by E. M. Foner
“Did you read the training manuals from the Special Operations Executive?” her partner inquired.
“Yes, but it was all so outdated,” Lynx complained in frustration. “World War Two was just twenty years or so after the Ashenden war, so we’re still talking about more than a hundred and fifty years ago. And it all applied to humans spying on humans in old nation states, using obsolete weapons and communications technologies that any AI could crack in its sleep. Is this really supposed to be training, or is it a test to see whether or not we’re serious?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” A.P. replied with a shrug. “Anyway, our orders are clear enough. We’re supposed to find out if the Farlings have been targeting humanity with their drug engineering and to make sure we’re back at Corner Station in three weeks, no, seventeen days now, where we’ll be contacted.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that our employers seem so hands-off?” Lynx asked cautiously. “I mean, other than the oddball cargo, their entire investment in this mission was limited to two contacts, a meeting, and that envelope thing that came without instructions for getting it opened!”
“So what do you plan to do when we dock at Market Orbital?” her partner asked, ignoring her question.
“Check out the market conditions, try to make some advantageous trades. Keep our ears open,” she suggested.
“That’s all good, but I was hoping for something more active,” A.P. replied. “I was thinking about hitting the bars and spreading some creds around.”
“Whose creds?” Lynx asked sourly, though deep inside, she already knew the answer to that one. Then her natural suspicion took over. “Are you a drinker, Malloy?”
“I guess I can handle my alcohol,” the agent acknowledged with a bemused expression. “Of course, that’s the whole point of the program, to keep your head while others lose theirs.”
“How about trading?” Lynx asked. “Do you have any experience in business, or is it all spy work with you?”
“My career prior to taking this job was primarily in supervisory positions,” A.P. informed her, relapsing into the superior tone that had bothered her when she first met him. “I worked with dozens of alien species on highly sensitive assignments. In fact, I was pretty much the go-to guy in the organization. But I’ve never done any trading or selling, just wasn’t in that end of the business.”
“Alright, we have a few hours to kill, so I’ll give you a crash course,” Lynx told him. It couldn’t hurt to show-off her own skills a little. Maybe her partner had answered the way he did specifically because he wanted to see what she would do, but this whole apprenticeship relationship was for the birds. “I don’t want to leave the bridge while we’re in the shipping lanes, so you go down to the hold and bring back a couple different boxes, doesn’t really matter which. On second thought, stick with the boxes that are already open because there are some buyers who will pay more for factory sealed cases, even with the identical contents.”
A.P. unstrapped his safety harness and launched himself at the ladder, scoring a direct hit this time, and disappeared below. Lynx undid her own four-point restraint, activated her magnetic cleats, and shuffled over to one of the bridge storage lockers. She keyed in her personal security code and opened the door slowly, not remembering if she had packed everything for Zero-G. The locker contained her basic trading kit for open-air markets, including a blanket, a Stryx mini-register, a roll of brown wrapping paper and several balls of twine. She took the blanket and the mini-register, leaving the packing materials, balance scales, and a dagger that she always wore on the tech-ban worlds. The dagger was also useful for cutting the twine.
A box preceded her partner out of the ladder-way, and Lynx was about to yell at him for setting an object in motion on a live bridge, when she saw it was tethered by a short cord to the wrist which appeared soon after. Then A.P. himself came back into view, holding another box by a cord that had been tied around it to keep the flaps closed. He had taken her literally and selected two of the cartons that looked like they had ended up in the container by mistake.
“First things first,” Lynx declared as she snapped out the blanket. The engines had already taken the ship up to cruising speed and they were coasting towards the orbital, so there was nothing to hold the blanket to the deck. She placed the mini-register in the middle and keyed it on, activating its magnetic base. Now the blanket was secured, but the edges were up off the deck, making the whole thing look like the blossom of some weird, rectangular flower.
“Activate your cleats and sit cross-legged on your side of the blanket,” Lynx advised him, while moving to do the same herself. “There’s still enough magnetic attraction through the sides of the cleats to hold you in place.” In less than a minute, the two agents sat across from each other on the blanket. A.P. still held one box, the other remained tethered to his wrist.
“Do you want the boxes?” he asked hopefully, undoubtedly feeling a little over-encumbered.
“Not yet,” Lynx replied. “Do you understand the significance of the blanket in trading?”
“Seems a little old-fashioned,” her partner responded without directly answering the question.
“The blanket is the trader’s real estate,” Lynx explained. “When you set up to trade in a crowded market, you need a way to declare what belongs to you, so that shoppers will know who to bargain with and other traders won’t walk off with your goods. When you don’t have a booth or a shop, the blanket is your territory. I’ve traded in hundreds of different markets in my life, and nobody has ever stepped on my blanket. It just isn’t done.”
“Blanket is sacred,” A.P. said. “Got it. Is that an altar in the middle?”
“A what?” Lynx asked in surprise. “Do you think I’m running some kind of cult here? It’s a Stryx mini-register.”
“I guess I’ve never seen one,” her partner replied. “I’ve never been much for shopping. What’s it do?”
“What’s it do?” Lynx repeated incredulously. She was about to tell A.P. to either stop fooling around or to get off her ship when she remembered that he was just testing her. “It processes incoming payments over the Stryxnet. It can’t initiate payments beyond its current value because it’s not authorized to tap other sources, like a full register. It’s essentially an interface for a programmable Stryx coin, so we can accept payments from any of the currency containers it recognizes. Traders obviously prefer barter when we’re doing business with each other, but for an odd lots cargo that we’ll be selling in the market, it’s mainly a cash business.”
“So let me make sure I have this straight,” A.P. deadpanned. “Somebody who wants to buy from us can offer up a currency container, like their own programmable Stryx cred, and the mini-register will deduct the value from their container and add it to ours?”
“That’s it, but unlike a full register, it can’t draw from other credit sources,” Lynx recapped the limitations. “The only way to get money out of the mini-register is to pull the programmable Stryx coin and spend it with a vendor who accepts them.”
“That’s fine,” her partner said magnanimously. “How much of the market business usually goes through the mini-register?”
“Depends on the location and the customers,” Lynx replied. “On stations, a lot of people carry a programmable coin just to avoid pockets full of change, but the farther you get from the stations, the more trade is carried out in local coinage or nonprogrammable Stryx creds. Some traders get by without a mini-register and let that part of the business walk away, but it wasn’t that expensive, and it acts sort of like a portable safe since it won’t disgorge the coin without the pass code.”
“What’s the pass code?” A.P. asked.
“That’s on a need-to-know basis,” his partner replied and hastened to change the subject. “Now what did you bring up for trade goods?”
“This box is supposed to contain tools,” agent Malloy responded, indicating the carton in his lap. “The other one here just has �
�Kitchen’ written on it.”
“Pass me the kitchen box,” Lynx said with a sigh. There was no question left in her mind that their cargo was mixed in with somebody’s household goods, and whoever the stuff belonged to, she only hoped they had good taste and better moving insurance, because it was way too late to send the stuff back. A.P. untied the cord from his wrist and gently pushed the box over to Lynx. She picked open the knot where the string circled the box and began looking through the contents.
“Any idea what this is?” her partner asked, holding up an object with a wooden handle as long as his forearm that was attached to a curiously shaped black metal head. One end of the chunk of metal featured a round, silvery surface, about the size of a fifty cred piece, and the other end terminated in what looked like a curved wedge with a triangle cut out of the middle. A.P. gave it a tentative swing. “I’m guessing it’s a primitive mace.”
“It’s a carpenter’s hammer,” Lynx told him after glancing up. “I take it you haven’t spent any time on colony worlds where they build shelters with wood and nails. You use the shiny part to drive the nails into the wood and the claw part to take them out.”
“Interesting,” A.P. commented, sticking the handle of the hammer under one knee to keep it from floating off. “I thought wood was only used for expensive furniture and musical instruments.”
“Just on the stations and orbitals,” Lynx replied. “On planets where it’s grown, humanoids use wood for everything, including adding fiber to food and burning it to keep warm.”
“Weird,” her partner commented, removing a boxy silver object about as big as his palm from the box. A small tab protruded from one end, and he began to pull it, exposing a narrow strip of metallic yellow tape with numbers on it. “And this?”
“It’s a measuring tape,” Lynx replied in frustration as she looked up again. “Haven’t you ever spent any time around construction?”
“Just in space,” A.P. admitted. He looked like he was going to say something further, but then he replaced the tape in the box and continued shifting the hand-tools around, looking for something else of interest.
“I can’t believe it!” Lynx exclaimed, drawing a flat wooden box from her carton. She flipped open the lid and began to examine the contents, removing a spoon from its velvet resting place and squinting at the markings. “Sterling silver! I thought the box looked familiar, I saw a set just like this at an antique cutlery fair a few months ago. It needs a good shine, but it could be worth thousands of creds if it’s by a quality maker.”
“How come you get the good stuff and I’m stuck with these glass containers of little spears?” her partner complained, holding up a baby food jar in each hand.
“The smooth ones are the nails I told you about, the twisty ones are screws,” Lynx explained patiently, the silver having greatly improved her mood. “It’s all useful for working with wood, and while none of it is very valuable, it’s good barter stuff for a colony world. Look, I’ll give you this silver teaspoon for everything in your box.”
“Deal,” A.P. said, sticking the two jars and the hammer back in his carton and folding the flaps to stay closed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lynx asked, staring at her partner in open-mouthed amazement. “It’s bad enough you don’t know what a mini-register is for, but now you’re going to tell me you’ve never bartered for anything either? Never accept the first bid. I don’t care if somebody offers you a spaceship for a bottle of wine. Maybe there’s an emperor around the corner offering a fleet for just one glass.”
“I’ve bartered,” agent Malloy defended himself, “I just don’t want any of this stuff for anything. The silver spoon is as good as a silver coin.”
“That’s not the point!” Lynx exploded. “You can’t make a living as a trader if you value your goods according to whether they fit your personal needs. Do you think we should give away all that dog food just because we don’t have a dog? The idea is to always maximize the value of your cargo, and that depends on figuring out what it’s worth to the other party.”
“Alright, I get it. So give me two teaspoons,” A.P. replied with infuriating calm.
“Forget it,” Lynx hissed, setting the flatware chest aside and closing up the box. “I’ll do all the trading for now, you just keep your ears open and try to look good.”
“I do look good, don’t I?” her partner replied complacently.
Six
“Blythe, Clive, thank you for coming,” Kelly said as she rose from the couch to greet her guests. “I just finished feeding Samuel, so you have great timing.”
“You know I’m permanently in your debt,” Clive replied, fingering the Key of Eff that hung around his neck. “If you’re ready to ask for something in return, you’ll be doing me a favor.”
“Subject to approval by the management,” Blythe interjected, hooking her arm through Clive’s.
“It’s nothing like that, exactly.” Kelly hesitated, as if she was in no hurry to explain further. “I could use a cup of tea. How about you two?”
“Tea would be nice,” Blythe agreed.
“It’s a little late for tea,” Clive observed. “Is Joe around? I missed his beer while we were away on the grand InstaSitter tour of the stations.”
“Joe will be joining us in a minute, he’s reading a bedtime story with Dorothy,” Kelly replied, then turned to Blythe. “Could you hold Samuel while I get the tea?”
“Has he burped yet?” Blythe asked suspiciously, proving that you don’t become the co-owner of the galaxy’s most successful babysitting service without being on the ball.
“Not technically, no,” Kelly admitted, holding the baby suspended halfway between them. “But he rarely spits up in any case, and I’ll loan you my towel.”
“You should really relax with the baby for a few minutes after feeding him,” Blythe suggested as she backpedaled away from the extended infant. “I know where the tea things are, I’ll be back in a minute.”
“I’m not afraid of a little regurgitation,” Clive declared bravely. “I’ll take him if you want.”
Kelly glanced at the kitchen and whispered to Clive, “That’s not the point. Donna asked me to get Blythe to hold Samuel whenever the opportunity presents itself. Ever since the two of you got married, she’s become obsessed with the topic of grandchildren. Hadn’t you noticed?”
“It’s a bit hard not to notice,” Clive whispered back in amusement. “When we went over for dinner last night, I thought my mother-in-law was practicing some sort of alien martial arts because I’d never seen or heard of knitting before. It turned out she was making baby socks, and when Blythe asked if they were for Samuel, Donna said she was preparing for a grandchild.”
“Hey, what are you whispering to my wife about?” Joe cried in mock anger as he entered the living room. “You’ve got one of your own, or has she wised up and left you already?”
“Clive was just telling me how much he missed your beer, Joe,” Kelly told her husband as she sat back down with the baby. “Blythe is in the kitchen getting the two of us tea, so maybe you can draw a couple of glasses for the two of you?”
“Come along and carry,” Joe ordered the younger man, and the two of them headed down a deck to the brew room. “Sorry if I seem a bit out of it tonight. I took care of Dorothy most of the day to give Kelly a chance to relax with the baby. Eight-year-old girls have way too much energy.”
“Speaking of energy, where’s Beowulf?” the ex-mercenary asked, playing off the giant canine’s famous laziness. The old war dog had successfully trained Clive to serve as a source of snacks, so it was strange that he hadn’t put in a showing yet.
“He’s probably sleeping under the tap, dreaming that the valve fails and it starts dripping,” Joe replied. “Killer’s been hiding down here a lot the last few months, he’s always been spooked by infants. I think he isn’t comfortable with how helpless they are. He stayed away from Dorothy until she could crawl.”
Joe’s prediction pro
ved correct and Beowulf was indeed stretched out on his side in front of the current keg, his massive head directly under the tap. When the men approached, he opened one eye, whacked his tail on the deck a couple times, and then waited for further developments.
“Do you know why the ambassador invited us over?” Clive asked.
“Yup, but it’s a secret,” Joe replied with a grin, retrieving a couple of glasses and a pitcher from the sink rack. “Here, you fill the glasses and then I’ll hand you the pitcher. I’m betting Blythe will want to switch over from tea when she hears what Kelly has to say.”
“Sounds serious,” Clive replied. He took a glass from Joe and held it under the tap, pulling down the handle. The ex-mercenary stood awkwardly, his feet straddling the giant dog’s head, but he didn’t spill a single drop as he hot-swapped the glasses under the flow. Joe whistled in admiration as Beowulf shot the man a look of disgust. Clive winked at the dog and asked Joe, “Can you tell me if it’s official ambassadorial business?”
Joe took the full glass from Clive, handed him the empty pitcher, and watched as Clive repeated the hot-swap operation to perfection. “I think I better leave all of the details to Kelly,” he replied after a pause, and took the second glass from Clive. “You’ll understand after you’ve been married for a while. I’ll see you upstairs.”
Joe started up the improvised stairway with a full glass in each hand, and Clive shut the tap and waited for the dripping to stop before removing the pitcher. “Sorry, old friend,” he muttered to the dog, feeling guilty over pulling off the operation so cleanly. As Clive turned away from the keg, Beowulf lifted up his head, just enough to catch the man’s trailing leg and produce a stumble. A glass worth of beer sloshed over the brim of the pitcher onto the clean metal decking, which pitched towards a drain below the keg. The dog was ready and waiting, and his tongue began lapping overtime as he prevented a single drop from going to waste.