Gibraltar Sun (31 page)

“Greetings Markel Sinth,” the green one said. “We are here to inspect your ship and make sure that it is safe for you to enter our biosphere.”

“We are ready to be inspected,” Mark replied, not adding a name because he wasn’t sure which was which. “What do you require of us?”

“We need two specimens of your crew to be scanned for microorganisms. I am afraid that you are not in our standard database, and therefore, the scans will have to be full spectrum.”

“Very well. Will I and my assistant be sufficient?”

“You appear to have different physiologies. Why is that?” the blue-green inspector asked.

“We are of different sexes. I am male and my assistant is female. I hope this is not a delicate subject with your race.”

“Why would it be? Are there more variants?”

“More sexes? No, only the two. I’m afraid that you are not in our standard database either. Is it the same with you?”

“We have three sexes,” Green said. “I and SerBis(Dek)Fos are of the genetic material donor sex. When you go down to the planet, you will meet members of the fertilizer and receiver sexes.”

“Are they outwardly different from you two?”

“To no great degree. Many aliens cannot distinguish one sex from another. We, of course, have no difficulty in discerning the differences.”

Mark made the Broan gesture for mirth, something these creatures should be familiar with. “Yes, we also have an instinctual understanding of such things. There are species, I understand, that cannot… tell the difference, that is.”

“It must make for a confusing mating season,” the blue-green Ranta, the one named Ser, replied.

Mark wondered if he was making a joke, then decided not to test out the theory. Instead of laughing, he asked, “What do you require of us?”

The resulting examination was thorough. Both Mark and Lisa were prodded, asked to display the various orifices of their bodies (from which swabbed specimens were taken), then scanned with a couple of devices that were different from the Voldar’ik bio scanners, but which served the same purpose.

When they were done, the two inspectors conferred briefly in their own language, then announced themselves satisfied. “You do not appear to have any organisms that can feed on our kind. Your bio-chemistry is sufficiently different that none of our organisms are likely to find you edible. While different, your chemistry is close enough that you should be able to eat our food, although supplements are advised.”

Mark nodded. “That is good to know. We had heard that your foodstuffs are edible by our kind, but having your verification of the fact puts to rest many concerns. If your food turned out to be poison to us, this trip would have been a waste of time and value.”

“You are approved to enter our biosphere,” ValikSanMor said. “We must now inspect your ship.”

“Of course,” Mark replied, gesturing for them to follow him.

Captain Harris led the tour through the Potemkin Village portion of the ship. Outwardly, their vessel bore a resemblance to Sar-Say’s wrecked transport, save for the human-style controls.

Once again, the two appeared not to be particularly interested in what they were seeing, as though they had done this a thousand times before. However, local rules called for ship inspection upon arrival, and inspect they did.

When they were done, they gave
New Hope
a clean bill of health.

“Will you be bringing this vessel down to the planet?” ValikSanMor asked.

“No,” Harris replied. “It would be too difficult to decontaminate after such a visit. Our own world’s health regulations are as stringent as your own. We will send down our auxiliary craft with Master Markel Sith and three others, if that is acceptable.”

“Your business is your business.”

“A very proper attitude,” Mark replied. “One of our party will be a scholar of our people. He is along to learn about other cultures… a requirement before he will be allowed to practice his profession. Is it possible for him to be given access to your planetary database?”

“Something can be arranged in exchange for value.”

“Of course,” Mark replied. “It is good to meet a race whose outlook is so much like our own. Where should we land our auxiliary craft?”

“We must make our report first. We will provide you coordinates and communications bands within one planetary rotation. You need only orient your instruments to the westernmost point of the largest continent to follow our instructions.”

“Thank you. May we present the two of you with tokens of our appreciation? Is that the local custom?”

“It is.”

“I will have my assistant retrieve the items.”

With bribes in hand, the two inspectors returned to their own boat and departed. As soon as the hangar bay door closed, Captain Harris ordered the ship spun up and the ozone purged from the atmosphere.

So far, the masquerade appeared to be working perfectly. Of course, with aliens, one could not always tell.

#

Ship Commander Second Grade Pas-Tek of the Avenger-class warship
Blood Oath
was irked. He and his ship had been on patrol for half a Greater Cycle and had been looking forward to going home. Instead, they had received orders to divert from their planned route in order to deliver special orders to half the minor planets in the sector.

The order was for all Sector, Sub-sector, and Planetary Masters to be on the lookout for a group of orange-skin, blue-fur-bearing bipeds who had incurred docking fees at some backwater planet and then skipped out without paying what they owed. Along with descriptions and stereo images, there were complete bioscans on the miscreants for the benefit of those races that did not see in color.

The stated offense hardly seemed to merit even the briefest flicker of attention from Those-Who-Rule. Yet, the dispatch he carried was coded at the highest priority, meaning that it was important enough to dispatch warships to deliver it to out-of-the-way systems that might otherwise not receive word in the lifetime of currently living beings.

The problem was that Civilization was just too large for messages to be distributed efficiently by starship. There were too many worlds and too few ships to do the work. Even if they had the ships, they would lack the Masters to man them. Aboard his own vessel, Pas-Tek was the only Broa. The rest of the crew were Gorthians, with a couple of Basiks thrown in for diversity, and his personal guard force of Banlath warriors. It was becoming harder and harder each cycle to entice good young Masters to join the Navy.

Pas-Tek had often wondered why the gates that were his portals to distant worlds could not also carry messages. It would be a simple matter to establish transmitters and receivers on each gate in a star system, and to transmit messages between gates in a single system. The problem was getting messages between gates in different systems.

Surely an automated vessel could be developed that would shuttle between pairs of gates and transmit the messages to the intra-system transmitters. In this way, messages could cross Civilization in one-eighth the time they were now taking. Such an invention would relieve his own ship of the tedious task of jumping from system to system and transmitting high priority directives to the local Masters and subservient governments.

Already on this voyage, he had touched at Versal, Dratf, Meginianalod, Strmpf, and Pepcal. He had yet to visit Modat, Sserrtal, Bestafal, Etnarii, Sasta, and Desh. Only after this dreary litany of little visited outposts of Civilization was complete would he and his ship be free to return home for a well needed rest.

As he contemplated the unfairness of it all, his cabin communicator squawked.

“Yes?”

“You asked to be notified when we reached the gate, Master,” Saton, his Ventan sailing master announced.

“Any traffic?”

“Two ore freighters preparing to jump. I sent our identification and they are now clearing the way for us.”

“They should have made way when their long-range scanners first picked us up. We may have to teach these freighter shipmasters a lesson one of these cycles.”

“Yes, Master,” Saton replied without emotion. His commander often made such threats, but had yet to carry one out. Whether his inactivity came from moral scruples, or merely a lack of initiative, the sailing master could not say. The business of Masters was the sole province of Masters. Lesser beings wisely steered clear. As the shamans often said, ‘When Darvan Beasts mate, it is easy for those of lesser races to be accidentally crushed in the throes of passion.’

“Very well, Saton. You may jump when we are in position. Next stop, the ever lovely, sulfurous mud pools of Modat.

“I look forward to it,” the sailing master said with no hint of irony. To his race, what the Ship Commander described was very like home.

#

Chapter Thirty Two

The landing boat keened from the high speed wind beyond the hull as it dropped toward Pastol’s verdant main continent. Bernie Sampson was concentrating on his flying, aiming for a small spot one hundred kilometers to the east of the westernmost point on the continent, a small peninsula from which a space beacon radiated skyward. The rest of the ground party, Mark, Lisa, and Seiichi Takamatsu, gawked at the scenery ahead.

Pastol’s oceans were a deeper blue than those of Earth, the result of Etnarii’s G5 spectral class, which made it a bit cooler than Sol, with more yellow in its spectrum. Below them, huge ships plied the waters, leaving V-shaped wakes of whitecaps behind them. Ahead, the large continent was just beginning to appear on the horizon, the outlines softened by atmospheric haze.

To port, large cumulonimbus clouds were forming below them, a portent of an active weather cycle. For a planet devoted mostly to farming, plenty of rain would seem to be a blessing, although that assumption was grounded in their experience with terrestrial ecology. On an alien world, water falling from the sky might be considered a problem, especially if the locals were the equivalent of cactus farmers.

“Look at those mountains!” Lisa exclaimed as more of the continent climbed above the distant horizon. The eastern end of the continent was protected by a snow-capped range of peaks that rivaled Mount Everest on Earth. Directly in front of them were more than a dozen cloud defying peaks.

“Lower gravity,” Takamatsu responded. “It allows a larger mass of rock to be supported by the planetary crust.”

“I just hope the electric heating circuits in our jumpsuits don’t short out,” Mark replied. “It looks cold down there.”

“Which is probably why the locals developed feathers,” the technologist replied. “They need the insulation.”

“Is everything a scientific fact to you?” Lisa asked. “Can’t you just enjoy the beauty?”

“Sorry,” he said, grinning. “Just practicing for my role as the misunderstood scholar on this expedition.”

“Keep it up,” Mark said. “We all need to stay in character from this moment until we are safely aboard ship again. No telling what kind of slip will give the show away down there.”

“Yes, Captain Bligh,” his wife replied in Broan trade talk, mangling the final name the way Sar-Say had when she first met him.

“Would you people please be quiet? I am trying to fly up here,” Bernie Sampson said over his shoulder from the pilot’s seat.

The rest of them shut up, concentrating instead on the scenery as they passed over the mountain range and encountered the vista of a vast plain stretching before them. One thing became immediately evident. The plain was covered with farms for as far as the eye could see.

#

The landing boat grounded in a flurry of exhaust from the underjets, coming to rest on a hard surface that shimmered in the sunlight.

Around them were towering buildings on the periphery of the combination airport/spaceport. Several sleek aircraft were parked at what could only be passenger terminals, connected to the buildings by long, spindly tubes. As on Earth, form followed function.

As soon as the whine of their engines faded into inaudibility, two Ranta emerged from the nearby structure and made their loping way toward the boat. A human being would have had difficulty keeping up with them at the speed they walked, a natural consequence of their long legs.

“Showtime!” Mark muttered as he unstrapped. “Everyone sit tight until I give you the signal to come out. I’ll go put my toe in the water and hope that the local crocodiles don’t bite it off.”

He made his way to the midships airlock. Checking the telltales that showed the quality of air beyond, he palmed the control that opened both airlock doors simultaneously. His ears popped as pressure equalized in the boat. He stepped through the open lock as soon as the pressure doors retracted, and immediately shivered in the cold wind.

He made the Broan gesture of welcome and said, “Greetings! Thank you for allowing us to visit your beautiful world.” That at least, was the sentiment. What he actually said was,
“Hello. Appreciation permission us here planet esthetic good.”

Despite the jangled syntax of the common tongue of the Sovereignty, the two Ranta seemed to have no problem following the gist of his greeting.

“Greetings. I am BasTorNok, Senior Inspector of this Place of Arrival. This is CanVisTal, representative of our Out-System Trade Council. Welcome.”

“I am Markel Sinth, Master Trader and leader of our team.”

“And your purpose here?” CanVisTal asked.

“We are on a mission of trade exploration for our Master, the exalted Sar-Tal of the Sar-Ganth Clan. He bade us to seek value beyond our normal sphere of commerce in the hope that we might enhance his standing with Those Who Rule.”

“He sounds very like our Master.”

“Who is?”

“Zer-Fal.”

“Is he here on this world? It is our custom to pay our respects to the local Master and to present him with gifts.”

“No, he is at the Subsector Capital on Gasak, which you passed through on your way here.”

“Yes, of course. We visited the system but found little there that could not be obtained much closer to our own star. Perhaps we can leave our offering with you, to be presented to your master the next time he favors you with a visit.”