Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds Read online

  Starlodge had a knack for picking places that were about to become popular—along with impressive media power, to make sure they did—and on dozens of worlds they did have literally exclusive rights to tourism. Hartford might own a spaceport hotel, but it wasn’t really competition, and they were usually glad to hand it over to Starlodge anyhow. Hartford, with its ironclad lock on the tachyon drive, had no need to diversify.

  There was no doubt in my mind that this was the pattern Starlodge had in mind for Morocho III. It was a perfect setup, the beach being a geologic anomaly: there wasn’t another decent spot for a hotel within two thousand kilometers of the spaceport. Just bleak mountain tops sprouting occasionally out of jungles full of large and hungry animals. But maybe I could lead the Rabbit on. I leaned up against a post that supported a guttering torch. “At any rate, I certainly couldn’t consider entering into an agreement without knowing who you represent.”

  He looked at me stone-faced for a second. “Outfit called A. W. Stoner Industries.”

  I laughed out loud. “Real name, I mean.” I’d never heard of Stoner, and I do keep in touch.

  “That’s the name I know them by.”

  “No concern not listed in Standard, Poor and Tueme could come up with nine figures for extraterrestrial real-estate speculation. No legitimate concern, I mean.”

  “There you go again,” he said mildly. “I believe they’re a coalition of smaller firms.”

  “I don’t. Let’s go.”

  Back in my luggage I had a nasal spray that deadened the sense of smell. Before we even got inside, I knew I should have used it.

  The air was gray with fish-oil smoke, and there were more than a hundred !tang sitting in neat rows. I once was treated to a “fish kill” in Texas, where a sudden ecological disaster had resulted in windrows of rotting fish piled up on the beach. This was like walking along that beach using an old sock for a muffler. By Lafitte’s expression, he was also unprepared. We both walked forward with slightly greenish cheerfulness.

  A !tang in the middle of the first row stood up and approached us. —Uncle? I ventured, and he waved his snout in affirmation.

  —We have come to an interim decision, he said.

  —Interim? Lafitte said. —Were my terms unacceptable?

  —I die. My footprints are cursed. I walk around the village not knowing that all who cross where I have been will stay in estrous zero, and bear no young. Eventually, all die. O the embarrassment. We want to hear the terms of Navarro’s tribe. Then perhaps a final decision may be made.

  That was frighteningly direct. I’d tried for an hour to tell him our terms before, but he’d kept changing the subject.

  —May I hear the terms of Lafitte’s tribe? I asked.

  —Certainly. Would Lafitte care to state them, or should I?

  —Proceed, Uncle, Lafitte said, and then, in Spanish,—Remember the possibility of a partnership. If we get to haggling…

  I stopped listening to Rabbit as Uncle began a long litany of groans, creaks, pops, and whistles. I kept a running total of wholesale prices and shipping costs. Bourbon, rum, brandy, gin. Candy bars, raw sugar, honey, pastries. Nets, computers, garbage composters, water-purifying plant, hunting weapons. When he stopped, I had a total of only H620.

  —Your offer, Navarro? Could it include these things as a subset?

  I had to be careful. Lafitte was probably lying about the 1500, but I didn’t want to push him so hard he’d be able to go over a thousand on the next round. And I didn’t want to bring out my big guns until the very end.

  —I can offer these things and three times the specified quantity of rum—(the largest rum distillery on Earth was a subsidiary of Starlodge)—and furthermore free you from the rigors of the winter harvest, with twenty-six fully programmed mechanical farm laborers. (The winters here were not even cool by Earth standards, but something about the season made the local animals restless enough occasionally to jump over the walls that normally protected farmland.)

  —These mechanical workers would not be good to eat? For the animals?

  —No, and they would be very hard for the animals even to damage.

  There was a lot of whispered conversation. Uncle conferred with the !tang at the front of each row, then returned.

  —I die. Before I die my body turns hair-side-in. People come from everywhere to see the insides of themselves. But the sight makes them lose the will, and all die. O the embarrassment. The rum is welcome, but we cannot accept the mechanical workers. When the beast eats someone he sleeps, and can be killed, and eaten in turn. If he does not eat he will search, and in searching destroy crops. This we know to be true.

  —Then allow me to triple the quantities of gin, bourbon, and brandy. I will add two tonnes each of vermouth and hydrochloric acid, for flavoring. (That came to about H710.)

  —This is gratefully accepted. Does your tribe, Lafitte, care to include these as a subset of your final offer?

  —Final offer, Uncle?

  —Two legs, two arms, two eyes, two mouths, two offers.

  —I die, Lafitte said. —Where they bury me, the ground caves in. It swallows up the city and all die, O the embarrassment. Look, Uncle, that’s the market law for material objects. You can’t move land around; its ownership is an abstraction.

  Uncle exposed one arm—the Council tittered—and reached down and thumped the floor twice. —The land is solid, therefore material. You can move it around with your machines; I myself saw you do this in my youth, when the spaceport was built. The market law applies.

  Lafitte smiled slowly. —Then the Navarro’s tribe can no longer bid. He’s had two.

  Uncle turned to the Council and gestured toward Rabbit, and said,—Is he standing on feet? And they cracked and snuffled at the joke. To Lafitte, he said,—The Navarro’s offer was rejected, and he made a substitution. Yours was not rejected. Do you care to make his amended offer a subset of yours?

  —If mine is rejected, can I amend it?

  This brought an even louder reaction. —Poor one, Uncle said. —No feet, no hands. That would be a third offer. You must see that.

  —All right. Lafitte began pacing. He said he would start with my amended offer and add the following things. The list was very long. It started with a hydroelectric generator and proceeded with objects of less and less value until he got down to individual bottles of exotic liqueurs. By then I realized he was giving me a message: he was coming down as closely as he could to exactly a thousand shares of Hartford. So we both had the same limit. When he finished he looked right at me and raised his eyebrows.

  Victory is sweet. If the Rabbit had bothered to spend a day or two in the marketplace, watching transactions, he wouldn’t have tried to defeat me by arithmetic; he wouldn’t have tried by accretion to force me into partnership.

  Uncle looked at me and bared his arms for a split second. —Your tribe, Navarro? Would you include this offer as a subset of your final offer?

  What Rabbit apparently didn’t know was that this bargaining by pairs of offers was a formalism: if I did simply add to his last offer, the haggling would start over again, with each of us allowed another pair. And so on and on. I unlocked my briefcase and took out two documents.

  —No. I merely wish to add two inducements to my own previous offer (sounds of approval and expectation).

  Lafitte stared, his expression unreadable.

  —These contracts are in Spanish. Can you read them, Uncle?

  —No, but there are two of us who can.

  —I know how you like to travel. (I handed him one of the documents.)—This allows each of five hundred !tang a week’s vacation on the planet of its choice, any planet where Starlodge has facilities.

  “What?” Lafitte said, in English. “How the hell can you do that?”

  “Deadheading,” I said.

  One of the Council abruptly rose. “Pardon me,” he said in a weird parody of English. “We have to be dead to take this vacation? That seems of little value.”
/>
  I was somewhat startled at that, in view of the other inducement I was going to offer. I told him it was an English term that had nothing to do with heads or death. —Most of the Hartford vessels that leave this planet are nearly empty. It is no great material loss to Hartford to take along nonpaying guests, so long as they do not displace regular passengers. And Hartford will ultimately benefit from an increase in tourism to !ka’al, so they were quite willing to make this agreement with my tribe.

  —The market value of this could be quite high, Uncle said.

  —As much as five or six hundred shares, I said,—depending on how distant each trip is.

  —Very well. And what is your other inducement?

  —I won’t say. (I had to grin.)—It is a gift.

  The Council chittered and tweeted in approval. Some even exposed their arms momentarily in a semi-obscene gesture of fellowship. “What kind of game are you playing?” Peter Rabbit said.

  “They like surprises and riddles.” I made a polite sound requesting attention and said,—There is one thing I will tell you about this gift: It belongs to all three mercantile classes. It is of no value, of finite value, and infinite value, all at once, and to all people.

  —When considered as being of finite value, Uncle said,—how much is it worth in terms of Hartford stock?

  —Exactly one hundred shares.

  He rustled pleasantly at that and went to confer with the others.

  “You’re pretty clever, Dick,” Rabbit said. “What, they don’t get to find out what the last thing is unless they accept?”

  “That’s right. It’s done all the time; I was rather surprised that you didn’t do it.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only negotiated with !tang off-planet. They’ve always been pretty conventional.”

  I didn’t ask him about all the fishing he had supposedly done here. Uncle came back and stood in front of us.

  —There is unanimity. The land will go to the Navarro’s tribe. Now what is the secret inducement, please? How can it be every class at once, to all people?

  I paused to parse out the description in !tangish. —Uncle, do you know of the Earth corporation, or tribe, Immortality Unlimited?

  —No.

  Lafitte made a strange noise. I went on. —This Immortality Unlimited provides a useful service to humans who are apprehensive about death. They offer the possibility of revival. A person who avails himself of this service is frozen solid as soon as possible after death. The tribe promises to keep the body frozen until such time as science discovers a way to revive it.

  —The service is expensive. You pay the tribe one full share of Hartford stock. They invest it, and take for themselves one tenth of the income, which is their profit. A small amount is used to keep the body frozen. If and when revival is possible, the person is thawed, and cured of whatever was killing him, and he will be comparatively wealthy.

  —This has never been done with nonhumans before, but there is nothing forbidding it. Therefore I purchased a hundred “spaces” for !tang; I leave it to you to decide which hundred will benefit.

  —You see, this is of no material value to any living person, because you must die to take advantage of it. However, it is also of finite worth, since each space costs one share of Hartford. It is also of infinite worth, because it offers life beyond death.

  The entire Council applauded, a sound like a horde of locusts descending. Peter Rabbit made the noise for attention, and then he made it again, impolitely loud.

  —This is all very interesting, and I do congratulate the Navarro for his cleverness. However, the bidding is not over.

  There was a low, nervous whirring. “Better apologize first, Rabbit,” I whispered.

  He bulled ahead. —Let me introduce a new mercantile class: negative value.

  “Rabbit, don’t—”

  —This is an object or service that one does not want to have. I will offer not to give it to you if you accept my terms rather than the Navarro’s.

  —Many kilometers up the river there is a drum full of a very powerful poison. If I touch the button that opens it, all of the fish in the river, and for a great distance out into the sea, will die. You will have to move or… He trailed off.

  One by one, single arms snaked out, each holding a long sharp knife.

  “Poison again, Rabbit? You’re getting predictable in your old age.”

  “Dick,” he said hoarsely, “they’re completely nonviolent. Aren’t they?”

  “Except in matters of trade.” Uncle was the last one to produce a knife. They moved toward us very slowly. “Unless you do something fast, I think you’re about to lose your feet.”

  “My God! I thought that was just an expression.”

  “I think you better start apologizing. Tell them it was a joke.”

  —I die! he shouted, and they stopped advancing. —I, um…

  —You play a joke on your friends and it backfires, I said in Greek.

  Rapidly:—I play a joke on my good friends and it backfires. I, uh… “Christ, Dick, help me.”

  “Just tell the truth and embroider it a little. They know about negative value, but it’s an obscenity.”

  —I was employed by… a tribe that did not understand mercantilism. They asked me, of all things, to introduce terms of negative value into a trivial transaction. My friends know I must be joking and they laugh. They laugh so much they forget to eat. All die. O the embarrassment.

  Uncle made a complicated pass with his knife and it disappeared into his haybale fur. All the other knives remained in evidence, and the !tang moved into a circle around us.

  —This machine in your pocket, Uncle said,—it is part of the joke?

  Lafitte pulled out a small gray box. —It is. Do you want it?

  —Put it on the floor. The fun would be complete if you stayed here while the Navarro took one of your marvelous floaters up the river. How far would he have to go to find the rest of the joke?

  —About twelve kilometers. On an island in midstream.

  Uncle turned to me and exposed his arms briefly. —Would you help us with our fun?

  The air outside was sweet and pure. I decided to wait a few hours, for light.

  That was some years ago, but I still remember vividly going into the Council Building the next day. Uncle had divined that Peter Rabbit was getting hungry, and they’d filled him up with !tang bread. When I came in, he was amusing them with impersonations of various Earth vegetables. The effect on his metabolism was not permanent, but when he left Morocho III he was still having mild attacks of cabbageness.

  By the time I retired from Hartford, Starlodge had finished its hotel and sports facility on the beach. I was the natural choice to manage it, of course, and though I was wealthy enough not to need employment, I took the job with enthusiasm.

  I even tried to hire Lafitte as an assistant—people who can handle !tangish are rare—but he had dropped out of sight. Instead, I found a young husband-and-wife team who have so much energy that I hardly have to work at all.

  I’m not crazy enough to go out in the woods, hunting. But I do spend a bit of time fishing off the dock, usually with Uncle, who has also retired. Together we’re doing a book that I think will help our two cultures understand one another. The human version is called Hard Bargain.

  Seasons

  Transcripts edited from the last few hundred hours of recordings:

  Maria

  Forty-one is too young to die. I was never trained to be a soldier. Trained to survive, yes, but not to kill or be killed.

  That’s the wrong way to start. Let me start this way.

  As near as I can reckon, it’s mid-noviembre, AC238. I am Maria Rubera, chief xenologist for the second Confederatión expedition to Sanchrist IV. I am currently standing guard in the mouth of a cave while my five comrades try to sleep. I am armed with a stone axe and flint spear and a pile of rocks for throwing. A cold rain is misting down, and I am wearing only a stiff kilt and vest of wet rank fu
r. I am cold to the very heart but we dare not risk a fire. The Plathys have too acute a sense of smell.

  I am subvocalizing, recording this into my artificial bicuspid, one of which each of us has; the only post—Stone Age artifacts in this cave. It may survive even if, as is probable, I do not. Or it may not survive. The Plathys have a way of eating animals head first, crunching up skull and brain while the decapitated body writhes at their feet or staggers around, which to them is high humor. Innocent humor but ghastly. I almost came to love them. Which is not to say I understand them.

  Let me try to make this document as complete as possible. It gives me something to do. I trust you have a machine that can filter out the sound of my teeth chattering. For a while I could do the Zen trick to keep my teeth still. But I’m too cold now. And too certain of death, and afraid.

  My specialty is xenology but I do have a doctorate in historicultural anthropology, which is essentially the study of dead cultures through the writings of dead anthropologists. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, old style, there were dozens of isolated cultures still existing without metals or writing or even, in some cases, agriculture or social organization beyond the family. None of them survived more than a couple of generations beyond their contact with civilization, but civilization by then could afford the luxury of science, and so there are fairly complete records. The records are fascinating not only for the information about the primitives, but also for what they reveal of the investigating cultures’ unconscious prejudices. My own specialties were the Maori and Eskimo tribes, and (by necessary association) the European and American cultures that investigated and more or less benignly destroyed them.

  I will try not to stray from the point. That training is what led to my appointment as leader of this band of cold, half-naked, probably doomed, pseudo-primitive scientists. We do not repeat the errors of our forebears. We come to the primitives on equal terms, now, so as not to contaminate their habit patterns by superior example. No more than is necessary. Most of us do not bite the heads off living animals or exchange greetings by the tasting of excrement.