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* * *
They took a different route this time, through a garden of pools and
cataracts, where the rocks had been exquisitely carved into animal forms, then
along the river past docks and wharves surrounded by boats.
People who wanted to be invisible could lose themselves permanently in a place
like this, Chelm thought to himself. No scans, ID profiles, or registration
with any authorities required; Lydian doctors were surprisingly skillful, and
would easily be able to remove the implanted microchips that most Terrans
possessed in some cases mandated that could be tracked to within a few feet by
satellites. Which brought to mind the still-unsolved mystery of the vanished
Oryx
.
"Tell me," he said to Moishina, "do you know of other Terrans ever having been
here? Another ship like ours, that came . . . it would have been around five
of your years ago?"
"I have heard of such questions being asked. But no. I'm afraid I have no
answers that I can give you."
But the ship had been in orbit over Lydia. That didn't prove it had sent down
landers, of course. But having come this far, what reason could there be for
it not to have done so? Then again, there was nothing that said they had to
have chosen the same area to land in. All the same, from what Chelm had seen
of the way things worked here, it would be strange if any news hadn't reached
Issen during all that time.
They came to an open market exhibiting wares of every description, with
musicians and street entertainers playing to small crowds among the stalls.
Seeing the vendors and buyers haggling reminded
Chelm of the uncertainty he had felt about dealing with Osti. "I wondered if I
was being too easy," he said to Moishina. They had stopped for a moment to
look at a stall hung with pictures and tapestries.
"You were gracious to agree," she replied. "We were impressed."
Chelm felt relieved. "I thought the expected thing might be to offer him less.
But the figure seemed low anyway. And in any case, somehow it wouldn't have
felt right . . . as a guest, not knowing this world well yet."
Moishina frowned, evidently puzzling over what he had said. "Why would you
want to offer him less?"
she asked.
"Force of habit, I guess," Chelm replied, with a shrug. "Business is business.
I know it was a good rate to begin with, but . . ." He let the rest hang,
seeing that she wasn't following. "Well, isn't that what you do here?"
She shook her head. "No . . . You always give a little more, ask a little
less. That is the way we are taught. You must return more to the world than
you take. Otherwise, how could it feed us all?"
It was then that Chelm registered the exchange that was going on between the
stallholder and a prospective customer who had taken a liking to a carved
wooden relief showing boats passing under a bridge.
"I'll tell you what. I'll give you eight zel
," the buyer said.
"Do I look as if I'm hungry or incapable of managing my affairs? Five would be
quite sufficient. . . . Very well, make it five and a half."
"And do I look so tattered and ragged that I need to rob a trader who brings
us such fine works? It is surely worth seven. Any less, and you can keep it."
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The buyer was insisting on the higher price, and the seller was trying to bid
it down. Chelm looked at
Moishina perplexedly. "I don't understand. They're both trying to give money
away."
"Yes," she agreed. And then, as if to explain, "As much as they can afford to,
at least."
Which didn't explain anything. "You mean people don't try to get more of it?"
Chelm asked, becoming increasingly bewildered.
"Why would they want more than provides for their needs?" Moishina replied.
"Getting it would just take time out of their lives, which they would rather
spend doing the things they want."
"But wouldn't more money mean they could buy more of what they want?"
Moishina shook her head. She seemed to be having as much trouble understanding
Chelm. "Money is necessary for fulfilling obligations that you would prefer
not to have. Needing more means being less free." She thought about it some
more, as if trying to make sense of how it could be any other way. "On
Earth it is not the same?"
"Not at all. It would be considered inefficient. Impossibly inefficient."
"So, what is efficient?"
"Being profitable. Making as much from a deal as you can."
"As much what?"
"Money." Chelm waited, saw that he still hadn't gotten through, and
elaborated. "Buy low and sell high.
It's really very simple. The bigger the difference, the more you get to keep.
So everyone makes a living."
Moishina rubbed her brow with a knuckle. She was obviously having a hard time
with this. "So that is the way you are taught? On your world, everyone takes
as much as they can, and gives as little in return as they can get away with?
But if everyone is trying to take from you, you would have to protect
yourself.
Is that why the Terrans have built the fence around their base?" Chelm
recalled that he had seen nothing resembling a lock or bar on the door into
the rooms that Osti had shown him. All of a sudden, a lot of things that he
had always taken as self-evident didn't seem so obvious anymore.
"It's the way to create wealth for investing in better things," was the best
answer he could come up with.
Moishina seemed to take a long time thinking through what that meant, and then
shook her head again. "I
don't think that Quyzo would be very happy in that world at all," she replied.
* * *
Two days later, Chelm received a summons to Teel's office. He arrived to find
that Carl Liggerman, the mission's Chief Security Officer, was there too.
Liggerman was a heavy, thickset man, with close-cropped black hair, a
permanently blue chin, and pugnacious, beetle-browed features. He suspected
everyone and everything, was devoid of humor, and Chelm had always found him
intimidating to the point of devastating. Chelm had no idea what transgression
might have prompted a confrontation with the two of them in concert. Surely it
couldn't be his unauthorized jaunt into Issen, which would have warranted a
rebuke from the section head at most. He steeled himself for the worst. Their
manner, however, came close to being conciliatory.
Teel began. "When we talked before, I said that by showing more awareness of
the mission's priorities, you might do yourself a favor when it comes to
getting support for your own objectives. Specifically, it's possible that the
questions you've been raising with regard to archeological research could be
reviewed in a more favorable light."
"Oh?" Chelm was immediately suspicious and responded neutrally.
Liggerman leaned forward to take it, as if Teel were mincing around the
subject. "The big problem we've got out there right now is that Yassik doesn't
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