drop it in the tote.

  One after the other.

  She wondered at times who the Customs inspectors were and what they were doing, as the pileup of files was now more than anyone could do quickly. And she wondered why the huge numbers of these new tariff applications were being filed.

  Why? For what reason?

  She thought for a moment about taking a headache pill before the usual daily headache took root, and she figured she probably shouldn’t do that. The headache wasn’t that bad, but the pressure of looking polite and treating the citizen at reception as best as she could began to fail by lunchtime.

  The first citizen came into view as he climbed the final few stairs, opened the doorway, and walked straight to the reception counter to stand under the New Application Filing sign.

  A Tillion citizen, from the planet with the same name, gently placed his tablet down in front of himself.

  He nodded to her and politely asked, “May I place an application into Customs for a lifting of a tariff?”

  She nodded, told him to send the file to the Customs database, and showed him how as he was a bit slow on the needed technology needs of same.

  Moments later, she had the file, printed it, and handed it back to him for signatures.

  He smiled, found the three spots to sign, signed the papers, and then slid the multiple-page document back to her.

  “I thank you, ma’am, for your help on this—muchly appreciated. We would like to rid our planet of that tariff, so I hope that you can enable this to happen, ma’am,” he said, and again, he thanked her gratefully.

  Ten or more citizens were now lined up behind him, but that didn’t faze him at all. He took his time, as he picked up his tablet and had her help him to view the confirmation that his application had been received, printed, signed off on, and was in the Customs database for consideration.

  The line behind him was agitated, but he paid them no mind at all. He turned and went out the Customs doors and back down the stairs.

  She held up a hand to stop the next person in line, a Faraway citizen whose tail was up off the floor and looked like he was starting to get upset. She picked up the Tillion’s file with the signed documents, walked it over to the table where the files were already sorted, and took a moment finding a place for it. Today. That one will be looked at today. She stifled her smil
e as she went back to accept the next filing from that Faraway citizen.

  It was a standard filing with new tariffs wanted on Takan4 for what looked like a type of sensor for removal of quills. Takans did not have hair, but instead they were lightly covered with what could be called quills. The empty hollow tubes, less than a half inch in length, with a sharp tip and barbs would come off if one rubbed against a Takan. As the citizens of the planet got more than their own share of quill stabs, taking them out was a real chore; however, the recent invention and launch of a quill-remover light source made it much easier. The light was shined down inside the barbed quill, the barbs retracted inside the shaft of the quill, and they slid out with no pain or bite or wound. This application claimed, she noted with a high degree of you’ve got to be kidding me, that the invention had a patent infringement, and for all of these new products imported into Takan, there would need to be a new tariff with the funds going to Faraway.

  She didn’t snort at that one, but she did raise an eyebrow as the documents were printing out, and she didn’t miss that the citizen opposite her chose to ignore that eyebrow.

  He signed, and she dropped the whole file with its accompanying documents into the bottom of the tote bin at her side and smiled at the Faraway citizen.

  It’d be weeks and weeks—maybe months—before that one was looked at, and her smile broadened. She nodded to the citizen who walked away and turned to the next one in line. Going to be a long, long day, she thought.

  #####

  McQueen normally sat and did what he called his meditation workout each morning at exactly ten hundred hours. He used to take a piping hot black coffee with that half hour of sitting and just pondering the RIM Navy issues facing him, but the coffee was long gone.

  He’d tried tea. No good.

  He’d tried a nice white wine. No good as it ruined the rest of his day.

  He’d tried a muffin and a shake when a clerk out front had pushed him to try to eat healthy—also no good. And the clerk was long gone … over in the Customs Ministry area now he’d heard, and it was her call just an hour ago that he now was pondering.

  He settled finally on a small square of chocolate from one of the Alex’n planets, Dumel, he thought it was called. Most chocolaty tasting little square he’d ever tried; it sat on his tongue for almost half of his mediation time before it melted completely. Heavy flavor of what he called smoky chocolate, but he really had no idea what the flavor was. And he’d long ago learned that when it came time to put something from another planet into his mouth, it was best not to ask any questions. Ever.

  He didn’t chew the square of chocolate; it just sat on his tongue and slowly melted.

  Just like I’d like this goddamn escalating trade war tween Leudie and Faraway to happen … have it melt away.

  The clerk—What was her name again? Was it Mindy?—had called almost in tears. She said that she had no one else to turn to, to ask for help.

  No boss. The last one had quit yesterday along with three more of the Customs application investigators too. The whole Customs Ministry had hundreds of staff, but in the applications department, where one went to apply for new tariffs and the like, there were only twenty-two of them. Had been twenty-two, she said, and now there were fourteen left. No boss, no supervisor, not a single person was in charge. From up in the administration area, a woman had come down to instruct them that until they found new staff, all the current staff were to work as per normal.

  As if more than a thousand backlogged applications was normal.

  Billy Jean!

  That’s her name.

  The clerk who had been trying to get him to eat healthy was Billy Jean something—and he had pretended to know that when she’d called just an hour ago. Old enough to know how to act friendly and personally but not to remember the name of the other person was a skill he’d acquired decades ago.

  Yet the thousand applications was a problem—and it was going to become a bigger problem too.

  Looking out the window to his right in his office here in Navy Hall, he saw the Juno day was as it always was. Sunny. Bright. A few clouds in the perfectly blue sky. A flight of ships in formation went by distracting him from the issue at hand for a moment..

  He toyed with the carving of the ship on his desk as the chocolate square got thinner and thinner on his tongue. and he tried not to think about those thousand backlogged applications.

  Until they were handled, of course, there was no problem. But soon as they were—new tariffs and duties came into effect. Each was loaded into the daily Ansible sent out to all the RIM Confederacy worlds for their local Customs offices there to put into effect. New tariffs were generally not a big problem—sometimes there were squawks about one thing or another.

  But the escalating trade war between the two big RIM trading planets, Leudie and Faraway, was a problem.

  Each was trying to outdo the other, to get their supply lines clogged with new costs and duties. The applying planet would enjoy new business, as their competitors’ prices had to go up to cover those new tariff costs.

  Simple. Neat. But it had to end.

  But the how of that part of his solution escaped him as yet.

  Any RIM Confederacy planet could apply for a tariff—to be investigated by the Customs Ministry and then authorized or not.

  With a staff over at the Customs Ministry that was now half as big as it should be, it would take even longer for those new tariff applications to be looked at—and even more time to investigate.

  As the chocolate square was now just a hint on his tongue, he stood, walked over to the window, and looked down on the Navy Hall grounds, enjoying the final dregs of that smoky sweetness. There were no cars or Jeeps out front, and no one sitting on the benches yet either.

  He smiled, knowing that at the upcoming lunch hour, food trucks would populate the driveways, and there’d be many staff out there eating the latest thing from the latest planet. He shook his head knowing he’d not be one of them; it was Garnuthian day over in the building cafeteria, and he rather enjoyed the ribs.

  He went back to his desk, thought more about this trade war, and still had no answer—yet.

  Other than the time-honored tradition of ignoring the issue by slowing down the process, he had no ideas. He might tell Billy Jean that as of now, they were to accept only one application per planet a week until the backlog cleared up.

  He knew that would work, but by doing so, the screaming at the next RIM Confederacy Council meeting was going to a doozy.

  He shook his head, and a sudden small pulse of chocolate got to his taste buds and he liked that.

  But he sighed.

  A solution would come to him, he knew, but as yet, trying to get the two trade powers to agree on something was beyond him.

  At least for now.

  #####

  On Farth, in the Customs trailer out on the edge of the landing field, a sit-down was getting a bit out of hand.

  “I do not care what you think is important,” the Leudie trader said to the Customs man perched on a stool behind the counter. “What we are off-loading is exactly the same product as always. Twenty-seven thousand embryos—all properly frozen—in stasis and all properly cataloged in our cargo manifests. What the problem is, is it appears to be you and your stupid new tariff criteria. We will not have it, do you hear me,” he said, and he yelled the last part.

  Almost twenty minutes ago, his neck snake had uncoiled, and the head of the snake was now just resting on the Leudie’s shoulder, but every single person in the trailer saw that the snake was just as unhappy as its master.

  The Customs officer sighed and then turned his console monitor so that the two Leudies on the other side of the counter could read it. He clicked something on his keyboard, and then he read what was on the screen.

  “Pursuant to the importation of cattle embryos, all such importation occurring after the first of May shall from now on be subject to a twenty-five percent overage of the normal fees, re
lative to the following factors. That as these specified embryos have all been given freeze codes that are certified as coming from fresh eggs—and that’s the problem, Trader. Your manifests clearly state that the product you’re delivering—have delivered in fact as they’re lying out there in their cryonic trays—come from fresh eggs. That’s going to cost you the twenty-five percent overage charges. Had you sourced for the exact same product but coming from frozen eggs, this new tariff would have been avoided.”

  He turned the screen back to where it pointed at him only and held up his hands. “I do not want to fight with you on this—this has been in effect for, what, the past three months, and if you didn’t know, it’s because you didn’t check on changes before you went and bought the embryos. You will pay—or we will refuse entry to the whole twenty-seven thousand cattle embryos.”

  He looked back at the Leudie trader and yet never lost sight of the snake head on the alien’s shoulder, the little red tongue flicking in and out of its mouth. He mentally tried to figure out which way to jump should the snake make a thrust at him, and while he was thinking on that, the Leudie trader spoke up.

  “That twenty-five percent that you so casually threw out is more than our margin on this order. While the embryos will grow up to be meat for your tables all across Farth, we will lose money on this trade. You win and we lose, is that how it’s supposed to be, Customs Clerk?”

  He was mad. He spat out the words, and he tapped the counter as he said each and every word. The snake’s tongue did the same kind of reinforcement to the words, but the Customs officer ignored it all.

  “Pay up—or load it back up, the choice is yours,” he said and crossed his arms to show that he was done.

  The Leudie trader looked at him and then said, “Wait … let me call the client,” and he turned toward the doorway and went back out to the tarmac. He walked out to the carts holding the racks of the trays of embryos and leaned on top of one. He shook his head, and he pulled up his arm with his PDA on his wrist and said, “Farth: Faron Embryos: call and ask for Mr. Faron himself,” and the PDA AI took over.