The trick is to get people interested enough to do what needs to be done—and the operative word is “trick!”
“Today is our turn to show our products. And today we will discuss beverages.”
Carolyn Sorenson sat at one end of the rectangular table. Urla na’Tydengh sat at the other end. A side table groaned under a rainbow of differently sized and colored bottles and cans. Plastic-covered sheets of paper filled with chemical specifications and volume price discounts were pasted to the side of every bottle and can. An assortment of clear shot glasses, mugs, and tumblers were spread out in front of the human.
“I will not discuss our space drive,” Urla said firmly.
The alien was covered with soft blonde fur, thin and fine on the face and shoulders, thicker and longer and darker on the lower half of her torso and her short legs. Her arms were long and muscular, the hands deft and slender, with two opposable thumbs flanking five fingers. Her feet were wide and long and flat.
Her teeth were omnivorous, with both molars and prominent canines in a wide, thin-lipped mouth. Her nose was a shortened version of an elephant’s trunk, and where humans expected eyes there were instead oval shaped black sensory pads. Her facial hair was short and trimmed and a narrow mane of longer hair ran from the crest of her rounded skull to the tip of her tail.
She wore an equipment belt and a vest with many pockets, each sealed with a hook and eye closure. A gold and diamond necklace hung around her neck.
Imagine a six-foot-tall kangaroo with an extra pair of arms and an attitude…
“Of course I understand you can’t negotiate about your space drive,” Sorenson said smoothly.
“Then we can discuss your beverages,” Urla said, mollified. “Perhaps something there will have value as a trade item.”
“There is no way to discuss them ,” Sorenson said. She reached over and took a dark green bottle and one of the pieces of paper from the side table. She took one of the empty glasses from in front of her. “Each one is unique, the product of centuries of refinement in one particular method of brewing or distilling. These are not simple fruit flavors, with alcohol added. These are art. Centuries and centuries of art. You cannot analyze these with a spectroscope and assign them a value. The only way to value art is to experience it. The only way to value these is to taste them.”
“All of them?” Urla said doubtfully.
“All of them,” Sorenson said firmly. “This is one of our original drinks, from a place called the Czech Republic. The category is called beer,” she said. “It’s a fermented product, as you can see from the data sheet.”
She opened it and poured a fine Pilsner Urquell into a glass. A white foam head grew, then stopped just short of sliding over the edge of the mug. Carolyn placed the glass and bottle together across from Urla. Urla picked up the data sheet attached to the bottle and read it.
“According to the data analysis, this is safe for me to drink,” Urla said. She stopped for a moment and frowned. “The alcohol content seems rather high.”
“An important part of the taste,” Sorenson said. “And the Comparative Philosophies team reports you do drink alcohol.”
“In certain religious rituals, yes,” Urla said doubtfully. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone drink it for pleasure”
“Then perhaps this will open up new avenues for trade,” Sorenson said.
“Perhaps,” Urla said doubtfully. She picked up the mug then hesitated, halfway to her mouth.
“It seems so… antiseptic,” she said innocently. “Whenever we use alcohol it’s in a group religious ceremony. I don’t think I’ve ever drunk it by myself. Perhaps you’ll drink with me?”
Sorenson hesitated, then turned over a mug and filled it.
“Of course,” she said. “No one likes to drink alone.”
“Leave me alone. Let me die.”
“You told her you never drank?” Detinla na’Tydengh said. “You told her no one ever drinks for pleasure?”
“You’re going to remember this after I’m dead. You’re going to remember how you tortured me and you’re going to regret it and feel sorry for me.”
“Feel sorry for you?” Detinla snorted. “I’m locked up with a team of humans who smell like my child after he hasn’t bathed in a week, talking about religion until my mouth is sore and dry, while you’re sampling exotic alien beer. I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? ”
“Not just beer,” Urla said. She smacked her lips together and stuck out her tongue. The inside of her mouth tasted like an old pair of boots and her tongue seemed to be coated white. “Distilled liquors. Vodka. Bourbon. And something called Scotch.”
“Take a pill and get up,” Detinla said. “Drink some water, wash your face, and I’ll be back.”
Detinla left the cabin and the hatch slid shut behind her. Urla closed her eyes, but that only made the pounding in her head worse. She opened her eyes, tasted her tongue again and made a face. Finally she levered herself up and off the bed and staggered to the washbasin.
“Hangover cure,” she ordered. She looked at her face in the mirror and shuddered at what she saw. “Make that a double dose.”
Two white tablets slid out of the dispensary. She swallowed them dry, gagged, then threw her head back and forced them down. She sat back down on her bunk and practiced deep breathing techniques.
By the time Detinla returned, Urla was ready to admit that while she felt terrible, she no longer felt quite bad enough to require ritual suicide. Maybe, just maybe, and for business only, she might live long enough to try one more drink. Maybe some of that Scotch.
“You’ll live,” Detinla said after she gave Urla a critical look. “Here.” Detinla tossed Urla a clean dress coverall. Urla looked up at her, puzzled.
“Word from upstairs,” Detinla said, with a jerk of her head. “It’s time to go faster. Your next session is scheduled for this afternoon.”
“You can’t hurry one of these,” Urla complained. Her headache was a faded memory now, and more than anything she felt hungry. She slid out of her old, dirty coverall with the interesting stains and into the crisp new uniform. “They know that as well as we do. To come all this way and then fail because we get impatient is worse than a sin: it’s damned wasteful.”
“And we don’t have so much raw material that we can afford to waste any of it,” Detinla said. “Yeah, I agree. But they’re not really rushing us. Comparative Philosophies is finished with the humans.”
Urla finished dressing and stood. Detinla opened the hatch and they stepped outside Urla’s cabin into the central dropshaft of the small scout ship. They fell gently to the lower level of the ship.
“What did you find? Can you make it work on them?” Urla asked eagerly.
“No.”
Detinla shook her head. She looked depressed, dejected. Comparative Philosophies was successful more often than any other specialty, and Detinla was acknowledged as an expert. To admit defeat was not something she was good at.
“They’ve got everything I need,” she said. “All the old legends, all the old beliefs. Angels and saints and heaven up above in the stars. And the cultural mores fit perfectly, with the ability to make a long term commitment to a goal and stick to it, for generation after generation after generation. You remember those pictures of the cathedrals?”
“The big churches over in Europe?” Urla asked. Detinla nodded.
“It took them hundreds of years to build those, back before they even had steam power or any kind of machine tools. The original architects were long in their graves before there was even a recognizable outline of a structure. And still they kept on building until they were finished,” Detinla said.
“Impressive,” Urla said.
Detinla shook her head.
“They have everything we need,” she repeated. “A history of religious fanaticism as strong as anything I’ve ever seen in the textbooks. A history of hierarchical organizations that know how to put a plan together to attack a problem. And the ruthlessness to create and enforce the rules we need to solve the problem.”
“So why can’t we use religion?”
“Because they have too damned many religions!” Detinla exploded. “Usually I have trouble even finding one with the right specifications that I can work with, and here we’ve got hundreds, with a thousand splinter sects off of those. We’ve got religion on their newstapes. We’ve got religion on their video channels. Hell, we’ve even got religious preachers in the parks.”
“And?”
“And none of them is worth anything ” she said disgustedly “We’re too late. The old centralized religions that built the cathedrals and the pagoda cities and the pyramids are all gone, the religions that could focus the energy of an entire society all broken up. All these modern religions worry about is saving souls and doing good deeds and fighting with each other. That’s useless to us.”
“What about the preachers on the media?”
“Money. All they worry about is money,” Detinla said. “No, I’m no good this time. I’ll keep on talking with them to keep up our cover, but either you or one of the other teams will have to pull it off this time. If anyone is going to.”
“You think we’ll fail?” Urla said. She felt a familiar deep depression start again, and the great homesickness wash over her.
“I don’t know,” Detinla said, and shrugged. “We’ve failed before. But we must never give up.”
“I’ve never been the solution before,” Urla said.
“We’ve never met people this strange before.”
“Today is our turn to show products,” Urla said.
Sorenson sat across the familiar table from her, the rest of the human negotiating team in their chairs along the wall behind her. Urla was not sure of her ability to read human coloring and facial expression, but it seemed to her that Sorenson seemed more pale today, and the skin around her eyes darker. The eyes themselves were red and bloodshot.
“Do you feel all right?” Urla asked.
“Fine. Just fine. Everything is just fine,” Sorenson said. Her smile was forced and fixed.
Urla looked at Sorenson and allowed herself a secret smile.
“Sometimes our young are adversely affected after a religious ceremony,” Urla said smoothly. “When we mature we have no problem with consuming any amount of alcohol. I’m glad to hear you are fine.”
“Yes,” Sorenson crisply. “Now, what do you have to discuss today?”
“Ah, something I thought you might find interesting,” Urla said. She gestured and the drone set a shiny metal cylinder on the conference table, then slid silently back and out of the way.
“And this is…?”
“Something suggested by the specifications you provided our biology department,” Urla said. She touched the side of the container and it became transparent.
The cylinder was filled with a clear liquid that filled the container almost to the top. In the center of the liquid, supported by a webwork of semi-translucent strands, was a dark red object, about the size and shape of two clenched fists held together. As Sorenson watched, the object pulsed in and out, first on one side, then on the other.
“It works in a liquid environment? Completely enclosed?” Sorenson asked.
“It works in a liquid environment,” Urla said. She folded her upper pair of arms across her chest. She pushed a plastic sheet covered with specification numbers across the table to Sorenson. She picked it up, glanced at it, and handed it back to one of the engineers behind her. “If you expose it to air it begins to dry out and becomes useless.”
“It’s not very strong,” the engineer commented. Urla glared at him.
“It’s not supposed to be very strong,” she snapped. “We met the specifications you gave us. It’s designed for endurance and reliability, not power. The pump has no moving parts and will last one hundred years without a failure.”
“Guaranteed?” Sorenson asked.
“Guaranteed,” Urla said.
“How does it work?” Sorenson asked. She peered closely into the cylinder of clear liquid, the pump inside.
“It’s an electrically sensitive gel,” Urla explained. “When a current crosses it, the gel shrinks. When the current goes away, it expands.”
“All at once?”
“No, it’s localized. Your specifica tion showed four pumping chambers, each of which contracts and expands separately, but in sequence,” Urla said. “We built this to duplicate that function exactly.”
“The gel is chemically neutral?” Sorenson asked.
“Completely neutral,” Urla said.
“We have to test it,” Sorenson said.
Urla heaved herself upright, tail tucked discretely behind her.
“Of course,” she said. “If everything is satisfactory we’ll sell you all the manufacturing specifications and development samples.”
Urla turned and left the room. Sorenson studied the pump in the display cylinder.
“So what do we do with it?” the engineer asked. He waved the specifications sheet at her. “We’ve got better and stronger pumps that will last just as long. There’s no way this can be used in an industrial environment.”
Sorenson continued to stare at the pump, fascinated by the slow, steady beat.
“You’re a good engineer, Harry, but you think in black and white, in straight lines.”
“I think like an engineer,” he said.
“Exactly. Which is why I’m in charge of this negotiation,” Sorenson said. “Don’t think pump. Think heart. The fully implantable artificial human heart…”
“…Economic opportunities for human business in the interstellar market appear great. Tydengh negotiators have purchased large numbers of samples of various Earth products, including ceramics, textiles, process control equipment, and distilled liquors (particularly Scotch). In return we’ve received various high technology goods, such as a fully implantable artificial human heart…
“…The one item the Tydengh have refused to sell is space drive technology. Intelligence operations have also been unsuccessful…
“Conclusion: Human products have a potentially huge interstellar market. We cannot, however, get our products to market except through the Tydengh. This limits our commercial opportunities and the profit potential of the market. Unless and until we develop our own space drive.
“Proposal: this office has been contacted by representatives of members of the Security Council, as well as Japan, Germany, India and other major industrialized powers. As per your instructions we have provided them access to our reports to you. The unanimous response has been a desire to combine technologies in a space drive development effort. Our analysis supports this effort…
Urla sighed almost like a human when she was safely aboard her ship. Earth hung above her, a mottled blue and white and brown ball. The space station called Orbital Watch One floated next to the
“Well?” Detinla asked.
Urla closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. The familiar odors of home, the deep, musty smells she’d missed so much on Earth, seemed to roll up her nose and into her brain, and wash outward over her entire body. The closest she’d come to this on Earth was the day her trade delegation visited a farm and she lingered, alone for just a minute, in the hog confinement building. She hadn’t even realized she was homesick until then.
And now.
She opened her eyes and smiled.
“If we do our last part correctly, then, yes, we will succeed,” she said. “They are almost ready to build a cathedral. But they need just a little more convincing.”
“Good,” Detinla said. She turned back to the control board while Urla strapped herself in front of the communications console.
Urla checked the clock and the latest messages from the other four ships. She sent out a synchronization signal to the ships, scrambled to sound like random solar radiation, and waited impatiently while the signal and replies crawled out and back at the speed of light.
“I’ve got departure clearance from the humans,” Detinla said. She touched the keyboard and the
“We’re synched up,” Urla said, as the last acknowledgment signal came in from the distant ships. She touched her own keyboard. “Timing signal sent. We’re committed.”
Detinla was busy with her controls. The
“We finally got a signal from that probe we sent out to the star the humans call Tau Ceti,” Detinla said conversationally. She kept her voice low and calm, but they both knew the entire mission depended on the next ten minutes. Detinla forced herself to keep her hands still and off the keyboard, the entire mission now under the control of the ship’s computer, but her eyes still flickered from one indicator to another.
“What did it find?” Urla asked. She was busy linking, secretly and unobtrusively, into the human computer network.
“Our next target species,” Detinla said.
“Intelligent?”
“Very.”
“What do they look like?” Urla asked.
“Larger than us, and they’re water breathers. Slick skinned and talkative. Big noses. Imagine Earth dolphins with hands and fire,” Detinla said.
“Fire? Aquatic life with fire?” Urla asked.
“Unique,” Detinla agreed. Urla felt the old stirrings of hope.
“A new point of view,” she mused. “They could be the ones.”
“What about the humans?” Detinla asked hopefully. “Could they be the ones to discover faster-than-light travel?”
“Perhaps,” Urla said thoughtfully. “I’ve never met a race that thinks so much about profit. If they believe something can be done and it will make money, they’ll do it. And you know how stubborn they can be.”
“You convinced them of the profit potential?” Detinla asked.
“Oh, yes,” Urla said. She remembered the look on the faces of the humans as she made her purchases and her sales. “Oh, yes, I convinced them of the profit potential,” she said.
“Good. Then it’s my turn to convince them again that we can go faster-than-light,” Detinla said.
“Get ready.”
“Now!”
Urla checked her tap into the human radar net. Their radar showed
Then another
It disappeared.
Appeared.
Now
Appeared. Two light-seconds out.
Gone.
“Now!” Detinla said. She slapped the controls and brought the
Stealth shields snapped into place. Urla watched the
Urla remembered her training lessons.
“Did they see us leave?” Detinla asked. “Did they get through the screens?”
Urla adjusted the controls. There was no sign of the
“They saw us leave faster-than-light,” Urla said. “They didn’t see us after that.”
Detinla looked smug and activated the course setting, stealth shields on full. Urla sent out another disguised signal and waited patiently for the replies to crawl back to her. She felt the comfortable pressure on her back as Detinla turned the thrusters on and headed for the rendezvous with the other ships and the main vessel past Saturn.
“A fresh point of view,” Urla said. “That’s all we need.”
“Do you really think so?” Detinla asked, her face a picture of post mission depression. “We’ve been trying for a thousand years to build a faster-than-light drive. We’ve failed.”
“And we’ve reached a dead end,” Urla said. “We’ve tried to build our own cathedral, but we can’t finish the design. But someone, somewhere, will solve the problem. If they have a motive to solve it.”
“And that’s our job,” Detinla said.
“Yes,” Urla said. “We’re the motivational engineers.”
She unstrapped herself and padded back to the cargo hold. She opened it and stared, appalled, at all the Earth merchandise she’d bought. She thought of all the hours she’d spent arguing and haggling over price, just to make the humans believe their merchandise had value. That there was a market and a profit to be made.
“What are you going to do with all that junk?” Detinla asked. “We can’t haul it all the way to Tau Ceti.”
“Drop it outside the Oort cloud,” Urla said decisively. “Except for the Scotch. I rather liked the Scotch…”