SALES PITCH SALES PITCH
THE TRADING POST was located on the satellite of a remote dwarf star.
It was well defended with a Jotok garrison. That was a condition which those who the humans would one day call Puppeteers had imposed when it had been built several centuries before.
No Puppeteer had actually set foot there since the garrison was installed. Automatic defenses destroyed any dust or debris—or anything but a recognized and licenced Jotok ship—that drew near.
Although the two races had been trading with one another for centuries, communication had been remote and exclusively electronic.
No Jotok was known to have ever seen a Puppeteer, nor even an accurate image of one of them.
Some thoughtful Jotoki—a few were still interested in such things—had speculated about their appearance, and a variety of theories and guesses had been made.
On the whole, however, the Jotok were content with a steady trade and predictable profits.
At the trading post the puppeteers presented themselves via holograms, they themselves remaining aboard their ship, hanging in space with engines idling some distance off.
The time-lapse in conversations suggested to the Jotok that the Puppeteer ship was at least a few light-minutes away, but this could not be proved—the delay might have been simply to create that impression: If the puppeteers had FTL (one of many things they were reticent about), it might be much further.
Drones counterfeited the signatures of its engines further to forestall the curious.
Several centuries of peaceful and profitable communication since the Puppeteers had allowed the Jotok first to discover them, or rather their holograms, had smoothed relationships. The Puppeteers, however, still did not believe in taking chances.
The hologram images of “themselves” which the Puppeteers projected in their conferences were somewhat edited, but, being an ethical species, they allowed the Jotok to be aware of this. What they really looked like, the Jotok were free to speculate.
It was not that the Puppeteers, however many heads and limbs they had, would necessarily appear strange to the Jotoki—themselves five-armed colonial animals whose adult entities could deploy the considerable resources of five linked brains—but the Puppeteers believed the less personal information anyone had about them, the better.
Their viewing screen showed a Jotok-like figure, but both parties knew without openly saying so that this was probably an artifact.
And, after all, to the Jotok it did not matter exactly what the Puppeteers looked like, or even what they thought, so long as they were convinced that they were an ethical species and honest trading partners.
The Jotok had gradually developed the great virtue of traders: attention to business and disregard for inessentials.
They still had some scientific curiosity but it tended to be directed to strictly practical ends, such as improving their gravity-planer space drives. It was enough that each race knew the other to be trustworthy. Puppeteers’ extreme caution had come to be regarded by the Jotoki as a foible.
“You may be interested to know that we are branching into employment agency work,” the Puppeteer spokesperson told his Jotok opposite number, Jarmalternovgot (a fragment of their name being derived from each of their entities).
The Jotok waved two of their arms politely. “Indeed? We are surprised you would be interested in anything of such a small scale.”
“But this is no small scale. Indeed I am surprised no one in all the planets has thought of it before. We act as an employment agency for races, a broker for races’ talents. Indeed, I hope you may, in due course, wish to employ our services in this regard.”
“Say on.” Jarmalternovgot found they were quite relaxed in the presence of the Puppeteer’s image, though they guessed the Puppeteer was analyzing their actions minutely. They did not know that centuries before, when the trading post was being built, the Puppeteers had installed a mild narcotic into its life-system’s atmosphere as an aid to that very relaxation. It made trade negotiations easier.
“We know of eighteen races located more-or-less in our vicinity of the spiral arm—that is to say, near enough for STL travel between their planets not to take a prohibitively long time—that have become sapient.
“Some, we know, have had your help in lifting themselves to various levels of science and technology. Except for yourselves, they, of course, all remain unaware of our own existence.
“Six of these have achieved space travel, although not to our own degree of effectiveness. Yours is the greatest of these, with the best drives and a true interstellar trade empire. We like and trust you because we know you have done this peacefully, or very largely so—we were observing you long before our respective races first made contact.
“Most of the spacefaring races,” it continued, “have established, or tried to establish, colonies on worlds or planetoids near them.”
“Yes, we know of these. Our own trade empire is, as you are aware, quite extensive.” Jarmalternovgot wondered between themselves why the Puppeteer was telling them things that were already common knowledge.
“However, virtually no colony world is ideal for its colonizers,” the Puppeteer went on. “Some sapients are able to colonize many worlds with the aid of machinery, and with what may be a great expenditure of capital and resources, which I am sure you would rather see them invest in immediately profitable trading.”
The Jotoks’ attention increased. The Puppeteer was one of the very few non-Jotok beings who could read Jotok body language and noted it.
“However, so often a new world turns out for the colonists to be too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too heavy, too light. Life is possible, of course, or there would not be a colony at all, but until some accommodation is made with the new conditions, life for the colonists is often distinctly uncomfortable. Huge amounts of money are often thrown away.
“Sometimes it turns out no adjustment is possible, the difficulties are too great, and the colony dies, with or without the colonizers being evacuated.
“I might again say here that we deeply admire your own race’s successful colonizing efforts and also what you have done to lift so many primitive worlds from backwardness and barbarism.”
“Obviously successful merchants need wealthy customers,” Jarmalternovgot replied. “Yet some of our philosophers have called attention to the fact that the work our people do in raising backward worlds may be seen as indistinguishable from altruism.”
“And sometimes your raising of primitive races is done at great cost. Remember the massacre of your people at Qua Effertsion when you tried to outlaw slavery and the sacrifice of intelligent prisoners there? It is something for which we honor you.” The Puppeteer’s voice was full of warmth, admiration and regret.
“We remember. We did not know you took such an interest in us. But there were other massacres on a dozen other worlds when our policies of spreading peace and prosperity conflicted with primitive taboos.”
“Quite. Civilization in the galaxy owes your people a debt which it would be hard to repay.
“But to return to the matter of failed colonies. We and agents of ours have discovered the remains of more than a hundred such failed colonies attempted by various races. From your point of view the markets of a hundred worlds are lost, not to mention potential sources of raw materials which you need.
“The colonies were often undertaken in the first place because the colony worlds were mineral rich—so rich that in some cases that fact blinded the colonizers’ judgment as to their real viability.
“Yet when we have examined the history of the various failed colonies, we have come to conclude that another race, with different abilities—different tolerances to gravity, radiation levels, atmospheric composition, native proteins, different norms of heat and cold, and so forth—in many instances might well have colonized them successfully and lived pleasant and affluent lives, or at least altered them to conform with the original discoverers’ needs.
“You see how this gave us the idea of an employment agency? Certain races are willing to pay well to have others, better adapted for their colony world, to live on it, tame its extremes, remove hostile life-forms, and eventually perhaps alter it for their tastes. There is nothing small in the financial returns for us, I assure you. Well, that is one aspect of it. There are others. We trade, it might be said, in talents. We have established as a fact that some races are lucky, and that fact can be put to various uses. And we do not fear competition.”
That last was certainly something for the Jotok to file away in their brains. If they did not fear competition, they must have a very good reason indeed for not fearing it. A rare hint tending to confirm something which the Jotok Trade Council had long suspected: The Puppeteers possessed a faster-than-light drive. Well, at least we know about it, now, they thought.
“That is very interesting, but why tell us? We have no use for such a service. We find needs and supply them. Our technology is the envy of many races. But customers with no needs are as useless to us as customers too poor to buy.”
“I might mention,” replied the Puppeteer, “that such services and race-talents include military security. That is a line we have been developing recently. Every developed race, surely, has its rogues and outlaws. We have heard reports of piracy in some sections of space… Of course you can defend your own.”
“Of course,” said the Jotok shortly. Traders as they were, Jotok security was good. Whatever their real feelings, it would have been the most elementary of errors to betray interest at this stage. In any case their brains were quarreling among themselves.
The Puppeteer continued: “But with due respect to your security forces, are such pirates worth the lives of a single Jotoki entity? For every pirate shot fired from a clumsy musket on some backward world five of your brains may die!
“Your lasers and plasma cannon may make short work of spears and gunpowder, even of chemical rockets, yet a shower of spears can destroy the Jotoki technicians setting up a trading post or even a laser point in some wilderness.
“You now can pay others to take risks for you.
“It would make both economic and social sense for others to do the military work. You are wealthy enough to afford it. It’s been done in the past, in the history of several worlds, and no one is the worse for it.”
Jarmalternovgot considered the matter with all their brains. “There is perhaps something in what you say,” they admitted at length. “We encounter primitive and hostile races sometimes, and we sadly have seen our youngsters die before their time, sometimes when they have just joined and are little more than tadpoles. But of course we would need to place such a matter before the full Trade Council.”
“I know a world that might supply such a security force,” the Puppeteer told them. “An all-round force deployable in many situations. The inhabitants have mostly an iron-age culture, but owing to subtle interventions of our own, some of the more advanced have discovered gunpowder. In fact we have given them a little push in the direction of, eventually, rocketry. Their world has two large moons and several small ones, which will give them something to aim at.
“I think they would fit in well with the technicalities of your trade empire, given a little coaching.”
“From what you say, I take it they are fighters?”
“You might say that.”
“Then why should we not fear them?” A slightly odd question to put to the most cowardly race known. Puppeteers feared everything. They were also, however, capable of a certain cold-blooded objectivity. And they had, Jarmalternovgot reflected, built up an empire whose power and extent none of the races they dealt with could even guess at. They must be doing some things right.
“Your technology will always allow you to retain ”—the Puppeteer was about to say “the upper hoof” but realized such a metaphor would be both meaningless and perhaps revealing to Jotoki—“a sure advantage.”
“May I see one?”
“Certainly.” The holo of the pseudo-Jotok disappeared and a new one took its place. The Jotoki backed hastily away, holo or not.
“I think you will agree that it looks capable enough.” No one could have told anything different about the synthesized voice, for example that it was being heavily edited to hide the Puppeteer’s own terror.
The Puppeteer also omitted to mention that the figure was barely half-size and the fangs and claws had been reduced even further.
“What are they called?”
“Kzin. Means ‘Hero’.”
“How would we recruit them?”
“We can perhaps help with advice there. We have much experience in dealing with alien races without showing ourselves. You know it is only because of the exceptional level of trust that we have in you that we have shown ourselves to you to the extent that we have. But you may be sure we have, over a long period of time, evolved protocols for dealing with such situations.”
“The negotiations were successful?” The Hindmost Puppeteer asked his negotiator.
“I believe the Jotoki will come to see the value of alien security guards. Expensive pirate activity has increased in several of their sectors, as you are aware.”
“And as I directed. It is unfortunate for them.”
Had the Puppeteer been capable of pity, it would have felt it for the Jotoki and their fellows then. A benevolent race, even if their trade empire was beginning to impact on the Puppeteers’ own. Their loss would be felt in much of the galaxy.
Further, though the Puppeteers had, centuries ago, directed the Jotokis’ research and development in the direction of gravity control, a technology which did not compete with the Puppeteers’ FTL drive, but which they could make use of in certain areas, some Jotoki scientists had recently embarked on experiments which might eventually lead them to an FTL drive of their own.
Further, some were starting to suspect their science had been deliberately directed away from the possibility of FTL. Whether or not they suspected the Puppeteers of this manipulation yet was uncertain but it was inevitable that, if this suspicion gained ground, it would inevitably fix on the Puppeteers. They were the only species the Jotok knew with science in advance of their own.
It would be easy enough, since that suspicion was planted, to guess why the Puppeteers had interfered with Jotok scientific advancement: FTL would be seen as for what it was, a jealously guarded secret and monopoly.
It was time for the Jotok to go.
Inhibitions could be engineered into the Kzin which, once they had taken over the Jotokis’ technology, would activate against further research and development along such lines. If, despite this, they still looked like becoming a threat, they could be taken care of before that threat developed.
More importantly, their trading on often-dangerous worlds meant the Jotoki had kept up good weapons, though with no great enthusiasm for their use, certainly not on a large scale. Like all the other spacefaring races, centuries of peace and prosperity had civilized them too much for that.
Give these barbaric Kzin access to the Jotoki’s gravity drives and arsenals, and the next step would have been taken in the Puppeteers’ plan: raise the Kzin to technological power—something that they would never achieve on their own—and then raise another race to fight them.
Given no competition, their own arrogance and savagery would develop into fatal handicaps. As a purely warrior race the Kzin, unchallenged, would have certain limitations. Meeting a clever and adaptable foe would broaden and strengthen them. The result, given Puppeteer manipulation, should be, eventually, a race or races capable of handling anything short of the Puppeteers themselves.
The Outsiders, the strange deep-space beings with whom the Puppeteers sometimes traded, had dropped hints of some approaching menace, either from the galactic core, or from further up the spiral arm. In either event, the Puppeteers would have a race or races to meet it without risking their own necks.
“What if these Kzin become a threat to us?”
“Your caution is exemplary as ever, Hindmost, but I do not believe such a danger could develop. We will control the situation with our usual indirect methods, and should they become even a potential danger to us, we shall have long-range warning. We can drop their fleet and their homeworld into its own sun.”
The Puppeteers had much advanced science, but it was in defensive weaponry, the result of centuries of research, that they excelled. They could move worlds if necessary, expensive though it was, and their spacecraft were invulnerable to everything but antimatter.
“And the second race, the element that mixes with them to make the iron into steel?”
“I have them picked out. They are much less advanced than these Kzin but full of promise. Omnivores, so they should be at least as easy to control. Their brains are comparable to the Kzin, or can be made so by a few subtle interventions.
“They have one oversized moon hanging in their sky at night, which will give them also something to aim at initially, and their system has a belt of mineral-rich asteroids, many of which could be made habitable with work—sufficient incentives to get them into space.”
“Their next nearest star—a double or triple system—also has an asteroid belt and a habitable planet, very similar to their own, and will also in due course be a tempting target, but with no intelligent life such as would provide serious competition once they got there.
“They are far enough away from the Kzin for us to reasonably expect that they will have the art of space travel developed somewhat beyond the elementary stage by the time we bring them together.”
“And if they never go into space? Or never find the Kzin?”
“Then, sooner or later, the Kzin will find them. They will become the Kzin’s slaves and prey, and we will find other ways of controlling them.”
“Will they have weapons as good as the Jotoki?”
“Their space travel will be nudged in the direction of reaction drives. I expect them to become quite proficient with those. The Kzin will have something obviously superior in the gravity planer and I think will not proceed with development of reaction drives. But the potential of reaction drives as weapons can be realized very quickly.”
“And are they warlike enough? Will their warrior instincts survive them developing the degree of co-operation necessary for space flight?”
“Oh, yes. I think they are warlike enough. That I can safely say.”