22: NEGOTIATIONS
Friday was not scared. Certainly not. He was Friday Indigo, and bad things didn’t happen to members of the Indigo family.
He told himself that the queasy feeling inside him was not fear, but he had to admit that he did feel a certain uneasiness. Until he caught sight of those desiccated and dissected bubble-creatures, he’d imagined nothing worse for himself than another shot from a black paralyzing cane.
“I am not from here.” He didn’t like the wobbly sound of his own voice, and he took a breath and started over. “I am not from here — not a native of this planet. I came from a star named Sol, through a device that we call a Link. But something went wrong with the Link transfer, and instead of arriving in open space my ship finished up in the sea not far from here.”
“Aha!” The little eyestalks twitched. “Then it is verified. Soon after arrival, I reassured the Level Threes and the Level Four untouchables that this world possessed no intelligence of use or danger to Malacostracans. When they brought word of an alien ship, washed into the river by the storm, and told of an alien air-breather on the shore, I was surprised. But I was right.”
At last, the translation unit seemed halfway to justifying its price. It was time to get down to business before it went wonky on him again. Friday said, “You’re not from here, I’m not from here. This planet probably isn’t worth peanuts to either of us. But both our races must have technology that the other one doesn’t possess.” Friday thought, not without a quiver of unpleasant memory, of the paralyzing black cane. “I’d like to propose a swap.”
The double pairs of pincers waved, and the Malacostracan inched forward on the flat table. The translation unit said, “Swap?”
So the machine wasn’t perfect yet. “A swap means a trading agreement. You tell me what I’ve got that you don’t have, and I tell you what I don’t have. If we agree that they seem equal, we make an exchange.”
Credit for making First Contact was wonderful, but alien technology had the potential to jump Friday financially far ahead of the whole Indigo clan. That would show his bastard cousins, always boasting about their money!
The eyestalks began to wiggle, but no sound came from the translator. Friday was ready to try again using other words when the machine finally said, “There is misunderstanding. You are a prisoner. Everything that you know and everything that you possess belongs to us. That includes your life.”
It was a bad start, but Indigo family tradition taught that every threat could be regarded as a step in negotiation.
Friday leaned forward. “It’s not just a matter of what I know, and what I own. Members of my species and others, together with their ships and their weapons, have also come to this planet. Even if you believe that you can capture and subdue every one of them, it won’t be easy. Now, I’m known and trusted by them. You’d be a lot better off with me as a go-between than as a prisoner.”
A simple enough statement, you’d think. But again there was that long pause. Eventually: “An interesting proposal. However, it is not one that I am able to accept or reject. It is necessary that we consult one of a higher level.”
“How many levels are there?” Friday had a mental image of a series of Malacostracans, decreasing in body size as they increased in authority, until he found himself addressing a Supreme Potentate the size of a flea.
“We have five levels.” The four front pincers turned to point inward. “I am a Level Two. What you suggest is a Level One decision.”
“How many Level Ones and Level Twos are there?”
“There are five Level Twos. I am Two-Four, in order of spawning. There is one Level One, and she is The One.” The little legs propelled Two-Four off the table and into water that rose to cover the carapace. Eyestalks poked up above the surface, and the translator gurgled, “Come.”
The Malacostracan headed toward the far end of the building. It seemed to Friday, following, that there was no exit that way. The alien pointed the black cane at the wall. It became transparent, and Two-Four sidled through. Friday followed, eyeing the cane. His respect for it was rising. It didn’t just zap people, it zapped whole buildings. And when you walked through the wall, you weren’t where you would expect to be, outside in the gusty night air of Limbo where the patrol guards were waiting. You were in another interior chamber, too big to fit inside any of the buildings that he had seen. This one was also well-lit, throwing gleaming iridescent reflections of green and purple and black off the carapace of the little Malacostracan. Also, a pleasant change, the floor wasn’t sloshing with water.
How could that be, when this was on the same level as the other room? Friday looked back, and found the wall opaque again. He turned, to see Two-Four inching forward, its body touching the floor and its multiple legs splayed wide. The translator said urgently, “Abase, abase!”
He couldn’t imitate that walk, even if he wanted to. Friday stayed at his full height and stared. This room was stranger and yet more familiar than anything he had seen so far. The display screens and holo-volumes suggested a command center, but they sat far up toward the three-meter-high ceiling, where he could view them only by craning his neck backward. On the other hand, the banks of dials and switches that presumably controlled the displays formed part of the floor. He couldn’t even read or reach most of the dials and switches without stepping on some of them.
Other than himself and Two-Four he saw no sign of any living thing, Malacostracan or other, in the room. But the floor controls were arranged in concentric circles, and at the center of them stood a large black rock. It was bulky, half as tall again as Friday, and the lower part was riddled with holes big enough to put your hand in.
Two-Four said to Friday, “Stay. And abase, abase.” It advanced cautiously to the outer perimeter of the control area. There it produced a long series of squeaks and whistles, totally unlike the clicks and clatters of its previous speech. Friday’s translator unit remained silent. He guessed that it was using a different language from any that his unit had met before. Worse than that, his translator didn’t even seem to be trying. It wasn’t providing even the preliminary hoots and whistles that preceded intelligible words.
The black rock offered its own set of squeaks. The Level Two Malacostracan squeaked and whistled again, presumably in reply. Then it was another long sequence from the rock. The talk, assuming that’s what it was, went on and on. Friday’s translator remained silent, and finally he stopped listening to nothing and began to take a closer look at the half-dozen ceiling displays.
He might be deep underground at the moment, but the screens provided a view from above the surface. Two of them showed the cloudless night sky of Limbo, with its baffling collection of faint and diffuse spheres. The hints of color were not as he remembered them, but that was probably a function of sensors matched to suit alien eyes.
Other screens showed land views. He recognized one of them, or at least he could guess what it showed. It was the view to the west, seen from the rocky ridge above the inlet where the Mood Indigo had been driven by the storm. The image had been photo-intensified to make use of faint levels of light. It showed shades of gray and negligible color, but he fancied he could discern the outline of a ship’s hull, jutting above the waters of the inlet. The storm had passed, and the waves that met the Mood Indigo were slow and steady. He wondered how well his ship had survived. Would it still be able to make a Link transition, assuming he could somehow find a Link entry point?