"Some peoples have no interest in such expansion and control. The Athabascans, as you know, are quite content to remain within the sphere formed by their ten highly advanced worlds." Naras Sharaf's body shifted, the cilia gleaming with lubricating slime.
"At times I would prefer the Great Families to feel the same way, and humankind likewise. It would benefit both races enormously if the Board of Operators responsible for the destiny of the UTW would simply realize that their future lies with the benign and fraternal administrative talents the Nuel can provide, rather than their own fractious and highly erratic selves."
"Doubtless they feel the Nuel would benefit by the guidelines their computers can provide, judgments rendered by impartial machines with only the general welfare at stake."
"The machines impartial may be, but the wishes of their programmers are in question." The alien waved several tentacles. "However, I did not come here to discuss philosophy but commerce. We agree that our governments disagree. The result is this constant fighting which only widens the gap between our peoples. Wasteful of lives and material on both sides.
"My aim is to reduce that waste and bring us closer together."
"Still sounds like philosophy to me, not commerce."
"A tool, a tool," said Naras Sharaf impatiently.
"Sometimes war can be a useful tool."
"Death is never useful," said the Nuel. "Life is evergiving."
"I disagree with your statement on death."
The alien digested this. "You are strange as well as extraordinary. Some time I would enjoy debating the Pentacle with you. Let us to business now, however.
"What we want to acquire from you, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin, is not produce but information. Certain details involving the programming of your computers, for example. The commercial networks, which tie together and dominate various worlds and clusters of worlds. Information regarding the likes and dislikes of the inhabitants, for no two worlds are the same. Information on the individual boards of operators, the movements of ships and goods through UTW space, the attitudes of races like the Elmonites with special regard to how they might react to the Nuel way of government as opposed to that propagated by the UTW.
"This would not be a first for us. We have a number of 'employees,' human included, working for us in the UTW. This even though your formalized underworld refuses to deal with us."
"Like the young lady." Loo-Macklin turned in his chair and gestured toward the doorway.
"Yes, like the young female. A few strong-willed individuals who have managed to overcome their personal feelings in return for good pay. They are all of little importance, however. Minor functionaries at best." The Nuel leaned forward, tentacles curling wetly around the supportive bend of the horseshoe. Loo-Macklin had no way of knowing if the gesture signified anything other than a change of position for comfort.
"You, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin, are something different. You could provide us with a great deal of the information we wish to have, for you have that which is most important to any seeker-after-knowledge. You have Access."
"Why should I help you prepare for a major war against my own kind?"
"No war, not war at all." Naras Sharaf slumped back into the cupouch. "You misread my intentions completely. I am disappointed."
"Sorry."
"A nothing, no matter. We Nuel dislike armed combat. We much prefer to reach our desired goals through peaceful methodology whenever possible, and will go to great lengths to avoid physical combat."
"Such methodology to include subversion, propaganda, and the like?" asked Loo-Macklin.
"Efficient words." Naras Sharaf did not sound embarrassed by the confession. "You now grasp the situation. At this time you may, if you so feel inclined, launch into an angry diatribe against me and take your leave by stalking from this chamber. I will be not surprised."
Loo-Macklin steepled his fingers, stared across them at the alien. "I have no intention of doing anything of the sort." He waited quietly.
Tentacles fluttered and he interpreted the gesture as one expressing surprise, though it could as easily have been satisfaction or something unknowable.
"You will give our offer serious consideration?"
"As long as there is to be no war and I can satisfy myself that is the truth, yes. War is bad for business. Propaganda, whether for a people or a frozen food, is another matter entirely. The important thing is for the flow of commerce to remain inviolate."
"So it shall, so it shall," said Naras Sharaf, now clearly excited. "Our business interests also are strong."
"In fact," Loo-Macklin went on, "I find your offer, providing we can come to precise terms as to surreptitious methods of exchanging goods and services, quite beguiling."
"Really, I did not expect . . ." began Sharaf.
"Such a reaction is unbecoming in a hard bargainer, Naras Sharaf." Loo-Macklin was feeling good enough to tease the alien slightly. "Though I don't doubt it is a shock to you to discover I am the individual you hoped to find. Should our situations be reversed I'm sure I would react in the same manner." Loo-Macklin had always been the smoothest of liars.
"True, oh true. You will truly then take credit for information, material for money, technology for knowledge?"
"I don't have access to everything," Loo-Macklin warned him. "I know some people in the government. I have holds on certain of them that vary from weak to strong, legal to illegal. I have to be very careful when working such sources of information. I'll need to concoct reasons for using them, which won't arouse suspicion in those whose business it is to monitor such sources. But I will do my best for you. I pride myself on being a good supplier as well as a good consumer."
The Nuel made a gesture of agreement, thought a moment, then inquired hesitantly, "It does not then trouble you to become a traitor?" Naras Sharaf could still not believe his good fortune.
"I owe allegiance to nothing and no one," Loo-Macklin told him softly. Soft and cold, so cold that even the alien who was not terribly well versed in human voice tones was conscious of it. "I owe responsibility only to myself. I have no more, no less fondness for the Great Families of the Nuel than I do for the Board of Operators, the Orischians, or anyone else."
The Nuel asked a highly (to it) personal question: "Are you then . . . familyless?"
Loo-Macklin nodded. "In both the Nuel and human sense of the term."
"Well, it needn't concern us. We have our own prejudices, you see, but as an alien they needn't apply to you."
"I don't care if it does or not. I'm used to it."
A tentacle toyed with an arm of the horseshoe-shaped chair. "You are fully aware, I am sure, of what the reaction would be among your own kind if your work for us were ever to be discovered."
"That's my problem and worry, not yours."
"Quite truly." The lids half-closed over those vitreous orbs, sliding in from the sides until only the long pupil showed between them.
"You are also aware that we will check back on all information you supply to us. We will check as thoroughly and in as much detail as possible. We have enough sources within the UTW to do that much, at least. Your veracity will be ever on trial.
"Should we discover that you have agreed to work for us only to go in turn to the human government and function as a double agent for them, well, we have numerous ways of dealing with such duplicity, with those who would break a contract made with a family. As bioengineers, I can tell you, our methods are unpleasant in ways humanity has not imagined."
"I never break my contracts, Naras Sharaf, no matter who they're forged with. Feel free to do all the checking on me you wish. I won't disappoint you. And all knowledge of our business will remain hidden from my own people, let alone the government."
"Why should I believe you, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin?" asked the alien, heedless of courtesy. "If you will betray your own kind, why should you not also betray those who are alien to you?"
"Because it is to my advantage not to betray you, Naras Sharaf.
If you should somehow succeed during my lifetime in taking control of the UTW, which I have no doubt is your eventual aim, or of the Orischians, or any of the eighty-three worlds, I know that there are not enough experienced Nuel in all the worlds of the Families to direct the human government efficiently. You'll still need human operators and bureaucrats."
"Light enters through the window and opacity is vanished!" exclaimed the alien. "You would be a Family Head, then? Pardon . . . a chief of the Board of Operators."
"No, I would not," was the unexpected reply. "I don't like the kind of attention and publicity that attends such positions. I prefer to operate from the background, quietly. I would like very much to maintain the fiction that a Board of Master Operators still consults on the majority of planning decisions which program the life of the United Technologic Worlds."
"While you," said Naras Sharaf approvingly, "'quietly' program the Board."
"Without their knowledge if possible; with it if not," admitted Loo-Macklin.
"You are quite right in your assumption that the fulfillment of the grand design of the Great Families requires the cooperation of human operatives." Naras Sharaf was enjoying himself. It was a delight to dispense a favor that might not be called in.
"Ambition is a powerful instrument. Yes, I believe you will hold to your contracts."
"My word on it." Loo-Macklin stood and approached the Nuel. Heedless of the slime oozing from the alien's tentacles (which, after all, was nothing more than a hygienic cleansing gel, which helped to protect its sensitive skin from bacterial infection while also aiding in locomotion), he extended a hand.
Naras Sharaf hesitated. "I would take the word you offer along with your family's, but you have no family."
"You have it by me as an individual, that I will do whatever I'm able, provided the Nuel keep their end of the bargain, to see to it that some day the members of the Families can travel without fear and with impunity throughout the eighty-three worlds of the UTW."
The Nuel extended its pair of right-side tentacles and wrapped the flexible tips wetly around Loo-Macklin's hand, the rubbery tips entwining with his fingers.
"That will suffice for me, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin. You shall regret not the decision you have made."
"I know that," said the man matter-of-factly, "or I wouldn't have made it."
He withdrew his hand and, again, inconspicuously wiped it dry on the back of a pants leg.
"Now as to the details." Naras Sharaf shifted the transparent plastic cube containing the organic recorder so it rested on the little table between them. "There are fees to be set for specific items, arrangements to be made for private communications, members of my own Family to contact. This is a great day for me."
Turning, he activated a screen of a thinness Loo-Macklin had never seen before. As he would learn, it was composed of electrostatically charged chemophotic microbes, each one lightening or darkening and changing color on command to form a beautifully clear image.
The communications tightbeam Naras Sharaf employed was transmitted to a tiny, shielded satellite orbiting Evenwaith. From there it was relayed to a shielded vessel standing in far orbit and thence via concealed booster stations scattered carefully among the eighty-three worlds into a vast section of space that held the swirling of stars ruled by the Eight Great Families of the Nuel. The message was scrambled and extensive, but what Naras Sharaf in essence was saying to his brethren was this:
"The man has been bought."
After Loo-Macklin had departed, sent on his way back to Cluria, Naras Sharaf allowed himself the pleasure of leisurely elaboration. Verily a great day for him as well as for the hopes of the Families.
The Nuel at the other end of the Long Talking had eyes flecked with azure instead of Naras Sharaf's gold. His voice was weak with distance and crinkly with age. But his several whistles of astonishment reached through the speaker clearly enough.
"Truly," it said.
"Truly, Fourth Father," replied Naras Sharaf to the high-ranking Nuel, "has the man been purchased to us." This Fourth Father was a member of both Sharaf's personal family, which contained a modest 243,000 individuals, as well as the Fourth of the Great Families.
There was a pause at the other end. Then, "Why do you think he has done this thing? Tell me not it was only for the money, for by all reportings he has no need of it."
"It is difficult to say," replied Naras Sharaf thoughtfully. "For power, I think, but I am still not certain. I was never certain with him at any time during the interview. He is quite complex. For a mere human. I should say, without intending blasphemy, that in certain ways he is more Nuel than human."
"That much alone is obvious," agreed the voice at the other end of the stars, "or he would not have done this. Beware, beware, Naras Sharaf, that 'mere human' or not, this one does not deceive you."
"I will become the name Caution," Naras Sharaf assured him. "And the human has been warned of the consequences of betrayal. Naturally though, we will depend not on his word alone. We have sufficient operatives to keep watch on him. Pessimism becomes you not, Fourth Father," he added with respect. "Better to be hopeful in this matter than not."
"Concurrence," admitted the elderly Nuel, "but the humans have attempted this business of double agents before."
"And failed every time."
"Yes, but this one seems so promising, both from the reports and from what you tell me yourself." The eyes moved, oceans of blue, examining something out of range of the distant pickup.
"Great, great would the triumph be if this human were to deliver what he promises, if he truly has not the treasonfear, which is so prevalent among his kind."
"From the little I have learned in my studies of human verbal inflection and face-body gestures," Naras Sharaf said, "I have the impression that he was quite sincere in his wish to work with us."
"I would still like a stronger rationale," the elder persisted. "Generalizations make me nervous, especially in a matter as important as this."
"Too early to say." Naras Sharaf refused to be drawn into commitment or opinion. "I hold still to the power theory. Many humans live by it, though they admit it not even to themselves. Most of the bipeds would be more than sated with the power this man has already gained. Apparently, he is not. Power is the most addictive of narcotics, Fourth Father."
"Nothing is said I would argue with." He seemed to relax slightly, his skin flow increasing. The gel was opaque with age. "I worry overmuch when I should be overmuch joyed."
"We will watch him constantly," Naras Sharaf said placatingly, wishing for his Fourth Father to pleasure in this moment with equal fervor. "The man will be monitored. The information he supplies to us will from the beginning be most carefully checked to make certain that he feeds us no falsehoods."
"Did you even mention the possibility of an implant?" inquired the elder. "That would finalize my happiness, for then I would worry no more."
"I thought it premature, Fourth Father," Naras Sharaf told him honestly. "I was wary unto stiffening that I might not secure his cooperation, and thought it best to do that alone this first meeting. You must know that humans have a particular horror of other creatures, however tiny, living within their own bodies."
"And yet their own systems," murmured the elder, "are alive with endemic parasites and all manner of independently functioning organisms."
"That is so." Naras Sharaf leaned back in his cupouch and idly cleaned one eye with a tentacle. The other remained focused on the screen. A Nuel could look in two directions simultaneously, like a chameleon—another trait, which did not endear them to races like mankind saddled with more conventional and restrictive vision.
"There seems to be a critical size. That which is invisible to sight is not offensive, nor is anything as large as a small nming. But if it is small enough to live within the body cavity, yet larger than microscopic, it is something to be abhorred."
"How strange," the elder muttered. "I would not know what to do without my plaac
iate."
"Nor would I." Naras Sharaf patted his lower abdominal bulge where the tiny inch-long creature made a home, living off residual food consumed by the Nuel while filtering out dangerous poisons and rendering them harmless before they could damage its host's body.
"You would think that something comparable engineered for the human system, which has no counterpart to the plaaciatoma, would be welcomed by them with great delight. Yet they are not only not interested in but are made ill by the thought of such products."
"This man may be different, Fourth Father, but even he may need time to adjust to the idea."
"It is very strange," the elder mused. "We must change all that in the future."
"Verily we must," agreed Naras Sharaf. "Farewell, Fourth Father. Carry tidings of our great achievement to the Family Councils."
"That I will do with the greatest of delightment," said the elder.
"With the greatest of delightment, Fourth Father," echoed Naras Sharaf as he ended the clandestine transmission. He touched a control, and the creatures who formed the broadcast screen gratefully went to sleep.
Chapter 9
As the months traveled down to the vanishing point of time, neither Naras Sharaf nor his Fourth Father, nor any of the members of the Family Si, which was in charge of covert activities among non-Family worlds had any reason to regret the time and effort they had put into recruiting the human Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin.
The information that came from him in a steady stream was every bit as valuable as anyone could wish. Furthermore, he refused their offer to transmit the information through an intermediary because, as he said, of the danger of detection.
Thanks almost entirely to Loo-Macklin's information, the Nuel were able to defeat UTW forces in three out of four small battles in free space, and to accomplish this with surprisingly light casualties.
These unusual successes, for usually the results were reversed, emboldened the more militant among the Families to call for the all-out war they had put off in favor of numerous small-scale skirmishes. They were voted down unanimously in the private chambers of the Council of Eight.