“Money. All they worry about is money,” Detinla said. “No, I’m no good this time. I’ll keep on talking with them to keep up our cover, but either you or one of the other teams will have to pull it off this time. If anyone is going to.”
“You think we’ll fail?” Urla said. She felt a familiar deep depression start again, and the great homesickness wash over her.
“I don’t know,” Detinla said, and shrugged. “We’ve failed before. But we must never give up.”
“I’ve never been the solution before,” Urla said.
“We’ve never met people this strange before.”
“Today is our turn to show products,” Urla said.
Sorenson sat across the familiar table from her, the rest of the human negotiating team in their chairs along the wall behind her. Urla was not sure of her ability to read human coloring and facial expression, but it seemed to her that Sorenson seemed more pale today, and the skin around her eyes darker. The eyes themselves were red and bloodshot.
“Do you feel all right?” Urla asked.
“Fine. Just fine. Everything is just fine,” Sorenson said. Her smile was forced and fixed. I'm fine, all right she thought. I might kill for a bottle of aspirin and eight hours of sleep, but I'm fine. She looked across the table at Urla. And damn those bastards in biochemistry. After all she drank last night she was supposed to have a hangover today. She looks just fine. And I feel like hell.
Urla looked at Sorenson and allowed herself a secret smile. Add hangover cure to the list of trade items, she thought to herself. And I hope you feel as bad as you look. That was supposed to be me, feeling like that, wasn't it? Well, sometimes biters get bit, she thought spitefully.
“Sometimes our young are adversely affected after a religious ceremony,” Urla said smoothly. “When we mature we have no problem with consuming any amount of alcohol. I’m glad to hear you are fine.”
“Yes,” Sorenson crisply. “Now, what do you have to discuss today?”
“Ah, something I thought you might find interesting,” Urla said. She gestured and the drone set a shiny metal cylinder on the conference table, then slid silently back and out of the way.
“And this is…?”
“Something suggested by the specifications you provided our biology department,” Urla said. She touched the side of the container and it became transparent.
The cylinder was filled with a clear liquid that filled the container almost to the top. In the center of the liquid, supported by a webwork of semi-translucent strands, was a dark red object, about the size and shape of two clenched fists held together. As Sorenson watched, the object pulsed in and out, first on one side, then on the other.
“It works in a liquid environment? Completely enclosed?” Sorenson asked.
“It works in a liquid environment,” Urla said. She folded her upper pair of arms across her chest. She pushed a plastic sheet covered with specification numbers across the table to Sorenson. She picked it up, glanced at it, and handed it back to one of the engineers behind her. “If you expose it to air it begins to dry out and becomes useless.”
“It’s not very strong,” the engineer commented. Urla glared at him.
“It’s not supposed to be very strong,” she snapped. “We met the specifications you gave us. It’s designed for endurance and reliability, not power. The pump has no moving parts and will last one hundred years without a failure.”
“Guaranteed?” Sorenson asked.
“Guaranteed,” Urla said.
“How does it work?” Sorenson asked. She peered closely into the cylinder of clear liquid, the pump inside.
“It’s an electrically sensitive gel,” Urla explained. “When a current crosses it, the gel shrinks. When the current goes away, it expands.”
“All at once?”
“No, it’s localized. Your specifica tion showed four pumping chambers, each of which contracts and expands separately, but in sequence,” Urla said. “We built this to duplicate that function exactly.”
“The gel is chemically neutral?” Sorenson asked.
“Completely neutral,” Urla said.
“We have to test it,” Sorenson said.
Urla heaved herself upright, tail tucked discretely behind her.
“Of course,” she said. “If everything is satisfactory we’ll sell you all the manufacturing specifications and development samples.”
Urla turned and left the room. Sorenson studied the pump in the display cylinder.
“So what do we do with it?” the engineer asked. He waved the specifications sheet at her. “We’ve got better and stronger pumps that will last just as long. There’s no way this can be used in an industrial environment.”
Sorenson continued to stare at the pump, fascinated by the slow, steady beat.
“You’re a good engineer, Harry, but you think in black and white, in straight lines.”
“I think like an engineer,” he said.
“Exactly. Which is why I’m in charge of this negotiation,” Sorenson said. “Don’t think pump. Think heart. The fully implantable artificial human heart…”
Excerpt, UN-Tydengh Economic Negotiations report, Dr. Carolyn Sorenson, Chief Negotiator, Blue Box report, General Secretary Eyes Only:
“…Economic opportunities for human business in the interstellar market appear great. Tydengh negotiators have purchased large numbers of samples of various Earth products, including ceramics, textiles, process control equipment, and distilled liquors (particularly Scotch). In return we’ve received various high technology goods, such as a fully implantable artificial human heart…
“…The one item the Tydengh have refused to sell is space drive technology. Intelligence operations have also been unsuccessful…
“Conclusion: Human products have a potentially huge interstellar market. We cannot, however, get our products to market except through the Tydengh. This limits our commercial opportunities and the profit potential of the market. Unless and until we develop our own space drive.
“Proposal: this office has been contacted by representatives of members of the Security Council, as well as Japan, Germany, India and other major industrialized powers. As per your instructions we have provided them access to our reports to you. The unanimous response has been a desire to combine technologies in a space drive development effort. Our analysis supports this effort…
Urla sighed almost like a human when she was safely aboard her ship. Earth hung above her, a mottled blue and white and brown ball. The space station called Orbital Watch One floated next to the Kreela. The radar detector on board the Kreela glowed a pulsing yellow-orange, each radar impulse that reflected back to the humans indicated by a single flicker.
“Well?” Detinla asked.
Urla closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. The familiar odors of home, the deep, musty smells she’d missed so much on Earth, seemed to roll up her nose and into her brain, and wash outward over her entire body. The closest she’d come to this on Earth was the day her trade delegation visited a farm and she lingered, alone for just a minute, in the hog confinement building. She hadn’t even realized she was homesick until then.
And now.
She opened her eyes and smiled.
“If we do our last part correctly, then, yes, we will succeed,” she said. “They are almost ready to build a cathedral. But they need just a little more convincing.”
“Good,” Detinla said. She turned back to the control board while Urla strapped herself in front of the communications console.