Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  “I know that, Frank, but it’s more than a little futile, isn’t it? What good will a warning do them?”

  “At least it gives them a chance.”

  “But what can they do? They can’t move their planet out of the Ichtons’ way.”

  “I know,” Frank said, feeling defeated but stubborn. “But we have to give them the chance anyway.”

  Owen Staging leaned back and sipped his tall, dew-beaded drink. Ice cubes tinkled as he raised his glass in a humorous gesture. “What I don’t understand, Frank, is what’s in all this for you?”

  “Why should there be anything in it for me?”

  “Don’t give me the humble crap, Frank. I guess humanity owes something to the men and women who are fighting to keep them alive and free. Twenty-nine years in the service putting out your all for humanity and what do you have to show for it? Just another crappy assignment that won’t make any difference anyhow.”

  “Now look,” Frank said, “that’s enough. You can make a case against anything. Service in the Fleet is honorable work and the Fleet has been good to me.”

  “I’m not saying otherwise,” Owen said, “but it is a little ironic, isn’t it, that this assignment that is going to be a dangerous bore to you could be a source of considerable wealth to me?”

  “What are you talking about?” Frank asked.

  “If I could go in to Luminos,” Owen said, “I could follow up on a very fine business opportunity that has just come my way.”

  “I’m not going to take you into area forty-three with me,” Frank said. “I go into Luminos alone. Anyhow, you know the rules; no traders are allowed in war zones.”

  “I had no intention of going,” Staging said. “Luminos is very soon going to be a dangerous place to be in. I don’t get my jollies off by taking risks. War is your business, profit is mine. I’d like to make a profit with you, Frank. A profit for us both.”

  Frank looked steadily at the trader’s tough face for a moment. He’d been expecting something like this. Ever since the trader had begun to curry favor with him back at the beginning of the trip, Frank had had the feeling that the man wanted something. And, in a way, Frank didn’t mind. He liked the trader, liked his rough jokes and easy manner. And if the trader did want to win his favor, what was so bad about that? No one else cared that much for Frank’s opinion on anything. It was flattering that the trader, a bold and successful businessman, did, whatever the reason.

  Frank’s face was expressionless when he said, “Profit? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Owen.”

  The trader dug two stubby fingers into the breast pocket of his twill jacket and fished out a brown chamois bag. The neck was held shut by a cunning knot. Tugging at the knot, Owen collapsed it and opened the neck of the pouch. He turned it upside down and teased it gently. Out of the sack rolled what looked like a pebble. But no pebble had ever possessed that fiery pulsating rose color. Looking at the gem Frank felt a brief touch of vertigo, and a feeling that he was entering a strange blue twilight zone where he was suddenly very far away from himself and very close to something he couldn’t put a name to.

  “What is that thing?” Frank asked Owen.

  Owen put the stone down on the table between them. He gently poked it with a forefinger. “That’s a Gray’s fire stone,” Owen said. “It’s one of the rarest things in the universe—a psychomimetic mineral that can amplify and alter the mood of whoever holds it. Notice how it changes colors as my hand gets close to it. It responds to each holder with a unique array of colors. The scientists still don’t know what that means.”

  Frank said, “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this.”

  “That’s because you don’t read the fashion news,” Owen said. “Gray’s fire rings have made a great splash on the fashion scene in recent years. In fact, they’ve become the most important accessory of the year according to Universal Humanoid Stylings magazine.”

  Frank lifted the gem and felt it pulse in his hand. “Are these very rare?”

  “Only a few hundred of them appear on the market every year. You can imagine what price the top designers pay for them.”

  “Where do they come from?” Frank asked.

  “That has been a mystery for a very long time. It was definitely confirmed only last year, Frank. These stones are from Luminos.”

  “The place I’m going to?” Frank asked.

  “The very same,” Owen said. “You see, Frank, if I were going there, I could trade for these stones. I have a dozen outlets back in civilization that are ready to bid against each other once I have them.”

  “Well, you’d better forget about it,” Frank said. “You know very well that no traders are allowed in a war zone.”

  “No,” Owen said, “but there is something you can do for me, Frank.”

  Frank thought for a long moment. “Why would I want to do something for you, Owen?”

  Owen grinned and said, “In order to do an old friend a favor. And to earn a considerable sum of money for your retirement fund, partner.”

  “Partner?”

  “I want to go into business with you, Frank.”

  “You want me to get Gray’s fire stones for you?”

  “That’s it, Frank. And we’d split the proceeds fifty-fifty.”

  “But what would I trade for the stones?” Frank asked.

  “I’ve got something the Saurians are going to want,” Owen said.

  “Are you talking about whiskey?” Frank asked.

  “No,” Owen said, “though they could probably use that, too, with the situation they’re in. But I’m talking about something they really need, given the present circumstances.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I’m talking spaceship engines, my friend. That’s what the Saurians are going to need, since all hell is going to break loose in their neck of the woods pretty soon now.”

  “Where did you get the spaceship engines?” Frank asked.

  “I’ve got a cousin who works in General Offices Surplus and he has a friend in job-lot disposals. They’re just starting to dispose of the L5 components.”

  Frank knew that the L5 had been the heart of the drive shield mechanism in recent years, and of the cold fusion warp generator that made FTL travel possible. It was a unit of considerable antiquity as such things go, nearly ten years in steady production. Frank was not surprised to find that the old model was superceded by a new one. What did surprise him was that Owen had gotten his hands on some of them so quickly. He must have acquired them hours after they were decommissioned, before the big planetary dealers got a chance to bid. Or had the situation been rigged to give him sole bid?

  “What are you going to do with the L5s?” he asked Owen.

  “I already told you,” Owen said. “I am going to give them to you on consignment. Then I am going to stay here on the Hawking and wait. You are going to put those engine components in your hold. There’s plenty of room; there’s only thirty-one of them and they weigh only a couple hundred pounds apiece. You will take them to Luminos where they’ll be hot items once you tell the Saurians what’s in store for them. Once that’s established, you trade engines for gems at the best rate you can get, bring back the stones, and we both make a nice profit.”

  “It’s a pretty smart deal,” Frank said a little sadly.

  “What’s more important, it’s an open and aboveboard deal between you and me.”

  “You forget that I’m an active officer in the Fleet and you’re a civilian.”

  “There’s no law that prevents an officer from trading on his own account.”

  “As a matter of fact, there is such a law.”

  “Oh, that,” Owen said. “No one pays any attention to that old statute anymore.”

  “I do,” Frank said.

  “That’s what I like about you, Frank,” Owen said. “You’re honest and that means I can trust you. That’s why I’m going to put thirty-one L5 engine components into the hold of your scoutship and n
ot even ask you to sign a piece of paper. I know you, Frank, and I know you’ll be honest with me on this matter.”

  “I’m not taking your engines,” Frank said, “and that’s that.”

  “Are you so afraid of doing a humanitarian deed?”

  “Since when is selling engines for you a humanitarian deed?”

  “It’s selling engines for us and it’s humanitarian because those poor Saurians need all the help they can get.”

  “Why not just give them the engines, then?”

  “Because I had to pay for them,” Owen said. “I won’t be able to keep up my good deeds unless I get paid for them.”

  Frank saw nothing strange in this proposition. The self-serving nature of it disturbed him, however. “I don’t like the idea of making a profit on people’s misery,” Frank said.

  “Then give your percentage to charity,” Owen said. “Just make sure I get mine. Seriously, Frank, you’ll be helping the Saurians in the only really tangible way you can. You’ll be giving them a chance to defend themselves and a way to strike back at the Ichtons.”

  Frank didn’t much like it, but he found the logic inescapable. Thinking it over, it seemed to him that by selling the engine parts to the Saurians he would be doing something for them. And it was perfectly in line with his orders to warn the Saurians of their imminent danger of attack. So he could follow Owen’s scheme, do his duty, and also provide for himself in his old age. What was wrong with making a profit? Everybody else did it! Why should he hold out? And as for becoming a partner with Owen Staging, well, what was wrong with that? He could do a lot worse He had done a lot worse most of his adult life, serving in the Fleet.

  “All right,” Frank said. “I’ll do it.”

  Owen Staging stuck out a meaty red hand. “Put her there, pardner.”

  Luminos was a small planet in the region of the galactic center. Although close to its neighbors, it was far enough from the next planet bearing intelligent life to require a full-fledged space era technology for trading and cultural exchange. This technology the Saurians of Luminos had not yet achieved, though they were right on the verge of it when the Alliance contacted them.

  On Luminos, even electrical generators were still fairly recent developments. The Saurians were only one or two generations away from gas lighting.

  After a long boring trip in space, the planet became visible on Frank’s viewscreen as a blue and green globe, laced with stringy veils of white cloud. Frank began radioing while still well out to space. He got no response. He turned toward the planet’s surface, moving in a shallow deceleration curve. Soon he could pick out cities and roadways, the usual indicators of civilization. The Saurians still weren’t making any attempt to communicate with him, nor had they responded to his own broadcasts.

  As Frank piloted his scoutship down low through the atmosphere, his radio finally crackled into life. A voice demanded in the Southhoe dialect used by many races of the Star Central region, “Who is that?”

  Frank identified himself as an officer of the Fleet, detached from the Hawking and sent to the planet Luminos as a special messenger bearing important news.

  There was a stunned silence at the other end. A Saurian said, “Just a minute . . .” There was a delay of several minutes. Frank continued to decelerate. It was a bit of a bore, having to go through all this confusion, but that was how it often was with races that had little experience with others not of their kind. Every race that came to spacefaring went through the shock of discovering other forms of intelligent life where before they had thought they were alone. This was bad enough. What was worse was discovering that these other forms of intelligent life often brought with them problems nobody was ready for. This seemed to be the case with the Saurians.

  The Saurian came back on the air. “Just a minute, I’m getting my orders . . .” There was another delay, then the Saurian said, “We’re putting aside a special landing area for you. We are calling officials from all over the planet to be present for your arrival.”

  “No need for all that,” Frank said. “I come with news of an urgent situation that I need to bring to the attention of any responsible official.”

  “Don’t tell me about it,” the voice said. “I’m just an aircraft landing officer.”

  Down on the ground, huge crowds had gathered. They were overflowing all the runways except the one assigned to Frank, where a cordon of uniformed police kept a semblance of order. After landing and closing down his engines, Frank allowed small tracked vehicles to approach his craft. They maneuvered the scoutship to a section of the field where a reviewing stand had been placed and grandstands hastily erected. The crowd was already in place when Frank finally emerged. A covering of royal velvet led from his spaceship to the most elaborately decorated spot on the reviewing stand. Frank walked down this and was greeted by a small, splendidly dressed group of Saurians.

  At first Frank and the Saurians just looked at each other, because they were physically quite unalike. Frank looked like a typical man. The Saurians looked like typical dogs of the Airedale variety, with a bit of hyena thrown in for good measure, and with opposable thumbs on a fingered hand rather than the claws more common among the canine species. Frank was not prejudiced toward creatures of shapes other than his. Multiplicity had long been the rule in the great assembly of star-roving peoples. The Saurians, however, were new to the situation, and they gawked at Frank and passed comments among themselves in lowered voices, which, nonetheless, Frank heard and understood.

  “Looks like he’s descended from a monkey, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, or possibly a baboon.”

  “I wonder what color his ass is?”

  “Jethro, not so loud, he’ll hear you!”

  These Saurians and their boorish comments were about what you’d expect from an unsophisticated new race first encountering one of the high galactic civilizations.

  Meanwhile, the opening ceremony looked like it was becoming a flop. The Saurians stood around in their splendid uniforms and looked uncomfortable and unsure what to do next. Frank had been trained for these situations. He took two steps forward, raised his right hand with the fingers opened in a universal gesture of peace, and said in a clear voice, “Hello, I am a friendly messenger from a place beyond your sky. You do know about other races in the galaxy, don’t you?”

  “We’ve heard,” the eldest of the Saurians said. “But we still do not entirely believe.”

  “Better believe it,” Frank said. “There are many worlds out there, and many different kinds of people, and not all of them are friendly. In fact—”

  He stopped. The eldest Saurian had raised a hand in a universal gesture that asked for a pause or break or change of venue.

  “Yes,” Frank said. “What’s the matter?”

  “It sounds,” the Saurian said “as if you have a serious matter to discuss.”

  “Yes, if you consider an approaching race of venomous insects a serious matter.”

  “I must ask you,” the Saurian said, “not to say anything about that at this time.”

  “Why ever not?” Frank asked.

  “What we have here is a stranger-welcoming ceremony. That must be completed. Then we can turn to the information-disseminating phase of our relationship. Also, you can’t tell the information because there is no one present to tell it to.”

  “There’s you,” Frank pointed out.

  “I am what we call in our own language a hectator second class. That means I take trash in and out of buildings. You simply do not give official messages to someone like me.”

  “Suppose I tell one of these fellows,” Frank said, indicating the other two Saurians.

  “No,” the hectator said. “They are my assistants, which is to say, even less than nothing.”

  “Surely I can tell someone! What about all these people here?” Frank indicated the big crowd of alert hyena-headed Airedales in the reviewing stand, watching the proceedings with the greatest sign of interest.

/>   “Audiences always turn up when something happens,” the hectator said. “They come for the show. But they aren’t going to listen to you. It’s not their job.”

  “Look,” Frank said, “I’ve got to give my information to someone and get out of here.”

  “It’s a problem,” the hectator said. He thought for a minute. “You could always write it out, and I’ll see that it gets to someone who knows what to do with it.”

  Frank was tempted. This assignment didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. But it was his duty to make sure that the Saurians really understood about the Ichton danger. Besides, there were the spaceship engines he’d taken aboard for Owen. Now that he had overcome his qualms about selling them, he was suddenly interested in doing so. He could really use some money for his retirement. Selling the L5s presented a fairly honorable way of earning it. He just needed to be patient.

  “I’m going back to my ship now,” Frank said. “I want to tell my information to someone quick. Otherwise I’ll broadcast it to your capital city through my loudspeakers.”

  Hectator said, “That would never do. No one would listen. The officials always interpret and explain matters of any importance for the people.”

  “But this is urgent!”

  “Oh. In that case, wait right here. I’ll go find out what they want to do.”

  The hectator went away and whispered with a small group of Saurians at one side of the reception platform. After a while the hectator came back.

  “They said they’d send someone to talk to you tomorrow.”

  “But didn’t you tell them this is urgent?”

  “They said that they’re not prepared to accept your unsupported word on that this early in the game.”

  The next morning an official came to call on him. Before Frank could speak, the official raised one pink-fingered paw.

  “You must understand,” the official said, “we officials don’t really run anything. Luminos is an anarchy with no one really in charge. But people like to have rulers they can follow when that seems the best way to go, and blame when the officials turn out to be wrong. So we appoint people. It makes things easier.”

  “Your local arrangements are no concern of mine. I’ve brought news of the utmost urgency.”