Charles Sheffield - Transcendence

“Because you don’t have enough credit to buy them. For instance, you can’t have any of the ones that you’re looking at right now. Can you give me a summary of your requirements?”

“Range,” J’merlia said. “Weapons. Enough accommodation for us and at least four humans, but also plenty of interior cargo space.”

“What kind of cargo?”

“Living cargo. We might need room to carry a group of Zardalu.”

“I see.” The manager gave him a tight-lipped smile. Zardalu. Why not say dinosaurs and have done with it? If a customer did not want to admit what they would be carrying in the ship — and many didn’t — it was better to say so outright. She didn’t care what the ships were used for after they were sold, but she hated it when people tried to play games with her.

Well, she had her own games.

“All right, now I know what you need we can look at a few. How about this? It’s in your price range.”

The vessel she called onto the 3-D display was a stunted blue cylinder with three stalklike landing braces. It had a drunken and lopsided look, as though it was hung over after some major party. “Lots of power. Great on-board computer — Karlan emotional circuits and all. What do you think?”

She could not read the expressions of the aliens, but their chitters and whistles sounded subdued.

“I’m not sure I like the idea of an emotional on-board computer,” J’merlia said at last. “How big is it inside?”

“Ah. Good point. You could fit half-a-dozen people in easily enough, but it’s low on cargo space. It wouldn’t do for you. But this one” — she switched the display — “has all the interior space you’ll ever need. And power to spare.”

The vessel that appeared on the screen was mostly open space, like a widespread bunch of rotting grapes loosely connected to each other by frayed lengths of string.

“Of course, it only looks saggy like this when the drive is off and it’s docked,” the manager added after a long silence. “When it’s in flight there’s electromagnetic coupling of the components, and it all tightens up.”

“Weapons?” Kallik asked feebly.

“Weapons!” The manager snapped her fingers. “Good point. That’s this ship’s one weak spot. It has weapons, but they’re in a self-contained pod, so you have to switch the drive right off before you can get to them and activate them. Not too convenient.

“All right, let me try again. I know I’ve got just what you need, I just have to find it. Interior space, good power and range, good weapons system…” She bent for a few seconds over her catalog, entering search parameters. “I knew it!” She looked up, smiling. “I’m a dummy. I forgot all about the Erebus . A supership! Just what you want! Look at this!”

She threw the hologram of a vast, black-hulled craft onto the 3-D display. Its exterior was a rough ovoid, the dark outer surface disfigured by gleaming studs and warts and irregular cavities.

“More than big enough, power to spare — and see those weapons systems!”

“How big is it?” J’merlia asked.

“The Erebus is four hundred meters long, three hundred and twenty wide. There’s accommodation for hundreds of passengers — thousands if you want to convert some of the cargo space — and you could fit most interstellar vessels easily inside the primary hold. You want weapons? See those surface nodules — every one of them is a self-contained facility powerful enough to vaporize a decent-sized asteroid. You want to talk range, and power? There’s enough in this ship’s drive to take you ten times round the spiral arm!”

The display was moving in through one of the ports and showing the interior appointments of the ship. A human figure led the way to provide an idea of scale. Every fixture was substantial and solid, and the drive drew a whistle of approval from Kallik.

“Do we really have enough credit to purchase this?” she asked after they had examined the vast interior cargo volume, a spherical open space two hundred and fifty meters across.

“Just enough.” The manager pushed the sales entry pad across to J’merlia. “Right here, where I’ve marked it, and then at the bottom. And once you signed, I’ll throw in a special option that ends today. The ship will be scrubbed clean for you, inside and out. I definitely recommend that you add this option — it’s been a little while since the Erebus was in regular use.”

Neither J’merlia nor Kallik possessed external ears, so nothing was burning as they completed their purchase of the Erebus and gloated over its size and capabilities. But back in Delbruck they were the focus of an increasingly loud argument.

“I can’t believe it. You let Kallik and J’merlia go off to buy a ship — just the two of them, with no help from anyone?” Louis Nenda was hunched over a chair back, glowering at Julian Graves, while Atvar H’sial and E.C. Tally silently looked on.

“I did.” Graves nodded. “For I recognize what you, in your attempts to impose slavery on J’merlia and Kallik, are all too willing to forget: these are mature, adult forms of highly intelligent species. It would be quite wrong to treat them like children. Give them responsibility, and they will respond to it.”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

“But you surely admit that they are highly intelligent.”

“Sure. What’s that got to do with it? Smart, and adults, but until a few months ago they had somebody else making all their decisions for them. They’re missin’ experience . If you need somebody to calculate an orbit, or reduce a set of observations, I’d trust Kallik over anyone in the spiral arm. But when it comes to negotiating , they’re like babies. You should have gone with ’em. They have no more idea how to cut a deal without gettin’ gypped than E.C. Tally here, or than — oh, my Lord.”

Nenda had seen the flicker of discomfort cross Julian Graves’s scarred face.

“No more idea than you do.” Nenda slapped the back of the chair in his frustration. “Come on, Graves, admit it. You never had to bargain for anything in your whole life — councilors get whatever they need, handed to them on a plate.”

Graves squirmed in his seat. “It is true that my duties seldom called for — purchases of any kind, or even for discussion of material needs. But if you think that J’merlia and Kallik may be at a disadvantage—”

“Disadvantage? Get a good sales type up there, they’ll be eaten alive. Can you call ’em — let me talk before they go too far?”

“If you believe that you can, by conversation with Kallik—”

“I’m not gonna get into the slavery bit, I promise. I’ll keep it to the negotiation, get in the middle of it if I can, that and nothing else.”

“I gave them no specific itinerary, but I may be able to reach them. Give me a few moments.” Graves hurried across to the communications complex on the other side of the room. After a few moments, E.C. Tally trailed after him.

“May I speak?” he whispered as Graves set to work at the terminal. “I do not deny, Councilor, that Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial sometimes favor deceit. But recall our experiences on Serenity — it was precisely those elements of deceit that permitted us to overcome the Zardalu. And soon we will be facing Zardalu again .”

“What is your point?” Graves was only half listening. In his search for J’merlia and Kallik he was being bounced randomly from one signal center to another, first on Downside, then on Upside.

“That they may again be of value. Unlike most others in the spiral arm, Nenda and Atvar H’sial are fully convinced of the existence of the Zardalu. They know as much as anyone of Zardalu behavior patterns — more, perhaps, after their interaction with the immature form. They are also widely traveled, and at home in scores of planetary environments. You yourself have said that you expect our ship may have to explore fifty alien worlds, before we locate the hiding place of the Zardalu. Finally, we know that Louis Nenda and Atvar H’sial are brave and resourceful. Would it not therefore be logical to cease to argue with them, and instead recruit them to our cause ?”