by E. M. Foner
“What’s so special about the Ferrymen?” eBeth demanded in support of her boyfriend.
“They’re lazy,” Helen told her. “I mean, compared to them, I’m a workaholic.”
“And they don’t like change,” Justin added. “They’re more set in their ways than old humans. That’s how they ended up with the name.”
“Ferrymen?” eBeth asked.
“Exactly,” I told her. “Most species have names that translate to something like ‘human’ in their native tongue, but the Ferrymen have been playing the same game for so long that it’s become their name.”
“They coast around the galaxy cataloging planets and waiting for life to develop to the point that it would be useful in creating saleable goods of one sort or another,” Helen elaborated. “Then they watch for growing pains, step in as Sky Gods, and transplant breeding populations and enough of the local ecosystem to make a new start on a compatible world. The only real value they add is preventing wars until the client species forgets how to fight them.”
“That doesn’t sound lazy at all,” eBeth objected.
“It plays out very slowly and they get the species they’re transporting to do all of the heavy lifting,” I told her. “The Ferrymen spend most of their lives lazing around in starships and watching reruns of holographic entertainment produced by other cultures. The only part of their approach that varies is the goods produced by their latest clients.”
“Then where are the people in the provincial capital getting the alien design ideas?”
“I think they’re traveling,” Stacey dropped her bombshell. “It wouldn’t be unheard of for the Ferrymen to take workers from their client population along as back office support to help manage inventory and sales. They really are that lazy.”
“Library would have noticed if humans had been popping up all over the galaxy the last couple thousand years,” I pointed out. “It took them less than three years to nail me for the contract workers I was sending off-Earth during the quiet period.”
“What if they were disguised?” Peter asked.
“The portal filters would have caught—unless they aren’t using the portals,” I interrupted myself. “Have you seen humans boarding Ferrymen ships at the spaceport?”
Stacey nodded. “I was tempted to pick a ship at random and watch it from the moment it landed to the moment it lifted off, but they’re on the surface for days at a time loading cargo, and you ordered us not to take any risks that could lead to being spotted.”
“New mission parameters,” I announced. “We’ve gathered enough information through passive observation and we can always substitute in data from our final report on Earth for biological characteristics of humans and their domestic animals. It’s time to focus on the Ferrymen.”
“These humans here are much healthier than Earthlings,” Kim objected. “I’m still analyzing the data.”
“I meant we can cut-and-paste their basic genetics and natural history, which was identical up until just a couple thousand years ago,” I corrected myself. “And you keep studying the Originals, Helen, but make sure the locals don’t catch you at it. Stacey, I want you back at the provincial capital, and I’m authorizing you, all of you, to start asking questions.” A thought suddenly occurred to me and I added, “How many Ferrymen are in residence around the spaceport?”
“That’s the other thing,” Stacey said. “I haven’t seen any yet, though it’s not that surprising since I’m trying to keep a low profile myself.”
“We need numbers for how many Ferrymen are on this world. It’s not credible that they’re acting entirely through agents and never leaving their cargo ships.”
“I hadn’t realized how spoiled we were by access to the Internet and all the badly protected databases on Earth,” Helen said wistfully. “The only way to learn anything here is to see it happen with your own eyes.”
“How about me?” eBeth asked.
“You keep teaching, and Peter can take care of the machine shop. Paul, as soon as the holiday is over I want you to go to the capital with Stacey and report back in person as soon as you have answers. I’m going to work with Helen to see if we can get a better grip on the Originals, but everybody should keep an eye out for imported goods or alien ideas that don’t fit in. Just try not to make anybody suspicious that you’re staging an interrogation.”
“I still have the feeling that the villagers are hiding something from me,” Sue said.
“I think you’ve done an excellent job winning the trust of the local women,” I told her. “This world has been experimenting with different types of photography for hundreds of years, so maybe you can pretend that you’re interested in family albums and dig for details that way.”
“I am interested in family albums. I’ve started one for us.”
I blinked a few times while processing the implications of Sue’s last comment and decided to pretend that I hadn’t heard. “Justin and Kim will continue working in their apothecary clinic and they can finish filling out the standard reports for the rest of us.”
Justin groaned, but Kim looked pleased since it meant more time to experiment with miracle cures.
“I know that it’s frustrating trying to learn about a place without an information infrastructure we can hack into, but this is why they pay us the big bucks,” I concluded.
“Did we get a raise?” Paul asked.
“It’s just an expression.”
Five
“…and our faaaaaarrrrrrr away home.” I warbled, extending both arms as I reached for the note at the end of the ballad.
The Eatery’s patrons burst into applause, and I could see from their faces that it was genuine enjoyment and not the minimal amount of alcohol they had consumed. I never used to think of myself as a singer, but running a bar without televisions and music was a challenge. I’d put an effort into learning the local songs to fill the entertainment vacuum on slow nights and it was paying holiday dividends.
“Encore,” Hosea shouted, pounding the bar with one hand and pushing his mug forward with the other. He’d accounted for a third of the dozen ales I’d sold all evening.
“That was an encore, the fourth one,” Xeres said, bodily lifting his friend to his feet. “It’s Ferrymen’s Eve and I’m sure that Mark wants to spend time with his family.”
“You should sing at the festival tomorrow,” Palti told me, her eyes shining from emotion. “Make him sing, Sue.”
“I’ll try, but he can be really shy when he’s not behind the bar,” my second-in-command said. “We’re all really looking forward to the festival after spending so many years in the north.”
“Don’t they celebrate Ferrymen’s Day?” Sophus asked.
“Of course, but we were always outsiders, being from the southern continent,” I lied smoothly. “I hope I didn’t get too emotional while singing but it’s good to be home.”
The rest of the villagers and local farmers insisted on exchanging handshakes or hugs as they took their leave, and Sue seemed so reluctant to let them go that I worried for a moment she was going to ask them all to stay the night.
“You did good, Mark,” eBeth complimented me once the place was emptied out. “If I didn’t know you, I’d think you’d been leading community sing-alongs since you were a child.”
“We have something similar on Library, though it involves taking turns applying numerical methods to solve confluent hypergeometric—”
“That’s my cue,” eBeth spoke over me and headed for the stairs. “Goodnight, Sue. Are you coming, Spot?”
The dog rose from his favorite spot on the oversized stone hearth, shook himself out, then followed the girl upstairs.
“I have something special for you,” Sue informed me, a twinkle in her artificial eyes.
I swear that the linear processor which handled motion control for my encounter suit skipped a clock cycle as I wondered what new lesson she had in store for me. Sue disappeared into the small room we used as an office for mana
ging the business and reappeared a minute later looking exactly the same. I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
“It came this afternoon while you were out,” she said, handing me a new copy of the Engineer’s Journal. “They approved your subscription to the Clockmaker’s and Watchmaker’s Guild edition.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, holding the magazine cover closer in the flickering light. There, under the main title, was the guild category designation, bringing to six the number of different magazines I’d been approved to receive. Anybody could subscribe to the basic Engineer’s Journal, but you had to complete a correspondence test to demonstrate journeyman knowledge in your specialty before they would deliver any of the limited editions. I believe it had less to do with guild protectionism than with rationing, as the magazines were printed without the benefit of high-speed offset presses.
“You told me clockmakers and watchmakers barely talk to each other and that you hadn’t met anybody other than yourself who does both,” Sue said, smiling as I flipped through the pages like an eager boy. “Why would they share a magazine?”
“Clockmakers build gear trains that do work, like ringing bells and running automatons,” I explained. “Watchmakers mainly care about telling the time with as small a mechanism as possible. But the Engineering Journal only has so many publications, and watchmakers and clockmakers have more in common with each other than they do with mill engineers or ship builders.”
“And you subscribe to both of those as well,” Sue pointed out. “Why did you wait so long to take the test for the specialty you do the most work in?”
“I thought that taking more than a test a month might look suspicious,” I told her. “Besides, I’m making a survey of this planet’s technology and I already see clocks every day. This is great timing because the village council wants me to buy an old turret clock that I can restore for the steeple of the Ferrymen Temple. This magazine will have the best classified ads for our purposes.”
“Why didn’t you mention the clock job before?”
“I’m still having trouble adjusting to verbally recounting everything that goes on each day,” I admitted. “I don’t know how you and eBeth adapted so quickly. If it turns out that the Ferrymen have let their guard down, I’ll be the happiest AI on the planet when I lift the ban on radio frequency communications.”
“You know, you could just share your memory with me,” Sue suggested, causing the old processor to skip another clock cycle. “It’s not unheard of when two AI feel about each other the way we do.”
“I think it’s prohibited on duty,” I said, my voice coming out funny due to the unexpected lump in the throat of my encounter suit.
“It’s not like you’re famous throughout the galaxy for following the rules,” my second-in-command practically purred. Then she broke the mood by turning away and starting to put the chairs up on the tables, leading me to conclude that she’d been teasing all along. “You enjoy your journal and I’ll straighten up. I’ve noticed that humans value anticipation as much as actual accomplishments and I’m starting to understand why.”
I moved behind the bar with my magazine and parked myself in front of the candelabra. While I wasn’t entirely sure what Sue was talking about, I’ve noted that since coming to this world, I’ve developed a marked preference for reading my journals word-for-word, rather than simply scanning each page and running a text recognition process. Before I knew it, the last candle was guttering out and the room was empty. I decided to light the rarely used oil lantern above the bar, which was both more expensive than candles and lacked the atmospherics. Then I eagerly returned to the article about the use of lock-out levers versus slipping mainsprings in self-winding watches.
The front door creaked open and I heard somebody enter with a cat-like tread. “We’re closed,” I called out, trying to keep the annoyance from my voice. There was no response, but something made me look up and I saw that an Original had entered The Eatery. For a moment I was actually speechless.
Originals have been described as a cross between a very hairy man and a three-toed sloth, though I think the comparison is unfair to the arboreal mammals. Despite being equipped with a large claw on each of their three fingers, Originals walk upright and are capable of moving with surprising quickness. That speed brought my nocturnal visitor all the way to the bar before I could decide what to say.
“What can I get you?” I asked. One of the few imaging tools at my disposal in the absence of active scanning was to examine the creature in the infrared spectrum, effectively seeing through its hair. His hair. The Original was a male.
He pulled one of my bill-tabulating slates off the pile, picked up a piece of chalk, and began to draw something. Fortunately, his claws were so curved that the chalk actually protruded between them without their scraping against the slate and waking eBeth.
“Ale?” I read.
The hairy creature nodded.
“In English? You wrote ‘Ale’ in English rather than drawing a tankard or a keg?” I demanded incredulously.
This time my infrared vision detected a look of impatience under all that hair. It was the last thing one would expect from a sloth of any type, so I put aside my magazine and drew my visitor a lukewarm one.
“That’ll be four coppers,” I said, presenting the tankard.
The Original made an unmistakable, “Put it on my tab,” gesture at the slate, lifted the tankard, and drained half of the contents in one go. Then we spent a couple minutes regarding each other in uncomfortable silence. Finally my visitor downed the remaining half and let out a satisfied belch.
“Not much of a talker, are you?” I inquired.
A quick rub with the side of a hairy hand left the slate cleaner than it had been since the last time it was washed. “No,” my visitor scrawled. “Again.”
I refilled the tankard, weighing the odds as to whether the surprise guest would be more responsive to questioning after a few drinks or if I’d end up with a passed-out Original and the county safety inspector knocking on my door. I’d never heard of one of the natives intentionally making contact with humans, much less walking into a business and demanding service, so it must have sought me out on Ferrymen’s Eve for more than a drink.
“Do you have a name I can call you?”
The native hesitated a moment, and then wrote, “Art.”
“And do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
The Original suddenly stiffened and then slid off the tall barstool as if he was about to flee. My response was delayed as I tried to sort out the conflicting demands of my mission, the Ferrymen’s ban on interactions with the natives, and the League’s first contact protocols, but then I saw that he hadn’t been reacting to my question at all. Spot had come downstairs with a tennis ball in his mouth, and something about the dog must have awakened a primal fear in the Original.
“It’s okay, Art,” I attempted to calm my guest. “That’s just Spot. I know he’s a different breed than any of the dogs you’ve seen around here, but I, uh, we brought him back from the northern continent.”
The Original dipped his body slightly in the dog’s direction, almost as if he was bowing, and then climbed back onto the stool. Spot rolled his ball in our direction and then surprised me by heading back upstairs. Art and I both watched the course of the tennis ball as it bounced off the legs of three different tables before deflecting off the wall and ending up behind the bar where it came to rest at my feet.
“Bouncy,” Art wrote on the slate, and I could almost hear a sardonic inquiry in the scratching of the chalk.
“It’s a chew-toy,” I explained. “We brought it from the north. Some of the fish in colder waters use air bladders for buoyancy. The people up there have a gluing technique to cover the bladder with fibers so the sled dogs don’t puncture the skin while they gnaw.”
The Original took a pull at his ale, gave me a hairy look that I interpreted as skepticism, and printed, “Whatever.”
“Is it alright if I ask a few questions about you and your kind? How is it that in the thousands of years humans have lived on this planet, nobody realized that you understand speech?”
Art shrugged and took another sip from his tankard.
“But my family and I speak a rare dialect from the north, and even there, almost nobody knows the written form,” I persisted. “Not only do you understand what I’m saying, you can print as well as the best student in eBeth’s class.”
The Original tapped a single claw on the bar in exact time with the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Something about Art’s body language gave me the impression that he was offering commentary about the speed of my thought process, implying that I was a bit dull-witted. Then the solution hit me and I had to wonder if Art’s assessment was accurate.
“You learned English in eBeth’s class? You could hardly go unnoticed. The windows let in plenty of light, but even I’d have trouble trying to read through that thick glass.”
“Even I?” Art printed, adding the dot below the question mark like a gunshot. I was beginning to feel outclassed in the interrogation department.
“I come from a family with excellent vision.” Then I had a second epiphany. “You hide in the garden in the back of the auditorium during classes.”
The Original set down his tankard and offered me a three-clap round of applause.
“Look,” I said, tiring of the game. “The Ferrymen have rules—you know who the Ferrymen are?”
Below all that facial hair Art’s features rearranged themselves in an expression that I easily read as, “Oh, please.”
“The Ferrymen have rules about interfering with your people but those obviously don’t apply when you come into my place and order a drink. You may not have a lot of experience in bars, but it’s normal for the bartender to ask a few questions to make the patron feel welcome.”