Chess With a Dragon

by David Gerrold

  The dreams, the foul dreams!

  Who brings such madness to the roots? Who fouls the dreams?

  Who?

  The wet ones slither through the dreams

  The wet ones lie in slime! They promised us a world! Ai-eee. It is a world of death!

  My roots are very cold.

  The dreams are filled with teeth and terror!

  The eaters still infest the groves, they overrun the groves.

  The orchards swarm with menace. The soil blackens with manure.

  The children die within their hands!! The wind does roar and rip the leaves!

  Why do these dreams infest? What portends? What horrors sweep upon us from the night beyond the dawn? Why are the dreadful eaters following on the trail of the slugs?

  So cold. So very cold.

  Abandon hope. Abandon fear. The edge of horror soon cuts here!

  The slugs are beasts from coldest hell, from hottest hell, from driest hell, from wettest hell. They speak in lies; they lie in offal. The awful truth of slugs is that slugs can’t tell the truth!

  The wet ones creep through all the dreams. They speak too sweetly; they leave behind a sugary death. They give our children no safe place to sink their roots.

  We have been sliced.

  Betrayed.

  Destroyed.

  My roots are cold.

  The eaters come through coldest night. Can you hear the teeth?

  The dreams are screams of children, seedlings dreaming screaming! They are being eaten in their birth-dreams!!

  The stalks of many will soon be rotting in the dream-groves!

  The death comes quickly, spreading like a brown and wilting scour.

  Aieee!! I mourn! I mourn!

  Our world will be lost, our blossoms fall upon a barren land!

  We can no longer trust the hosting slugs! They kill us with their kindness!

  There is no hope! No hope! No home!

  So very very cold.

  Abandon home, all ye who have grown here!

  No place to sink our roots!

  No place at all!

  We roam through airless voids!

  Again to dream of other worlds, other voices? Can we dream of other land?

  Dream a voice. Dream a voice. A sound of light.

  There is no voice. Only the grunting sounds of eaters.

  Too bold. Too bold. There are no roots in space.

  So very very bold.

  Neither is there soil in which to nurture a tomorrow.

  Can we no longer sense new scents upon the solar wind? Have our branches grown so stiff?

  There are no voices.

  And even so, is there not a hint of wonder. Can such things be possible?

  There is always room for wonder.

  Can there be a voice of light within the dreams? A ray of sun in which to grow?

  The dreams have all been fouled.

  Can we afford to send our seedlings into space to seek these other voices?

  Can the grove afford to risk the danger?

  And even as the dream comes down, can we not afford to take the chance?

  That is the root of the question.

  The root. The solid root.

  Can we not afford to take the chance?

  We must . . . negotiate.

  We must.

  My roots are cold.

  An Offer of Employment

  The Ambassador cleared his throat for attention and the room fell abruptly silent. Yake was suddenly very conscious just how old the Old Man really looked. Maybe it wasn’t all performance. He felt embarrassed at the thought, as if he’d penetrated some private part of the Old Man’s self.

  But the then the Ambassador spoke, and his voice was as strong and commanding as ever—and all thoughts of the man’s fragility fell completely out of Yake’s consciousness.

  “All right,” The Ambassador was saying. “We’ve begun receiving some responses to our, ah . . . inquiries about the possibilities of humanity’s service to the InterChange. I won’t comment on the ones that I’ve seen. I think that the, ah . . . acceptability of these will be self-evident. Nori?”

  Kasahara opened the folder in front of him and began reading slowly. “Yes, sir.” Kasahara looked around the table. His usual good-natured smile was missing as he turned to the first of the papers in his folder. “I’ll read these in the order received. The Nixies of Nn have offered a six percent premium for human service as larval incubators. We have to guarantee a minimum of five hundred thousand non-refundable individuals per mating cycle. Seven point one percent if we maintain a breeding station on-site. No colonial rights are implied. Severe penalties for failure to meet quota. Although the Nixies say they’re planning to colonize several new worlds, Intelligence suspects that they are actually increasing their breeding in preparation for a war to be held not less than seven years from now, probably thirteen.”

  Kasahara did not wait for any reactions to that. He turned the page and immediately began reading the next. “The Dragons are willing to purchase—that’s a flat-out purchase; we can apply the credits any way we choose—one to three million non-refundable individuals per year. Two credits per body, plus fifteen percent allowance for shipping. Live bodies only. This is a no-explanations, take-it-or-leave-it deal. The offer is a standing one, always open, but the terms are non-negotiable. The Dragons guarantee nothing but immediate payment.”

  “Analysis?” asked the Ambassador.

  Kasahara held up a single flimsy. “Intelligence reports that the Dragons prefer to eat their prey live.”

  Someone at the far end of the table gasped. Yake resisted the temptation to look around; he kept his face impassive. He had a hunch it was going to get worse. Much worse.

  The Ambassador ignored the exclamation. “Go on, Nori.”

  “Um, yes—” Kasahara turned to the next document. “Um, there’s an inquiry here from a race of . . . I guess you could call them intelligent plants. Apparently, they’re having some trouble with vermin. They’re curious about our abilities as . . . the only word that translates is—”Kasahara scratched his ear embarrassedly, “—gardener.”

  “Mm hm.” The Ambassador nodded. “Let’s get back to them on that one. Ask them for more details on what they need. Go on.”

  “The J(kk)l and the J(rr)l are both willing to purchase frozen or dead individuals. They won’t pay as much as the Dragons, only one credit per body, but they are willing to assume the full cost of shipping. They have their own fleet. They’re willing to pick up on-site. All we have to do is provide them with the coordinates of our home system.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that—” someone said.

  “Hush,” said the Ambassador. “We’re not discussing acceptability yet.” He nodded to Kasahara again.

  “Um—we also have six similar offers from—” Kasahara started leafing quickly through his papers.

  “Never mind,” interrupted the Ambassador. “We’ll get to them when we get to them. Keep going.”

  “Yes sir.” Kasahara swallowed hard and turned to the next page.

  “We have four more inquiries similar to the Nixies’. These are all routine; we haven’t met any of their liaison people. Apparently larval incubators are in great demand all over the InterChange—or it’s going to be quite a war. The Sslyb, the Whroolph, the Ki! (I don’t know if I pronounced any of those right) and the Mnxorn, have all tendered inquiries of availability, based on proven species compatibility—compatibility to be determined through hands-on testing; we assume the costs of the testing and providing suitable specimens. No bids from any of them until bio-compatibility is established to a 66% minimum.”

  Kasahara looked troubled for a moment, then added, “Analysis Section raises a serious question here, sir.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well . . . have the Nixies established biological compatibility already? If so, how? None of the other species have claimed it—and none of the others have offered bids either.” Kasaha
ra was having a little difficulty reading the next part. “Analysis suggests that a deeper investigation may be mandated here. Perhaps the Nixies have already been experimenting with—”

  “Nori—” The Ambassador interrupted gently. “If they have, there’s nothing we can do about it. Not yet, anyway. Just keep reading.”

  “Yes sir.” Kasahara turned to the next page. “The Slugs—sorry sir, I mean, the Dhrooughleem—”

  “Slugs is acceptable to me,” said the Ambassador. “What are the Slugs offering?”

  “Well, they’ve very reluctantly withdrawn their previous offer. They have expressed great shame and embarrassment, but apparently our going public is seen as a great loss of trust in their ability to manage our indenture benevolently.”

  “Yes, yes,” The Old Man made a gesture of annoyed impatience. “So what are the Slugs offering now?”

  “Three credits. Per body.”

  “For what service?”

  “I’m not certain. It doesn’t seem to translate well. It’s–it’s guaranteed to be a dry-land service. The individuals are guaranteed refundable, but—the reprogramming is not guaranteeable.”

  “Reprogramming?”

  “Apparently, there will be some psychological adjustments needed for this particular service; upon completion of service, full restoration of previous mental condition may not be possible. Sir, I–I’m having a great deal of trouble with this—”

  “So are we all, Nori. Please go on.”

  “Well, the Slugs’ offer almost looks like a pretty good one until you get into the details. They’re asking only for female individuals—”

  “Did they say for what purpose?”

  “No, sir. Do you want me to ask?”

  “Uhh . . . I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t think I’d like the answer. Never mind, go on.”

  “Uh—yes, sir.” Kasahra turned the page gratefully. “Independently, we’ve determined that we can probably place a half-million individuals per year in various tourist facilities. That’s more a courtesy than a source of income, but it does credit us with triple bonuses against the interest on our debt.”

  “Tourist facilities?” interrupted Madja.

  “Zoos,” said Kasahara. “On some planets, there’s considerable curiosity about who else lives in the galaxy. There are over a hundred thousand major zoos served by the InterChange. Fortunately, we’re listed as a herding species so they’d have to take a minimal size representation—no less than fifty individuals per facility, no more than six million.”

  “Six million?”

  “That’s for the colony creatures—ants, bees, termites, bacteriological colonies and the like. I think we’d be limited to several hundred individuals per facility; but even so, that would give us at least one form of acceptable service, and the payments on our interest would be large enough to justify the effort. Unfortunately, the payments are only against the interest; none of it can be credited against the principal—so even though the zoo option can help control the rate of growth of our debt, it can’t provide us with any kind of a permanent solution.”

  “Good,” said the Ambassador. “Anything else?”

  “Um. Yes.” Kasahara was already looking ahead to the next offer. He glanced up with a paler-than-usual expression. “Uh—we have an offer from a consortium of six neo-reptilian species. They’re willing to accept our entire indenture as it currently stands plus a yearly stipend for future information acquisitions.”

  “Well, that sounds more like it!” remarked one of the younger assistants. He was ignored by almost everyone at the table.

  “Right,” said the Ambassador. “What do they want to buy?”

  “Um . . . they want the right to begin biological experimentation on the human species—with an eye toward eventually mutating us into something useful. For one thing, they don’t think we have enough sexes; that’s why we breed so fast. However, they do guarantee no resale of individuals for either food or larval incubators—”

  “Hm,” suggested Anne Larson. “I wonder if we could do that one with volunteers?”

  Kasahara looked across the table at her. “They require a minimum of one hundred thousand non-refundable units per month for experimentation, plus total autonomy over the species’ colonization and growth—uh, that includes the homeworld.”

  “That answers that,” said Larson.

  The Ambassador’s expression was unreadable. He merely offered, “I think we might have some difficulty presenting that option to the home office. Please go on, Nori.”

  “Yes sir. We also have two inquiries from bacteriological colonies. They’re asking if we would consent to biological compatibility testing. If compatibility is possible, they would like to open negotiations for a symbiotic relationship. Um—these species don’t live on worlds, they live inside other species. Two viral species have also requested testing, I think. I’m not sure this was translated correctly. We’d have to guarantee freedom from anti-biotic and white-cell contamination. They guarantee no protection for the hosts; mostly they seem to be interested in breeding sites. Maybe they’re preparing for a war too? Along the same lines, several parasitical races have indicated their willingness to um . . . test for biological compatibility.”

  “Hmf,” said the Ambassador noncommittally. “Do we have any offers from Smallpox, Leprosy or Psoriasis?”

  “Just a moment,” said Kasahara, thumbing quickly through the stack of papers in front of him. “I’ll look—”

  “Nori,” the Old Man reached over and put a hand on Kasahara’s arm. “That was a joke.”

  “A joke?” Kasahara blinked. “Oh. A joke.”

  “It’s all right, Nori. You can look them up later. Please go on. Do you have any others to present?”

  “Just two more, sir—the Rhwrhm have inquired if our planet is available for colonization; payment proportional to the number of colonists allowed to settle. Uh, the Rhwrhm are carnivores, sir. Very large carnivores. They eat Dragons.”

  “Yes, I see. And the other offer?”

  “That’s from the Rh/attes. They’re suggesting something very unusual—unusual for the InterChange, that is. They don’t need any service that we can provide; nothing important, that Is—although they’re willing to buy a couple of million tons of corn per year; but that’s mostly a courtesy—a gesture of friendship from one mammalian species to another. What they’re suggesting instead is that we assume their indenture.”

  “I beg your pardon?—” The Old Man took off his glasses and began to clean them with his handkerchief. “I don’t think I heard you right.” He returned his spectacles to his face and peered owlishly through them at the younger man. His eyes seemed very large and bright. “There. That’s better. Now, try that on me again.”

  “They want us to assume a piece of their indenture,” repeated Kasahara.

  “That’s what I thought you said.” The Ambassador looked surprised. He glanced down the table to Miller, the head of Analysis Section. “Has your section had a chance to consider the implications of that?”

  Miller shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense to us. We’re in much bigger trouble than the Rh/attes. We can’t pay our own bills, let alone theirs. What do they gain here? Assuming we find a way to avoid defaulting, the only guarantee we can give them is that we’re not going to sell them to anyone for food, incubation, or sex; nor will we sell them for biological experimentation without their consent. I don’t see that that’s strong enough to justify putting their fate in our hands. They can guarantee that by themselves right now. We have no real use for them; apparently no one else does either. So, the alternative is that there’s some advantage for them to be indentured to a species that defaults.”

  “I’ll bet a nickel I know what it is,” put in Larson.

  The Ambassador looked down the table at her. “Yes, Anne?”

  “It’s really very simple—if we assume their indenture, we assume the total burden of their debt. When we default, we have to work off their d
ebt as well as ours—and they go free. It’s an easy way for them to wipe out their debt all at once.”

  “Interesting,” said the Ambassador. “And quite clever in its own way. Hm. Let me consider the other side of that question for a moment. Is there any advantage in it for us? Could we—excuse me for asking this—structure the deal so that we could . . . ah, create some advantage here?”

  “You mean, could we sell them as food, fuel, slaves, sex or guinea pigs?” Larson shook her head. “The Rh/attes are considered almost as undesirable as we are by the reptilian and insectoid species. Their debt isn’t as large because they never downloaded as heavily as we did. On the other hand, neither have they ever come up with a service that the InterChange considers valuable; so they might be in just as tenuous a situation as we are. But they’ve been around for nearly five hundred years, so the real question is why hasn’t the InterChange foreclosed on them? What service do the Rh/attes provide that justifies their current status?”

  “You have some idea?” the Old Man asked.

  Larson shrugged. “I’m not sure that this is a useful avenue of exploration, but if we knew how they had lasted five hundred years, it might shed some light on the details of their offer to us.” She sighed tiredly. “I’m sorry, sir, but knowing that the Rh/attes are mammalian, I’d distrust them more than all the others put together. I know how nasty and greedy mammals can be.

  “Unfortunately, I’m inclined to agree with you,” the Ambassador said. He looked to Kasahara. “Is that it?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “All right—” The Old Man did not look beaten. “Let’s do it this way. We’ll break the offers down into four categories—” He began to tick them off on his fingers. “Totally Unacceptable, Not Bloody Likely, Need More Information, and Let’s Talk. We’ll break into committees; each committee will evaluate three proposals and then validate the work of two other committees—”

  A Quiet Objection

  “Excuse me, sir!”

  “Eh?” The Ambassador looked down the table. “Is there an objection?”

  “Yes sir, there is.” Madja Poparov stood up. “I object to this whole proceeding. We are talking about the future of the human species.”