by Yoss
Material no-proceed? Deal no-interest? What do these guys want, the philosopher’s stone? Those three hundred tons of heavy hydrogen isotopes are practically all of Nu Barsa’s reserves, enough fusion fuel to last any worldship a whole year. And this nasty… Valaurgh rejected it like I was offering a pile of sand.
Think quick. We can’t let them leave the Milky Way without telling us where the extragalactics are. We could allow Rómulo and Jordi to test the strength of our weaponry against this peaceful cluster of worldships until they reveal the secret to us. That would amount to a sleazy protection racket trick, especially since they don’t have any way to respond in kind, as everyone knows. But big problems call for big solutions.
And if they still refuse to negotiate and insist on leaving, then what? Wipe out twenty thousand worldships? With trillions of sentient beings on board? That would be genocide, and the entire Galactic Community would come after us.
No, violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. There’s got to be something else they really want. Some offer they can’t refuse, even if they’re leaving the galaxy.
That’s it. I know what can do it.
Should I consult Captain Berenguer? No time for that. Anyway, a Specialist is the only one capable of assessing a Contact. I’ll risk it, then. Miquel said at any price, after all.
I swallow hard and present a new proposal, excited.
“Current human translator, with data of 11,568 Alien languages.”
“Qué cojons, tío? What the fuck are you up to? You can’t give them our software!” Amaya cries out, stunned. But a second later she calms down and I can almost see her shrugging, though the holocamera only captures her face. “All right, okay. It’s an idiotic trade, but you’re the condomnaut, you’re the negotiator. If this helps us locate the extragalactics, it’ll have been worth the price. Those Unworthy Pupils had better take it, for their sake. Otherwise we’ll have to fire on them with everything we’ve got.”
Damn, so it’s not just me thinking that way! I feel slightly relieved to find I’m not the only potential genocidal maniac in the crew.
Now the asterocephelopoid freak is flailing about, almost hysterical with greed, telepathically hashing it out with its fellow creatures, I suppose (since Qhigarians, as colonial telepaths, don’t have anything like leaders or bosses). Finally, after another concert of chirps and clicks and squeaks, it extends a tentacle toward me with a shower of sparks coming out at the end.
I got you, you ambitious thing. When I have unlimited funds to negotiate with…
I recognize what it’s holding, of course. It’s a universal computer compatibility device, made by the Arctians, that can read or transfer data between any two systems without connecting them by cables. Used throughout the galaxy to avoid computer incompatibility problems.
Everybody has a price, and it seems that an offer of 11,568 computer-coded languages is too tempting for Valaurgh-Alesh-23 and its people to keep pretending they’re not interested.
It’s an impressive total, but I wonder if they realize it includes about six hundred of their own dialects.
I imagine they do. And if not, well, caveat emptor, as the Romans used to say. Not telling the whole truth might look like lying, but it isn’t quite the same thing. All’s fair in love and trade.
Concealing my self-satisfaction, I let the enchanting Valaurgh caress my neck and twine its tentacle around my earpieces. I try to stay still, though the sparks from the Arctian device are tickling me, or maybe it’s the sucker-eyes on the mucus-coated tentacle. I don’t know and don’t want to know.
“Translator assimilate here-now,” a squawking voice surprises me. It seems to emerge from within the thicket of waving tentacles. What kind of vocal organ does this star-octopus have, that it can enunciate so clearly in addition to making clicks, chirps, and squeaking noises? “Two informations interest humans, negotiate-trade proceed. One: Qhigarians-all leave galaxy now-future, destiny-future no-negotiate. Two: Qhigarians no-here-future, hyperjump no-work here-future. Taraplin hyperengine no-true before-here-future. Taraplins no-true. Qhigarian mind teleporter, hyperengine yes-true.”
Shit. I hope I got that wrong. It can’t be…
“Holy cojons,” Amaya mumbles, jaw on the floor, eyes popping out. It seems that, in spite of the messed-up semantics produced by the translation software, I understood correctly. “Josué, I need confirmation. First, they’re all leaving, and there’s no way they’re going to tell us where to.”
“Correct,” I say in a thin, strangled whisper. “Captain Berenguer figured it out. He’s good. They’re going, and they don’t want us to know where. They’re playing it safe. Maybe they’re scared of the extragalactics. Or of us.”
“Scared of us? Why? And what was the second point? I don’t think I quite got it.” The sensor tech’s normally self-assured contralto voice shakes, full of anxiety, and her left cheek has a slight tic. “The Taraplins never existed? Then how did they make those hyperengines?”
“They didn’t make them,” I snort. “The Taraplins didn’t exist, never existed, and they have nothing to do with the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The so-called hyperengines are just metal cans with self-destruct mechanisms, that’s all. The Qhigarians, the Unworthy Pupils themselves—and I still don’t see why they made up the whole story about the ‘Wise Creators’—are the ones who created the fake hyperengines. It was them all along, making all our jumps through hyperspace possible with their minds. They’re teleporters! The only ones in the Milky Way! Shit, Jaume Verdaguer and his crazy friends were right.”
Amaya looks at me for a long time in silence, then finally dares ask, gently and almost in a whisper, as if she really wants to know, “Josué, who is Jaume Verdaguer?”
“Oh, God, Amaya, that doesn’t matter now,” I spit out, staring at smug, pompous Valaurgh-Alesh-23 with a growing temptation to tie it up into a giant knot with its own tentacles. I finally explain, “Old friend of mine. A physicist who never believed in the story of the Taraplins and their hyperengines.”
“Oh,” is all she says. Then, as the gravity of the situation dawns on her, she adds, as if still in doubt, “So there are no Taraplins, no hyperengines, just Qhigarian teleportation.” Her voice is trembling more than before. “And as soon as the last one leaves, we’ll be stuck here, unable… unable.…” She can’t say it out loud.
“Unable to get home. Unable to travel faster than light,” I tonelessly complete the thought she couldn’t get herself to say. “Which practically means the end of the Human Sphere as we know it, and of the entire Galactic Community for that matter. Imagine! Poof, no more hyperjumps. Complete isolation between colonies, enclaves, and Earth. Same for every Alien race. Unless we manage to contact the extragalactics first, that is, and they have hyperengines that really work—and not mentally, if I had my choice. Assuming they want to sell them to us, naturally. That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ to work with, don’t you think? I’d say we’re good and screwed.”
“Fucking Qhigarians. We should blast them all out of the cosmos for conning the whole galaxy for so many millennia. They can’t leave now, just like that!” Amaya growls in pure rage at finally confronting our brute reality. But she instantly calms down, moves off holocamera to consult something, then returns to inform me mechanically, “There are now 20,112 worldships in this system. They’re still arriving.” She tightens her lips with determination. Something about the Catalan ability to put a good face on a bad hand and rise to meet the toughest challenges fascinates me. No wonder they’ve come so far. “Josué, if the octopus is telling the truth, there’s just 300 more to come. At the current rate, that gives us about… two hours. Listen up: if that sleazeball gives you the trajectory coordinates for the extragalactics in the next five minutes, we can still pull this off.”
Now, that’s what I call quick tactical thinking.
“We’ve got to do it,” I agree. Then, turning to slimy, purple Valaurgh-Alesh (I hope the other twenty-two from its bro
od or whatever are all dead), who continues fluidly waving its weightless tentacles, I insist: “Essential to have trajectory coordinates for extragalactic ship, here-now.”
The damn Qhigarian is so… Qhigarian, it waits a good three seconds before answering. And, it seems to me, it’s managing better than before with its newly acquired translation software. “Information available. Translator, no-sufficient price. Offer, what more?”
Oh, fuck Shangó, Orula, and La Virgen del Pilar. Clever bug, it was just messing with me. It fed me the key piece of information, enjoyed watching our faces as we figured out how they’d been swindling the whole galaxy for millions of years; and now it refuses to tell me what I need to know. What do I do now?
It’s like knowing you’re about to die and knowing what medicine you need to save your life, but not where to buy it.
“Assholes! Tell them, if they don’t let us know where those guys are right now, we’re going to tell the whole Galactic Community about their con game, and we’ll all get together and reduce them and every last ship of theirs to scrap!” Amaya explodes, her lovely dark eyes shooting fire.
“Chill out,” I try to calm her. It’s my turn to pretend to be cooler than I feel, while my neurons work feverishly. “Threatening them won’t do any good. Don’t you realize they literally have us by the balls? I wonder if any Alien species already suspected. They’ll owe their own Jaume Verdaguers a huge apology. For me, I’m planning to get a statue of him built while he’s still alive, if we get out of this.”
“I’ll help you,” Amaya offers, obviously in need of something concrete she can do. “I’ve got a friend who’s a sculptor.”
“Look. There’s nothing we can do to pressure them, and no threats that could work. Nobody can make a hyperjump without their help. So if we try to attack them, I wouldn’t be surprised if they teleport us to the other side of the galaxy. Likewise, if we try to leave now and warn the others about their con game, they’ll have no trouble stopping us. Anyway, as soon as they’re gone, the whole Galactic Community will figure out for themselves what they were up to; we won’t have to tell them. Except it’ll be too late by then to do anything about it.”
“And then what?” Amaya says impatiently, almost in tears from anger and frustration. “We give up, call off the search, forget about the rest of humanity, since losing our hyperengines is just about as fucked-over as we could possibly be, and stay for the rest of eternity in this system without any oxygen planets to colonize? The closest star to us from here is four lightyears away.”
“No.” I smile, in the sudden certainty that I’ve found the solution to our problem. “I’ll pay them more for the information we want. ‘Unworthy Pupils’—a perfect name for them! Even if their ‘Wise Creators’ never existed. What else do we have that might interest them?”
“Pay them more?” The sensor tech’s eyebrows almost disappear into her short but luxuriant dark mane. “But they already rejected enough tritium and deuterium to fuel a ship for a whole year, and we just gave them our translation software. I don’t see what else we have of value.”
“DNA,” I interrupt her, smiling mischievously. “The only other human possession that the Qhigarians have always been interested in obtaining.” Turning to the Contact Specialist star-octopus, I carefully articulate, “Human DNA, trade for trajectory coordinate extragalactic ship.”
The frenzy of activity running through Valaurgh-Alesh-23’s thousands of slippery, bifurcated, eye-encrusted tentacles is more than enough proof that it is seriously analyzing the proposal—with the help of all the other minds on all the Qhigarian worldships. Determined to convince it, I point out, “New galaxy, conditions unknown. Qhigarians need new race slave-clones.”
“Price sufficient,” my tentacular interlocutor replies at last, sounding almost sad. “Extragalactics trajectory, coordinates, transmit here-now.” And with that, it transmits a long string of numbers, which the computer in my suit and its big brother on board the Gaudí record flawlessly.
Then the Qhigarian adds, almost sarcastically, “Second transmission-coordinates extragalactics-trajectory.”
Shangó and Oggún! So we’re the second ones they told? The second to get a crack at finding those guys?
Time to run, then. With any other species, I’d dare ask who they gave the information to, Aliens or humans, and if humans, what enclave they’re from and which ship. But the Unworthy Pupils would make us pay for each crumb of information. And unfortunately, we have no bargaining chips left.
It gave away the fact that we’re not the first they told out of pure sadism, obviously.
“We did it!” Amaya laughs, excited, missing that last bit of bad news. I’m not planning to dampen her joy. Everybody will hear it when they replay the recording. “The computer is interpreting the coordinates and putting together a linear trajectory. What I can tell you now is that our visitors come from the Large Magellanic Cloud, they’re seeking out yellow dwarf stars, and their hyperjump system is long-range and very precise. I’ll have more to tell you later. For now, when you make Contact with that disgusting octopus, better hurry up and give it your DNA. I imagine that the fewer worldships there are remaining to join this conglomeration, the harder it will be for poor Gisela to find a feasible jump trajectory.”
She’s right, of course. Though damned if I want to go through the ordeal of getting myself coiled up in and screwed over by this snot-covered Qhigarian octopus-starfish with too many arms.
I almost feel like running away, like I did when I left Rubble City. Now that I’ve got the extragalactics’ trajectory coordinates, I’ll just refuse to make Contact and we’ll hightail it out of here. It’s what they deserve; not a bad idea to play one last trick on these tricksters.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that if we don’t play fair, they’ll just send us wherever they feel like and not where we want to go, giving the other searchers an even bigger edge on us than they already have. So I choose the straight and narrow. Sucks to have principles.
“Shall we proceed?” I finally suggest, sighing with resignation while I start to undo my suit. The faster I get through with this the better. Good thing it’ll be quick and painless to collect epithelial cells with useful DNA by swabbing my oral mucous membrane. Making Contact with this Valaurgh is going to be unpleasant enough already.
“Extragalactic trajectory data, transmitted. Human DNA no-degraded, required,” the Qhigarian calmly announces, without making the slightest effort at approaching me.
What? For a second I’m stunned, then I understand and laugh out loud.
Of course, human DNA no-degraded: I forgot about my Countdown.
Even if I turn off the handy device right now, its vibrations have already synchronized with my biofield, so my DNA will continue to degrade when it’s away from my body, and therefore become useless to the Qhigarians, for the next hour at least. And it’s not like we have time to spare.
“Human DNA no-degraded, required, cloning,” the octopus repeats, relentless. “Do, give sample, here-now.”
“What the fuck does the freak want now?” Amaya splutters. “Your DNA isn’t good enough for it?”
Shit. I think I’m going to have to stay in this crappy little system a little longer.
“No, it’s the Countdown I’m using,” I sigh, and I turn off the ultrasound-emitting collar that hangs around my neck. “Oh, well. You guys go on. I’ll wait here until the effect wears off and they can take a usable sample of my genome. An hour isn’t so long. You can come back later.”
And if we don’t find them in time, nobody can say that Josué Valdés wasn’t a team player.
“No way,” Amaya says between gritted teeth. “You’re the Contact Specialist. We’re going to need you there when we find the extragalactics. Besides, not only do we not have an hour to waste, we might not even be able to make it back here and get you if these Unworthy Pupil con artists take off.” She swallows hard, tries to smile confidently. “So—I’ll stay. I hope they drug m
e up, because I don’t like pain, and I can’t stand the thought of being fingered by those thousands of arms covered in eyes.”
You’re a real hero, Amaya. What a sense of duty. Everything for Nu Barsa and Catalonia, no?
Touched, I’m about to thank her for the gesture, but then I get a better idea.
“That’s the spirit, Amaya. But I don’t think I can allow you to make such a sacrifice.” I wink mischievously. “On any exploratory mission, especially one to make Contact with extragalactics, a sensor tech is also more useful than… than an arrogant third officer who anyway doesn’t know how to do anything but fire his guns, don’t you think?”
Yes, revenge is a dish best served cold. Amaya’s eyes shine conspiratorially. She smiles and says, “I’ll consult with the captain, of course, but I think your proposal will strike him as perfectly acceptable. I almost feel sorry for the Qhigarians, though. Cloning Jordi Barceló for slaves won’t do them a lot of good, wherever it is they escape to.”
It’s cold.
Real cold.
I shiver, maybe because I’m naked as a worm, huddling by a pitiful little bonfire.
I once read that our senses of heat and cold, feel, and taste play only a small role in the architecture of dreams. But I also know this must be a dream. A frozen dream?
Still, I almost feel like rejoicing. Though my teeth are chattering and my scrotum feels like it’s trying to hide inside my body, at least this isn’t my classic, obligatory nightmare, with my colorless Atevi losing the mutant cockroach race to Yamil’s long-legged Centella yet again and me being forced once more to copulate with the fat girl-Doberman Karla-Rita.
Maybe I’m finally going to get over it.
But it’s so, so cold. Too cold.
The fire’s going out, I’ll have to feed it. Luckily, there’s a little pile of logs here that look like they ought to burn well. If there’s any logic to this dream at all.
If not, maybe they’ll turn into snakes when I touch them, or into sand, or…