“I have to eat and drink, after all. Perhaps I am a fatalist.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Actually, I hadn’t considered it.” He sipped again, then looked at the glass in his hand. “Perhaps I’m a fatalist after all.”
Prethuvenigis chuckled, deep glottal stops that had sounded like choking when he first heard it. “We should not indulge much before the meeting,” the Trader observed. “Are you ready?”
“I suppose so. When is the meeting scheduled?”
“At half-afternoon, about four utle from now. We are almost ten llor behind our planned schedule, so it took some time to make the arrangements.”
“Will our late arrival occasion any remark?”
“No, the best of schedules can only be a hope. Navigation can never be absolutely precise, and events frequently supervene.” The trader smiled wryly. “In the normal case we’re obliged to wait for the ferassi. Perhaps it’s well that they wait for us this time.”
“Yes… Heelinig said their ship was in orbit.”
“I received the same information.” The trader looked out over the landscape, swirling liquid in his glass. “It is likely that the Grallt we have been calling ‘ferassi’ are here,” he said thoughtfully. “We now know more of the truth of that, don’t we?”
“Yes, and they don’t know that we know,” Peters agreed.
“With care and a modicum of good fortune that condition could obtain for some time.”
Care. Well, they’d cautioned everyone in the strongest terms to keep their mouths shut, and that might hold for a while. A little luck, and two hundred sailors and as many Grallt, with hacksaws. Well, a hundred and eighty-eight sailors, since five were gone and seven were still in the infirmary, but a man with a broken leg can take notes while another beeps out wiring.
“I don’t quite understand what you hope to accomplish by my presence,” Peters admitted.
“At the minimum I hope to unsettle them.” Prethuvenigis smiled again. “It’s a basic principle of trading that the other party should be made as unsure of himself as possible. Confused people make bad deals.”
“I have been the confused one in several such encounters… do you think they will be fooled?”
“Not for an antle. Besides, we will make no such representation. We will present you as precisely what you are: human, from the planet Earth, very far from here.”
Peters nodded. “Have you any idea just how far it is? I’ve been wondering, but haven’t thought to ask one of the zerkre.”
“No. I’m sure they keep careful records of that sort of thing, but for me and the other traders it is only important how long it will take to get from place to place.”
“Does anyone study the stars and their arrangements? It occurs to me that I don’t know the Trade word for a person engaged in such a study.”
“I suppose they must.” Prethuvenigis shrugged. “They get us from place to place with minimal problems, after all.”
“Yes. I’ll inquire of Dhuvenig. Perhaps he knows how such things are done.”
“Dhuvenig?”
“The Engineering Officer of Llapaaloapalla. You met him in the incident with the retarders.”
“Yes, I know who you mean… We should go down. I’ve reserved a room for our meeting, and we should check to see that all is in order.”
Peters nodded. “And I should stop by and see that Gell is settling in properly. That will only take a moment.”
Prethuvenigis frowned and looked sidelong at Peters. “Now it is my turn to fail to be fully cognizant of all that is being planned. Why did you insist that Gell stay with us? It’s an unnecessary expense. He could have gone back to the ship and returned when we were done.”
“My concepts are perhaps not fully formed,” Peters confessed. “With us, a person who has a ship and operator at his immediate disposal is successful and therefore powerful. I thought to see if a similar prejudice might obtain here. At the most basic level, I am simply pulling strings to see what may be tangled in the ends.” He quirked the corner of his mouth. “It is a human procedure, I believe. Has anyone told you of the act Dreelig and Dee used at our suggestion?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
A description of Donollo and the “President of Mars Act” occupied them as they descended a wide, carpeted stairway to the main level of the hotel. Prethuvenigis chuckled at several points but offered no comment, and they counted doors along a corridor. Someone was waiting, a tall Grallt male in a yellow and white tunic and trousers outfit. “Pleasant greetings,” Prethuvenigis offered. “Are you the representative of the ferassi?”
The newcomer’s eyes widened slightly, but he made no overt reaction and ignored the salute. “Yes, I am. Are you from Trade Ship Llapaaloapalla?”
“We are. I am Prethuvenigis, Chief Trader, and this is my associate Peteris.” The trader frowned. “Are we late? We had understood the meeting would take place some several utle later.”
“No, you are not late. I have come to inform you that the meeting will be delayed, and may not in fact take place. You may return to your ship if you like. We will send a messenger when we are ready.”
“This is not acceptable,” Peters said briskly, trying to project an air of total self-confidence. “Arrangements by mutual convenience are one thing, but we have affairs of our own, and don’t wish to sit idly by awaiting your attention. Are your seniors available?” He frowned; before the other could respond he went on. “And how may we address you? ‘Hey you’ may be appropriate, but it is hardly polite.”
The stranger stiffened. “I am called Gool.”
“Appropriate,” said Peters as drily as he could manage, and deliberately did not explain his remark, which was likely to be quite opaque. “May we speak to your superiors? We wish to register a protest at this one-sided alteration of the scheduled order of affairs.”
“My superiors are aboard ship,” Gool admitted. “I was sent Down to inform you.”
“We have transportation available at no notice,” Peters remarked. “We can return with you to your ship if you like, and meet with your superiors there.”
“No!” Gool said, then took thought. “That is not acceptable,” he said stiffly. “Affairs will go as I have outlined.”
“And that is not acceptable to us.” Peters folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe, a picture of ease; Prethuvenigis stood by, face immobile, body language not easy. “When may we have some notion of the schedule?” Peters asked in a deliberately casual tone. “We can disport ourselves here for some time, but after all our lives are not unlimited in duration.”
“I don’t know,” Gool confessed. “I only know what I have told you already.”
“Find out,” Peters instructed, in the voice he would have used to tell a seaman apprentice to swab out a head. “Prethuvenigis is in room five-dash-two, and I am in three-one-two on the same level. How long will it take you?”
“Again, I don’t know,” said Gool. His body language had gone from stiffly erect to slightly hunched.
“Do you have a way to ask immediately?”
“No. I must wait until the dli returns.”
“Shit,” Peters contradicted. He reached into his pocket, took out an earbug, and screwed it into his ear, adjusting the pickup. “Gell, we’ve got a situation here,” he drawled. “You up for a trip about now?” Pause. “Yeah, the folks we’re here to meet are draggin’ their feet… first level, down by the meetin’ rooms. You’ll see us from the lobby… right.” He extracted the little radio, put it away, and grinned at Prethuvenigis. “See how handy that is?”
“Is that a communicator of some sort?” Gool asked suspiciously.