Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (22 page)

"Ha! Because the Mothers are a bunch of control freaks!" Lee told him.

"Well yes. It did run contrary to their nature. But they adapted when others did better at business than them. Losing a deal because the other clan's trader could sign for them is instructive."

"This has been very pleasant and productive, but I'm tired and our translators have a lot of catching up to do. Might we go on to our hotel, rest and continue tomorrow?" Thor asked.

"Yes, we are over half way... there," Talker said getting up to lead them again. "I think Lee... will be... pleased. The rooms have... a... view of the world below."

"Does this world belong to any one race or is it shared?" Lee wondered.

"Is a Badger world. Not our home world... of course, but it has an independent Badger government. We found try... trying to govern a whole world from far away not work. Other races live here though, maybe... perhaps more on the station than the world."

"Yeah, Humans found out the same thing. That's why the Humans with us from Fargone have their own government."

Talker tucked his hand under his chin in a native gesture they were not certain of the range of meaning yet. "Do the Derf have worlds with own government?" he asked Lee, but then he looked at Gordon. Perhaps to see his reaction to the question.

"Derf have regional governments and no world government. Actually the Human home world is that way too. But I expect they will do the same on other worlds. I recently traded most rights to a rather large island on Providence to Gordon's clan, Red Tree, in exchange for the deep space explorer
The Champion William and
the
heavy cruiser
Retribution
. So there will be a Derf colony there soon. When we were leaving they were planning to send an advance team to do a complete survey of the island to determine where to site their settlement and what off world organisms could be integrated into the local ecology."

"You... personally... own
two
starships outright?" Trader asked, looking at her – differently.

"Yes and two thirds of the
High Hopes
. Gordon owns a third of her and declines to sell."

"This is... the... hotel," Talker said, cutting off that conversation. There wasn't a check in counter in the usual sense, there was a low desk with a Badger behind it and chairs in front of it shaped for different races. Apparently it was not customary to make customers stand. Indeed Talker did not address the clerk until he was seated.

"He's speaking real Badger, not Trade I think." Lee said. "The translator crashed on it."

"Yes, I beg your patience... if... I need a word..."

"Rude," Lee figured out and supplied. "Just follow your custom. We are the outsiders here. We need to learn to do things your way."

"He offers to let you view room... if... you want."

"Do you want a separate room, Thor?" Lee asked. "I'll share with you too if you want."

"That's fine. You don't snore do you?"

"Do I?" she asked Gordon and got a little negative shake of his head and a grin. The hotel clerk froze like a frightened rabbit and Talker looked distressed too.

"Sorry, Humans smile the same as Derf and we're used to each other," he said from behind a true hand. "it's really not a display of aggression, it's a sign of pleasure."

The clerk shuddered, twitchy muscles rippling down his shoulders. "I've... adjust to worse."

The key was a little square stick that might have been pad memory. You just had to have it on you, not apply it to the door. The inside was more spacious than they expected, a suite really. The view of the planet everything they expected. There were four areas with slightly raised pads. Lee went to one right away and pushed on it. She guessed right, it was soft.

"May one adjust the pad for hard or soft?" she asked.

"That... is... an interesting idea. No they not... are not? Not sure how you'd do that."

"Another thing to sell you," Thor suggested and went to check out the other room.

"May one adjust the gravity around the sleeping pad to be less?" Lee asked.

"No again," Talker said, surprised they could tell. He started to open his mouth again, but snapped it shut. Trader had turned his head to look at him.

"The shower is neat," Thor called. They all crowded in there, the Badgers staying in the short hall since they filled it.

The shower was a glass wall to the ceiling, but not an open door to it. You had to walk in and then make a turn, so there was no way to splash outside. It had two shower heads opposed to each other that looked capable of cleaning ground cars. The toilet looked formidable for Humans but might be a bit dainty for Derf.

"This  will do very nicely," Gordon informed them.

"Good. We
shall
see you tomorrow. After you rest and eat. Tell the... clerk... to call Talker or Trader. He'll let us know you are... ready... again."

"Thank you," Lee said. "We usually say, "Good night, late in our day like this."

"Good night... now," Talker agreed and they withdrew with no further formality.

"Assume we are bugged," Thor said after they were gone.

"Of course," Gordon nodded.

"We could speak Derf," Lee suggested.

"That would just put off their understanding us some months," Thor speculated. "I'm afraid of saying something that might offend, or give them significant advantages I don't
ever
want them to have."

"OK," Lee agreed and she seemed to mean it. "How about notes?"

"Cameras can be tiny too," Thor said. "They know our writing, or will soon."

"This is hard. They get to go discuss everything we talked about and decide between them what to say tomorrow, consult with their translators even and we can't."

"Maybe," Thor said, grinning freely again. "They have no idea what our snooping capabilities are, or how miniaturized. Unless they go strip themselves of every item they carried and lock themselves in a vault that is a Faraday cage I wouldn't assume we weren't listening if I were them."

"Maybe they aren't as paranoid as you," Lee said.

"It's not an illness if you can't afford to be wrong."

"It was awkward today. The conversation jumped all around and hit on so many unrelated things. I feel like we should have some system to go through a list made up ahead of time. Is it always going to be so hard to get to know new races?" Lee wondered.

"I don't see any way around it once you get past numbers, parts of the body and the common actions like come, go, stay. When you get to cultural things there can't be any standard list and if we have emotions in common enough to name them I'm delighted, Gordon said. "I'm sure we'll run into something eventually like a giant mollusk or a starfish with which we have a hard time finding
anything
in common."

Lee nodded, thinking about that. "Can I try the shower first?"

"Sure, I'll lay out supper and start it heating when you are gone," Gordon offered.

* * *

"This little Human. Do you think it credible she actually owns starships? Do you know of
any
among our races that own a private starship?" Talker asked.

"Yes, because they didn't make a big enough point of it for it to be a lie. You notice when he spoke of the other race and world they found he admitted they could have taken it by force?" Trader asked.

"Yes, I caught that."

"I thought the important point was not that they could
do
it, but the economy of how he described it. "Take them out." Unless I have gotten no sense of their manner of speaking, they way he said that indicates to me it wasn't just possible, but easy. They tend to say
how
they will do things. He didn't say bombard and reduce their cities until they are conquered, like it would be a
process
, it was simply trivial in his mind. Perhaps as trivial as vaporizing the rear off a Biter's war ship."

"The Hinth. He doesn't say much," Talker said. He managed to make it an accusation.

"Yes, if I'd just met them I'd think he was in charge and hiding it behind these others!"

"Because that's what one of us might do?" Talker asked.

"Yes, Like the ancient tale of the king who went to parley with his rival and dressed his aide in his clothes and observed from behind," Trader reminisced.

"I don't think they are that subtle. Especially the young girl. She would spill her thoughts out even if they were accusing or she found us repugnant," Talker said.

"Yes, I can imagine her saying, 'Get over it." Easily," Trader agreed.

"I'm a little afraid of Ha-bob-bob-brie . I am already starting to read the others faces and gestures, but he is sometimes freezes for long moments and I can't even see him
breath
.

"Honestly, I think he is more subordinate than what you think. He's just being respectful of the others. But I noticed he always moved so he had a direct line to the girl open. His eyes always are on whoever is paying attention to her," Trader explained.

"You think him a
bodyguard
?" Talker asked, surprised. "You think she
needs
one with that father?"

"Gordon is huge and powerful, but watching the bird-like one, I don't think I've ever seen him move as fast as he is capable. A couple times I saw him
start
to move quickly and deliberately stifle it. Of course he may not be an official bodyguard, but just value her greatly."

"Well if the classic education my father insisted I add to all my other studies has any merit it tells me Ha-bob-bob-brie's economy with words should be taken as a sign of wisdom," Talker said.

"Yes, well, the others, they use so
many
words. It
is
significant the times they
don't
. And they are richer than us," Trader concluded. "To spend treasure to slowly change planets! And is that bad? If they are rich enough not to feel the need to steal from that other race is
that
a bad thing? After all if we agree to trade with them might not some of that wealth rub off?"

"The little one casually let go of a chunk of platinum worth more than I make in a tenth year." Talker pointed out.

"See? And did she demand a strict accounting? Already you profit!" Trader joked.

"Oh no. I think I shall dispose of it for her, show a strict accounting and not take a fee," Talker decided. "I'd rather buy her good opinion than grasp for a petty onetime fee. She was uncomfortable feeling obligated to me. I suspect that is a cultural trait. So it is desirable for me to see she feels herself gifted, or at least not shorted. It is a handle on her," he said with a grasping motion.

"You act canny. I may make a trader of you yet."

Chapter 11

Gordon put his kit away from cooking. There was no small sink in the bathroom, so they rinsed their dishes in the shower. It felt weird but worked. The waste basket was just what it appeared to be, they checked for sure with the clerk when he brought in their water by gestures. So their wrappers went in there. They feared plugging the pipes to put them down the toilet.

Lee occupied herself on her hand pad while the Derf showered. Fed and cleaned they felt better. Talker had instructed the hotel and they brought them three jugs of what they were assured was distilled water. It appeared to be in glass, with a metal screw cap, but a very thin strong glass. There was alien script etched right on the glass, not on a label.

"I'd like to go back to the bar," Gordon announced. "I can draw a molecule for ethyl alcohol. And I am curious about their music and seeing what their working folk look like."

"Do you think that's a good idea without one of the Badgers?" Lee wondered.

"We are not prisoners. I'd say we have been in stranger places, with less friendly natives."

"Yeah, you got that right," Lee had to allow, remembering Earth.

"I thought we might walk along, maybe stop at the observation lounge and
chat
on the way."

"Ah...I think that's a great idea," Lee said, clueing up.

Outside the hotel Lee asked, "How freely do you feel we can talk out here?"

"A lot more than in the room. I doubt they have bugged all the public corridors."

"I've been thinking about how Talker took my platinum for our rooms."

"Did that surprise you?"

"Not then, but I got to thinking about it. If it was us getting the platinum we wouldn't value it as much as we would have six months ago. We found a huge deposit which lowers its value and the other brown dwarf system we found is likely to have more platinum deposits too. Our attitude has shifted."

"Of course," Gordon agreed, not getting her point yet.

"What Ernie deduced with Jon's help is that these sort of brown dwarf systems may be a limited and local phenomena. Platinum is suddenly less precious to us, but the people back home don't know it yet. The point is, the Badgers seem to still value it on the same scale our people back home do."

"Oh...They haven't found any similar brown dwarf systems, or if they have, they can't exploit them."

"Yeah, they can be hard to get into by jump ship," Lee reminded him.

"So we are in a very much better situation as far as resources. At least in metals," Gordon said.

"We would do well
not
to reveal just how much we found and which direction," Thor said.

"Exactly. We need to take our claims to Earth and make sure all the forces of our races all support our claims. If the Badgers and their friends expand their frontier aggressively towards our territory they could be in possession and difficult to argue with, or worse, need to be dislodged," Lee explained.

"Which is precisely why you were so hot to do this entire voyage and exactly the scenario you wished to prevent," Thor acknowledged. "Damn, you were dead right about grabbing the real estate  before somebody else." They came to the viewing area and passed it after Gordon tapped his ear. Lee liked it so much it might be an obvious place they'd return.

"This suggests something else to me," Gordon told them. "We discovered two metal rich brown dwarf systems near each other. If there is a line or arch of them they may run at right angles to our line of travel. We may have just cut across them. It would be smart to search along a line drawn between them each way to see what else we may find. And in negotiating with the Badgers we should try to establish a frontier that encourages them to spread out along a plane from here, but not any closer toward us."