sorry for the late release. I was so busy, I completely forgot about it. Thank(s) Thrangar for kicking me
Still no news re publication of the printed version. So I'll just keep posting until I run out of material
Chapter 14 of Farnhams Legend, by HelgeK and rewritten by SteveMill.
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CHAPTER 14
GETSU FUNE
It is better to make a profit and lose it again
than never to make a profit at all.
Teladi Proverb
It did not require much in the way of piloting skills to steer the Getsu Fune through the gigantic airlock into the landing area of the trading station High Finance and land it in the designated area. Elena ordered Marc to prepare detailed recordings of all the ships that the Getsu Fune had landed in the middle of; the different types and designs fascinated Elena and invited pictures of their makers.
For example the ship in the adjacent landing slot had an unusual, organic shape and appearance that seemed unlikely to contribute much to its flight handling but neither did it appear to serve any technical purpose. The hull had a strange hue to her eyes, a shade somewhere between purple and blue that stood out against the background of the other ten or twelve more prosaic designs parked around it. She was almost certain that had not been built by the people of this sector, but rather by non-human creatures of some kind. Maybe by the reptilians whose space traffic controller had greeted her as she entered the star system?
While her gaze wandered wide-eyed, a glassy, cantilevered tube protruded from above and searched up and down, back and forth, at about a meter's distance from the ship's side, with staccato movements that suggested electronic bafflement. A gangway or docking tunnel, possibly, trying to mate with the Getsu Fune's airlock and unable to identify the ship type was fruitlessly searching for the right place?
For hundreds of years, there had been protocols established between terrestrial ships and stations, covering service entrances, airlocks and their dimensions, as well as procedures for the loading and unloading of vehicles, which allowed them to recognise their respective counterparts, even when dealing with completely new types with inherently different constructions and procedures. The variety of ships currently in this landing area alone suggested that something of that kind must exist here, far from Earth.
"Marc, can you transmit the service protocol to the station?"
"Affirmative", answered the computer. The glassy tunnel outside continued to perform its spasmodic dance and it took Elena a few seconds to realise her mistake. "Could you do it then, please!" she ordered, shaking her head.
Marc confirmed, and seconds later the transparent landing tunnel swept purposefully to the Getsu Fune's airlock, and sucked itself firmly onto the ship's side with a loud sucking sound.
Her instruments showed a loading procedure underway; the station was trying to replenish the ship's fuel and O2 supplies. For a moment she considered aborting the process, not sure if the station would be able to provide the correct elements but then she remembered that the service protocols specified the detailed chemical compositions of the fuel, including the tolerances. If they were accepted and acted upon she could be confident that the requested materials were available.
But what next? Elena had ascertained that the atmosphere and pressure outside the ship were suitable for her. In fact the controls indicated that the oxygen content of the gas mixture in the station accounted for twenty-five percent rather than the Earth's characteristic twenty-one percent, but that should be no problem. The instruments also showed traces of several unusual noble gases, in quantities that should be completely safe for a human.
For several minutes she went through the ship's pre-flight check procedure; item by item, just to be on the very, very safe side.
They showed the Getsu Fune had suffered no detectable structural damage transiting the singularity; in fact it was in such good shape it could just have rolled off the production line.
Elena updated the logbook and after completing the entries, glanced pensively at the empty co-pilot's seat. The USC, loathe as ever to lose pilots, judged her to be sufficiently qualified to carry out the rescue mission single-handedly and if she found Brennan, he would, despite his higher rank, take the role of co-pilot for the return flight.
Her orders were to destroy the X and to return only with the Getsu Fune.
To Elena's left there was another empty seat, for a mission specialist astrogator, which had no flight controls.
She reminded herself again that her overriding objective must be to obtain information on the whereabouts of Brennan, however fascinating the station might be. His arrival in this region of the universe could not possibly have gone unnoticed. Unlike the almost "energy-silent" jump of her ship, the X must have emerged here in an explosion of Cherenkov and other radiation and propagated a huge gravitational wave.
If he had survived the accident the people and aliens of these sectors would have taken care of him, whatever that might mean. So why not approach the governments officially? Elena reserved this option for a later date; for the time being she was content that, for whatever reason, she was being taken for a "Goner" and this enabled her to collect information unchallenged before having to decide on a course of action.
Elena clambered out of the pilot seat and set off down the between-decks which, as well as giving access to the freight bay, also held the airlock. She briefly considered arming herself but decided against it. So far no one had been in any way hostile and there was no point provoking anyone by waving a gun around.
Spacesuit, lightweight pressure suit, mask? Based on the atmospheric composition outside, there was no need, but was she ready to step outside and face the unknowns of an extraterrestrial civilisation? Would they continue to take her for a "Goner"? She doubted it; her uniform alone would inevitably attract attention.
She considered removing or hiding the USC symbol on her sleeve so as not to arouse further curious questions. But if there was a reception committee waiting to arrest her and dismantle her spaceship it wouldn't matter a jot either way. Elena slipped into a grey-blue pilot's jacket with the fake fur collar she found in the equipment locker. It didn't sport the USC logo and would cover up the one on her overalls well enough. That would have to do.
She took a deep breath.
The feeling in the pit of her stomach was roughly the same as for her first days-long deep-sea free dive. Her breathing reflex had been stopped, all the cavities in her body - including her lungs and skull - had been filled with pressure-equalising fluid and her bloodstream aerated by nano-symbionts which not only extracted oxygen from sea-water and aerated her blood directly, but also altered the biochemistry of her skin and eyes to protect against damage.
A further strain had accelerated the burning up of nutrients to prevent hypothermia and for the whole four-day excursion, Elena had an insatiable appetite and in that short time had stuffed herself with more food than she would have had in two weeks on land. Free diving was more or less pointless and was frowned upon by professional divers like Gisbert. It was more a kind of extreme sport and a challenge, whose fascination Elena had been unable to resist. She remembered all too clearly the terrifying feeling of no longer being able to breath but still being alive. It had been described to her precisely beforehand, and she had been clear that she would be in no immediate danger, having learnt about it during her training. Nevertheless, the thought of the imminent changes to her body and, above all, the minutely described experience of stopping breathing had really got to her.
The stone that now lay in her stomach was not entirely of this nature, but it had similar qualities and was as severe. Back then, she had braced herself and faced up to the challenge, like so many other times before and since.
Elena pressed the button. The inner and outer airlocks opened simultaneously, with a faint hiss leaving her gazing into the crystal tunnel kissing the airlock.
It ascended vertically and for a moment she wondered what she was supposed to do next. There was neither ladder nor stairs, so climbing upwards wasn't it. But then she noticed a small platform just centimetres above the ground, almost transparent and bobbing slightly as if to draw her attention.
Very unobtrusive, she thought. She took one undaunted step forwards and the platform ascended automatically. The last thing she heard from her ship was Marc closing the airlock behind her. Through the clear walls of the tunnel she watched the ground fall precipitously away.
Some of the ships were three or four times as tall as the Getsu Fune, others hovered at a finger's breadth above the ground. Attached to all of them were transparent gangways that led upward to an area that was still above Elena's field of vision. At an altitude of approximately fifty meters she realised that the glass tunnels attached to the larger vessels didn't go straight up like hers, but went horizontally outwards instead or sloped diagonally, terracing slightly.
When the platform slid to a halt Elena looked around. The landing area was similar to a gigantic tube, approximately one or two hundred meters in diameter, and some fifty or sixty meters high. The "tube's" light-green metal wall shaded into complete transparency on it's upper three meters, giving a clear view of a broad aisle encircling the whole landing area in a ring, enabling anyone to peer down on the ships.
At this point, Elena's gangway curved smoothly from vertical to almost horizontal, heading for the aisle that was only a few steps away. Elena looked up to the ceiling just a couple of meters above, but she couldn't make out the mechanism that held and moved the glass tunnels.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, a writer named Clark had written several hundred years before, but Elena was the child of a technologically advanced civilisation herself. It was only her scientific curiosity speaking and there were more important things to worry about!
She went down the clear gangway, hardly believing her eyes. The aisle ahead was somewhat crowded -- not only by humans quite obviously belonging to her own species - but also by those saurians she knew from her brief contact with the space traffic controller, as well as with a couple of other amazing creatures!
An air of unreality hung over the proceedings but there were plenty familiar things one wouldn't have expected in an exotic place like this, so Elena didn't feel entirely lost. She would find her way around, she thought to herself, and after all, aliens were just people with a skin problem!
She smiled at her own oversimplification. It wasn't that simple, of course, but it helped her to begin sorting her new impressions into some well-known categories until she knew enough to file everything in the right place.
The transparent door opened and she stepped outside onto the encircling aisle. She noticed a couple of casual glances from passing humans but the aliens ignored her completely. All in all she didn't seem to be drawing too much attention. The door hissed shut behind her.
Elena had to stoop to read the lettering on a small display panel on a black column next to the tunnel exit. The right height for a child, she thought, or for the lizards who - as she saw now - weren't much over one and a half meters tall.
Landing bay: D-7/6
Vessel: Getsu Fune
Type: ap?/Legacy
Service protocol: nik/v7.1
Origin: Argon Prime
Destination: Cloudbase SE
Crew: 1 x Goner
Freight: unknown
Sojourns approved until: 039:773:204:164.999
Authorization: z9.1726/AKM-I
Harbour dues: ref. listing 4, § 9, 2
Status: [please see port authority]
Some of the entries mystified Elena. For instance, from where did they take the information about origin and destination? Marc most definitely had not transferred that to the station - the old onboard-computer simply didn't have the capabilities to make things up! So, perhaps these were standard assumptions. Then there was the entry restricting her stay on the station: she had to find out what kind of time system it used, if she didn't want to run into trouble! Most likely Marc received some sort of time synch signal from the station that would clarify this.
"Port Dues" sounded a bit ominous given she lacked any local currency and explaining that would involve giving away her true identity and she wasn't ready for that. Elena decided to go see the Port authority as requested by the "status" entry on the display panel. If she could find it, that is.
She looked around and discovered visual information everywhere, on the one hand strange and incomprehensible combinations of Latin letters, on the other, readily decipherable markings in Japanese. This whole civilization had very obviously been strongly influenced by those long-lost Earth colonies. Lettering, language, and usage of the metric system - it was hard not to notice!
The Port authorities' office was well signposted, naturally - one simply had to follow the arrow, which led Elena counter clockwise around the aisle. But oh, how many new and astonishing things were there to be discovered! The dominant species here were lizards and humans; but there were a smattering of other beings, some of which had a yellowish skin and long, white beards, and others, taller than any man, slender and bony, with three eyes, and clad in long, wide tunics.
Perhaps the strangest creature, however, was a multi-limbed being inside a light pressure suit, not much taller than about one hundred and thirty centimeters. Its environment suit's helmet was entirely filled with a bubble-saturated liquid through which she glimpsed huge cornea-protected eyes, and a light-blue trunk.
A picture of that unusual, organic ship standing next to the Getsu Fune sprang to her mind - she knew instinctively that this little guy was its owner. The alien didn't look the least dangerous, in fact, it looked harmless and friendly enough as it stared at Elena with large, shimmering eyes, giving her the funny feeling it could see inside of her. It wrinkled its nose and let its eyes linger on her until she had passed it and left it behind. Elena felt goose bumps form on her arms. Those eyes!
The width of the aisle between the continuous glass walls was at least ten meters. The outer wall had many openings, doors and lifts, for example, but also a couple of stores and even a pub named "Profit Sink". Directly next to it was a souvenir shop, whose window magically drew Elena's attention to it. A weird, ugly morphing toy mounted on a dark-green socket was squirming through numerous shades of colour. Here, Elena discovered for the first time, were writings that didn't derive from Latin letters. Engraved into the morphing toy's socket were part rounded, part jagged hieroglyphs that might denote the title of the object, or perhaps its creator.
Right next to the wriggling sculpture stood an item that made Elena stare, this time open-mouthed for real. It was a guitar!
"I don't believe it!" On an impulse she entered the shop; inside, one of the saurians scuffled towards her. His scales were large and dark green, and his eyes a deep red. He wasn't wearing clothing; but then again, there wasn't anything on him that needed to be hidden.
"How can I help you, colleague?" he said using the commercial language. His accent was ever so slight, and if Elena had not seen who was talking, she would have imagined a slightly lisping merchant from Earth. "Are you interested in the sculpture by any chance?"
Elena shook her head. "No, I…"
"It's for sale at an impressively low price for a piece of art of that class!"
"Indeed. Actually, I wanted…"
"Just 9.7k credits! A unique piece of a Teladian artist. And you do know that there are not too many Teladian artists, don't you?"
"Well, it's beautiful, but I don't have the money to buy such a quality item", Elena said carefully. Actually, she found the winding sculpture that looked more like plasticine than anything else, quite appalling. But naturally there was no need to upset the saurian - the Teladi, as she now knew - with her true opinion.
"Well, you as an Argon at least know that noble art has its price! Isn't there anything else with which I can help you?"
"I'm interested in the guitar." Elena answered. Once more she had gathered another piece of important information: the Teladi thought her to be an Argon, and not a Goner. She thought of the info display next to the Getsu Fune's landing bay that denoted "Argon Prime" as her purported destination. Moreover, the currency was named simply "credits", and Teladi didn't have many artists. If she was honest, Elena thought, the saurians didn't look much like they were overtly creative anyway. But naturally that might just be a prejudice on her part.
The merchant peered at her quizzically. "The gi…, but yes, of course! The Argon artwork in the shop window! Would you like to have a closer look?"
"I'd like that. It's not an artwork, by the way."
"It isn't?" the Teladi asked while he scuffled to the shop window to remove the guitar. "Then what else is it?"
"Wait a moment, I'll show you", Elena said, taking the guitar from the Teladi. It was made of wood, and obviously very old. She turned the instrument around and discovered a faded writing on the backside of its neck: "Frank de Vries, USCSS Dragonfyre."
"Oh my god!", she whispered. The Dragonfyre had been the Earth fleet's flagship. Many centuries before, the Dragonfyre had ended the battle against the deadly Terraformers by luring them through Earth's jump-gate, which was destroyed behind them.
It was the very ship that had been commanded by Nathan R. Gunne.
Elena's thoughts raced. A number of things became clear to her now. The large Earth flotilla that had been declared forever lost hadn't been destroyed in the dimensionless vortices between jumpgates like it was commonly believed. Instead, it had appeared here, in this sector! Also, the many hundred crewmen and women had not been killed by the Terraformers either; they had managed to set up a flourishing civilization and had even managed to find the extraterrestrials that neither Captain René Farnham nor anyone else after him had ever been able to discover!
The momentousness of these discoveries almost made Elena dizzy.
"Now, colleague?" the Teladi inquired. "You wanted to show me something. Instead, you're staring at this writing for half a Mizura." He winked cunningly. Surly this Guitar meant something to the Argon - more than he wanted to admit - and that would cost additional credits!
"I'm sorry." Elena answered. She squatted, one knee to the ground and placed the guitar in playing position on the other. Her thumb ran over the strings. The instrument wasn't tuned, but someone had had it in their hands much more recently than seven hundred years ago, had cared for it and put new strings on it; probably not longer than five or six years previous. And certainly this wouldn't have been this grasping saurian looking down on her.
With skilled hands, she tuned the old instrument and strummed a few simple chords. How did it go? She had learned it once and hadn't been bad, but had not practiced for too many years. Well, right - now she had it! She played the opening chords of the Stardust Symphony and sang the first verse of the lyrics:
Stars of dust: ice crystals of silver, rain of gold.
Stars of dust: twinkling diamonds as old as the suns.
Stars of dust: myriad worlds in the countenance of void.
Stars of dust: day and night eternally entwined.
She looked up to the Teladi who gazed into the distance with an unreadable expression on his face.
"That's beautiful", an unmistakably human voice said from behind.
Elena peered over her shoulder to see a tall, slender man with curly, blonde hair. She stood up and handed the instrument back to the eager claws of the Teladi.
"My name is Ferd Harling", the man said in accent-free ancient Japanese. "Why don't you play a little more? The Stardust Symphony is one of the most beautiful classical pieces!"
"You know it?" Elena asked surprised.
"But of course! Partly at least. My mother used to sing it to me when I was a boy."
The Teladi pushed between Elena and the man, before they could even shake hands. "Now then, honourable colleague, what do you think will be an adequate price for this beautiful piece of art?"
"It's not a piece of art, I told you that. It's a guitar."
"Tshh! That it's a gui/tar isn't exactly news to me! But what's a gui/tar if not a work of art?"
"An instrument used to produce art," Ferd Harling interjected.
That made the Teladi think. A tool to produce artwork was of course less valuable than a work of art itself. Pity! "What kind of art?" he asked.
"Oh -- a sales lizard who believes to be able to tell apart different art forms. Remarkable!" Ferd sneered at the Teladi.
"Tshhhhhh! So do you want to buy it, or do you not, honourable Argons?"
Elena had to have the instrument, it had belonged to a crewmember of the Dragonfyre and that made it an immeasurably valuable scientific and cultural item. But she didn't have any local currency - credits.
"That depends entirely on how much it is," Elena eventually answered, carefully.
"Say - 7.1k credits!"
"Isn't that a bit too expensive?" She was planning on negotiating an as low as possible price and then ask the Teladi to put the instrument back for her until she had the means to pay. "I should think 1k credits is more than enough."
"Beg your pardon? Honourable Argon, you…"
"One moment!" Ferd Harling interrupted. "Before your scale plate turns black, dear colleague. Miss…"
"Kho. Elena Kho", Elena answered with a second's delay.
"Miss Kho, even fifty credits were a waste of money for this rattling skeleton of rotting wood and rusty wire. I have a few brand-new and adorably pretty specimens of guitars aboard my ship. Perhaps you would like to have a look at them? Twenty-five, and one of those is yours. Because it's you!" Ferd winked.
"My highly esteemed sirs! 75 credits for this wonderful construct, this is my last offer. And I'm protesting your taking away my customers and bringing down the prices in my own shop, Fred Harling!"
"Ferd's the name, not Fred. I'm Argon." Ferd corrected the Teladi. "50 Credits, and the lady makes her decision after she had had a look at my guitars. Put the instrument away until we're back, will you?"
"Tshhhhh! Yes! No! When you're not back to gather it within the Quazura, I'll sell it to anyone who'll ask for it!" the Teladi shouted, not mentioning, that the instrument had lingered in his shop for more than two suns already - and for two mazuras in the window - and that not a single customer had showed any interest in all the time.
Ferd nodded. "Naturally. Of course. Thanks a lot, colleague. It's always a pleasure to do business with a Teladi."
Elena had followed the end of the heated discussion more or less uninvolved and she wasn't quite sure what all of it meant. She followed Ferd out of the shop into the aisle. The tall man didn't look if she was following him; instead, he hurried to put a few meters between himself and the souvenir shop. Then he halted so abruptly that Elena crashed into him. He half turned around, leaned his back against the wall and burst out in roaring laughter.
Perplexed Elena stared at the Argon, who was laughing so hard that tears came into his eyes. Now, was she supposed to understand this? But the laughter was highly intoxicating, and even though she'd rather have avoided it, she eventually had to join in.
After half a minute Ferd had himself under control enough again to utter a few words of explanation under his breath. "I'm sorry… oh, I'm sorry! I didn't want to interfere, but… you seem not to have much experience dealing with Teladi, have you?" Elena shook her head. "Then you're a Goner?"
"I sure am," Elena said.
Ferd inhaled deeply a couple of times and held his tummy, panting. "Okay. Quiet now. Heh. See, I know that this instrument is very old and possibly quite valuable. But for a Teladi at the most it's an ugly old noisemaker. Without the right information he'll hardly be able to imagine that you'd rather have this old piece of wood than a pretty, modern guitar made from an amino plastic synthetic resin."
"I'm not quite sure…" Elena started.
"One moment. If you go back now, he'll sell you the instrument for those 50 credits. If we go and get my son's guitar from my ship and take it to the store, and you act a little indecisive, the old lizard will sell you his guitar for half of the original price. Or less."
"So you don't actually sell guitars?" asked Elena. The veil was lifting a little now, but things weren't yet fully clear to her.
The Argon put the palm of his hand against the wall and smiled pleasantly. "Why, no! I'm dealing with information. I'm an info broker. My ship is right down below here. Second to next landing bay. Be my guest."
"I've yet to see the Port Authority", she said, remembering her real problems. Ferd waved it away.
"Well, that can wait. The Teladi are not so picky about it as long as they get their docking dues."
"Okay, alright", Elena agreed. "Let's go, then." She followed the tall Argon to one of the transparent gangways. "So you're a Goner. From Cloudbase or Argon Prime? Or converted?" he asked when they arrived at the gangway and the door opened. Elena only caught a quick glimpse of the information panel and saw nothing but the name of the ship: AP Omicron Hill.
"Mmh. Converted," she eventually replied. The way he had asked seemed to imply one was either born a Goner, or converted to it - almost like a religious confession. If this should really be a religion here then it was understandable why no one could really tell her to be either Argon or Goner; there simply weren't any distinguishing features on the outside.
To keep Ferd from asking further questions she couldn't correctly answer, she in return asked him something that had been on the tip of her tongue for a couple of minutes already. "I'm very grateful you're helping me out, Ferd. But I'm wondering why you are doing it, and how I can reciprocate?"
"Just a mo'", Ferd said when they reached the ship's airlock. "Wait here; I'll be right back." He vanished inside a ship that was barely larger than Elena's Getsu Fune. He was back in under a minute, carrying a pretty, light-grey guitar under his arm. "Here it is. Nice, isn't it? I wish I could work it as good as you can - or my son."
Elena took it in her hands. It was truly magnificent; it had a softly curved form and it's lines melted fluidly into each other. The bottom was slightly convex and, astonishingly, the strings were attached to the guitar without any visible clamping bolts. Everything seemed as if constructed in a single extrusion process. Elena ran her thumb over the strings. The guitar's full and warm sound surprised her; the rich overtones made it sound almost like a concert harp.
"Oh, it sure is wonderful!" she exclaimed with ardor.
"It is, isn't it? But to return to your question, Elena", he said while they were back on the gangway. "When I heard you sing back in the shop I wondered if you perhaps knew all the verses of the Stardust Symphony, and if so, if you were willing to play and sing them to me. I'll give you the old instrument from the shop in return."
That was a strange thing to ask, Elena thought. But it was too easy to do, and the prize too valuable not to immediately agree. "Ferd, I'm pleased to grant you this wish. And yes, I do know all of the verses, don't you? I know it may sound strange, but my mother soothed me into sleep with this song as well."
"Fine," the Argon replied with a strangely satisfied expression on his face. "And it doesn't sound so strange to me at all -- except for the fact that you do know all verses and I don't." He shrugged. "We're one people with common roots after all."
Yes, Elena thought, and still it's pretty darn strange because those roots go farther back than you'd be likely to believe.
"How old is your son?" she asked just to change the topic, while they were heading back to the shop on the aisle.
"Erki is 14. He's got a girlfriend back on Ringo now. Mona, they're all the world to each other at the moment." He smiled.
"So he stayed at home?"
"No, he's here with me on the station. Wanted to meet some Boron he knows from the ArgoNet."
"And his mother? Your wife?"
"Stayed on Ringo. Listen, Elena, it's actually me who's the info broker here, not you. And still, you're interrogating me!" he complained with a sparkle in his eye.
"Please excuse my indiscretion," Elena grinned, "but wait until I start pumping you for real!"
They reached Ebelon's Souvenirs and entered the shop. The red-eyed Teladi was busy serving another customer, a lizard as well, with relatively brightly toned scales, and eyes more orange than red. They conversed in an aggressive, hissing language, which Elena supposed was their native tongue. She used the opportunity to take a closer look at the shop. Plenty of bits and pieces were presented for sale here, some of which were entirely strange to her, but many were similar to things known from Earth. For example, there was something looking like an old-fashioned postcard rack. The cards showed a host of different images: space stations, large islands and other landscape pictures; one was a close-up on a couple of seemingly very small creatures crawling about on a die, looking like green slugs with tiny feet and scales. Baby Teladi?
The two Teladi had obviously just concluded their negotiations. The older handed the younger one a small packet and received something that looked much like a credit card in return. He pushed the card in a slot on his desk for a second, and then gave it back.
"Space weed", Ferd explained nodding toward the packet that the younger Teladi was now tentatively placing in an orange-blue polymer bag, before he left, hissing a good bye.
"Selling amongst Teladi is quite legal, honourable colleague!" the merchant said.
"I know, I know," Ferd replied, glancing at Elena from the corner of his eye.
The Teladi examined the instrument that Elena was still carrying. "So this is one of your gui/tars, oh colleague. Well, admitted, it's prettier than mine…"
"It is that," Elena interjected. "And it sounds much nicer." She strung a chord. "Would you like to hear more?"
"No! By no means! Twenty credits and the Argon artwork is yours!"
Elena looked at Ferd who nodded in agreement. "I pay," he said.
The Teladi was confused. "But…?"
"Well," Ferd explained, "this lady here is one of my best customers, and even if she doesn't buy one of my products this time, I'd rather she take this instrument as a gift from me." He hoped the Teladi wouldn't remember the fact that he and Elena had first met here in the shop, and had introduced each other.
But the sales lizard had no further objections and just said: "Oh. I can understand that, honourable Argon. May we then?"
Ferd produced his credit card and the Teladi pushed it through the card reader, typed something into a keypad that looked much too clunky for humans, and handed the card back.
"It was a great pleasure to have made business with you, please grace my humble shop again soon!"
*
Elena and Ferd sat together in the mess room of the Omicron Hill, sipping a cup of Silvan tea crowned by a mountain of foamed Yalfur. Elena didn't know what either was, but the tea tasted excellent, not unlike spearmint with a mellow aftertaste. The Yalfur was some kind of foamed pudding that tasted a little like mint as well, but also left a faint aftertaste of cinnamon and clove on her tongue. Even though that combination was quite unusual, she was already on her second serving of the steaming brew.
"Teladi are cutthroats. Consider him originally offering you the instrument for more than 7k, but in the end selling it at a mere 20c. I bet he's got it from an Argon in exchange for a dead comrade's squawk cube or something." Ferd smiled inwardly and stirred this tea with a spork. "However, thanks for your effort, Elena. I trust it's ok with you that I recorded your interpretation of the Stardust Symphony?"
"Absolutely, no worries," Elena answered. After she and Ferd had seen the Port Authority to register the Getsu Fune, she had played the ancient song onboard the Omicron with Erki's beautiful guitar, while Ferd sat cross-legged at her feet, enthralled.
"I'm wondering in what kind of information you're dealing in, Ferd?"
The Argon rocked his head. "Depends. Any kind of information someone might be interested in, actually. News. Stock market tips. Coordinates. Blueprints. Star charts. Sheet music and Lyrics of historical songs…" he smirked and raised the cup to his mouth to take a sip. "Why do you ask? Can you offer me something interesting?"
Elena thought about it. She definitely had information to immediately promote Ferd the star of info brokers. But as helpful as the Argon might be, she could not give away her true place of origin and the nature of her mission. The only thing she might perhaps offer, she thought, was data about interstellar bodies: coordinates of stars, quasars, singularities, jump-gates, nebulae, galaxies and so forth. Marc, the onboard computer of the Getsu Fune, had a comprehensive, historical, astronomical encyclopaedia based on original data from the Winterblossom and it had been continuously updated through the decades of the first colonization era. If she programmed Marc to remove all references to Earth and its solar system - just as if there had never been a star named Sol - this massive astronomical atlas might be of great value to Ferd without giving away any secrets.
"Most interesting," Ferd murmured after Elena had made her proposal. "But of course I'm rather curious as to the source of the data, and above all, how I can verify its authenticity."
Elena had seen this question coming and had prepared for an instant answer. "As to the source - I can only say this much: it's the onboard computer of a very ancient ship." Which was the truth, she thought. "As you know by now, Ferd," she continued, "I'm collecting old items. And as to the authenticity of the star catalogue - you can easily verify it by computer correlation."
Ferd slowly nodded. "Right, lets assume for the moment your data is not already contained within the public knowledge bases for Decazuras. I'm interested and I must say quite curious, Elena."
Elena was curious herself. She thought of the difficulty Marc had had determining the coordinates of this sector; hopefully, the onboard computers of the Argon ship were more powerful and had enough data to prove Marc's databases authentic. She made a confident face and took another sip from the Silvan tea.
*
Back aboard her ship, she ordered Marc to create a copy of his astronomical database and eradicate Earth's existence from it. She articulated her commands slowly and with caution so the near-obsolete onboard computer could not misinterpret any of her words. After Marc had finished, she ran a positional search for Earth over the modified copy of the database - without any result.
"Alright." Elena had Marc open a video channel to the Omicron Hill and Ferd came on the screen immediately.
"Ferd, are you ready to receive the database?"
"One moment," Ferd said, pushing a few buttons. "Now!"
Marc transmitted the modified Database directly into the other ship's main computer. A sign appearing in the upper right corner marked the completion of the transmission after no more than a few seconds.
"Give me a Mizura, Elena." The Argon turned from the camera and began picking away on a keyboard outside the cameras angle. Elena saw a small projection coming up on Ferd's side, but the letters and graphics were so blurred she couldn't decipher anything. So she waited patiently, with Ferd occasionally making an amazed remark, or speaking to his onboard computer.
Five minutes passed; Elena used the time to fetch a dehydrated meal from the onboard kitchen, pour water over it and heat it (she was quite fed up with the nutrition bars). She had just returned to the cockpit, when the Argon turned back to the camera. He seemed a little confused when he didn't see Elena on her seat at first. She sat down with the steaming meal on a tray in her hand.
"Ah, there you are, Elena!" Ferd shouted. His face seemed a little pale.
"You alright, Ferd?"
"I'd like to be honest with you, Elena. The authenticity of this database is beyond doubt. But it's so extensive, it more than triples the data that was collected by the Community of Planets in all its decazuras!"
"Terrific! So you're interested?"
Ferd paused to take a deep breath and exhaled heavily. His usually youthful face became deeply furrowed. "Elena, this astronomical encyclopaedia is incredibly valuable. I must be honest. I couldn't buy this treasure at a fair price; I just don't have that kind of money."
"Ferd, let me be honest to you as well. There are certain things that I can't talk about at this point in time. But in exchange for some information - your own astronomical charts, for instance, and reports on sightings of unusual spacecrafts - the database is yours."
"Absolutely no problem at all concerning my astronomical data. I don't think I have much on sightings of the Ancients though. But I'll send you everything I have. Ready?"
"Marc?"
"Please rephrase your command."
"Please stand ready for data transmission by the Omicron Hill and save the data when received," she said testily. Mark acknowledged.
"One more thing Elena… I took the freedom to transfer ten times 10k to your onboard computer. That's about all I have right now. Should I be able to sell your encyclopaedia - and I trust I will - then I'm more than willing to share fifty-fifty with you. I hope that meets with your approval."
"Very much so, Ferd. You don't know how much you helped me. Many thanks."
"Don't mention it - I have to thank you! I have no idea where you dug out these fantastic star charts. But they're going to make us rich, make no mistake!"
"Wealth is not the only key to happiness -- although a few spare bucks on your bank account tend to make you sleep better," she joked. Ferd laughed.
"Quite right. By the way, Elena, I gather your ship isn't signed into the MD guidance system. This will make it difficult to reach you via message drone. Do you have some other p.o. box?"
"Unfortunately no, not yet. In a couple of days, probably. I mean, Tazuras. Should there be any message until then, please leave it here at the station for me to fetch." Elena made a mental note to buy a handful of message drones before she left the station and register her ship profile for the MD guidance system. This was the only way to send messages faster than light across star systems - and had always been, right back to the time of Cpt. Farnham - so she was accustomed to the concept.
"Of course, Elena," answered Ferd. "I'll have to say good-bye now; my son Erki has just arrived. I think we're going to take-off for Ringo Moon in 25 Mizuras latest. Why don't you come over and visit me and my family some day - we'd be honoured!"
"I'd very much like that, Ferd! Time permitting, of course. Until then - good-bye!"
The Argon waved once more, then the display went black and Marc switched off the video field.
Deep in thought, Elena wolfed down the rest of her meal. She was too anxious to integrate the new astronomical charts and information she had just received from Ferd into Marc's database, and then review everything carefully to savour the taste. What had the Argon meant when he mentioned the "Ancients"? Perhaps Earth's colonists that had settled here in this part of the galaxy so long ago? Elena hoped to find the answers somewhere in the new data. Possibly, Marc would eventually be able to locate their exact position in space!
She let her eyes wander to the old guitar, which she had put down neatly on the seat to her left. The original owner, Frank de Vries of the Dragonfyre, had immortalized his name on it many centuries ago. So, when the Earth fleet had arrived here safe and sound back then, didn't logic dictate that also…
Shocked by her own thought, Elena stopped chewing.
Of course! Assuming the Earth fleet arrived here over seven hundred years ago, wasn't it obvious that the Terraformers must have arrived shortly after as well?
"Marc, integrate the new star charts into your data base," Elena ordered, chewing again, and repeated, when Marc didn't immediately understand her. She swallowed and carelessly threw the tray with the only half-eaten meal onto the co-pilot’s seat.
She had stirred up a hornet's nest here! But where were the hornets?
