by Ken Pence
“I think we ought to skip it,” Shuler said. “Is it worth it?” Shuler said asking the group.
Rett thought they were asking him. “You will make a huge profit and they will give you good rates so you will not tell their secret. You must be strong. It is not good to appear weak to these beings.”
Shuler and Kyger seemed taken aback a little at Rett’s utterance but they saw the truth of it. Shuler touched his MemDex and a crewman appeared to take Rett back to his work. He turned and left without a word.
“That was interesting,” Brad said. “Folks, moral dilemmas 101...we have to make a huge profit on this expedition. We are out here to learn the ropes,” Brad chuckled. He had to explain his thoughts when everyone looked at him oddly when he laughed. “UmBllatt had said this would be profitable and educational. I imagine he has set us a wild ride.” Many in the room found that funny. “We do this – here’s what I’m thinking. Chime in if you have ideas.”
Be Sirius
They had used all the language cylinders and studied as many as they could. They spent two weeks on planning and rehearsing their visit. They only had one language cylinder from Aldebaran. Desiree had spent hours of time with the cylinders, with sparring practice, and making love with Tod. Andrew and Desiree were the two that were going to approach with a large embedded force in camouflaged battle armor. The shuttles’ weapons were tested and the Odin approached, invisibly, in orbit over the complex. The shuttles landed, disembarked their troops who began to infiltrate the complex and take up positions.
The Junior came down silently through the tenuous near atmosphere and hovered for a moment and then moved over and settled on the landing field. The ramp lowered briefly as two biped figures in glaringly white suits with golden tinted helmets got out. The electrostatic repulsion garments felt to them like they were wearing nothing at all. They were very formfitting. The MemDexs were set for maximum alerts and assistance. The molecular disruption and kinetic armor were almost equal to the military versions but they did not have the camouflage capabilities. Also...the fabric muscle enhancement was not as stout as the military versions. They had set their fields on one third power so they could still walk. Their MemDex could also follow a few simple mental commands, thanks to Steve’s recent improvements – nothing but two syllable or single thought commands, but that could be impressive. They were here to impress. Though they could fly – they did not want to reveal all their capabilities.
The two guards at the gate had finally perceived the ship hovering outside their gate and landing on the field. They alerted their own security and stood watching as two bipeds in white suits walked slowly across the plain to the enclosure entrance. The taller biped walked up to one guard and said in Trade, “We wish to trade. Take me to your leader.”
Andrew said and thought how he had always wanted to say that. He heard Desiree chortle through the suit radio.
The guard in his bulky suit just stood there and then pointed his disruptor at Andrew. In a lightning, muscle enhanced movement; Andrew snatched the weapon out of the guards hands...looked at it like he was curious and then snapped it in half. He had examined it because he didn’t want to break it where it would rupture its power cell and explode. That would have been awkward. The second guard motioned with his weapon – decided to lower his when Desiree turned to him. He motioned with his free hand and they all started walking toward a building that was obviously a bit fancier than the rest.
Other guards came running up and though they started to point their weapons – the two guards following were not pointing their weapons. On second observation, they noticed that one guard had shouldered his weapon with his sling and the second guard held the two pieces up to show onrushing newcomers. They too, lowered their weapons and soon there was a small horde of guards following the two strangers in white.
They paused at the entrance and it soon became obvious that only three or four guards were allowed in the building. Those four guards entered and Andrew and Desiree’s visors lightened but their faces were still not visible to the guards.
Four beings in massive pressurized armor appeared, spoke with the guards and then formed a square around the two and went down a long corridor into a large office complete with a carpeting like surface and several comfortable looking stools. A being from Aldebaran was behind a large desk though he looked like he was sitting on his...tail...or tail and prop combo. Desiree thought he looked cute – reminiscent of a kangaroo.
Andrew and Desiree stood there a long time using the rule that he who speaks first...loses. The being behind the desk finally couldn’t take it any longer. “So you are here to trade. Who are you? What race are you? Where are you from?”
Andrew waited until the silence was awkward and then said, “Take me to your leader. We do not speak with minions.”
The being sputtered and leaned forward on the desk and barred its teeth...a definite omnivore.
“You wear a collar. We do not speak to minions.” Andrew said.
The being behind the desk nodded to one of the guards in battle armor and he reached out to grab Desiree’s arm. Desiree broke the grip with a smooth Aikido release and twisted the guard’s arm with her enhanced strength. It was still difficult but the leverage had been enough and the guard’s arm snapped sickeningly.
The second guard aimed a molecular disruptor and fired it at Desiree. Their shot made a cool pyrotechnic display. Desiree looked at Andrew and Andrew nodded. She lifted her arm, turned on her molecular disruptor and starting at the head, disassociated the being down to his boots. She thought leaving his boots and tail tip would be a good object lesson.
“Take us to the leader. We don’t wish to waste more time. We just want to trade and this is unprofitable,” Desiree said in her best, Aldebaran speech. Rett had suggested that last line and as often has it – he was right. The gray ghastly was like family – a weird distance cousin...but family. The being touched an intercom and spoke into it rapidly. Desiree only caught a word here and there but he was summarizing what had happened to someone. The being calmed and indicated they should come after him.
Two other suited guards joined the two guards already following them. They were ushered into a large, resplendent office and even Desiree was impressed.
An older being of the same species but with light gray streaks was sitting (propped?) behind his desk. It was some material like wood and it was lovely. Andrew would have liked one just like it but that was neither here nor there. They waited again until the being finally spoke.
“I understand you speak our language. May I inquire how you learned it? I have many questions for you. I am offended that you damaged or destroyed two of my best staff. Personnel are very costly,” the being said. “I am the administrator here.”
“We prefer to use standard Trade language and we wish to trade.” Andrew said and reached into a leg pouch and brought out a thin catalog printed on Riz in color. He placed it on the desk facing the administrator. He didn’t want to use Aldebaran again because this facility might have been the ones that produced the cylinder. They might be able to tell when and where it was produced – putting UmBllatt at risk.
The administrator flipped through the catalog and was obviously impressed because he could not keep from stopping and looking at some of the photos, schematics and descriptions.
“What do you want?” he asked. “You already owe me two staff.”
“I am prepared to owe you all your guards in the same manner,” Andrew said and cleared his visor.
“You are from Earth. I know about you. Two traders have told me about your planet. You speak High Tros and other languages. Your Trade is recent. What do you want?”
“We want two devices to produce our own recordings and a technician to help us produce our own Earth cylinders. We also want a large selection of your cylinders.” Andrew said.
“Do I look like I would cut my own throat? What do you have that would make it worth my efforts?” the administrator asked.
“I will trade you one of our recording devices and recordings of many technical subjects from Earth. I will give you Earth recordings of technology so you could manufacture many of the items in that catalog. I will give you training on how to advertise and double your sales. I will give you quantities of all the devices you will learn how to build. You need not build them yourself but selling the knowledge on how to do it is much more valuable – as you must know.”
“That is hardly a fair trade. I will trade you what you ask for if you will leave me two of your technicians for...say two revolutions of our binary here,” the administrator said and Andrew laughed.
The administrator pushed a button and a creature walked in. It was obviously feline and feminine and incredibly...disturbing. She had a coating of light dappled fur where the skin showed through the clothing (harness?). She came up to the administrator and then walked up to Andrew and started rubbing him down his back and around his waist. It was very unexpected and disturbing. The tail wrapped around him and pulled him toward her and around his legs. She then backed off and Andrew let out a long slow breath.
She then walked back to the administrator and put her arm around his waist. Her tail gently swishing around behind his neck and ears.
She then began talking to the administrator in another language and Desiree had to turn up amplification to hear them. It was in Lyrian. She was telling him that she had never seen suits like they were wearing but didn’t think they could absorb much in the way of kinetic weaponry or absorb multiple blasts from molecular disruptors. Desiree told Andrew sotto voce and that they had spoken in Lyrian.
“This is LeiLei...one of my best scientists and a...companion. I think two binary revolutions will be about right. You two will do nicely,” he said and pulled two collars out of his lovely desk and placed them on his desk. “Foolish of you to come here alone. You are new to trading are you not,” He said and touched a control on his desk.
Andrew said quietly, ”Execute, execute, execute, Bravo.”
“Praying? Are you beings that pray to Gods like some races do?” He said. “How amusing.”
“You might like to pray yourself, if you think it will help. Who said we came here alone?” Andrew said and the two local guards behind them were rapidly disassociated. There was a distortion in the air and two large figures in black battle armor appeared in the room.
The administrator pushed other buttons. “You four will not get away,” he said.
“Four,” Andrew asked. “I think I now owe you four of your men.” Andrew paused and tilted his head to the side. “Now I owe you eleven...now sixteen of your guards. We can stop this any time you agree. Eighteen, nineteen...ah oh...now I owe you twenty-three...”
The administrator savagely jabbed the comm and spoke to terrified subordinates who were screaming for support. They didn’t know what was happening but their guards were dissolving and blurs in the air were smashing them to the ground or just pulling them apart. There was a piercing scream that made Andrew flinch and the line went quiet.
The administrator said, “You will do what I say or I will destroy every life on this base. It will be your...” he said as he opened a touch pad on his desk. The upper half of his body disappeared as Desiree swept her disruptor over where he had stood. The bloody remainder of the administrator’s body fell over on the floor.
“Can you operate his intercom and tell his troops to surrender?” Desiree asked LeiLei in Lyrian. “It might save some lives of his security troops?”
“Why spoil it?” LeiLei said. “We need to get these collars off soon. They have a failsafe that will kill us all anyway if we don’t get them off,” she said and kicked the administrator’s body out of the way. She spoke into the intercom. It seemed that most of the guards wore collars too. “I really do not care if we save the guards. You would not either if you knew what they did to us. Let us go down to my lab and we will start getting these horrors off us,” she turned and walked right past the two armored soldiers.
Andrew and Desiree shrugged, indicated for the Earth soldiers to follow and followed her furriness back to her lab.
It didn’t take her two minutes to put together a tool that deactivated the collar and it sprang open. She took it off and threw it across the room. “I’ve worn that dreaded thing for a long time – I’ve lost count how long. I made this tool the first period I was here but they would have just killed me if I had tried it with others. We were monitored too closely. It will take a few minutes and I will show you how to remove collars with it. We will not be able to get many people before they all explode.”
“Tell us the frequency and sequence and we will broadcast from our ship,” Andrew said. “Desiree. Would you escort one of our soldiers and see how many you can release while I try from the ship?”
Desiree worked the controls and flew out of the room followed by one of the soldiers.
“LeiLei, wrap yourself around me and we will go to my ship.” He said and motioned for the soldier to accompany them. LeiLei came behind him and effectively wrapped herself around him. They flew out of the building, slowly through the facility gateway, and back to the ship. He landed inside, took her hand and led her to one of the labs. Tell me the frequency and code. She told him the frequency and told him the numerical code in binary that would release the collars.
He used the pulse generator in the software defined radio to make a portable unit. She asked him to try it and then monitored the waveform. She indicated that the waveform looked correct. He could see she was enthralled by some of the equipment.
“We need to place it on the interior of the facility,” she said. “The signal should cover all inside.”
He told her to wrap herself around him again and she hopped on with vigor. His knees almost buckled until he turned up his field and flew out of the ship and through the entranceway. His skin tingled as he flew through – too fast, and they landed in the center of the complex. They turned on the transmitter and collars popped loose on the beings within view. They threw them away as far as they could. There was a lot of joyous yelling and then the sound of hundreds of firecrackers going off.
“I guess the guard frequency or code was different from the others. My mistake,” LeiLei said and began earnestly rubbing Andrew around...everywhere. “You are male aren’t you? I think very male. Ah yes. Very male...large male...Did I tell you I like large males?”
Andrew disentangled himself from her as Desiree came up.
LeiLei looked at the approaching figure. “Your mate?” she asked.
“No,” Andrew said thankful for the momentary reprieve. “Mate of a friend,” he said. “We need to get this place organized. Is there someone that could organize this facility so you could run it yourselves? That ship used to belong to the administrator did it not?” he asked while pointing at the craft beside the Earth ship.
“I know who could do this. I will explain to him. You need several transcribe machines and all the disks that we make. You will leave an Earth learning machine and samples of your technology. When will you come back to train the beings still here? You are from Earth. We heard you have a big party every time you leave. I think that is a fine tradition. All the people will want to meet you and the mate of your friend. Good to have a party. We have experts in many fields. Many will go home after the party and remember you. I will go with you to teach your people to use the transcribing machines. You will become very rich selling some of your technology. People here who go will become very wealthy as well as those who stay.” LeiLei said.
“I heard the tail end of that conversation. She is coming with us? Do you know what that sex kitten – her furriness will do to the male crew?” she said. “You thought 100,000 slaves were a problem...”
Andrew sighed. “I didn’t do anything. I was hoping to introduce her to Joel – he’s half-animal already. It’s a match made in...Sirius. You didn’t want to be a slave here for 100 years. That’s how long the admin dude was planning on us working for him as sla
ves. I’m not going to lose a bit of sleep over the rotten slaver...you?”
“Nope. I’m still wondering how Susan is going to like her furriness here.”
“We’ll see but we’ve got a party to put together. The soldiers in the landing force were given leave to participate but the Odin hung overhead and the shuttle, Albert, was manned with other soldiers who had drawn the short straws. The transcribers, blank cylinders by the hundred and boxes of product were ferried up to the Odin in four trips. They decided not to waste any Earth trade food. There wasn’t nearly enough and they weren’t going to waste it on one big party. Food was trundled from the storage at the Sirius base. There was a lot of food in storage – enough to feed the population here many times over. It made for a great party and new food was introduced and taken to the Odin and the Junior.
There was no whining by those beings remaining. An old Tros had been put in charge and he was straightening it all out nicely. He had work crews cleaning up, inventoring everything. They were beginning to record the division of the spoils by the second day. Joel met LeiLei and it may not have been love at first fur but they became a thing for a while. LeiLei was quite accomplished scientifically and transcriber learning theory jumped decades the day she walked on board. The pair were soon putting out history cylinders for practice and moved on from there to mathematics and manufacturing. Circuit theory was tougher and they got through that and went into circuits II, basic computers and transistors, through field effect transistors. They then produced training cylinders on rudimentary integrated circuit design, manufacture, and computer programming. It was decided that 1995 computer technology was as up to date as we wanted to go at first. LED, LCD technologies were next to last. Building the hand calculators and analog cellular phones wound up the offerings. We would have copies to send back to Earth too. We began studying why we couldn’t just copy the disks instead of making each one from a live subject.