Stellaris- People of the Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

  “Trained personnel are hard to replace,” Cin said.

  His Holiness considered that. “I suppose that is so.”

  He turned his attention to the Calmt. “If you are finished with your interrogation of the technician, then we should return to our meeting.”

  The Calmt gave Cin an apologetic look before nodding to His Holiness. “If you will lead me, Your Holiness.”

  “Always,” His Holiness said with a grim smile.

  * * *

  The skating event continued. Cin found her appointed seat—some distance from the Arwonese delegation but still close enough that she could see them. There were six members—and the Calmt was the only female among them. She was also the only one of her coloration and ethnic look. The others talked more amongst themselves than they did with the Calmt. She seemed very much the outsider. Cin thought she was both lonely and scared.

  You have an observation? Valrise spoke on their link.

  Cin relayed what she’d been thinking.

  I cannot determine whether their behavior is ostracism because of her race or her gender, Valrise said. Trade is the best way forward.

  That was what Valrise always said. It was what everyone on the ship believed—there were centuries of data to confirm the belief.

  Trade always started slowly with a recontact world. First came raw materials and handcrafted artifacts, in return for which the ship would trade increased technological abilities. Slowly the world would be brought up to the standards of the rest of the galaxy. Valrise would generate goodwill and continue to profit from all trade. It made the ship and her crew independent of any one world for their needs. “Traders to the stars,” that was their credo: Cin believed in it firmly.

  This is your first recontact, Valrise observed. It is not unusual to have misgivings and concerns.

  Do you also have concerns? Cin asked.

  Always, the ship replied in laughing tones. Will it ease you to train the Calmt yourself?

  Cin thought it over, glanced toward the small woman in the distance and nodded, knowing that Valrise would correctly interpret her nonverbal agreement.

  The Arwonese were served lunch. Cin had already eaten and did not get a meal. She saw the Calmt watching her. Cin smiled her way. The Calmt gestured her over. Cin rose and came to her, nodding an acknowledgement to Captain Merriwether who had been briefing the Customers on all the events in the ice rink.

  “Why are you not eating?” His Holiness said when he saw Cin approach.

  “I’ve already eaten, Your Holiness,” Cin told him.

  “We consider it important that we break bread together,” His Holiness said.

  “If that will please you,” Cin said. “My tastes may be different from yours. Would you like me to eat from your plate or get another?”

  “I have a taster for that,” His Holiness said. He glanced to the Calmt. “You may eat from her plate.”

  Cin started to object but the Calmt merely broke a piece of her bread and passed it, wordlessly, to her. Cin smiled at her, took it and broke it in half, proffering one half back to the Calmt while popping the other half into her mouth.

  The Calmt smiled as she took the other half and ate it.

  “There is a hint of cinnamon in the bread,” Cin said when she’d finished her piece. “On Valrise we often consume cinnamon raisin toast.”

  “We are not familiar with ‘raisins,’” the Calmt said. “What are they?”

  “They are dried grapes,” Cin said. Quickly, she added, “Grapes are grown on vines in moderate climates. Wine is also made from them.”

  “We have moderate climes but no grapes,” the Calmt told her sadly. She gave her a wistful look. “Would it be possible to try some of this bread?”

  “Of course,” Cin said. She sent in a silent request to Valrise. The ship’s response made Cin blush. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Valrise informs me that we don’t know how your metabolism would handle raisins!”

  “Are you refusing food to the Calmt?” His Holiness asked in a tone that was more amused than affronted.

  “I am merely concerned that your metabolism may not be able to handle it,” Cin said. “Your people might have an adverse reaction.”

  “If anyone should be the judge, it is the Calmt,” His Holiness allowed. He turned to the smaller woman. “What say you?”

  “I am willing to try,” the Calmt said. She gave Cin a reassuring look. “I have recently discovered that I am able to stomach many things, some more unpleasant than others.” His Holiness jerked at her last words and glowered at her.

  Cin decided that the best way to defuse the tension was to accept the Calmt’s assurances. A small tray of sliced bread, some toasted, some not, quickly arrived on Cin’s table.

  “What servant brought that?” His Holiness asked, glancing around in surprise.

  “Our technology allows us to move things easily,” Cin lied. She knew it was too early to mention their nanotechnology—it would appear to be too much like magic. And Cin knew that these people had only recently stopped persecuting “witches.”

  The Calmt reached for a slice.

  “This is bread, this is toasted bread,” Cin said, pointing to the two sides of the tray. She picked up a piece of bread, broke it in half and passed one portion to the Calmt. The Calmt eyed it carefully, sniffed it, and pulled out one of the raisins.

  “It smells sweet.”

  “It is,” Cin agreed, taking a bite of her piece. “The raisins are dried grapes. As they dry the sugar content increases.”

  The Calmt pulled off one raisin. She eyed it for a moment and then placed it into her mouth. “It is soft and squishy,” the Calmt said. Cin was surprised at her choice of the word “squishy”—it seemed out of character with her serious expression.

  Before swallowing, the Calmt took a small bite of the bread. She smiled at Cin when she swallowed her piece. “This is excellent!”

  “I should like to try,” His Holiness said, extending a hand toward the tray.

  Cin passed it over and shortly, all the bread and toast had been consumed by the emissaries. Another, larger, tray appeared.

  “Is this available for trade?” one of the men asked. Cin took in his sharp features and decided that this person was a trader or merchant like herself.

  “I am sure something could be arranged,” Cin said, using the time-old circumlocution.

  Well done, Cin, we’ll make a trader out of you, yet! Valrise teased through the implant.

  I prefer bouncing, Cin replied with mock-seriousness. The ship’s response was a snort of laughter.

  Out loud, Valrise said, “We have a limited supply of raisins on board this trip. I’m sure we could bring more in the future.”

  “And how long would that be?” the trader asked. “Also, how many of these ‘raisins’ do you have for trade?”

  “Everything is for trade…at the right price,” Valrise replied.

  His Holiness shot the trader a quelling look. “Our trade is precious, Van Domit, as I’m sure you know.”

  Van Domit gave His Holiness a deep nod. “I meant no disrespect. But I believe a trade in this commodity would be to the profit of all, Your Holiness.”

  His Holiness considered the matter and then said, “And what would be required for this trade?”

  He looked toward Captain Merriwether. Cin bit back a smile: The captain was old and not altogether “there” anymore; everyone knew that Valrise was in charge.

  “I would ask the ship,” the captain replied, jerking a finger up toward the ceiling.

  “Indeed,” His Holiness replied, seeming out of sorts. He took a deep breath, sighed and glanced upwards. “Could we arrange a trade, ship?”

  “I believe we could,” Valrise replied. “In fact, if you desire, we could go one better.”

  “Better?”

  “I understand that you have a large area on your southern continent that has recently become uninhabited,” Valrise said. Cin saw the Calmt jerk in reaction to her words. “W
e would be willing to lease part of that land and use it for agricultural purposes. Our sensors indicate that it would be perfect for growing grapes.”

  “The grapes that become raisins?” the Calmt asked with alacrity.

  “The very same.”

  “And you would trade them to us?” Van Domit asked.

  “Of course,” Valrise replied. “We would train your people in their planting and harvesting, naturally.” There was a slight pause. “Would that be acceptable?”

  Van Domit looked ready to shout with glee but controlled himself with some effort to give His Holiness a pleading glance. “It could profit the Church.”

  “We have some lands there that might serve,” His Holiness allowed. He waved the matter aside. “It is a matter for later, perhaps.”

  “Trade is not best made waiting,” Cin said, recalling an old saw among the ship’s crew.

  His Holiness gave her a sharp look.

  “What I mean, Your Holiness, is that all too often good ideas are lost in the crush of events,” Cin said quickly. “It seems that we have discovered another source of trade and have come to an agreement. Why not settle it now?”

  “It would profit to do so,” Van Domit said in agreement. Hastily he added, “Your Holiness.”

  His Holiness pursed his lips. Finally, he nodded. “Very well,” he said. He glanced to Van Domit. “I shall leave the matter in your hands. I trust the Church will receive all due accommodation.”

  “But of course, Your Holiness,” Van Domit said obsequiously, clasping his hands in front of him and rendering His Holiness a respectful half-bow. “Your will shall govern our Council.”

  Cin couldn’t tell if the man was being sarcastic. She knew from Valrise’s briefing that His Holiness had the final say in the Arwonese Council. His Holiness seemed not to care, deliberately taking another slice of toast and carefully consuming it.

  When he was finished, he turned his attention back to the display on ice.

  Cin had to admit that the skaters were good—very good. The downsiders had had only a few days to train on the two gravity fields but they were the best of their world—and it showed. The ship’s crew had welcomed them openly and they had trained together extensively. Now, they worked together in a display of cooperation that spoke well for future efforts, effortlessly teaming up to provide a whip line of five skaters and whirling themselves up and over to the inverted gravity field and then back down again. At one point they flipped the line so that one of them floated in the null gravity while the pair on either side flipped over and over as the central anchor precessed in a circle with them.

  “This is amazing!” His Holiness declared. He turned to Cin. “Is this not the greatest wonder your ship can offer?”

  “It is one of them, Your Holiness,” Cin replied.

  “One of them?” Van Domit repeated in surprise.

  “Is there any better?” His Holiness asked.

  “Those of us who ride the atmospheres in our bouncers think that is the best,” Cin replied with a dimpled smile.

  “I should understand how you, being one of these ‘bouncers,’ might feel that way,” His Holiness returned. “But is it not true that it is a very inefficient way of changing orbits?”

  “Inefficient?”

  “Wouldn’t your antigravity provide you with a better method?” Van Domit added.

  “We could indeed use antigravity,” Cin conceded. “But over the centuries we have found that using the bouncers and momentum exchange is more efficient—”

  “How so?” Van Domit interjected.

  “Antigravity is not perfectly efficient, which means that more energy is required to create it,” Cin said. “We are a trading ship and anything that cuts into our profits is to be avoided. Over the centuries we discovered that exchanging momentum from the inbound cargo to the outbound cargo was most efficient.”

  “Difficult, too, no doubt,” Van Domit said.

  Cin nodded. “It takes a lot of calculations and a little patience—we could move cargo faster with antigravity but, seeing as our ship is inbound to your world and will pass it on its outbound course to our next destination, we have enough time to prepare.”

  “You say ‘patience’ but you also talk of a very tight schedule of momentum exchanges,” the Calmt said now.

  “I do,” Cin agreed with a grin. “We’ve plenty of time now to practice and prepare but we’ll have to be spot-on for the exchanges to work.”

  “And if they don’t?” His Holiness asked.

  “We always build an amount of redundancy into our schedule,” Cin said. “While it’s very rare for us to ‘botch’ a set of maneuvers, we can recover.”

  “If profit is so desirable, how do you explain shuttling us all the way out to the edge of our solar system to meet with you on your ship?” His Holiness asked.

  “That’s customer service,” Captain Merriwether said. He waved a hand toward the skaters. “We don’t want merely to haul one cargo for you; we hope to become trader partners for a long time.”

  “And to teach us your bounce technology?” Van Domit said.

  “Of course,” Captain Merriwether agreed. “We consider it one of our greater gifts.”

  “This, however, shows a reverence for the Lord,” His Holiness said, jabbing his hand toward the skaters, “through his gifts of our bodies and our minds.”

  “Indeed,” Cin agreed. “For myself, I often find much to marvel upon as I bounce through the red of another world’s air.”

  “The Calmt, then, shall try this and give us her opinion on the matter,” His Holiness said with a curt nod toward the Calmt Prime. The Calmt nodded back, then gave Cin a grateful look. Cin returned it with a smile of her own.

  * * *

  Out of the twelve Arwonese assigned to bounce training, only three were women—and all bore the same features as the Calmt Prime. Cin learned that they were Calmterians, named after their continent on Arwon. The Calmt Prime was their acknowledged leader, although Cin caught some strange undertones in the way the other two women, Mira and Sikar, spoke of her. It was like their respect for their prime was conditional. Whatever it was, it did not affect their training.

  It bothered Cin, however, that the three women chose to keep to themselves and were reluctant to train with the men. She and Valrise attributed at least part of that to their gender—it was clear that the males considered them of lesser value even when they demonstrated their technical prowess for all to see.

  Valrise’s trajectory would pass Arwon in a week, but in the meantime, they were too far from Arwon for the bouncers to train in the planet’s atmosphere. Valrise dispatched Lewrys, the same transport that had been used to bring the Arwonese out to the ship, to bring the bouncers in for practice.

  Cin had let Mira take the controls of Lewrys, knowing that Valrise herself would keep a careful eye on the trainee. Coklon—one of the more sensible men, in Cin’s opinion—sat in the copilot’s chair. The two worked together well, if without any real chemistry.

  Chemistry! Cin chided herself. But that was the best way to reflect upon their interactions. Mira and Sikar worked together flawlessly, slightly less well when paired with the Calmt—there was a deference, almost a reluctance in their actions—but excellently when tripled together.

  “Today we will practice bouncing,” Cin said. “You’ve all done well in the simulators but now you’re going to find that the real thing is an entirely different matter.” She paused. “Some of you will discover that bouncing is not for you. There is no shame in that. If you find yourself overwhelmed, we will recover you automatically, you need not fear.”

  The men all assured her that they would not “chicken out,” as they said on Arwon.

  “First up, Coklon and Alvar,” Cin said.

  Cin followed Coklon and Alvar on her monitors as they performed their preflight checks, nodding as they proceeded normally. She threw in a slight curve for both of them and they caught it—in the case of Coklon it was a failing transce
iver, for Alvar it was a low battery. Both “failures” were acknowledged and corrected.

  “Prepare to undock in three…two…one…go!” Cin called. They were under manual control—more testing. The two men undocked within milliseconds of one another—almost as good as regular crew. The bouncer rotated and set up a course toward the atmosphere.

  Cin double-checked their vectors. Alvar was slightly off. She frowned, wondering whether she would tell him, but before she’d made her decision, his voice chirped, “Vector correction, azimuth increment zero point five.”

  She checked the trajectory and said, “Vector correction acknowledged and confirmed.” A moment later, she added, “Good catch.”

  A burst of static that might have included a snort of laughter came back to her. Alvar was cool, levelheaded, and known for a fairly dry sense of humor.

  Coklon, meanwhile, was set up for a textbook insertion. He’d hit his mark and then bounce back up and away toward their rendezvous point with the test cargo vessel. They would impact it, exchange their momentum and return for another bounce back to Lewrys.

  Cin double-checked with Valrise, who agreed. Cin told the two bouncers, “You are ‘go’ for deorbit and bounce.”

  “Coklon copies ‘go’ for deorbit and bounce.”

  “Alvar copies ‘go’ for deorbit and bounce.”

  The two bouncers slowed and started their descent to the planet’s atmosphere. Their velocity and trajectory were too shallow for reentry; instead they would skim off the atmosphere and rebound back into space on a new trajectory with reduced energy. When they hit their cargo target, they would exchange energy and fall back into the atmosphere for another bounce.

  “Atmosphere,” Coklon reported right on schedule. Cin’s brows creased as she looked at Alvar’s displays. The man said nothing. She checked his medical readouts: heart rate high, pulse high, breath rate high—he was cracking up.

  “Alvar, report,” Cin called on her private frequency. She waited seconds beyond his response time. “Alvar, I know what you’re feeling. We’re on a private connection; no one can hear you but me. Just take a breath. Take a breath and press your transmit button.”