The man who stood up from the desk was short and squat—no taller than Mike Asparian, but twice his width. He wore simple native costume decorated with Darklands motifs, and black thong sandals of woven Darklands leather. A Chill translation unit on his wrist was the only evidence of other regions.
"Welcome. You are the first visitors to arrive." He waved them to chairs at the conference table. "I expect representatives of the Unified Empire, the Strines, and the Community later today, and everyone else either tonight or tomorrow."
As Kiri began the formal introductions, Mike thought back to the briefing. Rasool Ilunga supposedly was fluent in the tongues of all Earth's Regions—even including Hiver. But he was speaking only the Darklands language, choosing to rely upon the translation unit and Inongo Kiri to be his interpreters. Why?
Mike found himself unable to look anywhere but at Rasool Ilunga's face. The man was not old, probably no more than thirty-five; but that face was lined and battered, as broad and black and seamed as a shield of ancient leather. The eyes alone redeemed his ugliness: glittering out of deep-set sockets, they were a clear and surprising gray. And they were as intelligent as any that Mike had ever seen.
"Our lands extend north to the Great Sand Sea," Ilunga said as soon as his guests were comfortably settled. Refreshments had been offered, and cups of powerful distilled liquor distributed. "To the west, we govern where the Father of Waters meets the ocean; to the east, as far as the land of Little Devils; to the south, until the Heart of the World meets the End of the World."
The trainees were automatically converting Ilunga's flowery speech to more familiar terms. The borders of the Darklands ran to the northern desert that spanned the African continent, west to where the Zaire River flowed into the Atlantic Ocean, and south to the African Cape. The eastern plateau remained uninhabitable; sand-fly fever, malaria, and rift valley fever discouraged all settlement there.
"We have great lands," Ilunga continued, "but unfortunately we do not yet have great wealth. That will come. The Heart of the World is changing. In the past the Ten Tribes have shunned relationships with other regions. But no longer. We will move from being a poor and technically backward society, to one that will lead the world." He stopped and peered at each trainee's face in turn. "Ah. I perceive that you do not believe me. That is not unreasonable. One should judge by deeds, not words. Wait and see. In less than ten years, I promise you that we will have negotiated major partnership treaties. And who knows? Perhaps one of you will become our principal negotiator."
He placed his untouched cup of liquor on the table and stood up. "Unfortunately, time runs. I must now return to other duties. The final preparations for the coronation are in process. I am afraid I cannot be the one to show you the glories of the Ten Tribes. But Kiri will accompany you wherever you wish to go. Or, if you prefer to do your own sightseeing tomorrow, there will be cars available for your use—to drive where you choose. Everyone has been ordered to assist you in every way. Do you have questions, any requests that you would like to make of me?"
Jake Kallario looked at his companions, then shook his head. "No, sir. And if we do not see you before the coronation, let me express our appreciation for all your hospitality."
"I am delighted to welcome your presence here." Ilunga laughed. "You may enjoy the ceremony much more than I will. Kiri will show you the site for the coronation itself, and you will see my formal robes at the coronation. The imperial garments weigh as much as I do. Let us hope for cooler weather."
His polite speech did not hide the fact that the audience had ended. No one spoke as they filed again past the double line of bedecked guards and on down the stairs. At the third floor Inongo Kiri paused. "You are completely free until the formal dinner at eight o'clock," he said. "By that time I hope at least three other regions will be represented."
As he left, the Trader group lingered in the corridor. No one welcomed the idea of returning to those hot rooms.
"I'm going to take a walk outside," Melinda announced after a few moments. "I want to see if the cars he mentioned are in working order. If we decide to take a drive by ourselves tomorrow, I don't want to have to walk back."
"I'll come with you." Mike hesitated, then looked at Jake. For Cesar and Melinda's sake, he ought at least to offer the olive branch. "Before we go, do you think we ought to take a few minutes to compare notes? We're in a pretty odd position here. All of us probably have different insights."
Everyone turned to Jake. He stared down at the ground and would not meet Mike's look. "I think you are forgetting what we agreed to before we came here," he said at last. "We're going solo. I certainly don't propose to spoon-feed anyone with information." He hurried on down the corridor and went at once into his room. After a moment Cesar followed him.
Melinda shrugged at Mike. "Well, you tried. Jake's not a bad guy, but he's still furious because his girlfriend didn't make it to training camp, and you did."
"I know. Cesar told me." Mike started on down the stairs. "That's why he wanted to work the mission solo. I'm sure if I were not with you, everyone would be comparing notes. I'd still prefer it that way. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I'll gladly tell you what I think so far."
"If you're anything like me, you're pretty puzzled. Rasool Ilunga doesn't fit the typical Darklander profile."
"Not in the slightest. I expected this to be a primitive society, all the briefings told us that. The cars, buildings, and people support the idea, and a gigantic, flashy coronation fits right in with it. But Ilunga?" Mike shook his head. "He seems no more interested in elaborate rituals and pompous ceremonies than Daddy-O would be. I think he meant what he said about moving the Darklands towards advanced technology. But I don't see what he has to offer a partner."
"And did you notice his clothes? They were simpler than anyone else's." Melinda paused as they reached street level. "Now you've met him, can you believe he's conceited enough to want representatives of every group here on Earth here to marvel at his coronation—and pay to ensure their presence?"
Mike stared at her. "Did he pay for us to come?"
"That's what Jake told me. Paid a lot. So there's another mystery. What do we do next?"
"Rule Eighteen: 'Collect as much data as you can get—' "
" '—and remember it may not be enough.' All right, Kiri said the cars for us are parked just around the side of the building." Melinda stepped out into the afternoon glare. "Let's see if they'll fall apart under us. That will be a data point of a sort—though it's hard to see what use it might be."
* * *
Twenty-four hours later Mike was beginning to wonder how much data was enough. Nothing would form a sensible pattern. It had started with the ground vehicles reserved for use by the Trader trainees. Instead of ancient, fume-belching limousines, he and Melinda had been shown four smart electric runabouts. They were new, expensive, and obviously imported from the Great Republic. With their balloon tires, air/oil suspension, and topside solar panels, they could carry a single passenger a hundred miles at night without recharging, and half again as much in daytime. Mike and Melly had taken a car on a trial run and found it comfortable, silent, and simple to drive.
Dinner had been another paradox. Traditional Darklands food, side by side with the most modern Chill service robots; flickering rush and palm-oil lamps next to bioluminescent globes straight from the Strine Interior.
The invited guests offered the same contrast of old and new. The trainees had found their dinner companions to be an average of fifty years older than they were. Mike had been seated next to an oldster from the Chipponese lunar mines, a wizened woman who knew, or admitted to knowing, not a word of Trader or Darklands languages. Jake Kallario was partnered with a graybeard Yankeeland cityboss; Cesar Famares sat with a drooling aristocratic wreck from the Economic Community, who offered him a free sample of a recent—and totally addictive—Greaserland drug.
Melinda felt she was the lucky one, with a personable
companion in her late thirties—until the Strine bigmomma made a hard and open pass at her.
The four trainees beat a retreat as early as possible, pleading a long day ahead. But as Mike was going into his room, Melinda lingered on the doorstep. She was still quivering. "That woman! Did you see what she did to me?" Her gray eyes were open even wider than usual with the shock.
Mike shrugged. "I don't know what she did below table level, but above it she whispered in your ear and rubbed your breasts. I'm not well up on the habits of the Strine Interior. For all I know that's a neat social compliment. Better get used to it, Melly, worse things will happen when you get out there in real negotiations."
"Then I'm not sure I'll ever make Trader. It's easy enough for you, Mike. You're such a cool fish, these things roll right off you. Nothing gets you upset."
"Sure. Someday let me tell you about my life in a Hive." Mike hesitated, then opened the door to his room. "Come on in for a minute. I have to ask you something."
"What is it?" Melinda was inside before he had finished speaking.
Mike made sure the door was firmly closed before he answered. "If you're willing, I want to share a piece of information with you. I asked the Chipponese woman I was sitting next to at dinner if she would be going with us on our sightseeing tour of the area north of here. She looked at me as though the translation unit was making rude noises at her. I wondered if your bigmomma talked at all about her plans, before she decided your body was more interesting."
"Not really. But she did ask me if we were going to the precoronation Trade Fair. It's in the two-story building, west of where we're staying. Kiri hasn't mentioned any fair, so I assume we're not invited. But why do you care? Surely you'd rather see the Darklands than watch their publicity campaign?"
"I certainly would. But doesn't it strike you as a little odd that everyone else who's visiting seems to be staying here, and the four of us—just the four of us—will be wandering around the Darklands countryside?"
"It does if you put it that way. What does it mean?"
Mike had shrugged. "To me, not one thing. Maybe it will make more sense tomorrow."
* * *
But it didn't. Kiri had met the four of them after an early breakfast. This time he commandeered a smaller and more modern car for his use. Not long after sunup they were on their way.
They headed north along the white-graveled road, following the riverbank. Within three or four miles the bare plain gave way to head-high scrub and tall, spiky grasses. The road headed inland at that point and cut straight through the dusty vegetation. Mike looked ahead with increasing anticipation as they approached the area of the silver spires; he was beginning for the first time to have some idea of their size. But while the car was still three or four miles away from them it came to a barrier of thornbush and wire. Inongo Kiri followed the curving road on a great semicircular detour.
"An area it is not permitted to enter," he said blandly, in reply to Cesar Famares's question. "As Rasool Ilunga told you, the Ten Tribes are moving into a new era of technology. He wishes to protect the commercial value of our work."
Melinda was again sitting in the rear, next to Mike. She caught his eye, and mouthed a question. Rockets?
Mike nodded and settled back in his seat. Five hundred feet high? Six hundred? It was difficult to make a good assessment, with no reference objects available and no accurate idea of distance. But they were enormous.
Most of the tour, for all its advance advertising by Inongo Kiri, proved a tantalizing disappointment. They followed the river for nearly a hundred miles, pausing to look at a Darklands agricultural station, where a hundred strange fruits and vegetables had been developed, then moving farther inland to walk through a high-pressure plant. Their visits to both facilities were no more than quick walk-throughs.
"Of course, it is nothing like it will be in ten years." Inongo Kiri was keeping up a continuous and light-hearted commentary. He waved a white-gloved hand at the compressors and solar array. "This is only the beginning. We wish to be leaders in biology and exotic materials, to rival the Strines and the Chipponese in their own fields."
"And the rockets?" Cesar asked. He had been brooding on the denied area ever since they had been diverted from it.
"The—ah—rockets?" Kiri seemed taken aback by the sudden question.
"They were rockets, weren't they? How do the Chipponese feel about that?"
"Well—as a matter of fact . . . yes, they were rockets." Kiri had lost his composure. "Of course, as I said, that is a sensitive issue. We do not wish to reveal our capabilities prematurely. As soon as the time comes . . ."
They drove on. But Inongo Kiri's flow of chatter had been stemmed. On the return journey he answered their questions but contributed little himself. The drive back to Coronation City was a quiet and thoughtful one.
When they arrived the sun was on the western horizon, but the Trade Fair was still in full swing. They had time to tour the displays and observe that technology development was the big pitch. Biological developments were emphasized, along with pressure products. They saw synthetic gemstones, half an inch across, of unique color and purity. The visitors from the Unified Empire and the Economic Community were drooling over them. But the most interesting item was the one that was missing. At least half of the Darklands products would need a substantial capability to move materials to and from space. That aspect of operations was never mentioned.
Cesar Famares had been standing in front of a diagram of an ultracentrifuge for a long time when Mike joined him. Cesar shook his head. "Look at those rotation rates. Better than anything you can buy from the Community or the Chips. I don't see how they could fabricate the bearings unless they do it in orbit."
"You're apparently not the only people who think so." Mike moved his head to indicate a tight knot of four Chipponese guests, all talking excitedly. A few paces behind them, watching the group with equal attentiveness, stood Jake Kallario. When he saw Mike and Cesar looking at him he turned and sidled away into the crowd of visitors and Darklanders.
By seven o'clock it was totally dark. The Trade Fair was closing. People began to move to the open square in front of the building. At eight o'clock the outdoor events would begin, a feast cooked on open fires and accompanied by native displays of acrobatics, fire-eating, and dancing. Vats of iced punch were being moved into position by serving men. Their size and composition suggested that Rasool Ilunga wanted his coronation to be remembered for spectacular intoxication.
Mike stood on the edge of the square and watched the crowds. He could not get the image of those brilliant synthetic gemstones out of his head, and their memory tugged at something else, some elusive part of the briefing they had all received before they left the Azores. He leaned against a pillar, stared into darkness, and reviewed everything that had happened since they stepped off the aircar. He had little bits and pieces of an overall picture—but he would never see the whole thing here, at the coronation party.
By 8:15 he knew what he needed to do. He slipped away alone, passing quietly through the crowd and walking in darkness back to their own building. The road was deserted. With the Chill spyglass in his pocket he climbed into an electric ground car and headed north.
The tropical moon was half-full, and there was no sign of other traffic. Mike needed no lights—and wanted none. He increased the current. The car hummed the miles away, flitting like a black ghost along the gravel road. Within twenty minutes Mike had reached the thornbush barricade, supported by its wire fence.
He ran the car off the road and parked in a thicket of dark shrubs. As he walked back to the barricade he examined it closely. Was it protected by some form of electronic surveillance? That was an unavoidable risk.
When he came to the road he lay down flat. He parted a pair of wire strands on the fence and wriggled through. The bushes carried formidable thorns, and by the time he emerged from the other side he had bleeding scratches on face and hands; but there was no sign of an alarm.
Most of the scrubby growth had been cleared on this side of the barrier. He stood up and walked slowly forward across an uneven surface covered with tough sawtooth grasses. There were plenty of lights ahead, clustered around the silver steeples. When he was still half a mile away, his progress was halted again. It was another fence, and the transformers along its top were an ominous sign. Mike grounded one strand of wire with a long stem of sawtooth grass. There was a puff of smoke, and the cindered grass fell to the ground.
He retreated fifty yards to a hollow in the ground, lay down in it, and took out the spyglass. Its light-intensifiers provided an excellent image of the whole area beyond the electrified fence.
He was looking at a rocket test facility. Over on the left were the structures to permit static firing tests, and on the right were the gantries for launches. There was considerable activity in both areas, with uniformed men and women bustling to and fro.
The night insects had discovered Mike's exposed head and arms. He lay there, spyglass held to his eye, and did his best to ignore the bites. The activity in front of him was becoming more focused, concentrating around the facility for static firing. He could see covers being pulled back from a monster rocket, thirty yards across at its base.
There was a sudden noise from behind him. Mike froze. Someone was hurrying past him, no more than twenty yards from where he lay. They went on until they encountered the second fence, testing it as he had done, and halting there. Mike was about to train his spyglass on them when he heard a second noise. Another man dressed in native costume was snaking past. Mike lay motionless again, trying not to breathe, while the second stranger eased forward and stopped not far behind the first.
Any sound at all would betray Mike's presence. He lay motionless for many minutes. He could feel the insects on his exposed skin, crawling on his ears and eyelids. Finally a thunderous rumble sounded from far in front. The moonlight paled before an orange-white glare of rocket engines.
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