George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

“So he has won,” Jaime Kreen said in a tired voice.

“This would appear to be the case,” said Haviland Tuf. He scratched Dax behind the ear and began to stroke him. “Your debt to me presently stands at two-hundred and eighty-four standards, sir.”

“Yes,” Kreen said suspiciously. “What of it?”

“I wish you to undertake a mission for me. You will descend to the surface of Charity in secrecy, locate the former leaders of your council of administrators, and bring them here for a consultation. In return, I will credit you with fifty standards toward your outstanding debt.”

Jaime Kreen laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tuf. The sum is absurdly small for such a perilous mission. And I wouldn’t do it even if you were to make me a fair offer, which I’m sure that you would not. Something like canceling out my entire debt, and paying me some two hundred standards besides.”

Haviland Tuf stroked Dax. “This man Jaime Kreen takes us for absolute fools,” he said to the cat. “Next I suspect he will also ask for the Ark itself, and perhaps title to a small planet or two. He has no sense of proportion.” Dax gave a small purr that might or might not have meant something. Tuf looked up again at Jaime Kreen. “I am in an uncommonly generous mood, and I may allow you to take advantage of me in this single instance. One hundred standards, sir. It is twice what this small task is worth.”

“Bah,” Kreen replied. “Dax is telling you what I think of your offer, I’m sure. This scheme of yours is nonsense! I have no idea whether the council members are alive or dead, to be found in the City of Hope or elsewhere, free or imprisoned. I can hardly expect them to cooperate with me, either—not when I come bearing a summons from you, who we know to be an ally of Moses. And if Moses captures me, I will spend the rest of my life grubbing for turnips. Likely as not, I will be captured. Where do you intend me to land? Moses may have a recording set up to answer approaching starships, but he will certainly have posted guards around Port Faith to keep it closed. Think of the risks, Tuf! I couldn’t possibly attempt this for anything less than the cancellation of my entire debt! All of it! Not a single standard less, you hear!” He crossed his arms stubbornly against his chest. “Tell him, Dax. You knew how adamant I am.”

Haviland Tuf’s bone-white features remained impassive, but a small sigh escaped his lips. “You are truly a cruel man, sir. You make me rue the day when I carelessly told you that Dax was more than an ordinary feline. You deprive an old man of his one useful bargaining tool, and swindle him mercilessly with this inflexible stubborn attitude. Yet I have no choice but to give in. Two hundred eighty-four standards, then. It is established.”

Jaime Kreen grinned. “At last you’re being sensible. Good. I’ll take the Griffin. ”

“Sir,” said Haviland Tuf. “You will not. You will take the trading ship you noticed on the shuttle deck, the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices , the ship wherein I began my own career many years ago.”

“That! Absolutely not, Tuf. That ship is in obvious disrepair. I am going to have to make a difficult landing in some wilderness area, and I insist on a craft capable of surviving a bit of rough treatment. The Griffin , or one of the other shuttles.”

“Dax,” said Haviland Tuf to the quiet tomcat, “I fear for us. We are shut up in this small place with a congenital idiot, a man with neither ethics nor courtesy nor comprehension. I must explain every obvious ramification of a task that was childishly simple to begin with.”

“What?”

“Sir,” said Haviland Tuf. “The Griffin is a shuttle. It is unique in its design, and it has no stardrive. Should you be caught landing in such a craft, even a person with less intellectual equipment than yourself might deduce that a larger ship such as the Ark remained above, since shuttles frequently need something to shuttle from, and seldom materialize from the vacuum of deep space. The Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices , in contrast, is a common model Avalon-made starship, complete with drive, albeit dysfunctional in this case. Do you understand the point, sir? Do you grasp the essential differences between the two craft?”

“Yes, Tuf. But since I don’t intend to be captured, the distinction is academic. Still, I’ll humor you. For an additional fifty standards above and beyond my debt, I will consent to use your Cornucopia. ”

Haviland Tuf said nothing.

Jaime Kreen fidgeted. “Dax is telling you that I’m going to give in if you wait, isn’t he? Well, I’m not. You can’t trick me that way any more, do you understand.” He crossed his arms more tightly than ever. “I am a rock. I am steel. I am adamantine in my resolve on this matter.”

Haviland Tuf stroked Dax, and said nothing.

“Wait all you like, Tuf,” said Kreen. “Just this once, I’m going to fool you. I can wait, too. We’ll wait together. And I’ll never give in. Never. Never. NEVER.”

When the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices returned from the surface of Charity a week and a half later, Jaime Kreen had three others with him, all former top administrators of the City of Hope. Rej Laithor was an elderly hatchet-faced woman with iron-gray hair who had formerly chaired the council. Since Moses had taken over, she had been undergoing retraining as a spinning-wheel operator. She was accompanied by a younger woman and a large man who looked as if he had once been very fat, although now his skin hung from his face in loose yellow folds.

Haviland Tuf received them in a conference room. He was seated at the head of the table when Kreen ushered the Charitans in, his hands folded neatly in front of him, and Dax curled up lazily on the polished metal.

“I am pleased that you could come,” he said as the administrators took seats. “You appear hostile, however, and I regret this. Let me begin by assuring you that I played no role whatsoever in your vicissitudes.”

Rej Laithor snorted. “I interrogated Kreen when he found me, Tuf, and he told me of your protestations of innocence. I believe them no more than he did. Our city and our way of life were destroyed by ecological warfare, by the plagues that this Moses let loose on us. Our computers tell us that only you and this ship are capable of waging such warfare.”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. “I might suggest that you consider reprogramming your computers, if they frequently make such errors.”

“We have no computers now,” the formerly fat man said dolefully. “I was chief of programming, however, and I resent the inference that I was less than capable.”

“You are less than capable, Rikken, or you never would have let those lice infest the system,” Rej Laithor said. “That makes Tuf not one whit less guilty, however. They were his lice.”

“I do not have a monopoly on lice,” Haviland Tuf said simply. Then he raised a hand. “We should desist from this squabbling. It takes us nowhere. Let us, instead, discuss the sad history and plight of the City of Hope, and of Moses and the plagues. Perhaps you are familiar with the original Moses, the Old Earth Moses whom your own antagonist patterns himself after. This elder Moses had no seedship, no formal tools for biowar. He did, however, have a god, who proved to be equally effective. His people were being held in captivity. To free them, he sent ten plagues against his enemies. Did your Moses follow this selfsame pattern?”

“Don’t answer him for free,” Jaime Kreen said, from where he lounged against the door.

Rej Laithor glanced at him as if he were insane. “We looked up the original Moses story,” she said when she turned back to Tuf. “Once the plagues started coming, we wanted to know what to expect. Moses used the same plagues as the original, but he varied the order a bit. And we only got six of them, at which point the council gave in to the Altruistic demands, closed Port Faith, and evacuated the City of Hope.” She held up her hands. “Look at them—look at those blisters, look at that callus. He has us all scattered through these rotting Altruistic villages, living like primitives. Hungry, too. He’s mad.”