Author's note: This setting occurred to me a few weeks ago....I may write more if people like it, or it may be a one-off. I have no idea at this point. I took the liberty of also introducing a new alien race, 'cuz Hambone said I could. :) Enjoy
~1 Y BV
Tn’knkktch’k sighed, or at least made the Rrrrtktktkp'ch equivalent. Business dealings with other species had a tendency to be tedious, time consuming, and frustrating, and even more so with beings with whom he had no history. Across the desk from him sat three of them, with a Locayl crammed behind them into one corner, and looking for all the world like it wanted to both eat and wear the lamp that it kept smacking its head into.
“What you have not yet explained to me, Mr…,” he paused at the thoroughly unpronounceable name the creature had given him, unwilling to make the attempt despite his translator implant.
“Just call me Joey,” the creature said, its mouth twisting strangely. “Joey D’Amato, but my friends just call me Joey.”
“...Jo-eeeey,” Tn’knkktch’k tried, nearly dislocating one side of his jaw. “What you have not explained to me is how you hope to, as you so colorfully put it, ‘...improve the business environment and create a one-of-a-kind establishment’ beyond allowing you to purchase the place and take over its management, when I haven’t even agreed to sell in the first place. You’ll have to forgive me, but I know nothing of your species, other than your friend here,” he indicated the surly-looking Locayl, who nodded back, “beyond what the lurid video feeds say. You are a …’hyooo-man’, are you not?”
Joey nodded, which Tn’knkktch’k’s translation implant belatedly interpreted as affirmative. “Yeah. The boys and I are human, except for Fred here, of course.” He jerked one thumb at the Locayl, who, again, bobbed its - his - head. “What that means for you, sir, is that we bring with us a unique concept, one I ain’t seen your kind trying yet. I been knockin’ around for a few years now, and your kind don’t really go for recreational entertainment with food, drink, and so on, do you? It’s a human thing,” he went on, not waiting for an answer. “The place ain’t doing anything right now but just sitting there - you got no customers, no advertising, and nothing is likely to change that. And this is one of the busiest ports on this planet - you got refineries turning out metals, foodstuffs, all kinds of trade goods...but your people don’t know how to have a good time, and so you make food nobody wants to eat, without a show to draw ‘em in, in a place nobody wants to go.”
Joey leaned back in his chair, extending arms and legs in opposite directions in a stretch. “We can change that. Here’s the deal. You keep title to the property, along with half of the profits. The four of us get the other fifty percent, but we get to change the image of the place - whatever renovations need done, we’ll take care of. We hire the help, we market it, you sit back and watch the money roll in. I took the liberty of having a contract drawn up.” With that, he leaned back forward and with a deceptively quick flick of one hand, put a memory crystal on the desk.
Tn’knkktch’k, already a little unnerved to be dealing with humans at all...they were predators, and every instinct in his body wanted to run gibbering from the room...hesitated, then plugged the crystal into a display, and began to read.
~10 M BV
Xkz’tkkztzzt, referred to on Dominion maps as the somewhat-more pronounceable designation of “4377-233-6”, was not a destination world, at least not in any sense of where one wanted to actually go to. A Class 6 world with little interesting about it other than a curious abundance of rare-earth compounds and several minor moons, it was more of a place to go to get stuff to take elsewhere. Because it lay, however, right between and almost equidistant from, several other highly populated Dominion worlds, there were an abnormally large number of docks and stations in Lagrange points around the little world, trading ships and smugglers alike moving vast amounts of materiel both legal and extralegal. Several space elevators led from surface to low orbit, bustling factories and arcology cities melding together at the base of each.
To Joey, Xkz’tkkztzzt was home to gooney birds, which were a problem, as far as he was concerned; the name that the Rrrrtktktkp'ch had given them was, of course, unpronounceable, so they were officially gooney birds. They looked to his untrained eye like an albatross and a pelican had had love children with several successive generations of incestuous flamingos; a large bill with a pouch underneath, scaly bright white and electric blue feathers with a wattled head, neck, feet, and part of the back, six little red eyes, and a wingspan the breadth of a Locayl’s height, made for an impressively ugly display to human eyes. They were also quite fond of perching overhead, and defecating, on people - they had, in fact, been proven to be aiming for the unwary walking around below. They smelled bad, and their meat was far too rancid to eat. They sat on things that weren’t meant to have large avians sitting on them, and collapsed them. All things considered, he’d have given a lot for a few cats...or gricka, as they were known the galaxy over, but since that wasn’t an option, he settled for the next best thing...negative reinforcement.
The last two months had been mostly eventful. Tn’knkktch’k had kept to the letter of the contract that they had finally settled on, but hadn’t bothered to tell the humans until after things were signed that no visible or audible external advertising was allowed. The bar, as Joey kept referring to it, needed a name and a sign, but he couldn’t put one up, so in a moment of drunken inspiration and/or desperation, he hit on the next best thing….a two-for-one, one might say. To one of the major support posts outside, he had fashioned a large curved hook, upon which he mounted one of the birds, freshly dead and un-embalmed. Doug, the larger and more verbose of the two other humans in the group, had snorted a laugh and said, “So we’re The Dead Pelican, then?” The name had stuck.
Fortunately, the rest of the work they’d done had been comparatively easy. Fred, or the Locayl they referred to as Fred since none of them could pronounce his name anyway, had displayed an unexpected and deviously inventive streak of genius when it came to making what they needed out of what was available. He had managed to come up with a slab of wood that at least superficially resembled polished mahogany, and behind the bar where a mirror would typically go in a human establishment, the three humans had hoisted a rectangular slab of highly polished ship armor that served the same purpose. They had reinforced the walls (ridiculously flimsy construction by human standards; William, the third human in the group, had nearly knocked out a structural wall when he tripped and fell into it), replaced the door with something properly sturdy, and Fred had come up with a field emitter from somewhere that he and William had rewired into a clever means of keeping the floor clean. A raised ring to one side had a second field emitter installed, with the intention of having dancers, contests of strength or skill, and perhaps boxing if Joey could find a few humans to participate. William, a former electrician, had rigged up lights and sound, and they were now almost ready, which was fortunate, since Joey’s stash of hard stolen earned Dominion credits was dwindling fast.
All they needed now was an alternative to booze, since most other races didn’t get intoxicated from alcohol. Joey had constructed a still, which was actively churning out something that would probably end up being a fair approximation of whiskey once its product had aged a bit, but it was Doug who had found, before they embarked on this little enterprise, the mother lode. Other species might not react to alcohol, not having the equivalent of a liver...but that didn’t mean that they were utterly immune to other substances. The two Corti that had abducted Joey had been junior researchers who had become enamored with Earth’s abundance of such things, and had been actively looking into equivalent substances for other races. Since ...alternate pharmaceuticals… had been a specialty of Joey’s, he had seemed like a prime candidate, as indeed he turned out to be. He and Doug had been left unattended just long enough for Doug to grab a bunch of the hapless Cortis’ research notes and for them to force their way out of the ship and into a busy, crowded station, and from there disappearing had not been difficult. Joey figured they’d obviously given the little grey fuckers the slip, or they’d have come and gotten him, right? They’d picked up William somewhere along the way, and Fred had joined the trio of miscreants shortly thereafter. They made a pretty good team.
What they had discovered when they finally got a good look at the stolen data, was an analysis of many racial genetic codes; the major races such as Gaoians, Locayl, Celzi, Corti, Rrrrtktktkp'ch, and so on were all there, but there were a number of others that Joey was certain were much less ubiquitous. Common to most of them, and covered in excited research notes which were in some sort of Corti shorthand, appeared to be a particular biological commonality (not shared by humans, he was interested to see) which, if he understood the stuff that wasn’t in code correctly, offered an opportunity. The Celzi had experimented a century or two previously with transplanting some of their own flora into other ecosystems, with interesting results; one planet classed as a class 9 temperate world near the borders of Robalin space had been seeded with several forms of fungi which had interacted unexpectedly with some of the native life. That world had subsequently had to be reclassed as class 11, because the spores exuded from the resulting hybrids had a variety of effects on most known lifeforms, depending on what the person was, and how much they were exposed to. Doug had in an inspired moment dubbed them “Space Shrooms”, and it was this that Joey intended to make their first marketable substances from, along with the intended entertainment. In the back of the building, they had constructed several hermetically sealed grow-rooms with transplants of the Space Shrooms, which grew with gusto on nearly anything they put in as Shroom food. Next to that was a sizeable kitchen with a walk-in refrigerator and freezer.
Their efforts had not gone unnoticed, by any means. Tn’knkktch’k had come by several times, often accompanied by a note-taking Vzk’tk and another, much smaller creature that had said nothing the first time it visited, but examined everything with a gimlet eye. It looked much like a large four-eyed rat with dark red fur, upright on two legs, with a long prehensile tail, hands with two opposable thumbs on either side of the hand and two fingers between, and carried a series of small nasty-looking sharp things on a bandolier slung over one shoulder. Doug asked, “So what do we call you, Reepicheep?” to the bemusement of the other two and a blank look from the rest of the non-humans.
“My name is aAh’naiah, and I am Tn’knkktch’k’s security consultant,” the rat-creature said. “I also represent several other local groups that have an interest in what three deathworlders plan to introduce here. Your preparations have not gone unnoticed.”
“We mean no disrespect, of course,” Joey said smoothly. “It is not our intention to displace any current operations your associates are engaged in; we believe that there is a great deal of mutual profit in working together.” He paced back and forth, thinking quickly with one hand at his chin. “We seek to take no sides other than our own here. Do you speak for your associates? Do you have the authority to discuss business?”
“No,” aAh’naiah replied. “I have no authority to speak for anyone. I am simply examining your work thus far.”
“Would your associates be willing to send representatives here? We have ...experience… with business deals of this nature; before we open, we would, of course, prefer to discuss business arrangements,” Joey said with a wide smile. Tn’knkktch’k involuntarily flinched. “I’ll be happy to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
“I make no promises, but I will take your words back to the rest of my associates.” aAh’naiah turned to Tn’knkktch’k. “I believe you should consider attending as well, sir. If these humans succeed in brokering deals as they evidently intend to try, you stand to gain or lose a great deal, depending on your involvement.”
Tn’knkktch’k took all of four seconds to consider. “We will have to discuss that on our way back.” He turned to Joey. “You will let me know when you have a meeting planned?” Joey nodded. “Very well. I will take my leave of you.” With that, he and his retinue exited, leaving the small group of entrepreneurs looking at one another.
William broke the silence first. “Reepicheep?” Doug snorted.
“Yeah, man, didn’t you ever read the Chronicles of Narnia when you were a kid? I used to love that shit….a talking mouse with a rapier.”
“I was always way too into comic books,” Joey said. “Saw the movie once.” There was a long pause. “So...if we’re gonna do this right, we better look the part. Fred, you said you managed to fix up that fabricator thing to do cloth and stuff?”
“Yeah, I think so,” replied the Locayl in a voice that sounded like someone was using a cheese grater on a bass guitar. “Should be able to do what you gave me the specs for.”
“Good,” Joey said, looking after the departed group of xenos. “Every xeno’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.” The other two chuckled.
The meeting was set for several days later, in the evening. A messenger from aAh’naiah had arrived the previous day to advise the humans that they would be hosting five prominent businessmen and their assistants, as well as Tn’knkktch’k. William had outdone himself with the sound, Joey thought to himself, standing just inside the open front door and watching the sun set while listening to a slow jazz piece featuring a solo saxophone over a drum backing and muted bassline. All three wore dark-colored suits over white shirts, with ties and shiny shoes. Fred had settled for fabricating a set of brass knuckles which Joey had described for him, which he wore on his lower set of fists so as not to be too obviously threatening.
aAh’naiah was the first to arrive, by himself and at least an hour before the others. He blinked several times as he came in, eyes adjusting to the lower light levels and looking around. The room’s layout had been changed somewhat, the largest of the tables with chairs set around it placed in the raised area to one side, and a large cleared area from there to the rest of the tables, chairs, and other assorted things. Soft lights in a neutral white shone down from overhead.
“Joey D’Amato…. interesting music. Is this from your homeworld?” he asked, pausing to speak with Joey.
“Yeah. It’s from a movie I liked a lot when I was a kid, and I thought it was appropriate. Speakin’ of which….for this meeting, we’re gonna have a protocol that I think I’m gonna make an ongoing condition of entry here. Over there on the other side of Fred there, you’ll see some boxes on the wall we call ‘lockers’. I’m gonna ask you, and everyone else, to put any weapons or communications devices you may be carrying into one of those lockers until you leave - it’ll bio-lock to you, so it won’t let anybody else into it. Your stuff will be safe.” Joey gestured as he spoke, pointing out a several-tiered row of boxes affixed to the length of the wall. Fred stood impressively to one side, both sets of arms crossed.
“Is this a custom of your world, Joey D’Amato? To disarm visitors?” aAh’naiah considered the implications of this from a Deathworlder. His own people, the I’yeea, had an analogous custom of displaying weapons openly which was a sign of both respect and open intentions.
“Call it a safety precaution,” Joey replied. “Fewer available weapons in the room makes for a somewhat more civilized conversation.”
“Considering you three are weapons, that is scant comfort. Very well...however, you may find that some of your guests may not be as accomodating.” He opened one locker, then looked back at Joey, mildly surprised. “You erected stasis fields in these?”
Joey smiled. “Yeah. Wouldn’t do to have somebody put a bomb in one with a timer, y’know? I can think of a lot of ways to make some mischief even with a precaution like this, an’ I’m sure I ain’t the only one.”
Approximately a quarter-hour before the meeting’s scheduled time, they began to arrive. Tn’knkktch’k was the first of these, followed almost immediately by a pair of Chehnasho who aAh’naiah identified to Joey as the Pol Brothers that had control of most of the region’s protection racket and a smattering of other less-than-savory things. All three paused at the door to momentarily argue about the lockers until Joey pointed out that everyone would be asked the same thing and showed that he was also unarmed. They were seated at the table, chairs reforming as they sat to accommodate their biology. A similar scene was enacted a few minutes later as a second Rrrrtktktkp'ch and then a third arrived, each with a pair of bodyguards in tow. aAh’naiah introduced them as Rk’ttkplp, leader of a group of smugglers that practically ran a major set of orbital docking facilities, and Kttk’nkk, a rival smuggler that was rumored to have deals with pirate bands. They were still arguing the point when the final attendee arrived, a Corti, followed by a pair of Allebenellin in combat suits.
“EXCUSE ME,” Joey raised his voice over the din of three irritated crime lords and their retainers. “Okay,” he said once he had their attention. “Now. For the purposes of a productive conversation here, we are going to have to have each of you leave your weapons in the lockers. Your time here will be well worth it, I assure you, and I apologize for the inconvenience. You two,” he said, pointing at the two Allebenellin, “may wait over there with Fred. Your associates already inside here have already disarmed, and it is going to be a rule of business here. We’re all friends here, so let’s keep it that way, eh?” The two armored Allebenellin looked at their employer, who motioned with one hand absently. They tromped off and stood at attention behind the massive Locayl, as their diminutive boss walked up to the table without a word. Both of the remaining Rrrrtktktkp'ch followed suit after a moment. Joey walked up behind them, William and Doug staying with Fred by the door. As he set foot on the platform and walked around to the unoccupied head of the table, a brief hum accompanied the activation of the kinetic field around the raised area.
“Gentlemen,” Joey said as he took his seat. “Welcome...to the Dead Pelican.” He spread his arms grandly, not caring for a moment if it looked to the others like an aggressive gesture. “I been waiting ages to say that. So….here we are.”
One of the Pol brothers spoke first. “What...exactly...are we here for, human? The message we received said you wished to discuss business arrangements. We don’t even do business with each other, what makes you think we’re going to do business with you?”
“Well,” Joey replied slowly, “That’s kind of the point. You don’t do business with each other. Now, on my homeworld, we have many organizations like yours, although I’m sure not with the same amount of complexity, right? One thing we’ve learned, and more than once if I’m bein’ totally honest, is that working together within our own individual interests results in additional protection for everyone. What I’m offering here is a place that is neutral, where you or your representatives can enter into business deals freely. My friends and I here are humans...maybe you know, and maybe you don’t, about what we’re like. I have a demonstration for you, if you’ll allow me.” There was a general murmur around the table. Joey beckoned, and Doug walked up to the dias, handing over a kinetic pulse pistol to the very surprised Chehnasho that had spoken.
“Okay. So, first off, please verify that that weapon has not been tampered with in any way.” The Chehnasho looked the pistol over, allowing his brother to look at it as well. He looked back at Joey.
“Now what?” He grinned, as the only one obviously armed. The others sitting at the table recoiled slightly.
“Now you shoot me.” Joey said. “Right here.” He gestured at his chest. “I mean, you could shoot me in the head, but those things do…” he broke off, as the Chehnasho, not one to refuse an open invitation to murder, did exactly as requested and fired off a quick burst into his chest. Joey wheezed with the impact, and sat back up. Eyes went wide with surprise around the table, or at least the racial equivalent. “...sting. Ow.” He paused for a long moment. “So, you see. I’m from a category twelve temperate world. Twelve.” There was a pause, as the aliens around the table considered, having just seen in person proof of something that the more lurid videos from a year or two previously had mentioned in voiceovers accompanying security footage of one human tearing a Hunter raiding party limb from limb. Joey stood up, leaning on his knuckles against the table.
“What I’m offering you is the chance to have a neutral place to discuss business, enforced by humans. Three of us...more, maybe, if we can find another few of us that have gotten away from the Corti...no offense,” he said, looking at the Corti sitting at the other end of the table.
“None taken, Mr. D’Amato,” said the Corti so addressed. “I, as you can see, am not in the research business, and I have little interest in your biology. What I am interested in, however, is the nature of your business here that has less to do with us. aAh’naiah mentioned that you have several grow rooms in the back, as well as some kind of chemistry experiment. Is this more of your homeworld, to go along with the music, and yourselves?”
“Oh, the still? Yeah, that’s an Earth thing. I’m tryin’ my hand at making whiskey - you don’t have barley, but I think we can make do. As for the grow rooms, well, there isn’t a lot to show you for that part of the operation, but we do have something else.” He gestured as he spoke; William had gone in the back and now wheeled out a cart with a lidded tray on top.
“Humans place a lot of value on socializing with food and intoxicants. I’ve seen some places that are like this, but you serve only food. Our biology is a little different, of course; humans are the only race I’m aware of that has the ability to absorb and process alcohol. We have social conventions based on alcohol at every step, from making it to consuming it. None of your races would be affected by those drinks, however, and so we would like to introduce our customs to you, with an equivalent. What we have here is a drink that will have an intoxicating-like effect on your species - we’ve based this on research acquired from a Corti group.” Joey lifted the lid on the tray and gathered up the polished metal mugs, passing them around the group. Reactions from the group varied; the Chehnasho were nonplussed, all three of the Rrrrtktktkp'ch recoiled as though presented with a cup full of highly radioactive nuclear waste, and the Corti took out a handheld device and began passing it back and forth over the cup. aAh’naiah, as the lone representative of his species, had little reaction other than to scoot it a little further away from himself.
“Human, you place a great deal of faith in the ...research… that you say came from my people, but you have not explained how you came by it. If I am reading this correctly, you have just given each of us a mug full of nerve toxins, with little-studied primary or secondary effects, and which you appear to be immune to. Am I more or less correct?” The Corti spoke evenly. “Do you take us for fools?”
“What that is,” Joey nodded at the cup in front of the little alien, “is a drink laced with something that is mildly psychoactive for your species. It is safe for you to consume in moderate amounts, much like alcohol is for us, will be eliminated by your own natural body functions, and will give you what we call a ‘high’. I would drink it in front of you to show you that it’s not dangerous, but as you say, for me, it would have no effect at all.”
“In fact,” he went on, “no, I don’t take you for a fool at all. I take you...each of you...as a businessman with the vision to explore an untapped market. Mild intoxication is a social activity for my people, much as eating a meal or other shared experiences. In fact,” Joey said, warming to his subject, “you could think of this as a sample of what a deathworld is like, in a way. Think of it - you will experience, without taking any permanent harm, something that will partly incapacitate you, deliberately. You will have the thrill of a risk, without the permanent consequences. When I pitched this idea to Tn’knkktch’k originally, I pointed out that this seems to be something that only humans do. I am offering you a sample of what it is like to be like the three of us...a Deathworlder, but without the dangerous things that go along with it. The business possibilities for this are huge; as we say, ‘the sky's the limit’.”
The Corti remained nonplussed, his species’ natural unemotional demeanor working well as a poker face. “I believe I see your point, Mr. D’Amato. Nevertheless, I…” he broke off as the Chehnahsho brother sitting next to him leaned forward.
“If he wanted to kill you or hurt you, Glisht, he could probably have ripped your arms off already. I’m told humans are known to do that.” William, still standing just outside the kinetic field, choked back an amused snort. “In fact, I’m tempted to do that myself, just because I don’t like you.”
“Now, now,” Joey broke in. “Let’s do this with respect, eh? Violence is bad for business. Unless violence is the business, of course, which we aren’t going to do here.”
The two Chehnasho brothers exchanged a look, and the one that had spoken a moment before held the cup up at face level. “I will try your drink, human. If it harms me, my brother will have all three of you killed by szhav-rishii; you will be devoured alive, slowly, by scavengers of our homeworld. It is most painful and can take many rotations.” With little ceremony, he tipped the cup into his mouth and swallowed. The group was silent, watching to see what happened since only the humans had any idea of the intended effect.
“Hey, that’s not bad,” the squat, greenish alien said after a moment. Joey reflected to himself that there were probably activist groups on Earth that would consider this animal testing. Take that, PETA (People for Ethical Treament of Aliens)! “It has an odd aftertaste. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything even remotely like tha...whoa.”
The Corti, Glisht, observed this with the same passion usually reserved for observing something fascinating, yet mildly disgusting, through a microscope. “I believe I will decline trying this myself. I can see the potential attraction, but my kind do not ...socialize… the way that other races do.” Next to him, the Chehnasho was leaned back in his chair, eyes half-closed and head raised slightly. “Are you….well?” Glisht asked.
“....Yes.” replied the test subject. “This is an interesting feeling. I feel a mild euphoria. Human, you say your kind use this recreationally, for fun?”
“Many of us do, yes,” Joey replied. “There are many social customs of ours for which this is a basic starting point; there is one culture, not my own, where it is customary for all participants in a business deal to consume something with a similar effect, and normal social restrictions are very relaxed. A man can say things under those circumstances that would normally invite a violent response, without anyone taking offense. That is one example among many.”
Looks were exchanged around the table. Surprisingly, it was Kttk’nkk, one of the Rrrrtktktkp'ch, that was next to raise a glass and drink. The others followed suit after a long moment, and within a few minutes, there was a lively discussion around the table about the effect of the drink. Glisht declined again and simply observed from the other end of the table, obviously making mental notes and participating in the discussion only sparingly. All three of the Rrrrtktktkp'ch declared that the effects were enjoyable, and Tn’knkktch’k had first ordered and then encouraged his Vzk’tk assistant to try it as well.
Once the discussion on beverage effects, social customs, and each other’s matrilineal ancestry had been given a chance to run its course, Joey took control of the conversation again, reminding the group of the initial proposal. “As you can see, my friends, there are opportunities here you have not yet tried. Allow The Dead Pelican to remain a neutral place and help me keep the authorities outta here, unless they’re workin’ for one of you. We will provide a place to arrange additional business, or for any of you to talk with each other, in a place of mutual respect. What happens outside of here is not our concern, capiche?” There were murmurs of agreement around the table.
“Excellent. We’re agreed, then. The Dead Pelican opens to the public in a week...and if you have people that need work, but aren’t quite suited for your organizations, feel free to send them here. We will have work for them, I have no doubt.” Joey smiled an openly predatory grin. “See?” he said turning to aAh’naiah. “I told you it’d be an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
Submitted January 25, 2016 at 03:52AM by slice_of_pi http://ift.tt/1NtI1XM HFY
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