Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (10 page)

"Holy... "

Lord Byron quickly cut him off and spoke in his ear through the com set.

"Before you say too much: Remember they are eventually going to understand what we say, and very likely go back and review every word we ever uttered."

"Uh, yeah... Holy Mackerel," Jon finished, wisely.

The alien transferred his instrument to a smaller tentacle and withdrew it into the mass of small tendrils before bringing the big one back to the cup. Just as Jon had moved slowly to avoid scaring the alien yesterday the Caterpillar reached slowly with his larger tentacle and curled it around the cup. Jon had to smile at how delicately he did so. The Caterpillar wasn't assertive. He grasped the cup and didn't tug at all, but the request was plain. Jon let go of it slowly and withdrew his hand, folding his hands in his lap.

"Are you sure you don't want one last sip, Mr. Burris?" Lord Byron asked in his ear.

"You have an evil sense of humor... sir," Jon replied.

The alien carried the cup carefully, almost reverently, to the others and after many hoots and new noises they each carefully dipped a tentacle in turn, and one might assume tasted. One of them exited the hold and seemed to be in a bigger hurry than when they came in.

The others had a mechanism of some sort positioned in front of the pedestal with the bust on it. It looked more like a studio microphone than a camera; a fist-sized silvery ball with a black handle below it. They also had a low boomerang shape they brought over and laid about a half meter in front of him.

Jon's handler had returned and was standing to the side. He waved his tentacles a bit and gave a couple hoots like a ferry boat getting ready to undock. Jon had no idea what he wanted.

The alien stood still looking at him. Jon wondered if he was disgusted at how stupid Jon was or upset with himself for not being clearer. After a bit he tugged the smaller tentacles in close and held the two big ones out straight in front of him. When that got no reaction he swept them both up vertically like a football referee calling a good goal.

"I'm obviously supposed to know what that means," Jon said, out loud. "But I'm clueless."

The alien held the tentacles out straight again and slowly made both ends turn up at right angles. Even not having tentacles it looked uncomfortable. Then he crossed and uncrossed them a couple times.

"Oh, my arms?" Jon asked, holding his arms out and turning his hands up palms out like the alien. That produced a melody of hoots and one of the other Caterpillars came rushing over with one of the floating plates. Really, just super high-tech hand carts, Jon thought.

The assistant put the boomerang shape on the cart, made it float a bit higher, and then pushed it back in front of Jon, even a little bit closer. The alien did the uncomfortable tentacle waving thing again.

"Oh, it wasn't close enough," Jon figured out. He reached out straight-armed and crossed his wrists with his palms out just like the alien and uncrossed them, wondering if it was going to play music or what. The air in front of him filled with an image of the bust from hand to hand.

Jon thought the displays their ships used were high definition. He was wrong. This just looked
real
. Real as a hole in the air with a view of the bust he'd brought along. He pulled his hands back and the image grew closer. As an experiment he closed one eye and then the other. It
was
in 3D.

"Wow."

"Wow what?" Lord Byron asked in his ear. "Do you need pom-poms? You look like a drunk cheerleader waving your arms around."

"We just got richer than we ever imagined. And some of the Fargoers have pretty vivid imaginations. A few of them have been writing million dollar IOUs for their poker games," Jon said.

"What are you talking about? I see they brought out some things. Are you trying to trade for them?"

"Yes sir. I certainly shall if they don't offer them freely like we did. Anything they want. Have you ever seen really old
grainy
movies? The sort that were on actual silver photographic film before they were digitalized? Grayscale even instead of color?"

"Yes I have. They simply called them black and white during that era. Don't ask me why," Lord Byron said. "I have no idea."

"Well the Caterpillars just showed me a 3D video system that makes our displays look about as sad as those old movies," Jon told him. He tried withdrawing his hands, but the image followed. He tried taking one back and not the other and it rotated. This was a great display but he couldn't hold his hands out for hours. The alien made the lifting gesture again.

"Oh... " Jon unbent his wrists and swept both arms straight up away from the display. It stayed put.

"Damn, this looks
so
good," Jon said. Lord Byron didn't even reprove him.

* * *

"
The Champion William
reports they will be in orbit above us in a couple hours. They ask if we have any unfinished survey work here with which they can help us?" Brownie said.

"Brownie, have you assigned anyone to gather Lee's bag of dirt?" Gordon asked.

"No, sir. I was waiting until I knew somebody was near landing," Brownie explained.

"Ah, good," Gordon said looking highly amused. "Inform Captain Fenton he may chose whatever moon of the gas giant we are orbiting that suits him, and send a shuttle down to its surface. Whatever else he does of interest is his concern, but we require a bag of soil or loose surface debris. If he can find any rich in metallic elements that is to be preferred."

Brownie kept his conversation private and didn't share it with the bridge. After awhile Gordon inquired if Captain Fenton had his new orders.

"Yes sir. I informed him, and he acknowledged them."

"Did he wonder why we wanted a bag of dirt?" Gordon asked.

"No sir, he
did
ask if I knew what would be an acceptable size. I hope you don't mind my initiative, but since we seemed to be providing an additional sample for the alien device, I suggested that a sample filling a pillowcase would be appropriate."

"We encourage initiative, Brownie. That was a perfectly reasonable response," Gordon said.

"Fenton isn't big on questioning orders, is he?" Thor asked.

"No, and I wondered how he'd respond, but I can't say that's an entirely bad quality," Gordon allowed. "Initiative is fine, but I also don't want a debating society when I give an order. I think we have a good balance so far."

Chapter 8

The Caterpillars brought out one of the blankets that had been laid out as a trading area on the previous visit by
The Champion William
. The camera and display were set to the side. Jon hoped they didn't take it back. The espresso, however, was positioned on the blanket as if Jon was offering it in trade. It was a brilliant use of the system. Opposite the cup they put a decent roll of gold wire, several loops of a substantial gauge and a hand's breadth across. The aliens knew from previous trading that the Humans and their allies valued gold.

That was innovative trading, but they went further. To the side there was an even bigger roll of the same wire, several kilograms easily. There was nothing offered in trade opposite it – yet.

"Captain , I want to explain what I think I'm being offered here. I'd appreciate your take, everybody's take on it in the shuttle really. We have a small enough group to discuss this," Jon said.

"We're watching. Wait a minute please, Jon. This is a for-all-hands message," Lord Byron announced on com. "I think most of you are watching the video of Specialist Burris' meeting with the Caterpillars. Please take a moment if you can do so safely, and text me an opinion of what the aliens intend. Give them a minute or two, Jon, and then go ahead and tell us your understanding of their actions."

"I believe they are showing their interest in coffee," Jon said in a bit. "They want the cup and sample if nothing else. It occurs to me that they seem more advanced than us in some ways. They might be able to analyze the coffee sufficiently to synthesize it or at least most of its components. But the large coil suggests they'd like a bigger sample. They may not understand it's an, uh, infusion."

"I see. I have my com tech reading the responses,” said Lord Byron. “I instructed the flight engineer to see how much coffee we have aboard. It's not going to be a huge amount. OK, coms says that basically four of seven agree with you that they want coffee. I concur, despite the fellow who says the cup may impress him, so make that six of nine including us. I think it's a really bad trade to only gain a little extra gold for it however," Lord Byron said. "At this distance from home I suspect coffee is already worth more than its weight in gold."

"What are your orders then, sir?" Jon asked.

"Let's just the two of us discuss it before we get to the orders stage. We value gold and they know that, but face it, we found enough gold around the brown dwarfs to permanently depress the value of gold and other precious metals if they all hit the market. Their value is going to be more a function of transportation cost within our lifetimes."

"I have to agree with that," Jon said. "We're going to see those values revised to be more like that of indium or erbium and palladium."

"Exactly. So I'm more worried about nailing down the tech than a one-time trade. They moved their equipment off to the side. They seem distracted by the coffee. Let's not be distracted ourselves. The tech is what we are interested in getting. Are you sure they are going to offer the video equipment to us since they kept ours?" Lord Byron asked.

"Not a hundred percent sir. I'm worried about that a little," Jon admitted. "I may have messed up and muddied the issue by bringing my coffee with me."

"Yes, I'm worried too. I was just told we have a kilo bag of coffee still sealed up and a partial bag that has some used. What I'm thinking is you should drag the blanket over to their video equipment and place the coffee so it is obviously a trade for that, not the gold. I'll send out the sealed bag to put beside the cup."

"If I may suggest. They don't have the cultural background. They may not even
cook
. Perhaps a small sample from the open bag
ground
, so they know to process it that way," Jon said.

"An excellent suggestion. I just stopped the fellow bringing you the sealed bag and sent him back to get a sample of fresh ground. So, you are the fellow out on the pointy end. Does that course of action make sense to you?" Lord Byron asked.

"It's pretty much what I'd have suggested. Are you going to run it past the crew?" Jon asked.

"No, I wanted opinions on assessing the situation. We don't do consensus on what to
do
about it. Go ahead Mr. Burris, proceed with those actions."

"Aye, sir. I'll start moving things now and your man should have the coffee to me before I'm done."

* * *

"I know we're getting pretty close to wrapping up the survey of this system," Lee said. "Can we hang around long enough to try my approach to getting the Caterpillars to show us how to use the machine?"

"Yes, if they accept another delegation at their lock and let them in as quickly as they did this time," Gordon agreed. "There's a limit how long I'll make all these ships and everybody aboard them sit on their hands waiting for them to open up and welcome another shuttle."

"I don't think I've ever seen Derf sit on their hands. Can you
do
that?" Lee asked.

"Easily for the lower set," Gordon said. "True hands are a bit of a stretch. You have to bend the back and it hurts the shoulder, but it is a human expression I picked up for the meaning, not any physical reality." He looked a little peeved with her nit-picking.

"Why have them go later and wait to be admitted?" Lee asked, returning to the original conversation. "They're going to be opening the hold hatch to let out the shuttle they have now." After several people gave her dark looks she amended that: "I mean, we assume and hope they will, just like before. Why not have another shuttle waiting for the hatch to open and just trade spots. We were saying how big it is. Lots of room to pass each other through the opening, even."

"Don't you think that's rather
pushy,
and presuming on their hospitality?" Gordon asked.

"Well yeah," Lee agreed, totally unrepentant. "But if I'd never been pushy we'd be back on Derfhome, sitting around the hot tub, getting fat and counting our share payments off Providence."

"You may be surprised to know your own culture has not always had this obsession with thinness," Gordon informed her. He seemed to quell a stronger reply. "Indeed, in studying English I found many older phrases, such as 'fat and happy', which indicated a certain plumpness was associated with prosperity rather than sloth in your not too distant history. However, I'll say this: We can propose the idea, and if anyone volunteers to fly the mission and man it then we can do it, but when the hatch opens I'd suggest we ask Lord Byron and Jon Burris if they'd stay in the hold and help guide the new exchange. They have the most experience and I give it much better odds of success with their direction."

"That's a great idea," Lee agreed. "When will
The Champion William
's shuttle get back with the bag of dirt?" Lee wondered. "Can they stick the Caterpillars' machine in it and be waiting by the hatch pretty soon?"

"Captain Fenton has very wisely been unwilling to risk his command by playing with the machine absent any guidance. He has been storing it in the freight lock so that if it showed any sign of unwanted activity he could flush it out the lock. I very much approve of his caution," Gordon said. "It also means their shuttle, which will be back soon, can put it aboard quickly when it returns. However,
The Champion William
is going to shift orbit closer to us and the Caterpillars with the shuttle grappled, as they can do that faster than the shuttle can do so on its own."

"Any idea how long," Lee persisted.

"Not nearly fast enough for you I'm sure," Gordon said. "Brownie, can you give us an estimate?"