Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (25 page)

"Good morning Commander, I hope you don't mind," the Marine said. "We're just doing a little goodwill mingling with the natives. We've had to turn down a few who wanted to pay us. At least I think it was money, but that didn't seem particularly friendly to me accept anything. I also had a few barter offers on my flashlight and my ink pen, but I turned those down too."

"You're doing exactly right," Gordon told them. "We saw how the Biters got treated in a bar and believe me the locals don't have any love of them. I can see all your weaponry and uniforms have put the fear in them," he said sarcastically.

He shouldn't have slowed down. As soon as he stopped a Bill and a Badger who seemed to be together rushed forward and demanded a picture with Gordon. He turned and did like the guard putting true hands on each side, but unthinking he smiled, as he was used to doing for Humans and Derf both. The picture taker squealed in delight and rushed to show the picture on the camera to two who had been looking at the lens, not Gordon. It was so popular he posed for three more who requested he smile for them too before he could get away and in the lock.

Inside Thor had a thoughtful look. "You know, next time you do that, the smile is good, but instead of putting a true hand on their far shoulder use your lower arm and spread your claws out  wide so they show well in the picture," he suggested, demonstrating with his own ten centimeter gut rippers.

"That hardly seems the picture of friendship," Gordon said, nose all scrunched up. He was still embarrassed he'd forgotten and smiled, and was confused why they liked it.

"No, he's right," Lee assured him. "They'd love it. In fact call the guards on their helmet coms and tell the Derf to do that."

"But
why
?" Gordon asked, confused.

"Humans do the same thing," Lee explained. "We have roller coasters and scary rides and tunnels you go through where fake frightening things jump out and scare the snot out of you. Humans enjoy a good adrenaline jolt, as long as they are really
sure
it's fake. This is very encouraging. It says word has gotten around we are safe and friendly and not at all like the Biters. Having somebody big and scary as hell is great if he's on your side. Unless somebody does something stupid I think we have established good relations with these guys. Those pictures are going to get shown around at whatever corresponds to a coffee break, sent in a text message to their aunt and uncle and hung by the monitor where they work. Shared at whatever they have for schools. You can't
buy
good will promotion like this."

"Do you think Talker and Trader have been pitching us to everybody?"

"I doubt it, I bet word got around how the Biter got in your face in the bar. Gossip goes around faster than putting it on the top of the video news at every hour. It wasn't lost on anybody that you'd have put the ax to him if the silly fool had yanked that pistol out. I think you took the high ground showing such restraint when he got in your face. None of them like the Biters, but nobody there wanted any part of confronting them. I think they feel you were the good guy and identified with you, vicariously," she said, smiling at a memory of that word, as did Gordon.

Thor had no idea what they were grinning about, but had his own memory. "You know something? This reminds me of when I went to Earth as a tourist. There was this place in London where they had guards in old uniforms with bright red jackets and just ridiculously big hats. Almost all the humans in our tour went up and had their picture taken beside the guard. It was very similar."

"There ya go," Lee said, spreading her hands. "It's great. It tells me we think a great deal alike. We can get along with these folks," she predicted.

* * *

The third Mother and Fargone rep were eager to talk with the Badgers. They listened to the theory about Brown Dwarf systems and the need to limit these new race's expansion further into Human/Derf space. Both felt that was desirable even without the Brown Dwarf issue. Both were willing to commit to supporting Badgers or others entering the claims system, to the point of committing their ships to stay on until others could come from their worlds. Thor pointed out there was likely going to be a Human/Derf presence in the Brown Dwarf systems quickly for mining, so the response time from there to the frontier and this station would be much faster soon if they did call for aid.

Gordon had a better selection of food and amenities peculiar to their races assembled to take to the rooms. Also a pad that could only be viewed from a very narrow angle and a keyboard cover. It was to let them exchange sensitive things they didn't want overheard. He supplied a couple bottles of vodka that should be safe to share and a good supply of the various coins too.

"I think I should point out something," Lee said after listening to them a bit. "We don't want to
exclude
them from our space. It would be good to see them come to our worlds to trade or visit, just like we want to here. But we want them to respect our claims. Tell them they will find our claims beacons if they expand towards our home worlds."

"Why
haven't
they gone past this star system?" the third Mother wondered. They have to have been here some time to have both a presence on world and a large station built. Why would they stop and consolidate here?"

"You might ask them," Gordon suggested.

"I have a suspicion," Prosperity White said. They all looked at him expectantly. "I bet it will be because of these Biters. Meeting them was recent, although they haven't given us exact dates. I bet they stopped sending out unarmed ships with the danger of piracy hanging over their heads."

"I need to understand something for sure. Is that ship typical of what the Biters have or are they going to send some super advanced war ships in when they get word of what happened to their ship and wipe us out?" the Third Mum asked.

"The Badgers swear it's as good as they have and nearly the biggest too. I can't see where it would be to their advantage to lie about this."

"So we don't have to be afraid if they send reinforcements to this system in force?" she asked.

"Not unless they send
hundreds
of ships and overwhelm us. We don't have the missiles to shoot that many and the greasers and peashooters don't cycle fast enough. In which case we'd need to retreat."

She nodded. "Just be sure we have a free line of retreat then."

"I intend to," Gordon assured her.

"Very well. Do you want to call your Talker and Trader and we'll go set up in your hotel room?"

"Yes, but just Lee and I will walk along with you too, for a ways. I have a merchant along the way I want to stop and show some trade goods."

* * *

The bar was open, but not very busy at this hour. The host called a fellow from the back rooms and with a little help from the translation software made them understand they were business partners.  Gordon couldn't say their names when he asked. The third try reduced them to laughter.

"What does your name
mean
?" he demanded. "I can use the English word for it and then you'll have it to use for the future. I don't go by my Derf name in English either."

Their host of the other day made known he was Stubborn. He had Dauntless offered as an alternative and rejected it on careful examination. Stubborn is not regarded as an undesirable quality among the Badgers," he explained. "I was given that on our naming day when the last of my three brothers finally opened his eyes. My parents gave me the name
hoping
I'd have that quality."

  His partner was named Lucky. That made Gordon and Lee look at each other. "You have naming customs very much like our Fargoers," he told the barkeeps.

They set vodka and ice in front of Gordon and he poured himself one although it was early. After a long cold sip he sat the glass to the side and got out his goods.

"This is Brandy, made in my own clan, Red Tree. The color is what we call pink. It is aged with a local berry in it, but poured off after the flavor has infused. A lot of Derf like it sweetened." They used the translation program and got across the names of various sugars.

"
Big
bottles!" The newly met owner observed. He pulled a short pipette out of a purse like case on his belt. He did like Gordon had the day before, sticking the glass tube in the brandy and sealing the top with a finger to trap a few drops, putting them on his tongue. That was the first they'd seen a Badger
had
a tongue. They kept their lips pretty tight speaking.

"Subtle," the Badger labeled it. When he tried to identify the taste they had to retreat to the program and bringing up pictures. They had flowers too it turned out, but no bees. The same function was served by something very similar to a humming bird. They expressed interest in honey, but Gordon had no idea if they had only on the ship. A call established the galley had a twenty five kilogram bucket of it and he arranged to have a sample delivered to them. The cook warned them it was filtered but insisted on cooking it before he sent it, informing them it had traces of bacteria and even botulism spores, which in such small amounts were no danger to mature Derf or Humans.

The bottle of bourbon had them more excited because it was colored darker. That apparently was a favorable thing in their own distillates. The Badger regretted sampling the brandy since he'd have rather the bourbon, but he didn't want to try both. If he had any ill reaction they wouldn't know which had provoked it. His partner took up the duty and said very confidently it would sell well.

"You mentioned bourbon is Lee's favorite drink. Pour yourself a drink if you wish, it is a plenty big sample. Do you pour it on ice?" he wondered.

"You can drink it neat, without anything else that is, or on ice or mixed with a little water or a sweet beverage. We have a lot of sweet drinks that have carbon dioxide dissolved in the water so that when you open them they bubble for awhile."

They had all the words in the program, but the concept was novel to them. The only thing they had similar was a sparkling wine from one small region that was a novelty. It had never achieved the popularity of Champagne.

"I'll have just a small one," Lee allowed. "Most of us follow the custom of not drinking alcohol in the early part of the day. Some Humans are subject to becoming addicted to alcohol and they view drinking in the morning with suspicion."

That horrified both owners, who observed that they did a very healthy business with breakfast, admitting it helped them face the start of the day many times. Lee pored a scant shot over ice.

"This is the Hinth spirits," Gordon continued. He pushed the bottle across the table. It was a flat bottom triangular flask, unsuited to shipping and a horrible waste of space. The neck of the flask was just the right length for a Hinth hand, too long for Humans and too short for Derf. They cited tradition and refused to license it to other containers.

"It is what we call bitter," Gordon cautioned. "Humans mix a tiny amount with sweet drinks to offset the sweetness a little. Derf generally taste it once and that is sufficient." He explained what a chaser was and suggested they have one handy when they tried the nasty green fluid.

Lucky allowed they'd try it later.

"This is rum," Gordon said,  sitting his last bottle on the table. It was a flat thin bottle to maximize the area a label could be displayed. The big bright gold and red colors of the label caught their interest, as well as the image of a sailing ship and a fellow burying a chest full of the colorful bottles. They commented on it.

"This company usually has five or six labels out in the market at any one time. People collect them and once a label is retired it isn't used again and the price of a clean undamaged bottle with the seal intact goes up if it was popular. That's a custom peculiar to Fargone. Fargoers are big on rum and there are a lot of brands, both lighter and darker than this one."

"These words are in the pad, but I'm afraid I'm getting it wrong. Perhaps together they mean something different than separately? I had that recently, a colloquial expression I was told."

"Probably not," Gordon admitted embarrassed. He then tried to explain the Fargoer sense of humor and why a brand called Poison Pirate Piss would sell so well.

When their understanding finally clicked they went into another round of laughter. They cried when they laughed really hard, just like Humans.

"Fargoers, they joke like Bills." Go get the Bill's liquor," Lucky ordered Stubborn, touching the back of his hand. "You know which one I mean, and a food menu for Bills."

The bottle he brought back was blue glass and it had a label showing what had to be a dead Bill on the floor, sort of cartoonish, eyes rolled up in his head and tongue laying flat on the floor out of his open bill. The writing on the label looked a little like Chinese ideographs. "This means, Care No More, in their language," Lucky explained. We also have brands named Wife's Tears and Parasite Cure."

"Yep, they are some sick puppies too," Lee agreed.

"Same kind of thing," Lucky said, pointing to an item on the Bill's portion of the food menu. "Is a big seller for us, Road Kill sandwich," he translated. "A generous portion of mystery meat, with our award winning sauce, guaranteed to disguise its origins from your sensitive palate," he quoted. "It is usual to list the main ingredients in a dish. This one says,
Don't ask
."

"Human's go through a phase like that when they are young, especially the boys, but most of them grow out of it and move on to adult humor before they hit puberty," Lee explained. "We had movies for that sort of young boys in our ship database, but I learned to identify and avoid them. My dad bought a huge collection of all sorts of videos, not all of which any of us appreciated."

"You don't want to watch the Bill humor channels on the video selections," Stubborn warned.

"We have thousands of food items too," Gordon said, trying to take the conversation back to a more profitable line. "I suspect the distilled spirits will be far easier to test for adverse reactions. But we can offer preserved foods and spices. I'll have a bunch of samples delivered from our stores."