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However, he had no thought of switching to something else, or even turning the communicator off altogether. For as irritating as the scientists sometimes were, he had a strong reason to learn about the Voldar’ik.

“Big, isn’t it?” Will Thompson asked from his own workstation. It was approximately the sixth time he had made that comment or one similar. “Aren’t going to get lost in there are you, Mark?”

“I hope not.”

Shortly after making contact with the aliens, Captain Landon had announced the composition of the first shore party that would be going aboard Zal’trel Station. (If one could call transferring from one vacuum-packed sardine can to another “going ashore.”) To no one’s surprise, the captain had decided to lead the party himself and to take Lisa along as translator. To Mark’s surprise, Landon chose him as computer specialist, and Mikhail Vasloff to play the roll of Master Trader.

“Why me?” Mark had squeaked when Thompson gave him the news.

“Because I recommended you,” the astronomer replied. “You have worked hard to learn Broan computer technology since we left the Solar System. You know enough to recognize their astronomical observations when you find them and to separate the wheat from the chaff.”

“I thought you would be going!”

“Dr. Bendagar vetoed my participation. I agree with him. I am good enough at my job, but my personality does not lend itself to feats of daring. I would likely wet my pants the first time an alien looked at me cross-eyed -- although, it does not look as though the Voldar’ik can cross their eyes.

“Do you think I can do it?”

Thompson nodded. “If anyone can.”

Those first few hours after first contact had been exhilarating ones for all aboard. The exhilaration had quickly worn off, however, as they returned to the mundane business of attempting to learn all they could about the aliens as quickly as they could. The mood aboard ship for the past several hours had been one of growing frustration. It seemed as though each communication with the Voldar’ik reminded them of the extent of their ignorance. Mark, in particular, felt like the proverbial ten-year-old lost in a foreign land, a country in which he can neither speak nor read the language. Everything about Klys’kra’t seemed oversize, wondrous, and more than a little frightening.

#

“Lisa, are you ill?”

Lisa glanced over her shoulder at Sar-Say. She had been sorting through her clothes, trying to pick the two outfits she would take with her when they transferred to the big Voldar’ik space habitat. They did not yet know whether they would be staying overnight or coming back to the ship after each meeting.

The captain had advised her and the rest of the members of the shore party that they had better come prepared. Despite her meager supply of belongings, she had been sorting through her clothes for the better part of an hour. The problem was that all of her outfits were in colors that clashed with her new orange skin.

“I am fine,” she replied. “Just opening night jitters.”

“I beg your pardon.”

She explained the expression.

Sar-Say absorbed it as he absorbed everything, then commented, “But surely the Voldar’ik will not care what it is that you wear.”

“But I will care. It is a human thing. Actually, it is a human
female
thing.”

“You forget, you are a Vulcan now.”

“That’s right. I had better start practicing, hadn’t I?”

At first, she had thought it silly not to call themselves human when the aliens asked. After all, it was not as though any of them had ever heard so much as a single word of Standard. However, just as intelligence agencies in the bad old days had gone to extraordinary efforts to conceal seemingly trivial details, it had been decided that they would obscure their origins as much as possible. That way the Voldar’ik (and through them, the Broa) would not be able to assemble a host of meaningless details into a very meaningful whole.

It had been one of the scientists with a taste for classic literature that had first suggested the name

“Vulcan.” What their visit to Klys’kra’t had to do with the god of volcanoes, Lisa had no idea.

“The captain is speaking to the habitat now,” Sar-Say announced. He had an earpiece in one ear and was following the dialogue on the command circuit. Lisa had turned her receiver off. She found that listening to the dry comments on both ends of the circuit raised her anxiety level. It had gotten to the point where she had felt like her favorite sparsball team was in the playoffs, the score was tied, and they had just entered sudden death overtime. She relied on Sar-Say to let her know if anything important happened, or if she needed to relay a message to the captain. “We are nearly in our assigned parking orbit. You should get ready.”

“Right,” she said, picking up the first two outfits she found and stuffing them into her kit bag. Sar-Say was right. The Voldar’ik would have no standards by which to judge her appearance. To them, she would be a strange, bi-axially symmetric biped who looked funny -- no matter what she wore.

There was a brief return of gravity as the astrogator applied a few seconds of thrust to match their velocity to that of the alien habitat. Then a spate of orders was issued over the ship’s annunciators. The last of these was,
“Shore party to the wardroom, ten minutes! I repeat, shore party to the
wardroom.”

“Well, I guess this is it,” Lisa said to the alien while repressing an urge to hug him.

“Please be careful, Lisa,” Sar-Say replied.

“I will.”

“And you will speak to the captain about my going along on a future shore party?”

“I will talk to him, but not before we get this one under our belts.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” With that, she signaled the guard beyond the cabin door that she wanted out.

#

Captain Landon was already in the wardroom when Lisa arrived. So was Dr. Bendagar. Mark arrived a few seconds later, and Mikhail Vasloff showed up within a minute. For some reason, Lisa found the sight of the five of them with their bright orange skin and electric blue hair amusing. She wondered if the Voldar’ik would have the same reaction.

As soon as Vasloff sat down, Dan Landon looked at each of them in turn and said, “Well, shipmates, it appears that the time has come to put theory into practice. Any of you want to back out?” There followed a few seconds of silence. When no one answered, the captain continued. “Good. Now, let us make sure that we all know our respective roles before we meet our hosts. Mr. Vasloff.”

“I am to be the rich capitalist merchant,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I am afraid my ancestors would not approve.”

“Do you think you can act the part?”

“Oh, easily. We Russians gave up communism several centuries ago. In addition, I have been studying our cargo in my spare time, of which I have had a great deal lately. It seems to me that the energy conversion units will be of most interest to our hosts, as will the control units for that strange silver box thing down in the hold. There are also several other devices that the Voldar’ik may find interesting. As for the rest, we can use our cover story of being new in these parts to find out their likes and dislikes.”

“Have you consulted with Sar-Say on your choices?”

“Miss Arden and I had a long chat with him. Even though he knows not this particular species, he gave me considerable guidance as to what is likeliest to have universal appeal within the Sovereignty.”

Landon nodded. “You seem well prepared. Of course, that is why I chose you. Remember, we want to keep the haggling going long enough to give Mark and Lisa a chance to do their jobs.”

“Understood, Captain.”

“I’ve noticed that you do seem to have an interest in alien technology, Mr. Vasloff,” Lisa said. “Frankly, that surprises me.”

The Russian looked sheepish. “Perhaps you mistake my intentions, my dear. I am studying the devices in the cargo hold to understand their impact on human society, not because I personally have a desire to possess such a device. If anything, the introduction of these new technologies will hurt my cause insofar as they prove acceptable to the public. They will cause a clamor for more and better gadgets rather than fewer.

“That is one of the problems with our species. We cannot think ahead when faced with the opportunity for immediate gratification. Luckily, I have sufficient time on my hands to consider the long-term impact

… and, as it turns out, to play a leading roll in our small theatrical production.”

“Right,” Landon said. “Mark, is it clear what you are to do?”

“Uh, crack their computers open.”

“Yes. Have you got your safe cracker tools?”

Mark held up a small hand computer. Inside was stuffed enough circuitry to suck the habitat’s computer system dry, although the limited storage capacity meant that he would have to return to the ship periodically to download what he had learned. Mark’s primary mission was to discover the breadth and depth of the Broan Sovereignty and to determine the extent of their penetration in the Orion Arm of the Galaxy.

The captain turned to Lisa. “You and I have the most delicate task, Miss Arden. We need to get the Voldar’ik talking about the Broa without advertising our ignorance. Frankly, I am not sure how we do that.”

Lisa frowned. It had been a subject that she had thought a lot about lately. How does one approach an alien and get them to talk about the overlords without revealing the degree of their curiosity? It was something akin to a wolf infiltrating a pack of domestic dogs, claiming to be one of them, and then asking if any of them knew what a human being looked like.

“Perhaps we can make an offering to the local gods. We tell them that our custom is to pay homage and ask where we send the bribe.”

The captain thought about it and nodded. “That might work. We will have to improvise, though. We cannot seem to be ignorant of the Broa, not if we are to keep them from having suspicions about us.”

“I can search for historical information, things like articles on the Broan conquest of Klys’kra’t,” Mark said. “Anything I find, I’ll include in the download.”

“Of course,” Landon agreed. “Just remember what Sar-Say has said about the Broan fetish for privacy.

If true, you are not liable to find much. On the other hand, if you find a lot, it will tell us something about the truthfulness of our little friend.”

Lisa felt a pang at the comment, as though a friend of hers had been accused of lying. She refrained from commenting. After all, the captain had said nothing that was not true.

“I’ll search.”

“Do that. See if you can find a picture of a Broa. We’ll want to confirm that they are as ugly as Sar-Say has painted them.”

Their briefing continued for another fifteen minutes, the last five of which Dr. Bendagar spent looking at the chronometer. Finally, they were finished.

“All right, people. Everyone have his or her backpack? We will stop in the commissary and load up on rations and water. If you have to go, I suggest you do it now. No telling what the toilet facilities are like on that station. We rendezvous at the main airlock in ten minutes. The Voldar’ik taxi will be waiting to ferry us over to the habitat by then.

The Voldar’ik taxi was a transparent ovoid with naked space-bender coils at each of its cardinal points.

Inside the bubble, a gridwork deck held a place for the pilot to stand and room behind him for passengers or cargo. In front of the pilot station were a few instruments that bore a resemblance to the newly redesigned displays aboard the
Whale
, but which were otherwise alien in their construction.

Apparently, as Sar-Say had told them, each species in the Sovereignty customized the common technology to fit their own peculiar needs. Save for the pilot station and a series of tubular hold-downs, the bubble craft was devoid of any hint of furnishings or decoration. Apparently, engines and environmental control system were hidden somewhere beneath the deck.

A Voldar’ik pilot was aboard the tiny craft, anchored in the pilot station when the four humans floated through the airlock. Despite the fact that he had never seen their kind before, Lisa Arden could detect no sign that the pilot was paying attention to his orange-skinned passengers. Of course, with the Voldar’ik’s peculiar hexagonal-symmetric layout and omni-directional vision, it was impossible to tell precisely where the creature was looking. He stood on his tripod legs like a tree growing out of the deck, unmoving save for a slow undulation of his meter-long tentacles. The pilot’s lack of apparent interest reminded her of many of the spaceport and airport workers she had seen on Earth. Eventually such people became so used to travelers that they relegated them to the status of scenery.

The four of them spent a few seconds slinging their kit bags and grabbing hold of anchor points. It was then that Lisa noticed the smell of the cabin air. It held a not unpleasant odor, but one that was unlike any that she had smelled before. In that air were clues to four or five billion years of non-parallel evolution, an entire biosphere that before this moment, had never known the scent of humanity. Moreover, the air was colder than she found comfortable. Already goose bumps were forming on her exposed skin. She considered fishing in her backpack for a jacket, and then decided that anchoring herself held a higher priority.

Without warning, the taxi de-coupled from the
Whale
’s Broan-designed airlock and used a short burst of power to back away before turning end-for-end. The maneuver caused the fluid in Lisa’s semicircular canals to do interesting things inside her head. By the time her vision cleared and she had her stomach under control, she was treated to a panoramic view of Zal’trel Station that made her forget her incipient space nausea. Save for the pilot in front and the deck below, the four of them might have been floating in midspace. It was a view sufficiently unobstructed to give an agoraphobe the shakes. It was awe-inspiring.

They had parked the
Whale
in orbit nearly ten kilometers distant from the station. Even so, it was as large as a planet in front of them, covering half the sky. In fact, the body of the station obscured part of Klys’kra’t’s blue-white disk. Its exterior was as cluttered as any of its human counterparts. The overall impression was that of flying over a wooded farmland. Here and there, the surface was a jumble of piping and alien equipment; while other places, she could see large expanses of naked hull plates. Many of these latter surfaces showed random patterns of light and dark windows. From their size at the current distance, those windows must be huge. Perhaps she was looking down on farmland, but farmland within the artificial asteroid, with the oversize windows providing sunlight to the growing things inside.