Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation (33 page)

"Colonel. They're coming out. Video match seems to be Tros...no…Ullumff. That's it...Ullumff...mean gravity is 1.4 Earth, sorry, compensating to 1.25 gravities to make them feel a little lighter...moisture level about our norm but they like 31 degrees Celsius equivalent...compensating...we have Ling as the only one qualified with the Ullumff language cylinders. She's headed your way. That's about it. They are milling about at the exit to their ship and look a bit hesitant. I'm adjusting the light spectrum - you'll find it a bit bright with fair size, randomized breeze. They can use the color-coding similar to ours sir…suitable spectrum.

Captain UmBllatt was feeling better. The primitives were afraid to meet them so they had made his team wait while they gathered their courage. His people could wait as long as it took. He was surprised by how cold and dim it seemed at first but for some reason, it was feeling better here. This moon must be denser than I thought since it has decent gravity...almost equal to home. The light seems brighter now too and I was cold when I stepped out and now it feels comfortable. This might work out after all.

"Greetings Captain, " Brad said in
Trade
. "I desire your trade here to be successful for all." Brad said in the phrases derived from the contextual associations in the manuals.

UmBllatt was a bit taken aback by the very understandable
Trade
language and content of the welcome. "Greetings Administrator. Where will we have dialogue and do you have sections of your facility suitable for my crew?"

Brad realized that chitchat was not being called for and indicated the yellow strip on the floor next to other colors just as Ling came walking up. She had five yellow key tabs on bracelets, hastily shaped to fit around the aliens' wrists, and handed them to Brad.

"You take over. This is no big deal right," Brad said to Ling in English and raised his eyebrows.

"Thanks a lot," she said knowing it was a psychological ploy and he was probably scared for her but hell, here goes. "Greetings. I will be your guide until you have rested and had a quick tour of the facility," she said in the Ullumff language as best she could but many of the grunts and gutturals were hard for even her to produce.

Captain UmBllatt was shocked. The administrator had met them properly but had left and then another being, smaller comes in and starts talking in our home language. Leaving us with an underling. Impolite. Having it speak our language is impossible. There have been no contacts with these people. Who could have come here before us? This one is smaller and malformed. No, it must have utters for feedings its young on the front. How disgusting! How could they look at that all day and not get nauseated? Endure. Remember your training. Oh. It is beginning to talk again and it was having difficulty with the easiest words.

"It is pronounced 'uolluumfp'. Proceed with what you were saying," Captain UmBllatt directed.

"These... bracelets go on your arm and allow you to go almost anywhere in the station. Follow the yellow pointers and they will direct you back to the ship if you desire. Any door with a yellow pad on it is safe and suitable for your crew and will answer simple questions. These are keys – tokens that allow privacy or passage," she held up the keytags, "and will open doors after your initial tour. Feel free to wander," Ling said and had had trouble with the term wander. It had come out more like moving from area to area with no set schedule...yeah...wander. Hurry up guys, she thought to her co-workers as she looked at the scanner panel on the wall with a pleading expression not visible to the aliens. She knew her people would be rushing to convert the closest habitats for these Ullumff.

Ling began to walk through the structure and point out the different areas of the complex. She pointed out the athletic complex -- essentially a clear area with a resilient floor. The aliens filed in quietly behind her. The captain did not ask any questions and thusly the crewmembers with him did not ask any. Finally the comm chirped in her ear. "Ling. We have their quarters set up. You wouldn't believe that these guys sleep propped up and their restroom is a bizarre one," said the communicator.

"Captain. Your rooms are prepared now. Let me show you where they are."

"You have rooms for my crew?" the captain asked incredulously. "We require special arrangements."

"These should meet your requirements," Ling answered and walked down the corridor to the habitat wing. The door opened to the final corridor and the dry heat hit her in the face. The heavy gravity and heat was physically draining and the stress didn't help. She motioned for her 'followers' to enter and she showed them around. "You have two personnel per room for sleep. Each room has a fresher section for cleaning and elimination.” Ling looked in the bathroom and the overhead light was glaring and hot.

“Hey Ling,” came over her headset in English. “They prefer the sun overhead and bushes near them when they defecate. Manuals say they like to see the desert is clear of enemies when they shit and they like to do that near bushes…some kind of symbiotic thing because bacteria in their pee and poop fertilizes plants wherever there is an oasis. Did the best we could with the wind…had to reverse the output fans to be directional and we used a couple of photos scanned from the damned manuals for the wall panorama on the high definition walls. Good luck.”

“Why do you delay?” demanded the Captain.

“Excuse me sir. I was examining your facilities here to make sure they would be adequate. They seem so but please scrutinize them yourself,” Ling said rapidly – a little taken aback by the abrupt tone and volume from the Captain.

“Certainly I will,” he said and strode brusquely past her.

There were several minutes of silence and then the Captain returned to the main room. “It appears adequate but there were no controls. How will we do anything if we are supposed to clean up our own waste products? Do you not have buckets and scoops? What type of facility are you running?”

“No controls?” Ling said to the Captain and then, “Guys? What gives?” she said sotte voce in English. “The computer scans and cleans up after them. Sorry. They just leave. They don’t even have to turn off the light.”

Ling grunted lightly into her pad (her hand) in best, embarrassed Ullumff. “Captain. You do your…you use the facilities as if you were on your home planet. This facility is self-cleaning and you need not do anything. Please just ask the computer if you need anything.”

The Captain seemed incredulous but took it with aplomb. Ling could tell he was an old campaigner.

“Who is this
computer
and how do I contact him if we require aid?” asked the Captain.

“The
computer
is a machine. Just speak '
Computer
. Service' ...if you need help… Say, '
Computer
' and then ask simple questions in
Trade
and the computer will try to answer. This sheet includes the services you can access from your room. You may have to repeat words in
Trade
or try alternate phrasing if it doesn't understand. You can also ask for a
Steward
if you require a being." Ling handed a packet to the captain and then turned to the entertainment center.

She flipped through the documentaries and 'advertisements' in
Trade
that had been produced specifically to show at the base. The aliens were so enthralled by the 3-D videos that they almost did not hear her parting words. "Just ask the computer to schedule trade talks and that will be arranged. Keep food and drink in your rooms please. You may not bring any food out of your ship but you can order suitable food from these lists," hastily printed in Ullumff and matched against candidates from Earthly stores she noted. She saw that one of the crewmembers had entered the fresher section and he had not shut the doors. Ling guessed why they had been called Ullumff after that and eased out the door where she took a deep breath of relief.

"Good job Ling," Brad said. "We've been with you every step of the way."

"Where'd you get all those soap bars and knickknacks and printed towels on such short notice?"

Brad laughed. "You know Harold, the guy that works with Susan and Rett at the Field...he was manager of a chain of Quality Inns™ and knows what beings need when they travel...no matter where they're from."

"What about all that snack fruit and nuts and bread sticks in the room. Shouldn't we be worried about how they will react to our foods and spices. Most of that is commercial stuff. I even saw a refrigerator in the room."

"Rett tells me that they could eat the utensils if they wanted to with no harmful effects and to watch out because they are very shrewd in trade."

"Okay then; you handle it when one of them goes toes up. See you at mess." Ling headed for the mess hall since it was really just breakfast time and she wanted some good tea in spite of her reservations about this setup. She let out a huge, exhausted sigh and shuddered with fatigue and stress before she ran into to her friends that were waiting just out of sight. They hugged her and patted her on the back as she rounded the corner.

Captain UmBllatt was in a quandary. These beings had shown them every courtesy but something was wrong. Something squirmed in the salad about this deal. Look at these rooms; spacious with gravity, and temperature, and atmosphere to our liking but this is an airless moon above a primitive planet. Someone must have run across these humans decades before to produce this complex. It's too perfect. Even the Central Worlds are not this nice. This is right out of the manuals. Every race tries to live up to the manuals but no one comes very close...yet, these beings have it all...just like in the manuals -- but more...and this 'entertainment center'...who produces this marvelous pictures and sound...it is impossible...yet it is here...and the elimination facilities were exquisite, with sand the same color as home. He had felt like he was almost home with the wind and sun hitting him. The walls! ...even the walls showed moving pictures of home and how had they made the plants move in the breeze? It was impossible… impossible that this out of the trade route planet had better facilities than a Central World establishment. They spoke Ullumff …impossible.

"Captain. Try these vegetable protein orbs with spices. They are called 'peanuts' and Urrumm found a heat-exchanging device that keeps things cold. You will never guess what was in it?" the navigator looked over to Urrumm who was pouring liquid from a brown bottle down his throat.

"Fermented grain beverage Captain. 'Beer' it is called here. It is freezing cold and almost hurt my throat but it tastes good. I almost never figured how to open it 'til Nav used his url to punch a couple of holes in the top. It's worth the trouble."

The captain grunted goodnaturedly to his men but felt ill at ease. There was too much luxury here. This was too nice for a space crew. I will not give in to all this, he thought, and he was determined not succumb to this... whatever it was... this luxury. Meanwhile, he decided to find out while the men settled in to watch the display...while they ate the 'peanuts' and drank chilled beer.

UmBllatt walked over to the comm console and said, "Computer...(Pause) Do you understand me?” as Ling had demonstrated.

"Yes," the computer answered in
Trade
.

"What is your duty?"

"To monitor the environment of this room and serve the beings within it."

"So you listen to anything in this room...at all times?"

"Yes."

Just as I thought... We are being spied on all the time. "Do you ever sleep or stop working?"

"No."

"Does someone replace you at intervals?" UmBllatt said hoping that he could use a shift change to slip out undetected.

"No."

"How can you monitor and never rest?" UmBllatt said thinking these beings were trying to trick them somehow.

"I am a
computer
."

"What is a
computer
?" UmBllatt asked wondering what being would lie in such a flat voice.

"I am a non-sentient
electronic
device programmed to answer and respond to simple verbal queries."

UmBllatt didn't know what
electronic
was but these beings had a very sophisticated intercom system and he wanted to trade for that knowledge. Keeping someone to watch us at
all
times meant that these beings, indeed, thought we were important after all. Good, he thought and glanced over at the display while easing toward the last of a large bowl of salted peanuts.

He eased over to the door and turned an ear toward it but heard nothing. He palmed the panel as he had been shown and the door slid open with a hydraulic hiss. He leaned his head out the door and twisted oculars to see in all directions before he started to ease down the hallway. It never occurred to him to ask the computer to display a diagram of the station and yet he had no innate sense of direction. One direction seemed as good as any and it seemed that he had not been seen this area before. A door slid open before him and a young technician stepped out of a small workroom right in front of UmBllatt.