Emile and the Dutchman (15 page)

VII

I knocked lightly on the curtain rod. "Akiva?"

He slid the curtain aside and let me in. Like me, he had a bunk, a closet, and a few plastic web-covered shelves under the air-conditioning unit. Only a couple of spare uniforms were on the shelves. There were no pictures, no letters on the gleaming walls. Nothing to make the cubicle personal.

It was the first time I'd been in his cabin.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" His eyes were dark and fathomless.

"I came for a couple of reasons. For one, to apologize," I said. "And to thank you."

He eyed me carefully. "Your apology is accepted. And you are welcome. And if that's it—"

"That was one reason. The other one is Norfeldt."

He looked me over. "I doubt that it would do much good to turn him in, at this point. The unwritten law, and all—he
is
good on the ground, it seems."

"But you're going to do it anyway." Just because something wouldn't do any good wouldn't stop a man who would take on a couple dozen chiropterans barehanded, and then push a skimmer hard enough and fast enough to arrive in time to pull a miracle with powder, lead, and steel.

"I can't let him get away with it. I . . . understand that winning is everything to him, and that he has no sense of decency, no sense of proportion, but I will not let him get away with it."

"We won't," I said. "But let's punish the bastard, not just report him."

"Excuse me?"

"He cheats at poker, Akiva. He has a flasher carved into the bottom of his Team Leader ring—he reads the cards as he deals them."

"So?"

"So, he only deals a quarter of the time," I said, pulling my reader out of my blouse pocket and tossing it gently to him. "According to Mr. Scarne, two partners working in tandem are a lot more dangerous than an occasional peeker. Study up—we've got a few weeks until we're back home."

He looked at me for a long moment, and then he broke into a smile.

By the time we were home, the Dutchman was down a full two years' pay, and had resolved to give up poker forever.

Not that I got heavily into Qualifications Courses; the Team just switched over to bridge. In order to get anywhere cheating at bridge, you have to have two partners working in collusion. I was sure that the Dutchman wouldn't suggest it to Donny N'Damo, or to me.

Or to Akiva Bar-El, whose smile had become a permanent fixture on his ugly face.

I

By the time I'd finished vomiting and had gotten my shaking under control and my freezing body back into the relative warmth of the drafty stone igloo, the Dutchman was practically green.

Not
with envy—while the pureed-
akla
gruel that was the mainstay of the poncharaire diet wasn't quite poisonous, it did contain a compound or two that was, for humans, a powerful emetic. And despite my suspicions, the Dutchman was human, after all.

the Dutchman said in the awkward pidgin that he thought was a fluid mastery of the guttural poncharaire language, then switched back to Basic. His tone was calm, even friendly—that was for the benefit of the two poncharaire in the single-room hut with us. "But keep a hold on that famous glass gut of yours, Emmy—"

"Major, my name is Emile. Emile von du Mark. Not Emmy."

"Listen, shithead," the Dutchman said gently, "and listen good." His smile broadened; his tone became even more affectionate. "If you ever raise your voice to me again," he said as he nodded and smiled, his jowls and extra chins waggling in rapid syncopation, "I'll choke you to death with your own small intestines,
Lieutenant.
Understood?"

"Yes. Sir."

The Dutchman settled back into his wooden chair. If I hadn't disliked him so much, I would have had a bit of sympathy for the way he was holding up. The plus-twenty-percent gravity of Pon added only about fifteen kilos to my weight; it added a full twenty-five to his, and made his muscles—which would have included his heart, if the Dutchman had one—work much, much harder carrying his already ample bulk around. Even sitting up must have been a chore.

The larger of the two poncharaire raised his head from where he knelt beside the low table, then froze into position. That's one of the things I'll never get used to about them: sitting statuelike for a full minute's contemplation before speaking is strictly
pro forma.
They think humans are impetuous.

K'chat's body was of the hexipedal, centauroid form common on high-gee planets, at least among sapients. On worlds with gravity much greater than Earth's, creatures with only four legs never seem to free the front pair from the task of fighting gravity. And without manipulative members—hands—you don't get sapience.

Please don't bring up cetaceans and airybs: the first gave up their hands to go back to the sea; the second are sapient only if you're not fussy. I'm fussy.

Hmm . . . maybe calling the poncharaire centauroid was an oversimplification. I'm not claiming that either K'chat or Ahktah looked like an improbable mixture of human and horse; they looked much more like wolves. A poncharaire's long body is all of one piece, covered by soft brown fur from the top of its cloven hooves to the wrists of the six-digited hands with their paired, opposable thumbs.

I couldn't read K'chat's lupine face. I'd had enough trouble learning the language, and I'd yet to make a dent in their nonverbal cues. I didn't have much hope to; I was trained to be a Team's pilot and second-in-command, not a combination substitute psi-neg comm officer and ersatz—and very expendable—diplomat.

K'chat reached out a thick-wristed hand, conveying a smidgen of gruel from the bowl on the table to his mouth.

I'd never really thought of vomiting as meditation before. but claiming such as the purpose of my leaving the room had been a reasonable excuse.

Besides, it was the sort of thing that the poncharaire wanted to believe; much better to accept the need for me to take a moment away in meditation than to believe I was out upchucking the delicious meal that they had sold the Dutchman and me.

As I tried to phrase a polite negative, the other poncharaire snapped his toothy jaws.

Ahktah said to the Dutchman and me, not bothering to acknowledge us as equals-or-better by eating. He dipped another smidgen of gruel and turned back to K'chat.

must
be some insight to be gained.> K'chat waved his left arm—the noneating one—in a circle.

Ahktah stroked the center of his face: a poncharaire shrug.

The Dutchman's face was somber and emotionless as he tasted the gruel before speaking to Ahktah.

The hypocrite. "More wood and food than can be spared." hah. It wasn't the gods that were twitchy about dealing with humans, it was the priest. I was sure that the reason that the gods' blessing might prove too expensive was that Ahktah was afraid that any changes would endanger his power. Look at history: shamans are like that; they've preached against things as trivial as lipstick and something as vitally important as spaceflight.

K'chat turned again to Ahktah—speaking to someone one is not facing is one of several things that the poncharaire consider a very serious insult. An offer of charity is another—which was a large part of the poncharaire's problem.

And the Dutchman's and mine, for that matter.

And one of the reasons I very much missed large, ugly Akiva Bar-El.

K'chat asked.

"You're a pious fraud!"
The words leaped out of my mouth. In Basic, thank God.

Ahktah turned slowly toward me.

I couldn't help it: I
liked
the poncharaire. And Ahktah's prohibition of any extensive dealings with humans meant their extinction.

"Emmy." The Dutchman smiled kindly. "Assuming the nice doggie doesn't rip your throat out, you're about three fucking seconds from buying yourself a court. Now, sit down, please. We're not going to make any progress with you venting your spleen all over the place—if your spleen needs venting, I'll do it. With a butter knife, not a Fairbairn. Understood?"

Without waiting for an answer, he scooped a bit of the gruel to his mouth and turned to Ahktah.

K'chat's eyes twinkled as he tasted the gruel, then spoke to me. much
meaning in so few words! This one hopes that all our wishes are fulfilled—not only will my people live, but perhaps this one may have the chance to learn such a . . . delightfully compact way of expressing oneself. >

He gestured to the black, thumb-sized heaters scattered around the room.

He used a form of the poncharaire word for winter, but it really wasn't winter; we were, technically, in late summer. But Pon was a thousand or so years into an ice age, and the poncharaire, who had evolved in warmer times, weren't ready for it. Which is why their population had shrunk, from the millions that had covered the southern continent like a blanket to a small clustering of settlements, the total population perhaps as many as a hundred thousand.

Ahktah took a taste of the gruel, and stood. He left, not bothering to latch the door behind him, his hooves clattering against the ice outside.

The cold north wind blew in; I went over and closed the door, then reached down to my belt and turned my rubbery coldsuit up a notch.

K'chat sighed.

"Major, can I—"

"Might as well." The Dutchman shook his head. "You may already have blown it." Norfeldt let himself sag back in his chair.

This one is trying to help—>

"Emmy. Go easy, there."

Damn, he was right—that was starting to sound like an offer of charity. <—that is, to trade with thee and thine, to our benefit and to yours. Ahktah can't be allowed to interfere. The True People will die.>

K'chat stroked the center of his face, both thumbs trembling slightly.

necessary.>

The Dutchman raised a palm. "Not your job, Emmy." I guess he was right. It wasn't my job to explain to K'chat that it was well worth it to the Thousand Worlds to trade ten-for-a-quid heaters for mineral rights. It would have sounded like I was making an offer of charity. Under normal circumstances, a subconscious psychic explanation could have been made by a comm officer, but the poncharaire were all psi-neg. Explaining that we were offering a fair exchange, not charity, was a job for a Commerce Department Trade Team negotiation expert.

It wasn't our job. All we were supposed to do was to pave the way for the Commerce Department mission.

But we weren't having much success. I tried another tack.

And that would have been too bad, even from the Dutchman's point of view. It's almost always cheaper to hire natives than it is to import even mechanical labor.

K'chat rose, his eyes clouding over.

K'chat didn't wait for an answer; he gestured a goodbye and then left, shutting the door gently but firmly behind him.

Just ahead of the Dutchman's explosion.

"You stupid,
brainless
asshole—you came damn close to threatening Ahktah just now. And then you talk reasonably with K'chat? Fucking
idiot.
"

"And what was wrong with that, Major?"

"I thought you were supposed to be a first john, not a greenie."

"Major, I've been in the service for almost six years—almost ten, if you include Alton." I was still a first lieutenant. Now, while promotions don't always come fast in the Contact Service—the Navy gives out new rank the way my mother's Aunt Anna used to hand out Christmas kroner—six years was none too soon to be promoted to captain. Hell, Manny Curdova was likely to get his major's leaves.

I didn't begrudge Manny his promotions, mind; I just would have liked a pair of bars and a TL ring of my own.

The Dutchman eyed me levelly. "If you're so fucking salty, Emmy, why are you acting like such a greenie?" Norfeldt propped his chins on his hands. "Talking reasonably with K'chat, trying to sell him, it doesn't make sense because he
is
reasonable—you were just preaching to the converted. You could have blown the whole play by yelling at Ahktah. Think about it."

"I don't know, Major. Maybe you're right." I walked over to my cot and stretched out, pillowing my head on my hands. It was hard to think straight; I was just too tired, feeling too old. Maybe my extra weight didn't bother me as much as the Dutchman's bothered him, but I didn't like it much. It would have been like home for Akiva Bar-El, who had been raised on Metzada, after all. But the Commerce Department people had decided that we didn't need the big weapons officer along.

Well, more accurately, they suffered from the misconception that someone who made violence his profession and specialty was a bomb always ready to go off. Now, it can work out that way—that was Kurt Buchholtz, all over—but Akiva had more self-control than anyone else I knew.

I stared at the rough, curving walls overhead. "I can't stand the little bugger, Major. 'Let's see what the gods say'—the damned hypocrite."

Norfeldt chuckled hollowly. "So you don't believe in their bullshit gods?"

"'Course not. It's idiotic."

"Not idiocy, kid: hypocrisy. But hypocrisy, greenie, is a fine social lubricant, suitable for many squeaky situations. You think K'chat believes in their gods?"

"He seems to."

"Precisely. And he may. But has he ever seen them?"

"No. Only Ahktah—oh."

"Right. Only Ahktah. Ahktah is the priest, Ahktah climbs Heaven, tracking the village's tithed wood and food—"

"Not tithed. It's one-twelfth. Base six, remember?"

The Dutchman dismissed the distinction with a wave of his hand. "Don't get technical with me, krautbrains. The point is that he trades a portion of their harvest to the gods, in return for their blessing. Understandable, considering that they must have had a vigorous trading culture before the freeze."