The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

Committee.

We walked automatically through the maze of streets, our guides evidently having taken identical routes. Both of us had eidetic memories, of course, that being a minimum prerequisite for the job of an interpreter. I was thinking furiously. If I couldn’t outbargain the Rabbit I’d have to somehow finesse him. Was there anything I knew about the !tang value system that he didn’t? Assuming that this council would decide that land was something that could be bought and sold.

I did have a couple of interesting proposals in my portfolio, that I’d written up during the two-week trip from Earth. I wondered whether Lafitte had seen them. The lock didn’t appear to have been tampered with, and it was the old-fashioned magnetic key type. You can pick it but it won’t close afterward.

We turned a corner and there was the council building at the end of the street, impressive in the flickering light, its upper reaches lost in darkness. Lafitte put his hand on my arm, stopping. “I’ve got a proposition.”

“Not interested.”

“Hear me out, now; this is straight. I’m empowered to take you on as a limited partner.”

“How generous. I don’t think Starlodge would like it.”

“What I mean is Starlodge. You hold their power of attorney, don’t you?”

“Unlimited, on this planet. But don’t waste your breath; we get an exclusive or nothing at all.” Actually, the possibility had never been discussed. They couldn’t have known I was going into a competitive bidding situation. If they had, they certainly wouldn’t have sent me here slow freight. For an extra fifty shares I could have gone first class and been here a week before Peter Rabbit; could have sewn up the thing and been headed home before he got to the Armpit.

Starlodge had a knack of picking places that were about to become popular — along with impressive media power, to make sure they did — and on dozens of worlds they did have literally exclusive rights to tourism. Hartford might own a spaceport hotel, but it wasn’t really competition, and they were usually glad to hand it over to Starlodge anyhow. Hartford, with its ironclad lock on the tachyon drive, had no need to diversify.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the pattern Starlodge had in mind for Morocho III. It was a perfect setup, the beach being a geologic anomaly: there wasn’t another spot for a hotel within two thousand kilometers of the spaceport. Just bleak mountaintops sprouting occasionally out of jungles full of large and hungry animals. But maybe I could lead the Rabbit on. I leaned up against a pot that supported a guttering torch. “At any rate, I certainly couldn’t consider entering into an agreement without knowing who you represent.”

He looked at me stone-faced for a second. “Outfit called A.W. Stoner Industries.”

I laughed out loud. “Real name, I mean.” I’d never heard of Stoner, and I do keep in touch.

“That’s the name I know them by.”

“No concern not listed in Standard, Poor and Tueme could come up with nine figures for extraterrestrial real-estate speculation. No legitimate concern, I mean.”

“There you go again,” he said mildly. “I believe they’re a coalition of smaller firms.”

“I don’t. Let’s go.”

Back in my luggage I had a nasal spray that deadened the sense of smell. Before we even got inside, I knew I should have used it.

The air was gray with fish-oil smoke, and there were more than a hundred !tang sitting in neat rows. I once was treated to a “fish kill” in Texas, where a sudden ecological disaster had resulted in windrows of rotting fish piled up on the beach. This was like walking along that beach using an old sock for a muffler. By Lafitte’s expression, he was also unprepared. We both walked forward with slightly green cheerfulness.

A !tang in the middle of the first row stood up and approached us.— Uncle? I ventured, and he waved his snout in affirmation.

—We have come to an interim decision, he said.

—Interim? Lafitte said. —Were my terms unacceptable?

—I die. My footprints are cursed. I walk around the village not knowing that all who cross where I will, stay in estrous zero and bear no young. Eventually, all die. O the embarrassment. We want to hear the terms of Navarro’s tribe. Then perhaps a final decision may be made.

This was frighteningly direct. I’d tried for an hour to tell him our terms before, but he’d kept changing the subject.

—May I hear the terms of Lafitte’s tribe? I asked.

—Certainly. Would Lafitte like to state them, or should I?

—Proceed, Uncle, Lafitte said, and then, in Spanish, —“Remember the possibility of a partnership. If we get to haggling…”

I stopped listening to the Rabbit as Uncle began a long litany of groans, creaks, pops and whistles. I kept a running total of the wholesale prices and shipping costs. Bourbon, rum, brandy, gin. Candy bars, raw sugar, honey, pastries. Nets, computers, garbage compactors, water-purifying plant, hunting weapons. When he stopped, I had a total of only H620.

—Your offer, Navarro? Could it include these things as a subset?

I had to be careful. Lafitte was probably lying about the 1500, but I didn’t want to push him so hard he’d be able to go over a thousand on the next round. And I didn’t want to bring out my big guns until the very end.

—I can offer these things and three times the specified quantity of rum — (the largest distillery on Earth was a subsidiary of Starlodge) — and furthermore free you from the rigors of the winter harvest, with twenty-six fully programmed mechanical farm laborers. (The winters here were not even cool by Earth standards, but something about the season made the local animals restless enough to occasionally jump over the walls that normally protected farmland.)

—These mechanical workers would not be good to eat? For the animals?

—No, and they would be very hard for the animals even to damage.

There was a lot of whispered conversation. Uncle conferred with the !tang at the front of each row, then returned.

—I die. Before I die my body turns hair-side-in. People come from everywhere to see the insides of themselves. But the sight makes them lose the will, and all die. O the embarrassment. The rum is welcome, but we cannot accept the mechanical workers. When the beast eats someone he sleeps, and can be killed, and eaten in turn. If he does not eat he will search, and in searching destroy crops. This we know to be true.

—Then allow me to triple the quantities of gin, bourbon, and brandy. I will add two tons each of vermouth and hydrochloric acid, for flavoring. (That came to about H710.)

—This is gratefully accepted. Does your tribe, Lafitte, care to include these as a subset of your final offer?

—Final offer, Uncle?

—Two legs, two arms, two eyes, two mouths, two offers.

—I die, Lafitte said. — When they bury me, the ground caves in. It swallows up the city and all die. O the embarrassment. Look, Uncle, that’s the market law for material objects. You can’t move land around; its ownership is an abstraction.

Uncle exposed one arm — the Council tittered — and reached down and thumped the floor twice. —The land is solid, therefore material. You can move it around with your machines; I myself saw you do this in my youth, when the spaceport was built. The market law applies.

Lafitte smiled slowly. —Then the Navarro’s tribe can no longer bid. He’s had two.

Uncle turned toward the Council and gestured toward Rabbit, and said, —Is he standing on feet? And they cracked and snuffled at the joke. To Lafitte, he said, —The Navarro’s offer was rejected, and he made a substitution. Yours was not rejected. Do you care to make his amended offer a subset of yours?

—If mine is rejected, can I amend it?

This brought an even louder reaction. —Poor one, Uncle said. —No feet, no hands. That would be a third offer. You must see that.

—All right. Lafitte began pacing. He said he would start with my amended offer and add the following things. The list was very long. It started with a hydroelectric generator and proceeded with objects of less and less value