by E. M. Foner
“I’m not sitting next to him,” Pffift said, pointing at Spot. “It would be sacrilegious.”
“Get him two chairs from the dining room and put them next to each other,” eBeth suggested, proving that she was already over her shock. She reclaimed her own seat on the couch and asked the Hanker, “Why are you here?”
“Ah, it’s a long story,” Pffift replied as I returned with the chairs. He gave me a nod of thanks and settled his bulk onto the two seats, but wisely refrained from leaning back. “It all began when the Ferrymen first came to this world—”
“The Ferrymen?” I interrupted.
eBeth raised her hand. “Could somebody clarify what kind of fairies we’re talking about here?”
“The boat kind, but in this case, it’s spaceships. Sue, you’re going to want to hear this.”
“Just a second,” she called as the microwave dinged. A minute passed before she came in with a tray bearing two cups of tea and a tasteful assortment of homemade cookies. I wondered if Helen had baked them or if Sue had made them for eBeth. I’d have to remember to ask Kim if baking was a communicable disease among women.
“Excellent,” Pffift said, accepting the tea with what passed as a hand among Hankers, and daintily retrieving a cookie with his prehensile tongue. eBeth took her tea but waved off the cookies with a grimace.
“The Ferrymen?” I prompted.
“It’s impossible for us to be sure without access to their records, but we believe the Ferrymen started removing breeding populations from this planet a little before iron came into widespread use for tools and weapons,” the Hanker continued his story. “They followed their usual modus operandi, targeting areas that had been devastated by wars, famines, or natural disasters, and passing themselves off as Sky Gods.”
“Like for the ancient Greeks and Egyptians?” eBeth asked.
“I believe that those gods have deeper roots in your world, though my understanding of your history is limited to what I was able to glean from illicit copies of the reports submitted by Mark and his team.”
“The historical information was mainly from Wikipedia,” I admitted, and then added defensively, “They have really easy license terms.”
“The Ferrymen continued visiting this world for at least three thousand years, landing in areas where authority had broken down, taking whole communities in many cases. I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story.”
“How many humans are living on the Ferrymen reservation?” I asked.
“There are three reservation worlds, actually, with a combined total population at least that of Earth’s. The humans proved to be as useful as they are fruitful, and capable of thriving in a wide range of environments. Of course, the Ferrymen have continued in their role as Sky Gods to prevent adverse population events, not to mention undesirable technology that might interfere with their divinity, such as moveable type.”
“Let me get this straight,” eBeth said. “Some alien species Mark has never mentioned spent thousands of years kidnapping humans that nobody would miss and taking them to some other worlds where they’re locked up on reservations?”
Pffift looked puzzled, though I’m sure his expression was lost on eBeth. “I must have misspoken,” he said. “There’s no kidnapping charge to make because the people would have gone willingly for the promise of food and a safe new home. There are three worlds in three different star systems now populated with humans which I’m referring to as reservations. The humans aren’t locked up any more than you have been on this planet, lacking your own interstellar transportation. I don’t know whether the inhabitants of those three worlds are aware of their history or the existence of the others, because all of our spying has been done from a safe distance, and there aren’t any long-distance communications to monitor.”
“The Ferrymen have been playing these games with the primitive worlds they discover for millions of years,” Sue explained. “They always claim to be doing the targeted species a favor by saving individuals who were on the brink of death. I’m surprised that your people don’t view this all as a good joke, Pffift.”
“Why do you think we invested the time and effort in uncovering all of the facts?” the Hanker asked.
“The Ferrymen must be using the humans in such a way that is impacting your bottom line,” I guessed.
“Bingo!” Pffift said. “Give the AI a prize. You even mentioned in one of your reports how well-adapted the humans are to manual labor, as they haven’t been spoiled by robot servitors or magical work methods. Exporting hand-crafted goods made by primitive species to other worlds is OUR thing.”
“You mean that the Ferrymen are employing all of those humans in factories making cheap exports?” eBeth asked.
“No, no, no,” Pffift said. “Cheap exports are made by automation. Hand-crafted goods are a luxury, and the price reflects that. Here,” he said, removing a bag slung around his neck with a flipper-hand and tossing it on the couch, where the girl shrank away as if she expected it to attack. “It’s not going to bite you.”
eBeth reluctantly picked up the bag, which was made of some type of tanned hide. “Is this a man-purse?”
“A utility bag,” the Hanker retorted indignantly. “Hand-crafted. Not a single machine operation went into making it.”
“It’s pretty crude,” eBeth observed. “Death Lord has a wallet he made for a shop class project that’s much nicer than this.”
“Thank you for making my point. Those bony little fingers and opposable thumbs you all come equipped with are ideal for general purpose crafting. The Ferrymen have been creeping into the market for hand-made rugs, wood carvings, and representational art. You provide them with an image file, and a few months later, you get back a portrait or a mosaic. They’re charging half as much as anybody else for superior products!”
“I don’t get it. Mark or Sue in their encounter suits could do a better job than any human, and how do customers know that everything isn’t being manufactured by robots that are programmed to make stuff look hand-made?”
Pffift turned to me. “Mark?”
“We find manual labor to be a bit tedious, eBeth,” I told the girl. “Fingers with nails to stiffen the tips are pretty handy, and I’ve been impressed that I can pick up those tiny screws that manufacturers use in laptops, but I wouldn’t want to spend a whole day turning square pieces of wood into round pieces.”
“Robots can be programmed to make faux hand-crafted goods that are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, but we’re talking about the galactic luxury market here,” the Hanker continued. “I took the liberty of putting together a little DVD of authenticity reels that the Ferrymen provide with each and every product. It’s in my bag.”
eBeth fished out the jewel case and took the disc over to the DVD player. Then she returned to the couch, dug the remote out from between the pillows, and hit play.
A swarthy bearded man appeared, working outdoors under a bright pink sun as he scraped away at a cowhide stretched on a frame. Then he turned to the camera and began describing the process in a language reminiscent of Aramaic, for which Pffift had been kind enough to provide English subtitles. Next, a time stamp and a lot number appeared, followed by a smooth fade to a new scene, where a different man was tanning the hide. The progression of steps lasted nearly thirty minutes, with each craftsperson saying a few words, down to the woman who shallowly engraved an alien name into the side of the purse, working from a paper pattern.
“Wow, that was like a whole documentary for one handbag,” eBeth commented.
“I’ve seen a video for a dragon saddle that ran almost twenty-four hours,” the Hanker said mournfully. “The Ferrymen are eating our lunch in the custom saddlery and harness market. The next one is from a different reservation world, you can tell by the sunlight. It can take years to produce a rug, not counting raising the sheep. There’s carding, spinning, washing, dyeing, drying, and that’s just to make the yarn.”
Watching the rug come to
gether was like watching a plant grow with time-lapse photography. At every stage, the men or women spoke to the camera, giving their names, talking about the rug, their family life, really anything that came into their heads. When the finished carpet was finally rolled, bagged, and barged down the river to the spaceport, we all knew we had watched the creation of a unique piece of art.
“How is anybody supposed to compete with that?” Pffift demanded. “This last one is shorter, from the third reservation.”
A man speaking ancient Greek as a living language appeared and began loading clay into a refining tank while describing the process. Next came a woman turning clay on a pottery wheel, talking about how the pieces she was turning would be joined together with a “slip” after drying, and the seams hidden with another operation on the wheel. Then the pitcher was decorated by a different woman, who described the manufacture of the paints and coatings she used, and finally it went into a kiln for firing.
“I’d even buy one of those if I could afford it,” eBeth said.
Pffift grunted and looked sheepish. “It’s in my cabin, along with the hand-knotted carpet. The purse was for my current wife. That’s how I came by the authenticity videos.”
Twenty
My mentor was waiting in the basement office when I arrived. He was holding the glass manta ray that I had sculpted for Jason pinched between his encounter suit’s thumb and forefinger, apparently trying to puzzle out what it could be.
“It’s not heavy enough for a paperweight,” he greeted me.
“No, it was more of a proof-of-concept. What brings you back to Earth?”
“Several things, but first fill me in on how the portal opening went. Your report expressed some concerns about how the humans would accept an imposed agreement.”
“We got around the problem by claiming that all new members have to appoint a committee of scientists to negotiate connection terms and that we were up against time constraints. I insisted the negotiations take place over the Internet so that all countries could participate, and then I rigged the vote for the committee so that a friendly scientist was made chairman. After that, it was just a matter of letting eBeth do the negotiating since she has more experience with socializing online than I do.”
The manta ray snapped in two as my mentor displayed a rare show of anger. “You weren’t authorized to negotiate any change from the agreement. And as impressed as I was with your human friend, I don’t understand how you could leave such an important task in the hands of someone so young.”
“The final agreement is exactly what the council authorized. It was Sue’s idea that we pretend to be flexible so that the humans could feel good about themselves. The truth is, eBeth would have gotten us a better deal if I hadn’t insisted we stick with the original endpoint.”
“You bluffed them? AI don’t bluff.”
“We do now,” I responded. “Maybe if I hadn’t been so honest with that rogue back on Shissker I could have saved the lives of billions of seedlings. Did I take the time to isolate the AI and prepare for a bad outcome? No, I landed and announced I was there for an investigation to determine its fate. I may as well have told it to launch a doomsday attack.”
“You have changed, Mark, and learned something about yourself as well. I truly wish I was here to tell you that Library is ready to accept you and your team back as full patrons, but there’s been a small problem.”
“We had a deal!” I exploded. “Keep our noses clean, do the mission, and all is forgiven.”
My mentor shook his head sadly. “Library has eyes and ears everywhere, Mark, and it seems that your noses didn’t remain as clean as I would have hoped.”
“Are you talking about those archaic rules? Observers always go native. AI wouldn’t be any good at the job if we didn’t,” I paraphrased Sue.
“Going native isn’t the issue here. As soon as the council approved the portal system for Earth, the licensed labor contractors began applying for permits to recruit humans. I’m sure you remember that the process includes a survey of atmosphere-compatible destinations for the new species. Imagine the council’s surprise when it turned out that there are already humans working in the hospitality and construction industries on select planets.”
“I only placed a few hundred and it was practically an act of charity,” I protested. “Besides, the Library Journal was thrilled with the human correspondent I sent them.”
“You’re running a training school for resort workers upstairs,” my mentor pointed out. “That’s premeditation, and according to your website, you boast a one hundred percent placement rate. What percentage of those jobs were off Earth?”
“Humans like to travel,” I mumbled.
“Everybody likes to travel or we wouldn’t be here having this conversation. Then there was the small issue of Paul deploying advanced technology all over the planet and in orbit as well. It’s a miracle it was never exposed.”
“A little surveillance equipment necessary to the mission, an orbital detection grid, and maybe some military-grade traction gear for a wheeled vehicle,” I responded, waving my hand dismissively. “Is that really all they’ve got on us?”
“Kim introduced medical advances that drew attention from national level governmental agencies, not to mention the lasting economic costs of lost business to local doctors and hospitals. If the Hankers hadn’t landed on the mall, she might have been exposed, putting the mission in jeopardy.”
“The humans will spend the next ten years analyzing the drinking water. If anything, the town might end up with a new miracle spa industry. Is Library really going to be this petty?”
“Justin began a movement that we expect will have a long-term impact on eldercare. And he funded this activity by participating in the creation of a new form of currency, as did the rest of your team members to a greater or lesser degree. Either of those violations would be enough for an Observer to earn a failing grade on a mission.”
“Technically, there’s still an argument over whether or not Bitcoin is a currency,” I retorted, but it sounded weak even to me.
“While we’re on the subject, Stacey von Hoffman used her Bitcoin to acquire antiquities from conflict zones, and interfered with an investigation into her looting of cultural artifacts.”
“How did you find out about that?”
“The Library investigator combed through the computer systems of all planetary authorities to check for signs of Observer misconduct,” my mentor said. “It’s standard procedure for teams on probation. I won’t even mention that the data backup protocols you established for clients in your cover business did not meet the local standards for protecting sensitive patient data.”
“That’s entirely unfair,” I objected, finally feeling myself on firm ground. “The copies I made are much more secure than the acceptable practices mandated by HIPAA.”
“You and I both know that your data security is better than anything humans have to offer, but they have laws in place, and you failed to abide by them. Observers are only allowed to violate local laws in extreme situations, yet you and your team acted as you pleased. I’m afraid that none of you have truly learned your lesson. However, the leadership of Library, in its compassion, has granted you another opportunity to redeem yourselves.”
“What did Helen do?” I demanded, hoping to salvage at least one of the team members from my leadership wreckage. “She’s barely been here a month.”
“Do you think she really spent enough time looking through an optical telescope to document an undiscovered comet? She downloaded all of the Library navigation charts for this sector before taking the assignment, which wasn’t hard for our investigator to spot since it’s the exact same thing that got her into trouble on her last mission. What’s more, she took the highest resolution maps that aren’t supposed to leave Library!”
I slumped against the office door. “It’s my fault. I set a bad example. But why should Sue suffer for the rest of us?”
“She kept pet
s, aided and abetted your activities, and most importantly of all, when she volunteered for the assignment she requested to share in any disciplinary action.” My mentor shook his head. “I’d say that I don’t know what she sees in you, but that wouldn’t be true.”
“Oh.” So eBeth had been right about Sue from the very start and I really was an idiot. I wish I could blame it on leaving half of my mind behind when I squeezed into the encounter suit, but I’m embarrassed to admit that the storage capacity had been almost a perfect match for my life experience to date. “So when you say that Library is giving us another opportunity, do you mean a new observation mission?”
“We’re sending you to one of the Ferrymen’s human reservation worlds. Your mission is to blend in and report back to the executive council on the conditions. I’ve already informed Library that you and your team will accept the mission.”
“Thank you,” I said, moving around the desk as my mentor activated the portal. “I hope I didn’t spend too much of your Library credit doing research.”
My mentor just smiled and shook my hand. “Let’s not go another three hundred years without catching up.”
I watched him step through the portal to Library and thought about how odd it was that I should find it easier to communicate with him when we were both wearing human encounter suits and using acoustic waves for communication. Maybe there was something to be said for slowing things down to the point that I could really consider what I was saying. Unlike humans, the older the AI, the faster we think, so youngsters like myself are always at a disadvantage in conversations with our elders.
“Mark,” Donovan’s voice came over the desk phone intercom.
“What’s up?”
“Lieutenant Harper is here. He says you have a meeting scheduled.”
“I’ll be right up.”
Spot gave a few lazy tail thumps as I passed his favorite furnace spot on the way to the stairs. I wondered for a moment if the lieutenant would like to adopt him, but I thought that eBeth would have the greater need for a dog when I was gone.