Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (76 page)

So, there was a platform for them to sit on which put them at the same level across the conference table, but mats so they could sit as they preferred.

It looked weird to League eyes – Jurore and Tell got on the platform and squatted there, bottoms tucked between their ankles but not actually touching the mats. This was ‘formal sitting’, Samartian style, as they’d consider it just as rude to touch bottom on a mat during a business meeting as it would have been for Davie and Alex to sprawl and stick their feet on the table.

Negotiations began, cautiously, with both sides agreeing that they would consider exchanges under cultural, medical, industrial and military criteria. Cultural was the easiest, in that – the Samartians readily accepted the diplomatic gift-box which included music and a little art as well as the historical artefacts. In return, they offered a similar quantity of military-history exhibits from their own museums, audio recordings and some musical instruments.

The medical exchange was just as straightforward. Both had agreed that it was necessary to exchange full information medically in order that each could properly assess and manage bio-hazard risk, and they had already, in fact, exchanged so much information that that deal had already been done. All that remained was to agree rules for what could and could not be done with regard to visitors in one another’s care – no taking anyone off to labs to be experimented on, basically, no medical investigations or treatment to be carried out without consent.

When they got to the industrial criteria, though, negotiations stalled. The Samartians had come prepared to offer their nano-technology, in exchange for artificial gravity.

This was Davie’s moment, or at least, he was expecting it to be.

‘Tell me,’ he said, with a nonchalance which in itself highlighted that what he was about to put down on the table was
Big
. ‘Have you ever considered the possibility of creating plastics from silica?’

It should have been a moment of revelation, but the two officers looked back blankly at him. After several seconds, Tell gave the gesture they’d agreed as signalling ‘give us a moment’, allowing either side to confer, and did so, turning to Jurore.

‘What do we make plastic from?’ she asked, and he looked back at her with slightly affronted bewilderment.

‘How would I know?’ he returned, and added, with a derogatory note, ‘It’s
plastic
.’

They looked back at Davie, and he burst out laughing.

‘Oh!’ he said, seeing that they had become very stone-faced, at that. ‘Forgive me. Exodiplomacy,’ he grinned, reminding them of a diplomatic point they’d made early in the relationship, ‘We have to laugh, sometimes, at the absurdity of otherness – it is without offence, and beyond explanation. So please forgive – and understand, it is not possible for me to discuss this in any meaningful terms with people who do not have a thorough understanding of plastics production. I need to talk to a scientist, an industrial chemist, in order to explain the process we are offering. Is that something that could be arranged? Either on link, or ideally, with someone coming out to the ship?’

They stared at him.

‘A civilian?’

‘Yes, please,’ Davie confirmed. ‘If it isn’t too much to ask.’ He did understand what he was asking, there, as whatever scientist came out to their ship would have to join those in the contact-ship in long-term quarantine. Being there in person, though, seeing things for yourself even in a spacesuit, was a qualitatively different experience from being shown them on a holoscreen.

‘We will consider,’ Jurore said – Tell was evidently listening to something on her headset. They were maintaining comms with their own ship, via the hololink the Fourth had established.

‘I am told,’ she said, gesturing towards her ear, ‘that we make plastic from carbon and fluoride. We’re not sure what you mean by silica – do you mean
sand
?’

Davie grinned, but called up a screen which would be visible over the hololink as well as to Tell and Jurore. One of the first things established in first contact data-exchange was how the other culture classified elements, and Davie had no difficulty using the Samartian version of a periodic table. He highlighted the symbol they used to represent silica, confirming what he meant.

‘A purified kind of sand,’ he said. ‘Polymerised silica – siliplas – is the basis of all our plastics production. It is very much safer, cheaper and resource-efficient than your current technology, and we will be very happy to share it with you. But I do need to explain it to someone who understands, so if you
could
, please, find me someone who understands
this
…’

He drew out a chemical formula on the screen, using symbols the Samartians would recognise. Alex himself would not have known what it was – given a translation of the symbols he could have identified the various molecules and the bonding types between them, by digging up memories of high school chemistry, but the significance of it was beyond him. To the Samartians, it was clear, the formula was incomprehensible.

‘We will try,’ said Tell, and with that, they had to leave aside the negotiations over industrial tech, moving on to military. This was Alex’s bit, as Davie handed over to him with a deferential gesture.

Exchange of military technology was obviously sensitive. Initially, Alex was suggesting that they exchange gun-tech, specs and a laser cannon for R&D. The Samartians, however, had also brought the offer of a missile defence array – something the Fourth hadn’t seen, as yet, as they were deep within the defended zone and certainly hadn’t been in any disclosures. One look at the outline specs made it clear to Alex that this was a major prize – much smaller than anything the League had, but considerably more powerful, both in terms of the number of missiles it carried and their speed.

‘In return,’ Tell informed him, ‘we want the Ignite.’ The slightest pause, then she added, levelly, ‘in the grey casing.’

A slight twitch at the corner of Alex’s mouth betrayed his amusement, at that, though his gaze was questioning. The Ignite had been pretty much dropped off their gift-list, in the belief that it wasn’t something the Samartians were impressed by.

‘Is the Ignite of acceptable value to you?’ Alex queried, and indicated the defence-array they were offering. ‘This is something we regard as a very high level acquisition.’

That was an issue, a
big
issue, in negotiations. The Samartians had already made it clear that they were not prepared to accept what they’d described as ‘alien beneficence’. They had a particularly strong cultural principle of gifts being given by superiors, parents to children. They would not put themselves in a child-like role in accepting gifts from the Revellin. The only way to do this, with honour, was for any exchange to be of equal value.

Jurore and Tell glanced at one another.

‘The Ignite, also,’ Jurore admitted, just a fraction unwillingly.

‘We see that it has…’ Tell hesitated just for a moment, ‘possibilities.’

In other words, Alex realised, they would tear their eye-teeth out with their bare hands, for it.

‘Satisfactory, then,’ he said, with a sense of warm accomplishment – time well spent, bringing the Ignite to the level of functioning prototype, even if their attempt at a more dramatic casing
had
gone down like a lead balloon.

That left them making the arrangements to hand over the items, a matter requiring considerable discussion in itself. In the end, it was agreed that they would carry out the exchange as a cold drop, at a location just outside the Samartian system. A squadron of their ships would escort the Fourth’s biggest shuttle through to deliver their containers to the designated coordinates, pick up the Samartian ones, and return. The Samartians were keen to clarify and agree the very finest detail of that arrangement, right down to the exact time that it would take the shuttle to offload and then pick up the exchange cargo. They asked for Buzz Burroughs to be in charge of that too, evidently having come to see him as a trusted expert in handling shuttle-docking with their ship.

‘Certainly,’ Alex agreed, and added, ‘Our pilot will be Lt Commander Vergan.’

It was a choice he made for many reasons. Very had come to the Fourth initially on consultancy secondment, requested by them to help train pilots for their newly acquired fighters. He had stayed at Alex’s request and become their third watch commander, but he still took an active role in pilot training and was recognised as one of their best pilots, himself. There were sound reasons, operationally, for choosing him. But there was a very human reason, too … Alex knew how much Very Vergan wanted to be on the team that stayed here, and he had already decided, and had to tell him, that he wouldn’t be. Giving him the honour of piloting the first alien ship to get within sight of the Samartian system was a consolation prize. A glance at the command deck feed told him that it was a very welcome one, too, as Very was already flushing scarlet with happy pride, shaking hands with Buzz as the exec congratulated him.

And with that, they moved on to preliminary agreements for the exchange of diplomatic teams. This was going to take considerably more and fine-detailed negotiation – the very first League word spoken by the Samartians, in fact, was ‘ambassador’, since they had no equivalent word, no equivalent
concept
, in their language. It was taking them some time to decide who to send, and they weren’t ready yet to discuss that, but Alex was able to tell them who the Revellin team would be.

He had announced that to the crew, just half an hour before the Samartians came aboard for this meeting – the people concerned already knew, as he’d broken the bad news to the other candidates as well as the good news to the successful ones, in a series of private meetings in his daycabin.

It had not come as any great surprise, therefore, when he announced that the team they would be leaving here consisted of Misha Tregennis, Jermane Taerling and Murgat Atwood.

The addition of Murg to the team had come about since she had quietly slipped a case-of-need analysis into Alex’s in-tray. She hadn’t said a word, just let the analysis do the talking, setting out in calm and orderly manner all the reasons why it would be of benefit to have a third person on the team, and why that person should be her.

There was no arguing about it; she was right. One of the things she’d tagged in the file was Alex’s own analysis giving his reasons for having chosen her as part of the first contact team with Gide.

‘In the interests of full and frank disclosure,’ Alex told the Samartians, ‘I should tell you that Chief Petty Officer Atwood has, in the past, been employed as an agent in our intelligence service, undertaking covert information gathering, and is currently employed with us as a data analyst. She will not, I assure you, be undertaking any more than analysis of information freely shared with us, but if you are uncomfortable with the idea of having a former intelligence operative on the team, I will respect your wishes.’

Murg’s own analysis of their reaction to that was a give-away that they were, themselves, intending to send at least one intelligence agent, or whatever their equivalent might be – just a little embarrassment, there, as Jurore assured Alex that they would have no objection to that.

Later, once the Samartians had gone, Alex had Misha, Jermane and Murg to lunch in his daycabin. He had already spoken with each of them individually, and had had a long discussion with Misha Tregennis about her responsibilities and the expectations of her. He had also given her an acting-rank promotion to full Commander, merited by the responsibility she would be undertaking. As a result, she was now wearing Fleet uniform, and had committed to doing so throughout the mission.

This, though, was an informal gathering, bringing them together
as
a team for the first time, though it was apparent that they would need no assistance with team-bonding.

‘One man, marooned for a year with two gorgeous women,’ Misha teased Jermane. ‘Lucky boy!’

Jermane tried to maintain his dignity but a pink flush rose through his neck and a schoolboy giggle escaped him. Alex saw the way he glanced at Murg, too. Misha was being generous, there –
she
might have the looks and glamour to get away with ‘gorgeous’ but there was no way that the staid, middle-aged and slightly overweight Murg was in that category. Jermane had been working very closely with both of them for weeks, now, though, in the buzzing atmosphere of the lab, and it was perfectly obvious to Alex which of the two ladies had Jermane’s interest, romantically. Which was just as well, given that Misha, as mission commander, was not supposed to so much as joke-flirt with the people under her care.

‘Last one, skipper,’ she added, to Alex, and he grinned, knowing that he
could
rely on her to switch up to Fleet protocols, that she was just having one last flirty hurrah. Just at that point, too, Banno Triesse appeared with the trolley – inevitably, Banno, though he was back on the duty roster and ought to be having his own lunch, now.

He had been planning and practising, too.

‘Sorry, skipper.’ He appeared to stumble a little on his replacement leg – a trick he’d acquired after a genuine little stumble had made everyone within reach leap to grab him. It had become a joke, repeated and shared in the way that in-jokes always were, as much about shared understanding as humour. As the people at the table moved instinctively towards jumping up to catch him if he fell, he recovered himself, giving them a big beaming grin which focussed in on the skipper. ‘Mr Ireson has done you a salad,’ he told him, with the air of bestowing a treat. ‘It’s pretty good, too.’

Alex
tried
not to think that even Mako would find it hard to mess up a salad. He knew that wasn’t fair. Mako had embraced the challenge of learning to cook with all his usual enthusiasm, and on the whole, was doing very well. Alex would freely admit that he would not even know where to start, himself, faced with the kind of chef-station Davie had fitted in the interdeck, and he was very sure he didn’t even want to try. Mako was starting to work with Sam Maylard, too, asking him what he was going to be making in the biovat, and moving on, already, to asking if he
could
make things that Mako wanted for a recipe. Today’s salad was the first result of that collaboration. ‘It’s pear and blue cheese,’ Banno told him.