“One ton,” Vremian said. “Anyone? Anyone?”
Apprehensively, Jamie raised his hand. “Uhh…one?”
“One ton is bid! One ton for these wonderful superconductor columns. Now am I bid two? Anyone? Anyone?”
Jamie looked around for a third time. Was this some kind of joke? “What the hell?”
For a full minute, Vremian held the auction open, asking in vain for help from nonexistent bidders.
“Is he expecting me to outbid myself?” Jamie asked.
“Just go with it,” Bridget said. “Quaestor’s building whirlibangs all the time, and the price is right. Just get them so we can go.”
Vremian finally gave up on his calling. “Sold, to the — uh — human being there in the crowd.” A polite murmur rose from the gathering behind him.
“Great,” Jamie said. He looked again at the image of the totem pole–sized column. “Do you bring them out to us, or what?”
“Oh, dear, no.” Vremian chortled — or at least, that was the sound that came from Jamie’s earpiece. “We can’t lift them. That’s up to the buyer!” He flipped a shimmering shred in the direction of the big doorway. “All the merchandise is stored deep within our home.”
“Cash and carry?” Jamie was flummoxed. “How big did you say those things were?”
“They are large,” Vremian said, “but over the generations we’ve carved some nice stairs for beings of your kind. About five hundred of them. I hope they won’t be too taxing!”
Bewildered, Jamie looked at Bridget. “Well, now we know why no one bothers with this place.”
“I thought you read the briefing,” Bridget said, annoyed.
“I did — this part, anyway. Whoever compiled it didn’t say anything about carrying cargo by hand. I guess the other customers brought their own bearers.” He looked back at her troops. “Er, are you guys up for…”
Rifle still slung over her shoulder, she raised her hands. “Oh, no! We’re here to guard you. We’re not manual labor!”
The light flickered again, and a new image appeared on the floor. Vremian was back at the podium. “Next, we have some of our fine ten-meter models. Very nice indeed. We’ll start the bidding at three tons, shall we say?”
“I’ll double whatever the human offers,” boomed a deep voice from behind Jamie’s party. “And if he offers more, I’ll double that!”
Bridget turned, hands on her weapon. Jamie did, too — to see the figure in black armor who’d kidnapped him at the Dragon’s Depot days earlier. And this time he was flanked by a dozen warriors outfitted just as he was. Massively built bipeds all toting hefty versions of the hand-cannons he’d seen them tote before.
“I am Kolvax of the Xylanx,” the leader said. “And there’s no way the humans will beat us — and live!”
20
“Fire team, star four!” Bridget yelled. At once, three of her armored companions were at her side, placing themselves and their weapons between Jamie and the new arrivals. At their various positions around the icy atrium, O’Herlihy, Dinner, and her two other troopers stood alert as well. She yelled into her mouthpiece. “Gideon, check in! Why didn’t you tell me these people were coming?”
“Because he couldn’t,” Kolvax said, sauntering into the room. “Oh, he’s all right — we didn’t disturb your party at all. Our vessel began jamming your ship’s communications on approach.” His words dripped with malice. “I didn’t want our meeting to be disturbed.”
Jamie peeked out from behind his guardians. “How come we can understand you now?”
“It’s not our intent,” Kolvax said. “Our words aren’t for such as you.” He nodded to the stage and the Leelites’ knowglobe. “But our people once attended this…event. Their device is patched in with yours. So you get our words — but that’s all you get.”
Bridget checked the audio stream. Sure enough, Kolvax’s words were channeling through the Leelite database to their knowglobe. It had assigned him the voice of a scenery-chewing soap opera villain from more than a hundred years ago. It seemed to fit.
But the rest made no sense. “Your people?” Bridget’s eyes narrowed. “You look pretty human to us!”
Several members of Kolvax’s forces started forward, angrily snarling words foreign even to the Leelites’ knowglobe. “You should be more careful,” Kolvax said. “The Stalkers take offense easily. They aren’t as patient as I am.” He turned to calm his wary troops. “Easy. The little fool clearly doesn’t know anything about us. And it’s going to stay that way!”
Quiet until now, the Leelite auctioneer interceded from his podium. “I’m so pleased that you’ve arrived — Kolvax, did you say?” Vremian shook with excitement. “We’ve only just gotten underway, you know.”
“I told you, thing, the auction is over!” Kolvax turned. “We will take all the superconductors you have, at whatever price you name. We will even pay you to keep them down there in your hole, as long as they are never sold to this species. This market — and all markets — are closed to them.”
“Like hell,” Jamie called out.
“Ah, the little trader,” Kolvax said, his words dripping with malice as he stepped forward. Bridget raised her rifle as he approached. “We let you go last time. Continue your activities and we won’t make the same mistake. And don’t imagine these toy soldiers can save you. You’re facing our finest warriors now.”
Bridget shook her head. The idea of armed mercantile competitors was nothing new; the East Indies trading companies clashed all the time. But nothing like this had happened in years.
“Keep bidding, Jamie,” she said, a defiant eye on Kolvax. “We’ve got as much right to be here as they do!”
* * *
The Leelite went through the motions of restarting the auction. Kolvax stood firm, watching the rattled humans through his darkened facemask. He smiled. He’d found them on the first try. And it was more than a good guess.
Mu Casseopeiae was one of the installed links from the now human-controlled depot station, and the exact timing of the Leelite auction was known by every race in the vicinity, even if most ignored the silly event. But given that the humans had mounted a trading mission from the depot, he’d wagered that this would be a likely early stop for them. Maybe they didn’t know how bad an opportunity it was. Or maybe they’d assumed there wouldn’t be any competition. Now, Kolvax was showing them the error of that judgment, aided by the crack Dominium-supplied team from Gharion Preserve.
He looked at the display in his helmet. The star their exiled station orbited was called Sigma Draconis, and the humans referred to the prison as the Dragon’s Depot. He knew those words now from his radio link to the Leelite device. But its knowledge of humanity was limited to language — the information openly being supplied by the humans’ knowglobe.
He couldn’t hear the human merchant chattering with his bodyguards now; Kolvax’s most recent outlandish bid for the superconductors had flummoxed them. Good. It was helpful to see how easily he could make them squirm. He’d meant what he said: there was no price at which they’d allow the humans to have the high-tech devices. The superconductors would simply help them build more whirlibangs — such a preposterous human word! — and the Xylanx would never allow that.
But in truth they were here for something else. He saw it now, right in front if him. This was their big chance.
Kolvax transmitted a signal to his forces parked outside. They’d hear it through their jamming of the human ship and would begin the countdown. His countdown was begun as well. “Get ready,” Kolvax whispered to his warriors on the secure channel. “We move on my signal!”
* * *
Jamie had his briefcase open now, rechecking superconductor column prices on his assayer. The prices had risen to ridiculous levels for units they previously would’ve gotten at a song. Wasn’t this crazy trip supposed to be about turning a profit?
He looked back warily at Kolvax, the brute who’d struck him at the Dragon’s Depot. The guy didn�
�t seem like a player. He wasn’t thinking with his bids, wasn’t using any strategy at all, so far as Jamie could tell.
Okay, let’s see how big your wallet really is, he thought. They had seven cargo ’boxes with them, each bearing thirty tons of bauxite. Kolvax would be able to calculate that. But he might not have any idea how plentiful the substance was on Earth, and how easily it could be shipped here. He decided to take a chance on the second lot being offered. “Five hundred tons,” Jamie said. “Two hundred now, three hundred later. It’ll be waiting for you next time you…er, come out of your hole.”
Vremian seemed to gurgle with glee — or at least, that was how Jamie interpreted the bizarre sound. “A fine offer. A wonderful offer! And you, Kolvax of the Xylanx?”
Jamie looked back to see Kolvax straightening. “I’ll give you our answer,” he snarled.
Booom! A thunderclap shook the atrium. Above, the crystal light source shattered, raining shards below. Bridget grabbed Jamie and slammed him to the icy floor. Above him, the chief and her companions shielded the lightly protected trader’s body with their armored forms.
“Now!” the alien leader shouted. Through the legs of his protectors, Jamie saw Kolvax charging forward in the newly darkened atrium. His team of Stalkers did the same, firing their hand-cannons at the Earth team.
“Unnhh” One of the blasts glanced off Bridget’s armor, but she stood firm and returned fire. Jamie squirmed through an opening between his guardians, desperate to escape.
The only light now came from the energy weapons — and from the aperture leading down into the Leelites’ lair. Ahead, on the rostrum, Jamie could see the flimsy form of Vremian, desperately trying to maintain order. “Please, gentle beings! Try to quiet down. I didn’t hear that last bid!”
Jamie stumbled behind his team’s knowglobe and looked back. With O’Herlihy and Dinner setting up a crossfire on the open floor, Bridget and her companions scrambled to regroup. Crouching, she switched to missile rounds and fired back. The slug hit Kolvax’s chest dead center — and simply sparked off. Seemingly amused, the shadowy figure raised his weapon to return fire.
Kraa-aack! Another horrific sound rocked the atrium, and a mist of ice pellets fell from the ceiling. The weapons on both sides fell silent; from his cowering position, Jamie saw that Kolvax seemed puzzled. The black-clad leader looked back at his forces. “That wasn’t—”
Another loud, shearing sound — this one from ground level. The floor shook. On the stage, the Leelite dignitaries fled for their underground haven. At the podium, Vremian followed it up with one last announcement. “This auction is suspended — on account of early thaw!”
Kolvax looked through the falling shards of ice — directly toward Jamie. “Hurry,” Jamie heard the alien yell. “That’s what we want!”
The Xylanx leader and his companions charged across the rumbling floor toward the trader. Off-balance, Bridget switched her weapon to use different ammunition and raised it to fire. But now the ground beneath her cleaved, sending the woman and her teammates tumbling backward against the rostrum.
Jamie struggled to see. Something was alive down there, coming up from the ice — something huge. With another sickening crack, a giant, clawed six-fingered hand shoved upward from the darkness, upending more of the ice floor and sending O’Herlihy and Dinner dashing away.
Above, the remaining Leelites in the room flocked toward the ceiling, terrified. Vremian screeched in horror. “The Jorvil! We’ve waited too long!”
On his hands and knees behind Surge Sigma’s knowglobe, Jamie looked up at Kolvax. His footing steady and momentary surprise past, the warrior regarded the mammoth reaching arm without fear and laughed. “I guess we know why the Leelite sales season is so short!” He turned and looked directly at Jamie once again. “But I think there’s just enough time to finish what we started!”
Jamie gulped, remembering his nose’s previous meeting with Kolvax’s fist. This was a long way to travel to relive seventh grade…
Episode 4
Winner's Curse
21
As important as the discovery of extraterrestrial life had been for Earth’s scientists, it had given the lawyers an even bigger thrill. The pact between the Signatory Systems had existed long before humanity reached the stars and had changed many times over the years. Around the globe, university departments opened to study the agreement. It would be several years before there would be much practical demand for anything taught in Interstellar Law 5010, but graduate students were used to that. The kindly aliens had supplied another way to postpone real life.
But while the pact had been amended many times, one thing was common to most iterations of the agreement: sanctioned merchants, whether they wore the official trader’s badge or not, were not allowed to be armed. The agreement said nothing about their bodyguards, of course: that explained the small armies many merchants traveled with. But it somehow seemed important that sellers, who were often diplomats for their cultures, appeared unthreatening.
Jamie was certainly wishing for a change in the rules as he looked out from behind the knowglobe, the only solid thing in the room that wasn’t moving. The giant creature the Leelites called the jorvil twisted and writhed as it bulged through another section of the ice floor, upending slabs in the middle of the room. In the low light, the jorvil looked to Jamie like a great hand the size of an elephant, but it appeared the arm it was attached to had no end.
This would be a good time to have one of Bridget’s fancy rifles, Jamie thought. Or to have chosen law school instead.
Kolvax didn’t seem to care about the jorvil — or the rules regarding weapons in the hands of traders, if that was indeed what he was. Stepping deliberately up to the knowglobe, he tapped it with the barrel of his hand-cannon.
“Leave me alone!” Jamie called out, cringing behind the dodecahedron and remembering the kidnapping attempt aboard the Dragon’s Depot. But there wasn’t anywhere to run here, and his bodyguards were — where? Somewhere in the darkness, Jamie guessed, lost in the mass of ice or on the other side of the jorvil. “Yang! Somebody!”
It took a moment before Kolvax, face inscrutable behind his darkened faceplate, responded. “Pathetic,” he said over Jamie. Then he turned to address his warriors, who were advancing across the quaking floor. “Take it!”
Jamie turned to run, but his right foot slipped on the ice. He slid sideways, landing in an awkward heap. He covered his head with his hands, imagining Kolvax grasping for him. But a second passed in which he felt nothing, apart from the rumbling of the floor and his throbbing ankle. Daring to move, he raised his head and looked back.
Beside Kolvax, one of his hulking crew members easily lifted Surge Sigma’s knowglobe off the ground. “To the ship!” Kolvax ordered. The leader then turned to face Jamie. “Good-bye, idiot,” he said.
Then Kolvax followed his troops, who were already making their way to the exit.
“Hey! That — that…” Jamie spluttered. “I was hiding behind that!”
He scrambled to his hands and knees. Where was Yang? Where was O’Herlihy? The shower of ice crystals from the ceiling had become a deluge, with clear shards falling from above even as the jorvil’s gyrations tore at the floor below. More of the surface buckled, and Jamie saw what he thought was a rocky fin stab up from beneath. Another monster?
As it moved, Jamie realized what he was looking at. It was no arm that the six-fingered hand was attached to but a tremendous mineral-encrusted worm. The body shrank and stretched like an accordion-style air hose, snaking and grinding its way through the hard surface. Spellbound for a moment, Jamie gawked as the thing tore more of the floor apart.
That fascination ended when the six-fingered hand — which he only now understood to be the creature’s head — twisted back toward him. The meter-wide talons opened, revealing a blood-red maw in the “palm.” Violet tongues splayed outward from the hole and a gaseous breath hit Jamie full in his helmeted face, knocking him backward.
/> “Yaaahhh!” Jamie turned his stumble into a headlong run. He dashed for the exit to the surface, caring little that his would-be kidnappers had already gone that way.
* * *
We wore the wrong outfits to this dance, Bridget thought in the blackness. The indoor avalanche had left hundreds of kilos of ice on top of her, and while the HardSHEL armor had taken the beating and kept her breathing, the internal armature wasn’t strong enough to free her.
But unlike at Baghu, she’d held on to her rifle — or, rather, the armor had. The eruption from the floor had given her a split second to activate the death-grip feature. Any impact strong enough to separate her from the weapon would be strong enough to take her arm, too.
The weapon could fire from her verbal command, but she didn’t know where it was pointing. This called for a different approach. “Switch sonics,” she ordered. Seeing the confirmation that her rifle switched from impact ordnance, she continued. “Discharge, point-blank!”
Even her armor couldn’t shield her ears from the shrill sound that followed. The sonic discharge was a ranged weapon, but here it was having a different effect. The weapon’s vibrations rattled through her arm and entire body, and the outfit’s exterior set the surrounding icy mass to quaking. Bridget went into motion then, as the crystal mass loosened enough for her to claw in the direction her sensors said was up.
Like a swimmer resurfacing after a plunge, Bridget punched up through material that was momentarily fluid, though not fully liquid. To add to her troubles, the rifle’s functionality had been destroyed by her desperate maneuver, shaken apart by its own sonic vibrations, so she released it and clawed for a handhold amid the chunks of ice. The whole room seemed to be moving now, the ground rent to pieces by the massive creature.
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