Lakphro looked past her again at the approaching alien and the Chiss trotting along beside him. The Chiss was young, Lakphro could see now, maybe nineteen or twenty years old, though he still had the bright-eyed, chirpy look of a midager. “What kind of spices?”
“I’ll let Haplif tell you all about it,” Lakjiip said. “As for compensation for the land rental, the Agbui will be handling that.”
Lakphro gave a little snort. “Thanks, but we don’t need any foreign spices.”
“No, I suppose the kind of cooking you do out here wouldn’t lend itself to anything exotic,” Lakjiip said coolly. “But they also have some handmade jewelry they’ll be offering at local markets. Even if you don’t appreciate foreign items”—she leaned on the word way harder than necessary—“I’m sure your wife could use a new pendant for those times when you go out on the town. Or whatever you do for excitement out here.”
“Out here, we don’t get excited,” Lakphro countered. “We live longer that way.”
“Whatever you say,” Lakjiip said. “Good day, Rancher.”
With a perfunctory nod, she turned and headed back toward her skycar. She nodded to the alien and young Chiss as she passed them, said something inaudible while gesturing back over her shoulder, then continued on. The alien and Chiss, the latter still smiling cheerfully, walked toward Lakphro.
With a sigh, he keyed his comm back on. “Looks like we’re going to have company for a while,” he told his wife and daughter. “The family has generously offered some of our land for some aliens to park their ship on and grow some hardscrabble spices or weeds or something.”
“At least no one’s taking our yubals,” Lakansu said. That was his wife: always looking on the bright side of things. “You’ll be sure to ask them in, won’t you?”
“Sure,” Lakphro said with a sigh. Some days you’re the growzer, he quoted the old saying to himself, and some days you’re the growzer’s son. Today, clearly, he was the latter.
All he could say was that it had better be some really nice jewelry.
Haplif had taken the first two months to organize and prep his people and to learn as much of the Chiss language Cheunh as he could manage in so brief a time. Since then, the group had spent three months in the Chiss Ascendancy, visiting eleven different regions on five different planets, talking with everyone from mid-range family officials to regular working citizens. The supply of spices they’d brought to fund the operation was slowly but steadily decreasing, roughly in proportion with the steady increase in Haplif’s frustration.
Three months. Three completely wasted months.
Seated at an outdoor table in a town whose name he’d forgotten, feeling the mocking sunshine on his face, he listened to the even more mocking music of the street festival going on all around him and glowered to himself. Three months and five worlds, and he still was no closer to getting a handle on these people.
That there were such handles wasn’t in doubt. There was no way an ordered society could function without them. But the way the family structure and hierarchy operated internally, combined with how all the families interacted with one another, offered no obvious entry point that a non-Chiss could find and exploit.
The festival music was swelling to yet another climax. If it followed the pattern he’d already heard three times this afternoon, that peak would be followed by about a quarter hour of silence. At least he would have that much peace before the raucous sound resumed.
He took a sip of his drink—it didn’t taste very much like his favorite ale, but it was the closest he’d found so far in this worthless collection of planets—and pulled out his datarec. He’d already decided it was time to move on to another Chiss world and try again. The question was, which one?
He had no idea which would be the most promising. There was a fair chance that none of them would. But Jixtus had given him a task, and the promised payment and the hope of finally being done with this wearying work for a while would keep him going.
That, plus his own pride. No alien species had yet been able to resist him, and the Chiss were not going to be the exception.
But if it was going to happen, it had to happen soon. Two days ago he’d received news from Jixtus that the Chiss had defeated the Nikardun forces over Primea and General Yiv the Benevolent had vanished from sight. Haplif’s plan had been to get his operation here fully under way while Yiv’s threat pulled official attention outward, but now that hope was gone. There would be a short period before life in the Ascendancy returned to normal, at which point the people in charge of order and security would be once again paying full attention to their own backyards.
That wouldn’t be an insurmountable barrier. But it would make things harder.
The music ended. Finally. Hunching over the table, Haplif punched up the Ascendancy star charts and began tapping up the data sheets on the nearest planets. He’d read those summaries a dozen times already, but maybe this time around something would catch his eye with a hint on how he should proceed.
He frowned. With the music silenced, he was now able to hear the conversation going on two tables over. A pair of young Chiss, one male, one female, were chattering away to each other, and despite Haplif’s language limitations it was quickly clear that they, too, were discussing finances and trying to decide where to go next. Not where to go in the local festival, but which planet they would travel to.
It was worth a shot. “Excuse me,” he said in Minnisiat as he turned to face them. “Do you speak this language?”
The two Chiss seemed startled to see an alien face peering out from beneath the hooded cloak Haplif had taken to wearing after one too many patroller stops on various streets. A close look would immediately reveal his features, of course, but there were enough Chiss who also wore such garments that he now blended better into the crowds. At least the hood limited the number of stops that had been due solely to worried passerby call-ins.
The boy recovered first. “Yes, we speak it,” he said, though his halting cadence suggested he had more book learning than actual experience. “Forgive my surprise, but we haven’t seen any other beings of your type in our travels. Who are you?”
“I am Haplif of the Agbui,” Haplif said, giving him a little head bow. “I and my people are cultural nomads, who travel the stars seeking knowledge and enrichment for our lives.”
The boy’s face lit up. “Really? That’s just what we’re doing.” He got up from his seat, picked up his drink, and crossed to Haplif’s table. After a second’s hesitation, the girl followed suit. “I’m Yoponek, and this is Yomie, my betrothed,” the boy said as they sat down across from him.
“Honored to meet you both,” Haplif said, trying to read their voices and faces. Young and enthusiastic, which often came pre-packaged with idealism. That should make them easy to manipulate.
Still, he needed to step carefully. He couldn’t afford to bungle this chance. “That is indeed a blessing of luck,” he continued. “I was puzzling on where my people should travel next. As you are engaged in the same quest for wisdom, perhaps you could offer advice.”
“Certainly,” Yoponek said. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“We have tasted some of the breadth of what the Chiss people have to offer,” Haplif said. “But I feel we are missing the true depth and grandeur of your worlds. Where, would you say, is the full richness of the Chiss Ascendancy to be found?”