“But our intelligence folks have your comm office infiltrated. They’ll know when I call you.”
“That’s why we’ll set you up with the number of someone they aren’t watching, so you can call them, and they can relay to me.”
“Sneaky Monkey! I’m going to like doing business with you. I might even learn something.”
Shorty continued his examination of the trade goods. When he finished, he said, “Boss, I’ve talked to Scotti. There are some items here she can’t duplicate, that she would like for you to acquire. Most of it, she can either already make at least as good, or it has trackers she wouldn’t be able to get rid of.”
“Show me.” He pointed out several items, and I asked, “What kind of quantities can you do on the items he has picked out?”
Then Captain Dressi looked over what Shorty had found. He told us how many of each he would be willing to part with. When he came to a Squirrel pistol, he asked, “You sure you don’t need some of these, Captain? Quieter than those chemically powered weapons your people use. Hit just as hard.”
“Let’s see. First, we already copied that design from some that we captured. Second, I have a tech who has come up with some nice improvements, that make them way more pleasant to shoot. Third, those are made for Squirrel hands, and are too small for us. Did I miss anything?”
Shorty said, “The trackers in the grips, Boss. You didn’t mention the trackers in the grips.”
“You mean they didn’t bother to put in a circuit to keep them from firing at anybody wearing a Squirrel ID?”
Shorty scanned again. “Dangit, Boss, I’m beginning to see why Taz likes working for you so much. They sure did.”
“Send your scans to Nunya, just in case she didn’t think to check for that.”
Grandma Cachi spoke up. “She found it, but the military version has it locked out in software. The new ones she’s building don’t have them.”
Then Captain Dressi asked, “How long have you had our weapons to study?”
I looked around. “What, three or four days, maybe a week, tops?”
Dee said, “Sounds about right.”
His eyes got big. “You were able to learn that much about them that quickly?”
I looked at him. “It helped that we were able to hire a Squirrel consultant, I suppose.”
He looked at his two helpers. “Boys, bring out the good stuff. We’re not going to be able to fool these folks.” They gathered up the items Shorty had dismissed, and went back aboard the ship. Soon they came back out with different things. Shorty started in, looking them over. When he finished, he said, “This stuff is a lot nicer, Boss. Some of it we don’t really have a use for, but there are things here Scotti would be happy to get her hands on.”
“Sort out what you want, and we’ll turn the Grannies loose on him to get a price.”
He said, “Grannies? What do you mean?”
I pointed to them. “These two are my negotiators. Be careful, if you want a suit to fly home in.”
He said, “I knew this was going too easily. You have professional negotiators.”
Grandma Cachi smiled and said, “You’re not afraid of a couple of little old ladies, are you?”
“Your Captain is. That’s proof enough for me.”
Dee asked, “What all do you want, Bob?”
“Some of all the things Shorty picked out, and passage home for all the Squirrels down on the planet.”
Dee looked at the ship. “There’s no way he has enough life support to get that many people back to Oak.”
The Captain reacted when Dee knew the name of their homeworld, but I pretended not to notice. I said, “I was intending to load them under the influence of nighty-nights, and let them sleep away their trip. That way he won’t have to deal with officers ordering him to ram the Gene Cernan.”
“That sounds like a plan. We’ll see what we can work out.”
Captain Dressi said, “I don’t have any bunks to lay them on.”
I replied, “We can rig you something up, no problem.”
“What do you want done with them when I get them there?”
“I can’t say as I care. Strip them naked and leave them in some farmer’s field, if you want to.”
“That’s probably more fun than I can get away with, but the thought warms my heart.”
Dee asked, “So, just how many walnuts are you hoping to get?”
“All I can, Ma’am, all I can.” They started in, and I turned to Jane. “Do we have some nighty-nights with a remote, so he doesn’t have to be there when they wake up?”
“We have just the thing, Bob.”
Dingus asked, “Did you see him flinch when you mentioned we had been to Oak?”
“I did. I tried to play it off, but I doubt I did as good a job as I wanted to.”
“I’m beginning to get the feeling that they think the location of their home planet is some kind of big secret.”
“You mean I’ve whizzed them off again, just by figuring out where they live?”
“Probably.”
“They remind me of some of the folks from back home. Just looking for something to be upset about.”
Jane said, “You’ve got that right. Of course, they’ve had it all their own way for thousands of years, and along comes some ‘infamous monkey’ and upsets their applecart. You have to think it might take a day or two for them to get their heads around it.”
I replied, “I suppose you’re right, but it doesn’t make my job any easier.”
Dingus said, “If it was easy, we wouldn’t have had to find a hillbilly to do it, now would we?”
“How do you mean, Dingus?”
“Don’t they say you folks are too tough to beat, and too dumb to quit?”
“I’ve heard something like
