Gul Kahn said sourly, "We can't discover a way to transport products this far and trade at a profit."
"It's the factor of double transportation costs," Gul Meszk said, with a rumbling sigh. "It makes the distributive unit expense so high that we'll take a loss on every shipment, coming and going. It can't be done. If we had sources and markets in this galaxy - "
"Find some," Miss Schlupe suggested.
"There's no universal solvency," Gul Ceyh said, adding another voice of doom.
"There's no solution," Gul Meszk said. "It can't be done."
"A fine attitude for the shrewdest and most experienced traders of our galaxy," Miss Schlupe said scornfully. "E-Wusk - "
The old trader looked an entanglement of despondence himself. "When you've finished here, I'd like to talk with you," Miss Schlupe told him.
E-Wusk assented with a gloomy flip of a pair of limbs, and Miss Schlupe turned away, muttering to herself. "I wonder if there's a galactic proverb about too many cooks. Or too many pessimists. It amounts to the same thing."
8
After the traders had finished their meeting, E-Wusk came to Miss Schlupe's apartment. She showed him to a comer of her lounge where he could spread himself out comfortably. When he'd got his limbs arranged to his complete satisfaction, she sternly pointed a finger at him.
"E-Wusk - you've forgotten why we're here."
"We're here to trade!" he protested. "Supreme itself recommended it."
"Wrong. We're here to establish ourselves. Trade is just one of the ways we're to do it."
"But we're here to establish ourselves by trading," he said, still protesting. "Why else would traders be sent here if not to trade?"
"Did Supreme say you were to come to Montura Mart and get rich?"
He twitched his limbs perplexedly. "No, but - " "If you lose solvency, whose solvency is it?"
"Mine, of course. And Gul Ceyh's. The two of us arranged the financing, and we're to operate as partners. The others came to help out. Once we're established, they'll return to Galaxy Prime to make purchases for us and dispose of what we acquire in trade."
"That's what I suspected," Miss Schlupe said grimly. "Trust Rok WIlon to ball up a project. He should have explained this matter of solvency when he handed the job to you. You're on a critically important mission for Supreme. If you lose solvency, it isn't your solvency, it's Supreme's. Supreme doesn't care about profits or losses. What Supreme wants us to do is establish friendly relations with the Monturan natives."
"In that case, why a trader?" E-Wusk asked bewilderedly.
"Because this is a trading center, and trade is our excuse for being here."
E-Wusk ruminated for a long time, twitching his limbs in sequence.
Finally he asked, "What am I to do?"
"Tell your fellow traders they've convinced you we can't operate here. Send them home with thanks, and tell them you'll stay just long enough to liquidate."
"But how can we establish ourselves in a trading center without trading?"
She said desperately, "E-Wusk - you aren't listening. Of course we'll trade. We'll do the most trading you've ever handled in your life. But we don't have to make a profit. Transportation costs don't matter. Value per volume unit doesn't matter. If you close every transaction at a loss and squander billions in solvency, that doesn't matter. The important thing is to build a huge volume of business quickly, so we'll have instant status as important traders. Find out what's in demand here and bring in a fleet of it. Trade for whatever you can get. Transport that back to our galaxy and sell it at a loss, or just dump it in space, and bring in another load. You'll be doing an enormous volume of trade, your gurgesard and his gesard will be making large profits on your business, you'll have instantaneous fame as the best trader on Montura, and as a result we'll be solidly established here - and that's what matters. Understand?"
"Supreme would pay for the losses?" E-Wusk asked doubtfully.
"Of course. Look at it from Supreme's point of view. With the fate of this galaxy, and ours, and maybe the universe, depending on our acquiring status here as quickly as possible, what does a little solvency matter?"
E-Wusk heaved a fluttering sigh. "I did not understand it that way, but when you explain things they become clear to me. I must develop a huge volume of trade and pretend to be making a profit. Then my gurgesard and my gesard will make profits, and we will earn the respect of the mart."
"Now you have it."
E-Wusk heaved another sigh. "Is that how Gul Darr would have proceeded?"
"That's exactly how he would have proceeded." "Then I'll do it."
"Good. Mind you - when I said solvency doesn't matter, I didn't mean that you can operate stupidly. If you brought in goods no one wanted and tried to give them away, you'd be thought a laughingstock instead of an astute trader. You'll have to nose around and find out what's in demand and send for a lot of it."
E-Wusk gathered his limbs together and pushed himself upright.
"I'll go tell the others. I'll send orders back with them for the first shipments."
"Send for some of your own people to help out. We don't need four traders here. We need one trader and about a hundred djardz. That will impress people. Get yourself some djardz."
"I will," E-Wusk promised.
Gul Ceyh, Gul Meszk, and Gul Kahn left for their home galaxy the next day. They carried with them E-Wusk's confidential correspondence - supposedly aimed at liquidating the Montura Mart operation, but actually requisitioning a massive shipment of goods and a hundred assistants.
Miss Schlupe persuaded E-Wusk to come with her to Arluklo for language lessons. The old trader made a promising beginning, but once he'd mastered numbers and weights and measures and some basic terminology, he lost interest. He devoted his time to a study of mart procedures and a complicated analysis of fluctuations in product demand. Arluklo helped him by providing translations of the gesardl's daily tariff sheets.
With Arluklo's expert assistance and by dint of some strenuous study, Miss Schlupe quickly achieved a fumbling competence in one of the mart languages. To give practical effect to her lessons, they took regular turns around the arena together, and she soon was able to recognize and classify the most numerous life forms among the mart's population. She began to make friends among the traders, especially those who had daily duty at the same places, and she gradually acquired a vocabulary of the more common mart products. As her fluency improved, she delighted in wandering about the arena looking for strangers who understood the language she was learning. One day during a conversation with a pleasant-looking monster who supervised a display of something that looked like putrefied fruit, she chanced to mention the column at the center of the arena.
"That's where the gesardl meets," the monster said.
She asked Arluklo about it. "Is that the gesardl's headquarters?" "Not the headquarters," Arluklo said. "There would not be room for a headquarters there. Headquarters are on a lower level, beneath the arena."
"I suppose keeping track of all the mart transactions would require an enormous staff," Miss Schlupe conceded. "What's the column used for?"
"The gesardl meets there. At the top."
"That's what the trader said. Then there must be a" - she fumbled for a word, failed to find one, and switched to her own large-talk - "a lounge up there."
"A meeting place," Arluklo said. "A private meeting place?"
"Only the gesardl and those they invite can enter."
Miss Schlupe, her curiosity sharpened, went to have a closer look at the column. There was a large open space about it laced with entangled lines of traffic because all the main aisles converged there. Miss Schlupe joined one of them that seemed to circle the column and trickle off into aisles on the other side. As she passed the column, she walked as closely to it as possible and was able to manage several quick glances through the lower windows.
It was a hollow cylinder five or six meters in dia
meter. Inside, at the center, stood a much smaller column, probably the dome's structural support. Around the smaller column spiraled a narrow, open staircase.
Twice Miss Schlupe circled back for another look, her curiosity increasing with each glimpse of the interior. Circling back a third time, she approached the column from another angle and found herself passing a door. It resembled the doors in her apartment. She slowed to a stop, glanced about her, and then pressed the release plate. The door slid open. She entered quickly and closed it behind her.
She was in a circular room, empty except for the central column and its staircase. She peered through the oval windows to see whether her action had outraged anyone, and then she resolutely began to climb. The stairs rose through a circular opening, and she found herself at the second level. She continued to climb - third level, fourth level, fifth level. Each was a small, circular empty room like the one at the bottom.
She was reluctant to climb higher. The stairs had no handrail, and a misstep could have resulted in a nasty fall. Obviously the gesardl didn't climb the stairs to reach its meeting place. It would have a transmitter frame in its meeting room or at one of the top levels, and the danger of an outsider climbing the stairs to eavesdrop - the look up was as dizzying as the look down - certainly was minimal.
She climbed down again and prowled thoughtfully about the bottom room before she left. Her exit was as unnoticed as her entrance had been. Excitedly she hurried off to find E-Wusk.
Without bothering to explain herself, she led the reluctant trader down to see the column. "Look!" she said dramatically, opening the door for him. "You don't have to curry favor with a gurgesard for the use of a centimeter of arena display space. Just see the gesardl and rent this. Central location, best in the mart. All the main aisles lead directly to it."
E-Wusk regarded the small room with skepticism. He seemed instinctively distrustful of any enclosed space that lacked a corner for him to sit in. "If one set up displays, there would be no room for customers," he objected.
"It'd be a bit crowded," Miss Schlupe admitted. "Still - what about small items? Couldn't they be displayed on the wall, both inside and out? Customers could circle around and look at them."
“Perhaps. But would it be wise to approach the gesardl directly?”
“My gurgesard surely would object, and all the other gurgesardl would support him."
"I see. It'd mean going over his head and disregarding the proper chain of command, and all that sort of thing. We don't want the reputation of being shoddy politicians, and if you do try to approach the gesardl through your gurgesard, he'll probably grab the place himself. It's a shame. Such a beautiful location. There's got to be some use for the dratted place."
Miss Schlupe had a more pressing problem to worry about.
E-Wusk's first shipments arrived, along with his assistants, and Prime Common soon was bustling with trading activity. In the bundle of cargo manifests was a message for Miss Schlupe from Rok Wllon. He had encountered difficulties in locating the kind of specialist Supreme thought they needed to favorably influence the Monturan natives, but he hoped for success at an early date. He asked for a progress report.
She had no progress to report, because she still did not know which of these outlandish life forms was native to the world of Montura. Arluklo, questioned on this subject, said none of them were, but she was reluctant to believe him.
As her linguistic ability progressed from discussions of things to discussions of ideas, they frequently had communication problems. The phrase "native to Montura" seemed clear enough, but she had to think it in English and say it in large-talk, and the thought's destination was Arluklo's native language, whatever that was, and his reply traveled the same route in reverse. What, really, had she asked, and what had he answered?
At this stage it seemed unwise to be too conspicuously interested in Montura's natives, and she hesitated to question Arluklo at length. Instead, she began to make casual inquiries among her rapidly enlarging circle of acquaintances in the arena, and she soon concluded that any Monturan natives lurking among the variegated life lifeforms thronging the mart were there anonymously. No one knew anything about them.
She began to ask questions about the world of Montura. Were there cities she could visit? No one knew. No one remembered seeing a city or any other kind of native habitation on the brief rocket descent from a transfer station. No one had heard of any Monturan city except the mart.
Finally she borrowed one of E-Wusk's space freighters and persuaded its captain to feign mechanical difficulties and obtain permission from the port authorities to perform test maneuvers. While he simulated the maneuvers, Miss Schlupe busied herself with the ship's viewing screen.
"Is it possible to send a message to Supreme?" she asked E-Wusk when she returned to the mart.
"Certainly. What sort of message?"
"A message concerning the problem of establishing favorable relations with the Monturan natives. There aren't any Monturan natives."
"Of course there are. Supreme said - "
"Precisely what did Supreme say? Do you know? All I know is what Rok Wllon said Supreme said."
"Rok Wllon said ‘natives’’” E-Wusk ruminated. "So I would assume that Supreme said 'natives’.”
"In which case one would expect to find some kind of local population on this planet, whether that population evolved here or migrated sometime in the remote past."
"One would think so," E-Wusk agreed, eying her perplexedly. "Well, there isn't any. There are no cities, no roads, no buildings, no farms, no factories. Except for Montura Mart, this dratted world uninhabited. In a few hours one can't look at every square meter of II world's surface, but I did a careful general survey, and I scrutinized every promising area in detail, and you know how much detail you can see with a viewing screen. If the key to saving the universe IN the help we're going to get from the Monturan natives, the universe is in serious trouble. There aren't any Monturan natives."
“Perhaps when Supreme said 'natives' it was referring to the population at the mart. Perhaps it meant to say 'Monturan residents’.”
"That's the only possible explanation," Miss Schlupe said. "So all we've got to do is impress the mart's population. We want them to think we Galaxy Prime creatures are the best traders, and the most congenial hosts, and the most friendly, the most brilliant, the most reliable, the most likable creatures in the universe. It's not a small order. How does one go about absolutely overwhelming an entire community of aliens?"
"Surely by developing a huge volume of trade -"
"That's only the foot in the door. That was before we knew we had to impress the entire mart population. To bring this thing off properly, we'll have to do something really spectacular."
"What?" E-Wusk asked.
"I don't know," Miss Schlupe said. "I'm fresh out of spectaculars. But give me a little time, and I'll think of something."
9
The United States Congress devoted a portion of the summer of 1995 to its annual debate concerning the medical profession. Once again the doctors were accused of profiteering from their grudging participation in the National Health Plan. The doctors issued the same denials they had voiced in 1994 and previous years, claiming that they hadn't but fully deserved to.
Doctor Malina Darr read the stories wistfully. She didn't know whether the medical profession was profiteering, but she was frequently aware that she was not. As a dermatologist, her patients were covered by the National Health Plan only when referred to her by other doctors. The general practitioners of her town of Colliston regarded dermatology as a fad contrived by cosmeticians to extract money from their patients. They could be tolerant of fads, but they were determined to extract their patients' money themselves.
The bank had just delivered itself of a final-notice - before foreclosure concerning her mortgage. Earlier that week the Midwest Medical Foundation, which had loaned the funds that partly financed her medical
education, pointed out in exasperation that all the other doctor of her class had long since paid off their obligations in full. Her financial distress was doubly painful because she knew it was undeserved. She was the best-read, the most up-to-date and comprehensively educated medical specialist in her district - because her lack of patients left her almost unlimited time for study.
The only thing that had kept her even precariously afloat was the advice of syndicated columnists. These nectareous personalities polluted the television channels for hours each day, dispensing homilies, home recipes, and hokum to pathetic viewers who sought capsuled solutions to unsolvable problems. Fortunately for Doctor Malina Darr not all of the columnists were quacks, and several were highly competent, Every time one of them was asked a medical question by a teenager with a devastated complexion, or a youth with a vanishing hairline, the answer brought a few scarred or balding young people to her door.
[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe Page 8