Beginning Chapter One ... Two ... Three ... Four
I paused for a moment to admire the statue. It was a real statue -- tons of brass and granite -- just like the old days. Even the kids that came by were impressed. They instinctively gravitated to the polished steps and ledges. Mothers would follow, issuing their instinctive warnings, but the statue is quite safe and quite accessible.
Yes, the Ministry of Interstellar Trade controlled money, and they weren't afraid to show it. I chuckled to myself thinking about the scandal of that statue. It depicted Commander Wartly taking his first step on Pluto two years ago. That in and of itself was honorable enough, but the statue was finished before Wartly had taken the step!
That was because The Traders had come just after his launch. He went into deep sleep knowing he would be the first, and rather than disappoint him and the millions of people who witnessed his launch and knew that was what was going to happen, we saw to it that he was. It was a concession to our pre-Trader-contact past when intra-solar system travel was a long and hazardous process. Wartly was the last of the breed.
Thanks to Trader technology we built a couple ships twenty years after Wartly left that raced him to Pluto. One of them even intercepted Wartly's fleet and did some checkups and maintenance before it zoomed ahead to await their arrival at the planet. They didn't bother to wake Wartly -- just made sure he, the ships and the crew were OK.
By the time Wartly arrived and woke up, unmanned probes had surveyed Pluto and Charon down to meter-across resolution and done a thorough resource analysis. The follow-up expeditions let him land first, but they told him where -- which is why the artist could start making the statue weeks before Wartly even woke.
They let Wartly land first, but the scientists and colonizers who had come on Trader technology ships were down and established two days later. Wartly's landing was such old news when it happened, that the Ministry decided to unveil the statue concurrently with the historic event it commemorated to give it some current interest. Kind of gutsy, considering they didn't really see what happened until four hours later when the signals arrived from Pluto. After that they made Wartley governor. I don't know why. He was fifty years behind the times, but I guess tradition again. The people there felt he had the experience so he should run the show.
I passed the statue and headed for my office. Yes, our contact with the Traders has made quite a difference. In the atrium a holo poster floated announcing, "2059-2109 Celebrating fifty years of Trader contact." Fifty years? It seems we're just getting through the preliminaries.
Why is it taking so long? Well, it took ten years just to get the Traders to come inside Pluto's orbit. They broadcast to let us know they were out there, then waited while we sorted things out here on Earth to prepare for their arrival. It took that long. When first contact was made half the population wanted to send out the marines -- even though we had no idea where to send them or even how to get that far out. For a couple years defense budgets skyrocketed. When it became clear that the Traders wouldn't even get close until we got our act together peacefully, things settled down.
Once the negotiations started, it became clear that we were a low-cost labor source for them. They traded us technology so we could use it to make useful goods for them. They showed us how to build intra-planetary space engines, and we build them by the hundreds now -- half for us and half for the Traders. They organized technical institutes; we sent engineering students; the graduates now translate Trader specifications into solar system factories.
This system has worked well. And it's worked well thanks to us. I'm part of the Ministry of Interstellar Trade. We've prevented the Traders from doing to us what some of our European predecessors did to our African, South American and Asian predecessors: take advantage of their ignorance to negotiate usurious deals. Well, at least we like to think we do. Who knows what's up those alien sleeves?
Which brings me to my job today. Over the years we've come to believe that the Traders are handling us with kid gloves: they don't show us a thing that we don't think of first. About a year ago some skin-headed professor took this idea public, and in spite of our past good work, we've started getting pilloried by the media. They wanted to dismember the Ministry monopoly and let free market forces participate: "privatize" Trader negotiations so advancements can flow faster.
The Ministry response has been to expand and hire people like me. I'm part of the new Agricultural Life Forms section of the Consumer Trade Goods department of the Trade Expansion Division within the Ministry. Our division is charged with expanding our trade relations beyond the technology-for-finished-products stage. I'm here in this very nice office with my new MBA diploma to show that "privatization" and it's potential for abuse, isn't necessary for expanding the scope of Trader-Solar system activities.
I turn on the screen to reach Gork Tag, my Trader Liaison. "All right, Gork, what have you got for me today?"
"Ah, Mr. Curio, right to business, as usual. So unlike Mr. Amir who likes to make what I think you call 'small talk' first. You Terrans are all so delightfully different." I look at carefully at Gork in the screen. His purple leaves that sprout up from his body look more greenish today.
For some reason I blurt, "If I may ask, how do you tell us apart, Gork? Do you see differences?"
"See? As in visualize using electro-magnetic radiation? No, I know you by your voice. Our sight organs are quite undeveloped compared to yours. If you were close I would also distinguish you by the trace chemicals you emit -- your smell -- and, this is even harder to describe in your language, your textures."
"You mean, how I feel?"
"How you feel on your outside, yes."
"Did Mr. Amir mention you look different today? I was wondering: are you well?"
"How amazingly perceptive this sight organ of yours is! This must be why you do so well manufacturing. This optical virtue gives you an innate sense for precision that we can barely conceptualize.
"As for your question. Why, yes, I'm very well, thank you. I feel I will be going to seed soon. It is a wonderful time for us Traders. In fact, it's likely I will be replaced soon here at the trading position. Seeding is a time of rapture. Wonderful, but not a good time for clear-headed trading."
"Well, it sounds like congratulations are in order. In the meantime lets get back to our discussions about Hereford cattle. You've seen the specifications I sent you?"
"Yes I have, Mr. Curio. But I'm not quite sure what we're supposed to do with this chemical factory you call a cow. Why not just gene splice what we need into bacterial mats the way we do now? It certainly seems a lot easier than trying to tool up to cultivate grass, and dozens of other organisms, to sustain this one organism. Cattle-raising and the markets for cattle by-products seem much better suited to Terran conditions than anything we can create."
"But have you considered... "