Alien Alliance (12 page)

“We need to brainstorm this one,” said
Sarah. “All ideas to Alan, Anne, me and Dan. They will further
research or delegate. Don’t negotiate to sell anything or sign any
contracts yourselves. Check all contracts first with Helene.
Commercial law here is so complicated you’ll get ripped off. Mathew
thought he had sold his antique Mont Blanc pen. What he actually
sold was all the trade and manufacturing rights to a pen of that
type. The fact that Mont Blanc did not give him those rights is
irrelevant here.”

“Remember that copyright from another planet
is not valid here,” called out Helene.

“That doesn’t feel right,” argued Donny.

After some more discussion, Mahmoud
suggested, “How about only one work of each writer, composer etc
will be sold as I agree it doesn’t feel right to breach copyright.
Except for things like songs which are out of copyright or when the
artists, writers, inventors etc have died.”

By the time the meeting closed, spirits were
reviving and people were rising to the challenge.

“We will all meet at the sea tomorrow at
noon as the Priskya want to see us. They may be able to come up
with some suggestions too. We have to move out of our hotels
tomorrow. Bring your luggage with you. Tue and Nancy have offered
to stay and guard it. Hopefully by tomorrow night we will have
found somewhere to live but we’ll probably have to live in the
slaves quarters unless there is such a thing as a job with
accommodation here.”

Helene and Sarah had already talked to the
hotel manager. The manager had taken it surprisingly well. Everyone
was to sign out individually tomorrow and agree to the amount owed.
If this was done, the manager would not involve the Civil Police.
Iwygin had told them that the debts that were not disputed were
almost always paid first. That lessened the number of complaining
creditors. It therefore lessened the pressure the Civil Police were
under. For most of the Terrans, the debts they had were only to the
hotels. If they started paying the hotels off, in excess of the
rising interest, the hotelier would not complain. With local
interest at 3% as Torroxell had minimal inflation, at 10% interest,
the hotelier was onto a winner if the interest and principal were
being repaid.

Food (goop), was free. There were dispensers
of it in several places around the city in places where slaves were
allowed to go. Water was next to it. It was considered the ultimate
humiliation for any Person to use either but to live with the
emotional and cultural knowledge of this was one thing. To not grow
up with this knowledge then hear intellectually of this and have no
choice was a little different. It wasn’t so bad for them.

Sarah explained this adding, “Remember, from
tonight you are personally paying for everything you use. No
Cleaning and for food and water use the dispensers.”

There was a collective groan but again the
point was well taken. The goop tasted worse than the dehydrated
food they had brought with them; a lot worse. But Sarah’s foresight
meant a lot of flavourings had been brought with them. This
included catering quantity packets of salt, pepper, lemon pepper,
curry, mustard, onion powder, cheese powder, cans of powdered
soups, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, manuka honey, vanilla, dried
basil, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. She had also brought dried fruit
and vegetables in large quantities. They had luckily not left them
on the ship because they wondered if they could sell them. This
meant the goop was palatable. And free. Free was affordable. Free
was all they could afford.

Dan had been talking with the helpful Iwygin
who told him, “Most civilised planets consider it is bad economics
to let slaves starve or freeze and locked night shelters are
provided for slaves and for the destitute for a while. There are no
bags. Slaves sleep naked on the floor. When the destitute debt
reaches the ‘slave level’ they become slaves and are sold at
auction. As slaves, they have no rights. Killing or injuring slaves
is not a crime against the slave but rather a crime against the
owner.” Dan decided not to explain this for now. They all had
enough to contend with.

Iwygin went back to its apartment delighted.
This was much better than it had thought it would be. These little
creatures were quite innovative. And they thought Iwygin was being
nice to them. They were quite delightfully naive. It could finish
its research paper on this. The students would help it write it
too. This would complete its degree. Up one more level.
Substantially more pay. It would put down the best of the Terrans
ideas as its’ own suggestions and take credit for that too. These
Terrans would sign anything it told them too. They couldn’t read
and by tomorrow would not be able to afford Translators. In the
meantime, it would make itself indispensable to them.

Mathew was furious. He did not understand
why people did not listen to him. To Sarah and most of the Terrans,
as a leader he was turning out to be appalling. He considered
everyone else’s views not worth listening to. He would not delegate
according to ability or training but had promised jobs to his ‘yes
men’. Totally lacking in adaptability and compromise, he was way
out of his depth. He and his Toadies had stormed out soon after
Sarah had taken over the meeting.

But Sarah was wrong. Mathew did understand
that they were in trouble. He just didn’t know how to deal with it.
However Mathew was not stupid no matter what Sarah thought. He knew
he couldn’t find the solutions but thought Sarah probably could.
Yet in Sarah, her acceptance by the others and her obvious
abilities were a constant threat to his own ambitions. She was
someone he itched to crush. Yet he knew he needed her. Torn by
indecision. He had done almost nothing openly against her.

Sarah, watching his appalling leadership
style, constantly wondered why he had come on this trip. She had
been quite prepared to work with him for the good of the mission
but had found it harder and harder to do so. His attitude to her,
and everyone else, infuriated her although she tried hard to
control this reaction and do her best to get on with him.

But Mathew’s main problem was one he could
do nothing about. By the time they arrived on Torroxell, Sarah was
established as the real leader. Not him. And Mathew’s problem now
was how good a leader the others thought she was and how well she
was respected and liked. He was not held in the same regard as
Sarah and he knew it. It incensed him and he could not see a way to
alter it.

They were both natural organizers but they
worked very differently. Mathew simply told people what to do.
Sarah asked their opinions, listened, compromised, worked with
people, adapted, but ensured things were done. When she delegated,
she left people alone to get on with it. She delegated based on
ability. She believed most people knew how to do their jobs. After
all, they were doing them. It is truly amazing how many bosses do
not understand this simple fact. Mathew was one of them.

Mathew delegated based on who owed him
favours or who he owed favours to. Ability was irrelevant. The
Terrans were divided. Everything Mathew and his team tried to do or
take over, revealed to the others just how far out of his depth he
was and his Team also. So they tried to stop him where it was
important and bypassed him where they could. Otherwise, they simply
ignored him. Sarah had rostered her SETI Team members to stay at
the lobby to wait for contact from those that allegedly had invited
them. She did not plan to immediately inform Mathew when contact
finally occurred. If it did. She did not plan to tell him that
either. It was not her usual tactic to undermine others but, she
reasoned, his incompetence necessitated that she bypass him. They
had problems and he would not or could not deal with them. He
therefore left her with no choice. Deceit and undermining someone
did not sit well with Sarah but she saw no alternative.

She hoped the Priskya would listen and that
they would help them. Talking to fish was going to be interesting.
She had organised to meet them tomorrow morning and they had agreed
to see as many as wanted to come. Mathew was furious about this
also. He would not be attending. Sarah smiled. Good.

Sarah and Dan went down to the sea to talk
to the Priskya, armed with Translators. They were accompanied by a
great number of interested and concerned adults, followed closely
by their children because worried parents produce frightened
children. Frightened children cling to their parents.

“Are we supposed to remain on land or get in
with them? Which is better protocol?”

“I don’t know Dan, but no one else seems to
go near the water. I asked around. A lot of the children have been
down here and they told me they saw no one in the water, although
some have gone out in some of the boats. Maybe the Priskya consider
it as their exclusive territory.” Sarah went to one of the jetties.
She wondered how to contact them. They had been told there was a
red message flag.

“There it is,” Dan pointed, “We have to pull
it out. I hope they will listen to us. No one else seems to be at
all concerned.” Dan unravelled the flag and placed it in the water.
They sat and waited, still more people coming down to see
intelligent fish that could talk. There was a brief silence.

“Do they talk like dolphins?” A child asked
Sarah.

“I think the Translators always talk in the
language of the recipient so they will sound to us like Humans but
we should also be able to hear their speech. I think.” Added
Sarah.

“How do fish talk?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t you need air to talk?”

“Obviously not if they can talk. They are
not like dolphins. They are fish. Dolphins are mammals and breath
air so they will sound a lot different, I think. Why don’t we wait
and see?” There was another silence as the several children
wriggled and talked among themselves. Sarah heard to her amusement
that they were certain they would sound like dolphins and thought
Sarah must be wrong.

“Here comes one!” yelled a sharp eyed child
as first one fish appeared, then several more. Sarah looked down,
fascinated as were the children. They were bluish grey on the top
and varying sizes, ranging from small dolphin sizes to about twice
the size of a dolphin but they swam like sharks and had very
similar fins. As a small one rolled over, Sarah saw they were much
lighter underneath. They stayed under the water but the Translators
floated above them. The voice that came out did indeed sound Human
but Sarah thought the children would be disappointed because the
voice of the Priskya couldn’t be heard. Sarah was left wondering
how they made sounds and how they talked to each other.

The very long and hot afternoon wore on. The
kids got hot and bothered. They grumbled and bickered, interrupting
and distracting Sarah as she tried to talk to several Priskya.
There had been long introductions. The Priskya were very patient as
Sarah explained the trouble they were all in. Pikdaa, who was
mostly speaking for the Priskya, seemed to be explaining that there
was nothing they could do when there was a commotion and one of the
children pushed another child into the water. One of the adults
angrily dragged him out.

The Priskya seemed disturbed. Several had
gone over near to the child. Sarah apologized profusely for the
rudeness and tried to go on.

“We are confused. Why did one child push
this one in to the water? Is the child now sick?”

“Why is the child who committed this
dreadful act not remorseful or punished? Why do you call this
rudeness? Could this child not have died? We thought you were a
species that closely supervised and cared for your children!” Added
another Priskya who had previously been in the background. Sarah
couldn’t remember its name or gender; it was large and probably
male.

“We are very sorry. The child was in no
danger, he can probably swim.”

There was a major disturbance among the
Priskya with Sarah only catching a few muttered words.

The larger Priskya spoke again, “We do not
understand. You are land animals. You drown. You die. How can you
swim? You are not equipped to swim.”

Sarah was puzzled, “we can,” she said. They
now seemed even more disturbed. Had we broken yet another protocol
she wondered? “Do you mean we are not allowed to swim, that we are
not allowed in the water? Is it forbidden? We will order the
children not to go into the water.” Oh she’d tan their hides.
Little sods. We need all the help we can get she thought in
frustration!

The disturbance continued with the Priskya
really upset. They had turned the Translators off and looked to be
chattering away under the water but Sarah still couldn’t hear
anything. Finally another one came over,

“What do you mean when you say you can swim?
Explain”

“May I show you?”

“Yes.”

Sarah stripped off her shoes, Translator and
iphone, stood up and slid in, careful not to hit any Priskya. She
swam around under water, surfaced, demonstrated several swimming
strokes and finally hauled herself up onto the jetty steps enough
to grab the Translator but remained mostly in the water. She
noticed the murmuring among the Terrans and then saw many more
Priskya had come up. There looked to be 30 or so and more coming.
What was wrong?

“Would you show us more swimming
please?”

Again Sarah demonstrated, mostly under water
this time. She kept the Translator on. It was waterproof, she had
forgotten that.

Yet another Priskya finally came over. “How
many of your species can swim?”

“Most can. All have the ability to learn.
Please, what is wrong?”

“Can more of your race do this
swimming?”

“Probably most. I don’t know. Is it
important?”