George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

“I see,” said Haviland Tuf. “Yet no doubt you also learned of the seedships of the Federal Empire’s vanished Ecological Engineering Corps.”

“We did,” said Kreen, smiling sourly. “All gone, destroyed or lost or crippled centuries ago, of no concern to us. Until we learned otherwise from the captain of one trading vessel that put down at Port Faith. Rumors travel, Tuf, even from star to star. Your fame precedes you and condemns you. He told us all about you, you and this Ark you stumbled on, and used to line your pockets with standards and your gut with layers of fat. Other crews from other worlds confirmed your existence, and that you controlled a still-functioning EEC seedship. But we had no idea that you were in league with Moses until the plagues began.”

A single thin furrow appeared on Haviland Tuf’s massive bone-white brow, and then was gone again. “I begin to grasp your complaint,” he said. He rose, a slow ponderous movement that was almost tidal, and stood towering above Jaime Kreen. “I will credit you with fifteen standards.”

Kreen made a rude noise. “Only three standards, for all that. Tuf, you—”

“Twenty standards, then, if only to quiet you and restore some tranquility to the Ark. I have a beneficient nature. Your debt is now three hundred eighty standards. I shall ask you one further question, and give you an opportunity to reduce it to three hundred seventy-seven.”

“Ask.”

“What are the coordinates for your world, Charity?”

Charity was not so terribly far from K’theddion, as interstellar distances go, and the voyage between took but three standard weeks. For Jaime Kreen, they were busy weeks. While the Ark silently ate up the light years, Kreen worked. Centuries of dust had accumulated in some of the most desolate corridors. Haviland Tuf gave Kreen a broom and told him to clean it out.

Kreen begged off, citing his broken arms as a more-than-ample excuse. Haviland Tuf then sedated him, and confined him within the Ark ’s chronowarp tank, where the same great energies that warped the fabric of space could be used to do strange things to time. It was the last and greatest secret of the Earth Imperials, Tuf claimed, and had been lost virtually everywhere else. He used it to bring his clones to full maturity in a matter of days, and now he used it to age Jaime Kreen, and incidentally heal his broken arms in hours.

With his newly mended arms, Kreen set to sweeping at the rate of five standards an hour.

He swept kilometers of corridors, more rooms than he could count, all manner of empty cages where more than dust had accumulated. He swept until his arms ached, and when he did not have broom in hand, Haviland Tuf found other things for him to do. At mealtime Kreen played the butler, fetching Tuf pewter mugs of brown ale and platters heaped high with steamed vegetables. Tuf accepted them impassively in the overstuffed armchair where it was his custom to take his leisure and read. Kreen was forced to feed Dax, too, sometimes three or four times over, since the big tomcat was a fussy eater and Tuf insisted that his preferences be indulged. Only when Dax was satiated was Jaime Kreen allowed to see to his own meal.

Once Kreen was asked to make a minor repair that the Ark ’s machinery had not attended to, for some reason, but he bungled the job so badly that Haviland Tuf promptly relieved him of all future assignments of that kind. “The blame lies entirely with me, sir,” Tuf said when it happened. “I failed to remember that you are by training a bureaucrat, and thus good for virtually nothing.”

Despite all his labors, Jaime Kreen’s debt dwindled with excruciating slowness, and sometimes it did not dwindle at all. Kreen very quickly discovered that Haviland Tuf gave absolutely nothing away. For mending his broken arms, Tuf tacked a hundred-standard “medical services“ charge onto Kreen’s obligation. He also charged a standard a day for air, a tenth-standard for each liter of water, a half-standard for a mug of ale. Meals were fairly cheap; only two standards each if Kreen ate basic fare. But basic fare was an unpalatable fortified mash, so as often as not Kreen paid higher prices for the tasty vegetable stews that Tuf himself favored. He would have been willing to pay even more for meat, but Tuf refused to provide it. On the one occasion that he asked Tuf to clone a steak for him, the trader simply stared and said, “We do not eat animal flesh here,” then went on his way as unperturbed as ever.

During his first day on the Ark , Jaime Kreen asked Haviland Tuf where the toilet could be found. Tuf charged him three standards for the answer, and an additional tenth-standard for the use of the facility.

From time to time, Kreen thought about murder. But even in his most homicidal moments, when he was drunk as a dog, the idea never seemed quite feasible. Dax was always about when Tuf was, prowling down the corridors by the giant’s side or riding serenely in his arms, and Kreen was certain that his host had other allies as well. He had glimpsed them on his travels around the ship—dark winged shapes that wheeled above his head in the more cavernous chambers, furtive shadows that scrambled away between the machines when surprised. He never saw them clearly, any of them, but he was somehow certain that he would see them all too well indeed were he to assault Haviland Tuf.

Instead, hoping to reduce his debt a bit faster, he gambled.

That was not perhaps the wisest course of action, but Jaime Kreen had a bit of a weakness for gambling. So each night they consumed hours playing a ridiculous game that Tuf enjoyed, shaking dice and moving counters around an imaginary star cluster, buying and selling and trading planets, building cities and arcologies and charging other star travelers all manner of landing fees and taxes. Unfortunately for Kreen, Tuf was much better at the game than he was, and usually ended up winning back a fair portion of the wages he had paid Kreen during the day.

Away from the gaming table, Haviland Tuf seldom spoke to Kreen at all except to set him tasks and haggle about payments back and forth. Whatever intentions he had toward Charity, he certainly did not volunteer them, and Kreen did not intend to ask, since every question added three standards onto his debt. Nor did Tuf ask any questions that might have tipped his hand. He simply continued in his solitary habits, worked alone in the various cloning rooms and laboratories of the Ark , read dusty ancient books in languages that Kreen could not comprehend, and held long conversations with Dax. Thus life went on, until the day they entered orbit around Charity, and Haviland Tuf summoned Kreen to the communications room.

The communications room was long and narrow, its walls lined with dark telescreens and softly shining consoles. Haviland Tuf was seated before one of the blackened screens when Kreen entered, with Dax on his knee. He swiveled at the sound of the door panel sliding shut. “I have attempted to open channels of communication with the City of Hope,” he said. “Observe.” He touched a playback button on his console.

As Jaime Kreen slid into an empty seat, light flared on the viewscreen in front of Tuf, and coalesced into the face of Moses, a man in late middle age, with features that were regular and almost handsome, thinning gray-brown hair, and deceptively gentle hazel eyes. “Move off, starship,” the recorded voice of the Altruistic leader said. His tones were deep and mellow, even if his words were harsh. “Port Faith is closed, and Charity is under new government. The people of this world wish no traffic with sinners, and have no need of the luxuries you bring. Leave us in peace.” He raised his hand in a gesture that might have meant “Blessings” and might have meant “Halt,” and then the screen went blank.