Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

Hogram peered at the laden boat with three eyes, turning another on Fralk. “Very interesting, eldest of eldest,” he said at last. “You seem to have most of the answers we need.” Coming from Hogram, that was highest praise.

The runnerpest, of course, chose that exact moment to try running away instead of holding still. The boat overbalanced; water began pouring in. There was a fancy foreign word for what happened when something that had been floating abruptly ceased to do so. Fralk could not have thought of it to save his eyestalks. He stared in numb dismay as the runnerpest, all its appendages writhing frantically, went down through the water to the bottom of the stone bowl.

As befitted his years, Hogram kept his self-possession. He pulled the runnerpest out of the basin and set it on the floor. It scuttled off with the speed that had given its kind their name. Fralk watched it go, wondering if his hopes were fleeing with it.

“I presume our males will be instructed not to leap over the walls of their boats while crossing Ervis Gorge,” Hogram said drily.

“What? Yes, clanfather. Certainly, clanfather!” Fralk realized he was babbling and did not care. The domain master’s sarcasm was a small enough price to pay for a botched demonstration; Hogram could have canceled the whole boatbuilding effort or put another male in charge. In his relief, Fralk missed something Hogram had said. He contritely widened himself. “I’m sorry?”

“I was wondering, eldest of eldest, if the humans know anything about these boats. They’re such hot creatures that tricks with water should come as naturally to them as those with ice do to us.”

“They have said one or two things, clanfather,” Fralk answered cautiously, “but as I am still only a budling in such matters myself, I am not certain how much help they can be. I also have not shown them the fullness of my ignorance, lest they demand more for what they know.”

“Good enough,” Hogram said, and Fralk had to fight to keep from changing color in relief-he had dreaded that question and been sure Hogram would ask it. The domain master went on. “I was wise, it seems, to set you over both the building of the boats and dealing with the humans, if the two enterprises have the links they appear to.”

“No male of your clan has ever doubted your wisdom,” Fralk said. That was true enough and politer than saying that no male- himself very much included-expected Hogram to go so much as a fingerclaw’s width against his own advantage.

“Keep at it, then, eldest of eldest,” the domain master said. “Be sure I shall be watching with six eyes what you accomplish.”

“The notice you grant me is more than I deserve.” Fralkwidened himself. He had already suspected that some of the males who helped build boats also passed word on to Hogram. Had he been domain master, he would have kept an eyestalk or two on that project himself. As he had thought a moment before, Hogram was too clever not to protect his interest so.

After a few more polite exchanges, Fralk took his leave. A little while later, he unrolled a hide in front of one of the leading town merchants. Small red rectangles, each decorated with a white cross, spilled out.

“And what are these?” asked the trader, whose name was Cutur.

“Something new from the humans,” Fralk answered.

“Look-an eighteen of tools in one-a knifeblade, a rasper, an awl…” He used a fingerclaw to pull each tiny claw out of the case as he named it. “And they are all of this hard shiny stone the humans use, see, not of ice, so they’re good winter and summer, but so small and light that no one will mind using them.”

“Interesting-some, anyway.” Cutur never sounded more bored than at the start of a dicker.

This time, though, Fralk had the edge. He had gotten the humans to promise not to give out the little redcased tools through any other male. A similar promise from him to Cutur made the price the merchant paid hefty enough to suit him.

Of course, a good part of that price would go back to the humans, in exchange for the little cylinders that kept some of their gadgets alive. Hogram would get a fair chunk himself, as was the domain master’s right. Even Fralk, though, had little about which to complain over what was left. Before long, he thought, he would be the richest male who was not a domain master throughout all the Skarmer lands.

The humans, taken as a group, would not be much poorer, although Fralk was convinced he was cheating them outrageously. Their trade goods were not only unlike any that had ever come into the Skarmer domains but did things Fralk had never imagined tools doing. They could have demanded eighteen times as much for them as they got.

But as long as they stayed satisfied with perfectly ordinary local products in exchange for their unique ones, Fralk was not about to argue with them. No one held a knife to their eyestalks to make them deal as they did. And no one, Fralk thought, had to hold a knife to his eyestalks to make him turn a profit. None of the males sprung from Hogram’s buds was that kind of fool.

Irv was at the control board when the ship-to-ship light went on. He picked up the mike. “Athena here, Levitt speaking,” he said in fairly good Russian. “Go ahead, Tsiolkovsky.”

“Thank you so much, Irving Samuelovich. Colonel Tolmasov here. Be so good as to fetch Brigadier Bragg, if you please. What I have to say must be discussed at the command level.”

“Hold, please.” Frowning a little, Levitt cut the mike. Tolmasov’s English always sounded starchy, but this was worse than usual. Irv hit the intercom switch; Bragg, he knew, was in his cabin, going over computer printouts. When the pilot answered, Levitt said, “Tolmasov’s calling-says he won’t talk with anyone but you. Something’s hit the fan, sounds like.”

“Doesn’t it just?” As usual, Bragg sounded calm, unhurried. Irv was reasonably sure that behind his cool facade he had the same worries and fears as any other man, but if so, he did a hell of a job of hiding them. “Be right there,” Bragg finished. “Out.”

Levitt opened the channel to Tsiolkovsky again. Tolmasov replied at once. “Sergei Konstantinovich, here is my commander,” the anthropologist said as Bragg came in and sat down beside him.

“What do you have to say to me that you cannot tell my crew?” the pilot demanded. The blunt question sounded even ruder in Russian than it would have in English.

“Brigadier Bragg, I am calling to convey to you a formal protest over your concealment of the true landing site of the Viking, and over your cynical exploitation of this concealed knowledge to contact the natives who encountered that spacecraft after it touched down.”

“Protest all you like, Sergei Konstantinovich,” Bragg said. “We got new landing coordinates just a little before we set down-we had to recompute our burn to get down where the boys in Houston told us to.”

“The new coordinates were contained in the coded message you received?”

“You know better than to expect an answer to a question like that.”

“Perhaps I do.” Tolmasov’s chuckle fell into place as if it had been included in stage directions. He went on reprovingly. “The cultured thing, Brigadier Bragg, would have been to share your new information with us. Your failure to do so naturally makes us doubt your cooperative spirit.”

“The cultured thing, Sergei Konstantinovich, would have been to tell us the Minervans on your side of Jotun Canyon were thinking about mounting an invasion of this side.” Bragg’s voice went hard. “Since you didn’t bother doing that, I don’t see how you have any cause for complaint.” Silence stretched.

“The natives here are not under our control, Brigadier Bragg,” Tolmasov said finally. “Whatever they intend, they had it in mind long before our arrival.”