Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

“Yes, by all means check with Bragg,” Lopatin said. “But perhaps you also really should ask Moscow about this question. Then there can be no room for misunderstanding. This is only a suggestion, of course.”

But it wasn’t only a suggestion, as Tolmasov knew. That was what he got for leaving himself open to the KGB man. “Let me talk with Bragg first,” the pilot said, dickering now. “If I have his clear assurance that he is not giving guns to the locals, a decision from Moscow is unnecessary. Otherwise-”

“Good enough,” Lopatin said, to Tolmasov’s surprise and relief. “Call now, why don’t you? Even I will admit, Sergei Konstantinovich, that our colleagues back on Earth are not always as timely as they might be. The longer the opportunity we give them, the better.”

He said that with the air of a man making a great concession, perhaps so he could act as if he were repaying Tolmasov for his slip of a few minutes before. But the pilot, like most men on the frontier, already had a low opinion of the alleged experts back home. Not only were they slow in making up their minds, they were sadly disconnected from the reality he was living. That scheme for peace talks between Hogram and the eastern chieftain, for instance… Tolmasov could have told them-did tell them-it was a waste of time. They had forced him to go ahead with it anyway and proven him right.

So who knew what Moscow would instruct now? They might well order him to let the Minervans have an AKT4. That would leave the whole expedition vulnerable in a way it had not been before. As a soldier, he hated the idea of making himself more vulnerable.

Well, odds were Bragg would bail him out, he thought as he went over to the radio. The American mission commander was an enemy, but never a stupid one. He had to have better sense than to go arming the natives. Tolmasov turned a dial to get the frequency he needed. “Soviet Minerva base calling Athena,” he said in English.

The answer came promptly enough, in Russian. “Athena here, Sergei Konstantinovich.” A woman’s voice, more heavily accented than his when speaking her language. “Pat Marquard here.”

“Hello, Patricia Grigorovna. I need to ask a question of Brigadier Bragg, if I may.”

“Wait, please,” she said. He did, but not long. Bragg came on the other end of the hookup.

“Hello, Sergei Konstantinovich. Not your usual time for a call. What’s up?”

The shrill American flavor he gave his words and the lazy way he drawled them out should have made him sound like a fool when he spoke Russian. Tolmasov wished they did. Unfortunately, he could not imagine Bragg sounding like a fool no matter what language he used.

Swallowing a sigh, the colonel got on with it. “I was, ah, wondering, Brigadier, whether you’ve traded any firearms to the Minervans on your side of Jotun Canyon.” Only the faint pop of static came from the circuit. “Brigadier Bragg?” Tolmasov said at last.

“I’m here,” Bragg answered at once. “Why do you want to know?” Hard suspicion filled his voice.

Because if you haven’t gone and done something idiotic, then there’s no chance I’ll have to, either, Tolmasov wanted to say. He could not, not with a Soviet tape recorder and an American one preserving his every word. “I was curious about how they’ve adapted to them,” he replied instead. “Not what the natives are used to at all, don’t you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Bragg said flatly. “I don’t believe you, either, Sergei Konstantinovich. You sound more like someone sniffing around to find out what his little friends will be up against if they manage to get across the canyon. And that, Comrade Colonel”-the contempt with which he loaded Tolmasov’s rank was stinging-”is exactly none of your damned business. Athena out.”

Tolmasov found himself staring in numb dismay at a silent microphone. He made himself look up from it and saw Oleg Lopatin aiming his best I-told-you-so smirk at him. “Moscow,” the KGB man said.

“Moscow,” Tolmasov echoed dully.

“You should have seen it, clanfather!” Fralk exulted. “The krong was nearly on me, but then the “rifle”-he pronounced the human word with care-”roared louder than half an eighteen of klongii and put holes in it. It turned on Sergei, but he made the rifle roar again and again, till the krong fell over, dead.”

“A krong, so close to town?” Hogram’s fingers opened and closed in distress. “I’ll send out some males, to make sure none of its mates can drop her buds anywhere near here. I thought we’d hunted them out long ago. I’m glad you weren’t hurt, eldest of eldest.”

Not an eighteenth so glad as I am, Fralk thought. But it was not like Hogram to miss the main point so completely. “Aye, send out the hunters, clanfather,” Fralk said, “but get one of those rifles for us, no matter what it costs. If it fills a krong full of holes, think what it would do to the Omalo.”

“Hmm. I suppose so, yes. The humans are careful with them, aren’t they? They never left one lying around so we could, ah, borrow it to see how it works. That always made me think the things were valuable;”

“Valuable?” The younger male was still so excited, he could hardly contain himself. “Clanfather, listen to me: Sergei said that if his own domain masters refused his permission, he could not yield one to us no matter what we paid for it.” “Did he?”

That piqued Hogram’s interest, Fralk thought. “He did. He also said the humans on the other side of Ervis Gorge may have these firearms for the Omalo.”

“Did he?” Now Hogram was roused all right, Fralk thought.

“And these humans-our humans-would refuse them to us?”

“No matter what we paid,” Fralk agreed.

“The humans take our goods, aye, but I have not seen them go wild over anything, nor use it as we use the tools and trinkets we get from them,” Hogram said. “That says to me they are what they claim, explorers seeing the kinds of things we have rather than merchants in the same sense as ourselves.”

Fralk had not worked that through for himself, but it made sense. Hogram’s gift for pointing an eyestalk toward such subtle points had helped lift his clan to the status it enjoyed among the Skarmer these days. “If they do not truly need anything we have, it weakens us,” Fralk remarked. “How can we make them reach out with the arm that is turned in the direction best for us?”

“They have only two arms apiece, but they turn them every which way,” Hogram said. “Were they not so strange in seeming, I would take them for spies. If I were to order them to stay in their own tent and their skyboat until they do as we desire, I think that might persuade them to obey. After all, eldest of eldest, what good are explorers who are not allowed to explore?”

“None.” Quite without calculation, Fralk widened himself before Hogram. The domain master’s gift for subterfuge had not diminished as his years grew long. It grew with them instead, until even creatures as weird as the humans held few mysteries for him. Fralk was used to believing his own machinations hidden from Hogram. Suddenly he suspected that what he had imagined to be a wall of solid earth was in fact but a thin pane of clear ice.

A motion of Hogram’s arms recalled the younger male to himself. “You said our humans will be talking with those on the other side of Ervis Gorge, and with their own domain masters?”

“Yes, clanfather.” Fralk slowly resumed his usual height. “That will take some time. Let’s give them, oh, half an eighteen of days. If after that time they still refuse to sell us one of these what-ever-they-call-thems, we will find out how they enjoy exploring the hot, muddy inside of that gaudy orange tent-the cursed thing reminds me of the color a presap mate takes on when it’s ripe for budding.”