“Of course,” Ghnal said, projecting irony. She looked around. “Perhaps I’ll have a chance to see it after you finish. I would very much like that.”
“And I’d like very much to examine that portable weapon,” Khrog said as they approached the Tomcat. “Slug-thrower, isn’t it?” He gestured at the sailor standing guard.
“Yes, with chemical power,” Peters told him. Ridley, in dress blues with white helmet and Sam Browne belt, gave them a brief suspicious glance and returned to parade rest, M22 grounded. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to ask to look at it at the moment,” Peters continued.
“You’re probably right,” Ghnal said cheerfully. She looked the airplane over. “This is adapted from a chemical-drive atmosphere flyer, is it not? It’s pretty.”
Khrog Dhakgo snorted impressively. “Hah! Pretty, she says.” He glanced at Peters. “For myself, I think it looks fast, and powerful, and mean as a gveil in mating season.”
“Yes, all of that too,” Ghnal agreed cheerfully. “Khrog, could we do something like this?”
“I suppose so,” he replied, somewhat dubiously. He glanced at Peters. “It would be easier if the enhunan would sell us a few. Possible?”
“I don’t know,” Peters admitted. “Yes, it was once driven by chemicals. These housings—” he reached up to touch an intake cowling “—once held engines that took air through here, combined it with fuel, and ejected it from the back. The reaction propelled the plane—” both enkheil looked up at the English word, and Peters corrected, “—propelled the ship forward.”
“Yes, one of our thinkers proposed something similar, I believe,” Ghnal told him. “Before we met the Grallt, that is. Now of course we use zifthkakik.”
“And these structures are wings,” said Khrog, reaching to touch a leading edge. He could just reach it. “A very sensible arrangement, actually. Much more reasonable than things that fly around with nothing visible to hold them up.” He snapped his own wings out for emphasis, and Ghnal laughed.
“Yes, I feel much the same way,” said Peters with a chuckle. “We humans have only recently made contact with the Traders. The zifthkakik are still strange to us.”
The three moved around the aircraft, the two enkheil touching and remarking on things, Peters making explanations when necessary. They were interested in structure and manufacturing techniques, and thought the cockpits entirely too restricted; radio antennas and radar emitters elicited blank looks, at least partly because Peters didn’t have any words in Grallt to describe them. Once Khrog Dhakgo made a comment in his own staccato language, and Ghnal Dhango chided him. “Speak Trade, Khrog, you’re in public.”
“I said,” Khrog pronouced in an aggrieved tone, “that it is extremely well made. And it is, don’t you think? Look at the way the rivets are almost even with the surface. I don’t know anyone who uses that technique.”
“I agree completely,” Ghnal told him. “It’s as least as good as any of our work, and in many ways better. But John doesn’t speak our language, and you should be polite.”
“You are correct, of course.” Khrog produced a somehow wry version of the alarming expression that Peters had decided was a smile. “You haven’t shown us the weapons,” the kheil said. “They will be shooting at us, and we are interested.”
What little Peters knew about it suggested that the weapons suite had probably been more of a problem than the engine change. “This ship was designed to carry, ah—” he had no word for “missile”, so he used English, with an explanation: “—Missiles, small independent ships that drive themselves toward the target. That wasn’t practical in this case, so instead it has these.” The wing hardpoints were empty, as were the aft missile racks; the forward missile racks were occupied. “We call this a hell pod, from the initial letters of its description.”
Ghnal ran her fingers over, but not touching, the lens at the business end. “I hear something in your voice that tells me that is at least partly a joke,” she noted. “What is a hel?”
“I should have expected you to spot it,” Peters said. “The name comes from our phrase high energy laser, which means ‘high energy’ and a special type of light emitter. But in our mythology, Hell is a place where bad people suffer after their lifetimes in extreme heat.”
Ghnal clapped her hands together. “Khah! How appropriate. May we look inside the housing?”
Peters shifted to English: “Hey, Ridley, any problem if I open up a HEL pod and show these folks what’s gonna be shootin’ at them?”
Ridley turned and shrugged. “They told me to keep people away unless they had an escort. I guess you qualify,” he said sourly. He and Peters were not friends. “But if the fruitbats break anything, it’s gonna be your ass, not mine.”
“Yeah, right.” He turned and changed languages again: “It opens like this. Please support the end, I would prefer not to damage the paint.” Khrog Dhakgo obligingly supported the forward end of the panel while Peters produced his pocket tool and popped the fasteners.
“Oh, the interior mechanism isn’t enclosed,” said Ghnal when the panel swung down.
“No.” What was that all about?
“How does it work?” Khrog wanted to know.
“The basic technology is called laser. It produces an extremely intense light, which is powerful enough to damage the opposing ship. I’m not fully knowledgeable about the details.” Peters shrugged. “The weapon’s intensity can be adjusted, and has been reduced so that it will make a noise, and perhaps a small scar, without any real damage. The other ship-type has the same system. That one originally used missiles, and also had a slug thrower like a larger version of the one my associate has.”
Ghnal Dhango nodded. “Yes, it would be difficult to adjust the force of a slug thrower, wouldn’t it? And of course a slug thrower wouldn’t be much use against a ship driven by zifthkakik. Our ships have similar weapons, and have been adjusted the same way.” She reached inside the pod, coming close to the mechanism without touching it. “But ours come from the Makers, like the zifthkakik, and are enclosed so that the principle of operation is hidden. This is remarkable, Khrog. The enhunan—humans, that is not so hard to say. The humans have a higher technology than we did before the Traders came.”
Khrog Dhakgo nodded. “Yes, that was clear from the beginning.” He looked sharply at Peters. “Your people designed and built this, and know all the principles involved?”
Peters mused briefly on Japanese components, Mexican assembly plants, and the phrase “your people” as applied from a distance of umpteen jillion miles. “Yes to both questions,” he said without emphasis.
“Is this technology for sale?” Khrog asked, again with an odd intonation.
The sailor shrugged. “As I understand it, the reason we are here is to explore which of our products might be wanted by other people. As for this particular item, I see no reason why not, but I am too junior to answer your question directly.” Makers? It had sounded like a name or title when Ghnal said it. What was that all about? “Would you help me close the panel?” he asked.
Khrog Dhakgo obligingly took the forward end again. As Peters was securing the latches the kheil remarked, “You are a junior? Remarkable. You have an excellent command of the trade language. Where are your seniors? Can you introduce me to them?”
“I can take you to them,” Peters said. “They will wish to know who you are.” The polite Grallt formula implied without saying, what’s your status?