Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds

  —No, you don’t see. Forgive me, you Terrans are very simpleminded people, for all your marvelous Otis elevators and starships (this does not embarrass me to say because it is meant to help you understand yourself; if you were !tang you would have to pay for it). You see, there are three mercantile classes. Things and services may be of no worth, of measurable worth, or of infinite worth. Land has never been classified before, and it may belong in any of the categories.

  —But Uncle! The Lafitte and I have offered to buy the land. Surely that eliminates the first class.

  —O you poor Terran. I would hate to see you try to buy a fish. You must think of all the implications.

  —I die. I, uh, have a terrible fever in my head and it gets hotter and hotter until my head is a fire, a forge, a star. I set the world on fire and everybody dies. O the embarrassment. What implications?

  —Here is the simplest. If the land has finite value, when at best all it does is keep things from falling all the way down, how much is air worth? Air is necessary for life, and it makes fires burn. If you pay for land do you think we should let you have air for free?

  —An interesting point, I said, thinking fast and !tangly. —But you have answered it yourself. Since air is necessary for life, it is of infinite value, and not even one breath can be paid for with all the riches of the universe.

  —O poor one, how can you have gotten through life without losing your feet? Air would be of infinite worth thus only if life were of infinite worth, and even so little as I know of your rich and glorious history proves conclusively that you place very little value on life. Other people’s lives, at any rate. Sad to say, our own history contains a similarly bonehungry period.

  —Neither are we that way now, Uncle.

  —I die. My brain turns to maggots…

  I talked with Uncle for an hour or so but got nothing out of it save a sore soft palate. When I got back to the hotel there was a message from Peter Lafitte, asking whether I would like to join him at Antoine’s for dinner. No, I would not like to, but under the circumstances it seemed prudent. I had to rent a formal tunic from the bellbot.

  Antoine’s has all the joie de vivre of a frozen halibut, which puts it on a par with every other French restaurant off Earth. We started with an artichoke vinaigrette that should have been left to rot in the hydroponics tank. Then a filet of “beef” from some local animal that I doubt was even warm-blooded. All this served by a waiter who was a Canadian with a fake Parisian accent.

  But we also had a bottle of phony Pouilly-Fuissé followed by a bottle of ersatz Burgundy followed by a bottle of synthetic Château-d’Yquem. Then they cleared the table and set a bottle of brandy between us, and the real duel began. Short duel, it turned out.

  “So how long is your vacation going to last?” I made a gesture that was admirably economical. “Not long at these prices.”

  “Well, there’s always Slim Joan’s.” He poured himself a little brandy and me a lot. “How about yourself?”

  “Ran into a snag,” I said. “Have to wait until I hear from Earth.”

  “They’re not easy to work with, are they?”

  “Terrans? I’m one myself.”

  “The !tang, I mean.” He stared into his glass and swirled the liquor. “Terrans as well, though. Could I set to you a hypothetical proposition?”

  “My favorite kind,” I said. The brandy stung my throat.

  “Suppose you were a peaceable sort of fellow.”

  “I am.” Slightly fuzzy, but peaceable.

  “And you were on a planet to make some agreement with the natives.”

  I nodded seriously.

  “Billions of bux involved. Trillions.”

  “That would really be something,” I said.

  “Yeah. Now further suppose that there’s another Terran on this planet who, uh, is seeking to make the same sort of agreement.”

  “Must happen all the time.”

  “For trillions, Dick? Trillions?”

  “Hyp’thetical trillions.” Bad brandy, but strong.

  “Now the people who are employing you are ab-solute-ly ruthless.”

  “Ma!ryso’ta,” I said, the !tang word for “bonehungry.” Close to it, anyhow.

  “That’s right.” He was starting to blur. More wine than I’d thought. “Stop at nothing. Now how would you go about warning the other Terran?”

  My fingers were icy cold and the sensation was crawling toward my elbows. My chin slipped off my hand and my head was so heavy I could hardly hold it up. I stared at the two fuzzy images across the table. “Peter.” The words came out slowly, and then not at all: “You aren’t drinking…”

  “Terrible brandy, isn’t it.” My vision went away, although it felt as if my eyes were still open. I heard my chin hit the table.

  “Waiter?” I heard the man come over and make sympathetic noises. “My friend has had a little too much to drink. Would you help me get him to the bellbot?” I couldn’t even feel them pick me up. “I’ll take this brandy. He might want some in the morning.” Jolly.

  I finally lapsed into unconsciousness while we were waiting for the elevator, the bellbot lecturing me about temperance.

  I woke up the next afternoon on the cold tile floor of my suite’s bathroom. I felt like I had been taken apart by an expert surgeon and reassembled by an amateur mechanic. I looked at the tile for a long time. Then I sat for a while and studied the interesting blotches of color floating between my eyes and my brain. When I thought I could survive it, I stood up and took four Hangaways.

  I sat and started counting. Hangaways hit you like a pile driver. At eighty the adrenaline shock came. Tunnel vision and millions of tiny needles being pushed out through your skin. Rivers of sweat. Cathedral bells tolling, your head the clapper. Then the dry heaves and it was over.

  I staggered to the phone and ordered some clear soup and a couple of cold beers. Then I stood in the shower and contemplated suicide. By the time the soup came I was contemplating homicide.

  The soup stayed down and by the second beer I was feeling almost human. Neanderthal, anyhow. I made some inquiries. Lafitte had checked out. No shuttle had left, so he was either still on the planet or he had his own ship, which was possible if he was working for the outfit I suspected he was working for. I invoked the holy name of Hartford, trying to find out to whom his expenses had been billed. Cash.

  I tried to order my thoughts. If I reported Lafitte’s action to the Guild he would be disbarred. Either he didn’t care, because They were paying him enough to retire in luxury—for which I knew he had a taste—or he actually thought I was not going to get off the planet alive. I discarded the dramatic second notion. Last night he could have more easily killed me than warned me. Or had he actually tried to kill me, the talk just being insurance in case I didn’t ingest a fatal dose? I had no idea what the poison could have been. That sort of knowledge isn’t relevant to my line of work.

  I suppose the thoroughly rational thing would have been to sit tight and let him have the deal. The fortunes of Starlodge were infinitely less important to me than my skin. He could probably offer more than I, anyhow.

  The phone chimed. I thumbed the vision button and a tiny haystack materialized over the end table.

  —Greetings. How is the weather?

  —Indoors, it’s fine. Are you Uncle?

  —Not now. Inside the Council Building I am Uncle.

  —I see. Can I perform some worthless service for you?

  —For yourself, perhaps.

  —Pray continue.

  —Our Council is meeting with the Lafitte this evening, with the hope of resolving this question about the mercantile nature of land. I would be embarrassed if you did not come too. The meeting will be at *ala’ang in the Council Building.

  —I would not cause you embarrassment. But could it possibly be postponed?

  He exposed his arms. —We are meeting.

  He disappeared and I spent a few minutes translating *ala’ang into human tim
e. The !tang divide their day into a complicated series of varying time intervals depending on the position of the suns and state of appetite and estrous condition. Came to a little before ten o’clock, plenty of time.

  I could report Lafitte, and probably should, but decided I’d be safer not doing so, retaining the threat of exposure for use as a weapon. I wrote a brief description of the situation—and felt a twinge of fear on writing the word “Syndicate”—and sealed it in an envelope. I wrote the address of the Hartford Translators’ Guild across the seal and bounced up to the courier’s office.

  Estelle Dorring stared at me when I walked into the office. “Ricardo! You look like a corpse warmed over.”

  “Rough night,” I said. “Touch of food poisoning.”

  “I never eat that Tang stuff.”

  “Good policy.” I set the envelope in front of her. “I’m not sure whether to send this or not. If I don’t come get it before the next shuttle, take it to Armpit and give it to the next Earth courier.”

  She nodded slowly and read the address. “Why so mysterious?”

  “Just a matter of Guild ethics. I wanted to write it down while it was still fresh. Uh…” I’d never seen a truly penetrating stare before. “But I might have more information tonight that would invalidate it.”

  “If you say so, Ricardo.” She slipped the envelope into a drawer. I backed out, mumbling something inane.

  Down to Slim Joan’s for a sandwich of stir-fried vegetables in Syrian bread. Slightly rancid and too much curry, but I didn’t dare go to the Council meeting on an empty stomach; !tang sonar would scan it and they would make a symbolic offer of bread, which couldn’t be refused. Estelle was partly right about “Tang” food: one bite of the bread contained enough mescaline to make you see interesting things for hours. I’d had enough of that for a while.

  I toyed with the idea of taking a weapon. There was a rental service in the pharmacy, to accommodate the occasional sporting type, and I could pick up a laser or a tranquilizer there. But there would be no way to conceal it from the !tang sonar. Besides, Lafitte wasn’t the kind of person who would employ direct violence.

  But if it actually were the Syndicate behind Lafitte, they might well have sent more than one person here; they certainly could afford it. A hitter. But then why would Lafitte set up the elaborate poisoning scene? Why not simply arrange an accident?

  My feet were taking me toward the pharmacy. Wait. Be realistic. You haven’t fired a gun in twenty years. Even then, you couldn’t hit the ground with a rock. If it came to a burnout, you’d be the one who got crisped. Better to leave their options open.

  I decided to compromise. There was a large clasp knife in my bag; that would at least help me psychologically. I went back up to my room.

  I thumbed the lock and realized that the cube I’d heard playing was my own. The door slid open and there was Lafitte, lounging on my sofa, watching an old movie.

  “Dick. You’re looking well.”

  “How the hell did you get in here?”

  He held up his thumb and stripped a piece of plastic off the fleshy part. “We have our resources.” He sat up straight. “I hear you’re taking a flyer out to Pa’an!al. Shall we divide the cost?”

  There was a bottle of wine in a bucket of ice at his feet. I got a glass out of the bathroom and helped myself. “I suppose you charged this to my room.” I turned off the cube.

  He shrugged. “You poked me for dinner last night, mon frère. Passing out like that.”

  I raised the glass to my lips, flinched, and set it down untouched. “Speaking of resources, what was in that brandy? And who are these resourceful friends?”

  “The wine’s all right. You seemed agitated; I gave you a calmative.”

  “A horse calmative! Is it the Syndicate?”

  He waved that away. “The Syndicate’s a myth. You—”

  “Don’t take me for an idiot. I’ve been doing this for almost as long as you have.” Every ten years or so there was a fresh debunking. But the money and bodies kept piling up.

  “You have indeed.” He concentrated on picking at a hangnail. “How much is Starlodge willing to pay?”

  I tried not to react. “How much is the Syndicate?”

  “If the Syndicate existed,” he said carefully, “and if it were they who had retained me, don’t you think I would try to use that fact to frighten you away?”

  “Maybe not directly…last night, you said ‘desperate men.’”

  “I was drunk.” No, not Peter Rabbit, not on a couple of bottles of wine. I just looked at him. “All right,” he said, “I was told to use any measures short of violence—”

  “Poisoning isn’t violence?”

  “Tranquilizing, not poisoning. You couldn’t have died.” He poured himself some wine. “Top yours off?”

  “I’ve become a solitary drinker.”

  He poured the contents of my glass into his. “I might be able to save you some trouble, if you’ll only tell me what terms—”

  “A case of Jack Daniels and all they can eat at Slim Joan’s.”

  “That might do it,” he said unsmilingly, “but I can offer fifteen hundred shares of Hartford.”

  That was $150 million, half again what I’d been authorized. “Just paper to them.”

  “Or a million cases of booze, if that’s the way they want it.” He checked his watch. “Isn’t our flyer waiting?”

  I supposed it would be best to have him along, to keep an eye on him. “The one who closes the deal pays for the trip?”

  “All right.”

  On the hour-long flyer ride I considered various permutations of what I could offer. My memory had been jammed with the wholesale prices of various kinds of machinery, booze, candy, and so forth, along with their mass and volume, so I could add in the shipping costs from Earth to Armpit to Morocho III. Lafitte surely had similar knowledge; I could only hope that his figure of 1500 shares was a bluff.

  (I had good incentive to bargain well. Starlodge would give me a bonus of up to 10 percent of the difference between a thousand shares and whatever the settlement came to. If I brought it in at 900, I’d be a millionaire.)

  We were turning inland; the walls of the city made a pink rectangle against the towering jungle. I tapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Can you land inside the city?”

  “Not unless you want to jump from the top of a building. I can set you on the wall, though.” I nodded.

  “Can’t take the climb, Dick? Getting old?”

  “No need to waste steps.” The flyer was a little wider than the wall, and it teetered as we stepped out. I tried to look just at my feet.

  “Beautiful from up here,” Lafitte said. “Look at that sunset.” Half the large sun’s disk was visible on the jungle horizon, a deeper red than Earth’s sun ever shone. The bloody light stained the surf behind us purple. It was already dark in the city below; the smell of rancid fish oil burning drifted up to us.

  Lafitte managed to get the inside lane of the staircase. I tried to keep my eyes on him and the wall as we negotiated the high steps.

  “Believe me,” he said (a phrase guaranteed to inspire trust), “it would make both our jobs easier if I could tell you who I’m representing. But I really am sworn to secrecy.”

  An oblique threat deserves an oblique answer. “You know I can put you in deep trouble with the Standards Committee. Poisoning a Guild brother.”

  “Your word against mine. And the bellbot’s, the headwaiter’s, the wine steward’s…you did have quite a bit to drink.”

  “A couple of bottles of wine won’t knock me out.”

  “Your capacity is well known. I don’t think you want a hearing investigating it, though, not at your age. Two years till retirement?”

  “Twenty months.”

  “I was rounding off,” he said. “Yes, I did check. I wondered whether you might be in the same position as I am. My retirement’s less than two months away; this is my last big-money job. So you must understand
my enthusiasm.”

  I didn’t answer. He wasn’t called Rabbit for lack of “enthusiasm.”

  As we neared the bottom, he said, “Suppose you weren’t to oppose me too vigorously. Suppose I could bring in the contract at a good deal less than—”

  “Don’t be insulting.”

  In the dim light from the torches sputtering below, I couldn’t read his expression. “Ten percent of my commission wouldn’t be insulting.”

  I stopped short; he climbed down another step. “I can’t believe even you—”

  “Verdad. Just joking.” He laughed unconvincingly. “Everyone knows how starchy you are, Dick. I know better than most.” I’d fined him several times during the years I was head of the Standards Committee.

  We walked automatically through the maze of streets, our guides evidently having taken identical routes. Both of us had eidetic memories, of course, that being a minimum prerequisite for the job of interpreter. I was thinking furiously. If I couldn’t out-bargain the Rabbit I’d have to somehow finesse him. Was there anything I knew about the !tang value system that he didn’t? Assuming that this council would decide that land was something that could be bought and sold.

  I did have a couple of interesting proposals in my portfolio, that I’d written up during the two-week trip from Earth. I wondered whether Lafitte had seen them. The lock didn’t appear to have been tampered with, and it was the old-fashioned magnetic key type. You can pick it but it won’t close afterward.

  We turned a corner and there was the Council Building at the end of the street, impressive in the flickering light, its upper reaches lost in darkness. Lafitte put his hand on my arm, stopping. “I’ve got a proposition.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Hear me out, now; this is straight. I’m empowered to take you on as a limited partner.”

  “How generous. I don’t think Starlodge would like it.”

  “What I mean is Starlodge. You hold their power of attorney, don’t you?”

  “Unlimited, on this planet. But don’t waste your breath; we get an exclusive or nothing at all.” Actually, the possibility had never been discussed. They couldn’t have known I was going into a competitive bidding situation. If they had, they certainly wouldn’t have sent me here slow freight. For an extra fifty shares I could have gone first class and been here a week before Peter Rabbit could have sewn up the thing and been headed home before he got to Armpit.