"You are too polite," Lee told him. "There's lots of attitude. You see more of it the further you get away from Earth. Humans show a wide range of respect for authority. Earth has a lot of people who put authority on a pedestal and worship it. Fargone is full of people who will mock any display of pretentious dignity and titles. They don't go in for flowery titles and official costumes."
"Costumes?"
"Uniforms, not the sort soldiers wear so they know who is on what side, I'll give you an example. When I was in court on Earth the judge for my case sat elevated behind a special sort of platform and wore special black robes to show he was the judge. This job you have, Amiable said you were 'His Excellency the Voice' so I know you have titles. Do any of your positions with a title come with special clothing? Do you use your title out in public when you aren't doing your job?"
"No!, Talker said, horrified. "In fact, since you mentioned courts, I sometimes need to sit and listen to important court hearings. If the people the case involves don't chose to be at the hearing the judge may send me to inform them of the decision. In court they would address me as His Excellency only, never my given name, because the two are not connected. And when I read a discussion to someone I'd say 'Hear the Voice of the Court' first thing. I'm just the voice, not the court."
"Do you wear a special hat or coat or anything?"
"No, the document is given to the person after a reading and it authenticates itself with the chop of the judge and a seal. If I wanted a special hat my family would send me for a psych evaluation."
Lee sighed. The computer still needed to supply four words for that simple conversation.
"On Earth, in the English high court, the lawyers and judges not only wear robes but wigs too. My Earth lawyer once told me about needing to stand before that court and finding that buying a proper wig on short notice was rather difficult. It was an entertaining story."
Talker spent rather long on the computer. "Fake hair? We don't have such a thing. Why?" he asked.
"I guess when you don't have as much hair as you guys it bothers us more to not have any. And the wigs lawyers and judges wear would take a lot of work to style your real hair that way. Times have changed and people don't wear their hair so long now either. It's complicated."
"Unnecessarily so I suspect," Talker concluded.
"I agree. But Badgers have some ego or this fellow wouldn't have his face on one side of a coin would he?"
"Yes, but that also hasn't been the custom for the last couple generations," the trader said.
"Would you share your given name?" Lee asked him. "Do you do business often and never ask or give names? I'm Lee. I'm really First daughter of the Third love son of the Four Hundred-Seventy Third First Mother of Red Tree, by the Hero of the Chain Bound Lands, Second line of the short haired folk, of Gordon - Lee Anderson. But if you say good-morning using all that it's afternoon before you are through."
"Now that's an interesting question. I'm so used to what is customary I wouldn't normally think about it. I just expect most of my customers won't offer names until they have done business with me three of four times. And we usually chat a bit over tea before getting down to serious business. But you may call me First if it pleases you. I was the firstborn and my parents weren't especially imaginative."
"Thank you, First." She put the coin back in its hole and pushed pieces together. It popped right back open with a little click. "We may both be old before I've been here three or four times given what a trip it is. I appreciate moving things along."
"You have to hold it closed for a moment for it to latch, just like there was a delay in opening."
Lee closed it and said, "One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus," and let loose of the frame tentatively. It stayed closed this time.
Talker and First looked at each other amused. "What?" Lee asked. "It just helps you mark the time more accurately than counting silently in your head."
"Indeed, but our short unit of time is the willet. We say one willet, two willet, three willet just the same. A willet takes about a willet to say in a normal voice."
"That would be handy. A second isn't long enough spoken normally. But is that sufficient chit-chat over tea so we can talk some real business?" she asked, lifting a bag of coins to the table.
"Yes it is Lee, what do you propose?"
* * *
"Oh My God... " Probity said aloud, but he still had his wits about him enough to send the video to the Captain's console as well as the rest of the bridge.
Fenton's mouth was a hard line. He might have reproved Probity if he hadn't looked at his screen.
Their hosts were coming out to inspect the trade goods. They entered from a door that looked like any hatch on a human ship but just barely missed being flush to the deck.
"Well, we finally found something that's really different," Wong said. He said it so softly you'd think he was afraid the aliens would hear him out in the hold. Nobody else volunteered anything. They just watched.
There were three of them. Long and segmented, about waist high, a coppery hue and shiny, but whether they were soft or hard wasn't readily apparent. The front segment had not two eyes but a two clusters of eyes of various sizes wrapped around to each side. There were limbs underneath. Or perhaps they were tentacles. They were thin and moving and far too many to count. If they were jointed it wasn't obvious. It was almost like a brush under them. In the front there seemed a T-shaped mouth of some sort barely visible, so low it was almost underneath. There were appendages on each side of the mouth. They were without a doubt tentacles because they moved fluidly, two sturdy ones on each side and a bunch of finer ones in descending thickness and length.
"It's interesting. The infrared reading says they are hot blooded," Probity told them.
"The whiskers... feeding aids?" Fenton asked.
"Maybe. Looks kind of like a catfish that way. I think some animals have chemical or electric sensors in them. Usually to feel around in a dark environment," Wong said.
"But catfish have eyes don't they?" Probity asked, like the idea confused him.
"Sure. They have both, just like these guys."
"You have good video feeds? We don't want to lose this," Fenton demanded.
"Video, audio, and even radio just in case they are carrying com gear," Probity assured them.
"Who know? They might have organic radio built in those whiskers," Wong speculated.
They went straight to the blanket ignoring the ship. Two stopped about their own length back and the third approached the edge of the blanket and stopped overhanging it a bit looking. He produced two artifacts from somewhere underneath. One cylindrical shape he held with one of the large tentacles slightly over his head and pointed down at the trade items. The other was a cylinder with complex shapes on the end. That he waved over the goods, sometimes in a circling or stroking motion."
"Tell me what you think he has there," Fenton invited his crew.
"Well the way he's pointing it, the thing over his head has to be a camera of some sort," Wong said.
Probity was nodding agreement.
Summer Hokkaido sat the systems board dealing with engineering. They hardly ever heard a word out of him on duty or off, but he spoke up. "That potato masher thing has to be some sort of multi-sensor instrument. I'd love to know what it can see."
"I had to look up potato masher," Wong told him. "It does bear an uncanny likeness.
"The one who didn't hang back and is doing all the real work – do you notice he's not only shorter but doesn't have as many segments?" Fenton said.
"You're right. Maybe they add segments as they age? Could be he is younger," Wong agreed.
"Or a different gender," Summer speculated.
The shorter alien touched everything with a whisker after waving the device over it. Whatever the mechanical sensor was good for he still wanted to sense it with his whatever his tentacle touch told him apparently. He hadn't picked anything up though.
When he got to the gravity plate that changed. He scanned it and conferred with the others in a soft hooting and cooing somewhat different than their radio recordings. He flipped the gravity plate over and scanned it again. The vase seemed to mystify them. They hooted about it a little then one said something shrill, much more like their radio broadcasts. The junior, or at least shorter alien picked the container up and tilted it. The vase crashed against the end and he almost dropped it. He definitely jerked hard when it slid inside. He sat it back down much more carefully than he picked it up.
After he looked at it a little more he laid a larger tentacle along the seam of the container as if to open it. A short sharp word from one of the others made him withdraw the tentacle.
"Somebody there just called on a radio. It was really low power, not even a watt, but it was definitely some of their speech," Probity told them, "not data or video."
It was only about fifteen seconds before another alien entered from the same doorway. He was a short one too. There were three little plates following along behind him like dogs at heel. Sleds or gurneys or whatever you wanted to call them they were self propelled. They didn't have any visible support, just floating a few centimeters off the deck.
The container with the vase was carefully dragged, not picked up, onto one transport. The other carrier received the plate with no special care or ceremony. They small pile of gold coins was lifted one by one and put on the third plate.
"Uh – Oh. I don't think they figured out that these are trade goods," Wong decided.
However once it was loaded the alien reversed the operation and stacked them all back on the paper on the blanket. Actually he stacked them neater than they'd been before.
"I'll be damned if he wasn't weighing them," Captain Fenton declared in surprise.
Sure enough the process was repeated with the silver before the fellow leading the plates left the hold with them. They never opened the book. Perhaps they didn't understand it opened. Or possibly they'd scanned the interior so thoroughly they didn't need to open it. The jade carving however was picked up and carried to one of the alien staying back. He rolled it around in his tentacles and seemed reluctant to hand it back to be returned to the paper.
Another alien came in with more plates, but these were not bare. He drew them up and allowed the fellow who did all the grunt work to unload them.
A coil of silver wire went in front of the gold coins and another coil of gold wire went in front of the silver coins.
Wong was laughing so hard they had to wait for him to get it under control. "They're saying, 'We're not that dumb buddy boy. Show us how you value these metals against each other before we trade.' I have to admit, I'd have done the same. I bet those weigh the same as the coins they are across from within a fraction of a gram."
"Well we'll reduce the amount of the gold coins in proportion to the last quotes we had when leaving Fargone. I'm not about to give them Earth ratios for silver," Fenton said.
"Earth is a lot further away. That's only fair," Hokkaido declared.
The book didn't garner any offer. The jade carving however got a mystery offering. A clear rectangle about the size of a domino.
The aliens withdrew and left them to consider the offering. Fenton sent a couple men out to swap the pile of gold out for one approximating the value of the silver wire. The silver coins he withdrew. The mystery rectangle was examined on the spot. By its absorption spectrum it seemed to be common silica glass. They checked for trace impurities and its dielectric value. Nothing seemed remarkable. "Perhaps it is unusually strong?" Wong speculated. When they tried to test it by mounting a strain gage it wouldn't stick. The first time the engineer thought he'd been clumsy. It fell off again.
"I might know why they think it has value," Probity said. "Do you have some water out there?"
"Just a bottle of water to drink," the tech said.
"Hold your thumb over the end and dribble a bit. See if you can hold it flat and catch a few drops." The water beaded up in balls as if it were mercury and ran off with the slightest tilt.
"Ha! They're trying to sell us self-cleaning glass," Probity said, amused. "I guess it was a big deal to them but we've had all sorts of variations on it for a long time."
"Oh well. I guess all tech doesn't advance at the same pace," Wong said. "And that tells me there may be something we think is old hat they'd be tickled to have, even if they are ahead of us other ways."
"Leave the glass," Captain Fenton ordered. "Put it back but off the edge of the blanket, and open the book up before you come back in. We'll give them some time and see what they bring out. Any ideas for new items for us to put out would be welcome. It doesn't look like they are book worms though."
Someone groaned, but it was with a closed mic and just make the Captain smile.
"I hope we don't fall into calling them Worms," Wong pleaded. "It wouldn't matter to me but I think it would be bad PR with the general public."
"Bugs is even worse," Fenton said. "But everything they look like is some kind of damned bug."
"Caterpillars," Summer suggested quietly. "I guess they get a pass on the yuck factor with most people because they become butterflies."
"Yeah, that works. For all we know this is the larval stage and they become something else. I'm declaring a break for us to eat and walk around. I'll set a temporary watch in here for us. If they come back quickly have them page our coms," Fenton said."
Chapter 25
"These are in good shape," First said, laying his hand on the bigger pile. "I'll pay you a margin of thirty percent over actual weight for them. The others are worn. Some of them so badly the detail is badly gone, the weight is off measurably from the sharp ones, and the edging flutes barely left in the middle of the coin. I'll offer you a fifteen percent premium on those. Or just do the better ones if you want. I don't usually offer coins in that condition, but these are such a novelty I think they will sell. I think they will be rare for some years too."
"Yeah it'll be a long time before we have enough traffic to saturate your market," Lee promised. "You have a deal if you'll pay me all in gold, because this was as much as I wanted to carry and at a premium it's going to be too heavy for me if I swap silver for silver."
"Done," First said, and looked funny at her hand thrust out. "What is this?"
"We usually clasp hands and shake them up and down a few times gently to seal a deal."
"How interesting," he said, taking her hand and letting her lead on the force of the shake. "Does it have legal force in your culture?"
"On Derfhome you'd do it in front of witnesses and it's a binding contract and gets posted to public notice whether it is written up or no. Same on Ceres, and the Fargoers do it and swear on their honor at the same time. If you renege on Fargone and it becomes known nobody will do business with you. I mean, they won't even sell you food. On Derfhome your Mothers will probably exile you from the clan if you foreswear your word. It used to be common on Earth but you only find it in rural areas now. Most of Earth and Mars if it isn't signed on a wet ink contract it doesn't even matter if you have video of it being signed. Maybe not then but But on At Last or the Lunar Republic if you fail to keep a contract you've shook on they will demand you meet them and give them satisfaction."
"What sort of satisfaction?" he asked puzzled.
"The satisfaction of facing each other with pistols and giving them a chance to but a bullet between your lying eyes. They take their word very seriously," Lee assured him.
"I think you should make a special note to advise people of that custom if Badgers start playing the tourist on your worlds."
"That's a good idea. I imagine we'll need a similar travel guide here," Lee guessed.
* * *
"Here they come," Probity said. He was still finishing a last cup of coffee from supper. The aliens had their little transport plates with them. They could see the vase box on screen clearly already.
They stopped short again and the short fellow,
they assumed it was the same one, came forward and moved the jade carving off to the side of the blanket, retaining the sheet of paper. He did the same with the book, leaving it open, and the gold coins.
"Why are they moving everything off onto the deck?" Probity asked. Nobody wanted to guess.
They weighed the gold, decided it was a favorable ratio and loaded it on a plate leaving their silver wire in return. After some discussion and a radio message they put the glass piece with the gold wire to be removed from trade. Then they carefully folded the blanket up by halves and put the vase box and the gravity plate opposite it, but there was a second thinner plate on top of theirs.
"They'd rather have the blanket!" Fenton realized, shocked.
"They want the jade too. Look at this," Wong said. Opposite the carving they put a coil of gold wire. Easily three times as much as they'd accepted for the silver.
"Ask Mr. Lee if that is a satisfactory trade for his carving," Fenton instructed. "One does wonder why the man brought along a souvenir if it wasn't of some sentimental value," he mused.
"I sent him a video of it. He says to go for it, that it is a cheap tourist carving from Hong Kong he got on vacation that is of no particular value," Probity told him.
"Very well, when they withdraw we'll grab the gold and the gravity plate replacement. I hope they gave us the upgrade version and not just a little better plate of the same sort we have."
"Captain... " Wong came very close to cutting off Fenton's last words. His voice was strained but you don't interrupt the Captain or talk over him. Fenton took no notice or offence.
"Yes, Mr. Wong?"
"Would you have one of the cameras zoom in and take a better look at the vase container?"
"Certainly, Probity see to that would you please?"
When the camera was focused on a close tight view they could see the vase much better.
Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet Page 39