Probability Sun (13 page)

They were polite enough, however, and the meal progressed with ritual exchanges and easy conversation. Pek Sikorski did most of this. Of course, she was the only Terran who could speak World. Pek Kaufman watched everything keenly and smiled often. A happy man, Enli thought, or a good trader. Only five sat around the table, Voratur having dismissed everyone except his oldest son, Soshaf Pek Voratur. This was, or would eventually be once the eating was over, business. The two Terran servants sat apart. Pek Voratur had seemed surprised that Pek Kaufman had not dismissed them, and the trader had ordered a second table, which was hastily erected. Enli was grateful to sit with her back to the Terran servants. Somewhere in her strange stiff clothing the woman, Pek Heller, carried a
gun
.

When the last dishes were removed, a little silence fell. Pek Voratur waited. Just as the first feelings of unshared reality were beginning, Pek Kaufman ran his hand over the gleaming table. “Beautiful wood,” he said in World, the words obviously newly learned and laughably accented.

Pek Voratur relaxed. Business had begun as it should. He wiped his mouth on a food cloth, belched, and said, “My garden blooms anew because you admire this table. The artisan is Holit Pek Marrabilor. It may be possible that he would like to trade tables with our Terran visitors.” Pek Sikorski translated this; her World was better than Enli’s Terran.

“It may be possible that Terrans would like to acquire such tables in trade,” Pek Kaufman said, in Terran. More translation.

“Perhaps in return for bicycles,” Voratur said. “The Terran bicycles bloom in my heart.”

“We have twenty bicycles to trade,” Pek Sikorski said, this time without consulting Pek Kaufman. Well, the Terrans were like that. High members of a household could speak for the head, could even disagree with him or her. What a peculiar people!

Voratur’s eyes gleamed in his well-oiled face. “Twenty bicycles are welcome in trade. Perhaps for twenty tables by Holit Pek Marrabilor, or by artisans as skilled?”

Pek Sikorski translated for Pek Kaufman, who surprised everyone by saying in World, “Yes. Trade. May your flowers bloom:” Basic words and still that laughable accent … but yesterday Pek Kaufman had known no World words. Could all Terrans learn to speak so quickly? Then they were a brilliant people, as well as a dangerous one.

“It may be that larger trades also grow in this garden,” Pek Sikorski said, and something in her voice, or the way her body leaned forward, made Enli suddenly tense. This was going to be one of the Terran different realities; she could feel it.

“Tell me of the flowers you smell in that garden,” Voratur said.

“Once before, Pek Voratur, we made an unusual trade to you. We traded potions against the flower sickness.”

“Ah, yes, the
antihistamines
,” Voratur said; the word was Terran. “I have traded them well, Pek Sikorski.”

He had indeed, Enli thought. Terran
antihistamines
had made Voratur one of the richest men on World.

“And in return for the
antihistamines
,” Pek Sikorski continued, “you traded to us a picture of your brain.”

A “
Lagerfeld scan
.” Enli had not felt the strange words sprout in her mind in three years. The Terrans had put a metal hat on Pek Voratur and asked him many questions. This was supposed to make pictures of how his brain worked, although Enli had never been shown such pictures. She was not sure they really existed. And yet, the Terrans had all been excited over the
Lagerfeld scan
. Perhaps the pictures did exist. After all, the Terrans had
antihistamines
, flying boats,
guns
, hurtful invisible walls, and other bizarre and mostly unnecessary machines.

“I remember the picture of my brain,” Voratur said cautiously. Enli understood the caution. The scan had been a piece of unshared reality, although a minor one, and hence had cost him a thumping headache.

Pek Sikorski said something to Pek Kaufman in Terran too rapid for Enli to follow. She caught only the words “control data.” What were the Terrans seeking to control now?

Cold seeped up her spine, and her neckfur bristled.

Pek Sikorski said, “We would plant a trade together with you, Pek Voratur, and may it bloom for us both. We would trade you this.” She looked at Pek Kaufman, who drew from his pocket a piece of paper and unfolded it.

It was a very wasteful use of paper, that expensive stuff, Enli thought. Most of the paper was blank. Only the middle had drawing, a picture of a complicated machine. Pek Kaufman turned the paper toward Pek Voratur, and Enli could no longer see it.

“This is a steam machine,” Pek Sikorski said. “We can show you exactly how to build it. Once you understand that, you can build many different kinds of steam machines, to do many different things. Logs can be carried on carts that do not have to be pulled. Water can be brought from rivers to water fields and gardens. Boats can travel to the many islands where you trade, without sail or oars. Of course, it will take time to learn to do these things, maybe years, but their value will be very great.”

Pek Voratur studied the drawing. “A steam machine?”

“Hot steam. It can move things. Here, let me explain.” Pek Sikorski talked on, but Enli did not attempt to follow. She watched Pek Voratur’s face, knowing what he would say.

“Yes, yes, I see,” he said finally, without enthusiasm. “But why should we want such a machine?”

Pek Sikorski and Pek Kaufman looked at each other.

Soshaf Pek Voratur said, “What would we do with it?”

“We told you,” Pek Sikorski said. “Carry logs, water fields, move boats—”

“If a machine carried logs, what work would there be for our woodsmen?” Soshaf said reasonably.

“Why would we need to water our fields when the First Flower always sends us the rain she wishes us to have?” Voratur said.

“And to move boats?” Soshaf asked. “Boats move downriver of themselves, and back upriver and over the sea by the efforts of wind or oarsmen. Would you put the oarsmen all out of work? How would they feed their children?”

“And if they could not trade their labor, to whom would I trade the goods on my trading fleet?” Pek Voratur said in bewilderment. Not only bewilderment. Enli saw clearly the start of Voratur and Soshaf’s head pain. The Terrans must already see their objections; they were shared reality. Yet the Terrans did not seem to see. Unshared reality …

Pek Sikorski said quickly, “Yes, of course. Your trading would not be increased. Forgive us; our soil is poor today, and we imagine in bad dreams.”

“May your soil improve and your gardens flourish,” Voratur said, without warmth. “But bad dreams do not help trade. It may be that we cannot bring a trade to flower between us, Pek Kaufman.”

Pek Sikorski said, without translating. “I am sure we can plant a gloriously blossoming trade, Pek Voratur!” To Enli’s ears she sounded desperate. Why?

“What did he say?” Pek Kaufman asked Pek Sikorski.

“Backing out,” she said in English. “We misjudged. A steam engine won’t aid productivity as much as disrupt economic stability.”

“Damn,” Pek Kaufman said. “Tell him we have something else to offer.”

“Lyle, no!”

“Tell him, Ann.” The tone of authority was unmistakable.

Voratur listened to all these words he could not understand. Enli saw his temper rise: disrespect on top of the imaginings of bad dreams. Offered to him, Hadjil Pek Voratur, the best trader on World! To him!

“Tell Pek Kaufman,” he said to Enli, “that our trade does not bloom. May the First Flower bloom for him elsewhere.” Voratur stood.

“Pek Voratur!” Pek Kaufman said, standing as well. “Look! Trade!” His accent had worsened even more and his words were barely recognizable, simple as they were. But the object he pulled from inside his bizarre clothing was recognized. Enli knew what it was, and from his face, Voratur did, too. Of course he did; the trader had let no tiny detail go unobserved when the Terrans had stayed with him on their previous trading journey.

“Enli, please translate,” Kaufman said in Terran. “Pek Voratur, this comlink is a box to send messages over long distances. When your—”

“He knows what a comlink is,” Enli said to Kaufman, and realized that for the first time in her life she had interrupted a Terran. She didn’t need to look at Pek Voratur to know what he was thinking.

Voratur, like all traders, used sunflashers to send and receive messages from his trading fleet. The carefully spaced towers and skilled mirror users were a good way to ensure that any shared reality, trade or not, reached all of World in one day and one night. But only when the sun was shining. With four or five Terran
comlinks
, Pek Voratur could reach his fleet, his land caravans, his agents in the capital at any time, day or night, in any weather.

Pek Voratur said, “Please sit, Pek Kaufman. More pel?”

“Lyle,” Pek Sikorski said in a low, urgent voice in Terran, “you can’t. The steam engine is the next projected step in their industrial development anyway. But a
comlink
—”

Pek Kaufman said pleasantly, not lowering his voice, “They can’t duplicate it. I am not an anthropologist, I am a military negotiator on a major war effort. Now please be quiet, Dr. Sikorski.”

Even Voratur, ignorant of the words, understood Kaufman’s tone. Pek Sikorski sank back on her pillow as if she’d been struck.

Voratur said briskly, “Six comlinks, Pek Kaufman, in return for pictures of my brain and Enli Pek Brimmidin’s, Enli, for each year the comlinks work, there will come to you every third share of my increased profits over my profits for this past year. Do you wish to plant that trade with me, Enli?”

Enli didn’t look at Pek Sikorski. She didn’t understand why Pek Sikorski didn’t want Pek Voratur to have the
comlinks
, but Enli didn’t like it. Why should Pek Sikorski say what Worlders could or could not have in trade? Was Pek Sikorski trying to keep useful things away from World because she thought Terrans were of more value than Worlders? Well, Pek Voratur should have whatever he could make a fair trade for. That was shared reality, and this was not Pek Sikorski’s world, but Pek Voratur’s.

And Enli’s.

She said, “I wish to plant that trade with you, Pek Voratur.”

“May it bloom and flourish. Tell Pek Kaufman ‘yes,’ in his Terran words.”

“Tell Pek Voratur,” Kaufman replied easily, “that I am delighted we will plant a trade together. Will he come tomorrow afternoon to our household to make the brain pictures and receive the comlinks? And you, too, Enli?”

Enli translated. “We will come,” Pek Voratur said, but even as Enli took the celebratory glass of pel from Soshaf Voratur’s triumphant hand, she felt the strength go out of her legs so that they trembled and ran like water.

ELEVEN

THE NEURY MOUNTAINS

I
insist,” Dieter Gruber said, his blue eyes cold. “Tom comes, too. This is critical.”

“This is irrelevant,” Tom Capelo said, mimicking Gruber’s accent accurately and cruelly. “Unmeasurable subjective feely-squirmy stuff.”

Lyle Kaufman looked from one man to the other. Gruber, tall and implacable, a Teutonic warrior issuing battle orders. Capelo, short and disheveled, the scrawny foot soldier somehow, incredibly, in charge of the battle. Both of them gleaming with the dangerous mad irritability of men short on sleep.

“If you call yourself a scientist, you will come.”

“Because I call myself a scientist I don’t base hypotheses on tickles in my brain. Or yours.”

“All right,” Kaufman said. “All
right
.”

They stood at the edge of the massive hole in the upland valley. A quarter-mile below them, Albemarle directed a crew of techs in the minute mapping of the exact position of every newly exposed protuberance on the artifact. Tomorrow it would be lifted free. The sheer drop at Kaufman’s feet, kept vertical and solid by nanotech supports, was dizzying. It didn’t seem to bother either Gruber or Capelo, however, who went on arguing about Gruber’s foot expedition into another part of the mountains.

Gruber said, “Lyle can simply order you to go.”

“I wouldn’t order Tom to do that,” Lyle said quickly. Direct orders were the very worst way to manage a man like Tom Capelo. Gruber was no diplomat. “Tom, tell me again why you don’t want to go.”

Capelo said with exaggerated, sarcastic patience, “Because I am already juggling four sets of real data. One, the neutrino map of the Neury Mountains. Two, our data readings here. Three, the readings in Syree Johnson’s report about the other artifact that exploded in space. And four, everything we know—which isn’t much—about the Faller beam-disrupter shield. Four real, measurable sets of data. I don’t need to take time from them to crawl through irradiated tunnels to some spot that supposedly will create subjective little diddles in my brain.”

Gruber said, “He is afraid of the tunnels and radiation. You are a coward, Capelo.”

Such an ugly look flashed into Capelo’s eyes that Kaufman had to stop himself from taking a step backward. Before Capelo could speak, Kaufman said quickly, “Be careful, Tom. Your children are watching.”

Capelo spun around, so that for one heart-stopping moment Kaufman was afraid he would fall into the hole. The two little girls, tended by their nurse, played under a rock overhang as far away from the hole as the tiny valley allowed. At that moment Sudie happened to look toward her father. She waved happily. “Hi, Daddy! I’m a rock doggie!”

“Arf, arf, sweetheart,” Capelo called, and when he turned back to Gruber, the worst moment had passed. It was the first time that Lyle had found any reason to be glad the children existed. Nonetheless, he gave Capelo no chance to speak before castigating Gruber himself.

“Dieter, that’s slanderous and untrue, and you know it. If you call yourself a scientist, stick to facts in presenting your ease to Tom. Ja?”

“Ja,” Gruber said. “I am sorry, Tom. You are not a coward. But you still must come experience this spot in the field.”

Kaufman said, “I’m going on the expedition, Tom. After all, you told me yourself that scientific data are often preceded by phenomena nobody knows how to measure yet. Today’s truths were yesterday’s scientific heresies.”