Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  With a sigh she laid down, pulled the satiny sheets up to her chin and then sought the warmth of Jack’s naked body. Thank god the man was a natural furnace! She always felt cold at night, until she’d bought an electric blanket. A bit old-fashioned when the younger crowd used infrared heaters. Still, she might be 47 but she wasn’t ancient. Not yet. And learning how Horem women ran their computer center, as Bethrin did at the Horem city called Pack Center, left her feeling upbeat. And curious about the female-dominated societies of the Zik crabs and the Sliss octopoids. Their leaders were named Maker-Of-Eggs Looseen and Mother Esay. Maybe Sargon could get her an invitation to visit the Zik and Sliss habitat domes. The Horem Trader had already promised to take her and Jack to the Command Deck of starship Hekar, the place where Sargon had made the decision to turn toward their star of Sol. Surely he would help her meet these other powerful women!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Bethrin looked up as Sargon came into their bedroom, after the party for the Humans had ended. He looked tired, careworn and worried. She leaned up from her place on their sunken bed, watching him move in the soft green light of the ceiling strips. He pulled off his sandals, tossed his toga into the refresher unit, and joined her on the bed, sighing as his muscles relaxed. She reached one hand over, touching him softly on his shoulder.

  “Love-Mate, father of our children—what concerns you?”

  His headcrest flickered erratically. “The usual. Life. Death. Survival. The Arrik.”

  She chuffed softly. “Nothing new there. What really concerns you?”

  His naked form turned onto his side, facing her, his eyes shadowed with more than fatigue. “The death today of the Human. It was necessary. It was self-defense. And we will protect our home! But still . . . . ”

  She nodded. “Still, you would have wished otherwise.”

  “Yes.”

  She lay her head against his black-tipped, soft-furred shoulder. “When I heard about the attack I . . . cried, my love.” His hand caressed her cheek. “Sargon, no Trade is worth your life.”

  She felt him go tense. “I know. But I owe a successful Trade to . . . my father, to Alis, to all Horem. How do you separate your life from your destiny?”

  The sound of his double hearts reverberated deep into her. “I don’t know. I just know that I could not have coped with a second set of funeral rites.”

  “There was no real danger, Bethrin! There was—”

  “I know!” She sat up, feeling frustrated. “There was the ever-present, ever-protective hand of Hekar watching over you.” His eyes looked confused. She flared her headcrest in the sign of small-inconvenience-negation. “It just frightened me. What did T’Klose do?”

  His headcrest smiled. “He laid one wing over me protectively! Can you believe it?”

  T’Klose did that? Incredible. She chuffed as convincingly as she could. “Really? Small wonders. Does he hinder you much?”

  Sargon reached up with both hands and pulled her down to lay next to him, side to side, face to face. “Only when things happen that make me think he may be right. Like today. This is so finely balanced. I worry what the rest of the Humans on Earth will think. How they will react. Their emotions so rule them!”

  She nipped at his shoulder. “But the trip here is a success! The refueling ships are bringing in plentiful isotopes from the air of Jupiter and Saturn. And from the ocean underneath the Europa ice shell. And the Humans have accepted our offers of DOS plants to mine deuterium from their oceans.”

  He caressed her jawline. “True. But that is not real Trade. Real Trade is a meeting of the minds, and of the cultures. That is what I want.”

  She looked up at him. “Does T’Klose want that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A memory distracted her from his arousing touch. “The Humans, Jack and Colleen. I like them, husband. They shared openly during the Conclave and Colleen visited so easily with Persa! Will things go well for them?”

  He grinned, Human-style. How exotic!

  “Initially,” he said. “But over the next few months, I expect Humans will fall to quarreling among themselves. While also working with us. Each of their nation-Clans will seek the greatest benefit from the Contact, while resenting what other Clans get from Trade. It will be a turbulent wake for us.”

  She nipped his fingers. Which now moved lower on her body. “I’ll try to help the members of the delegation. But does Jack understand what is meant by being a Liaison?”

  He growled in his old, passionate way. “Not yet. He will. And shut up woman.”

  They kissed. A long kiss. With much intimate touching.

  She drew her head back a little. “Make love to me, Love-Mate.”

  “Always!”

  Together, they celebrated life. They celebrated unity. They celebrated their love, a love independent of time.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Fifteen months later, Jack was still learning what it meant to be Liaison to the aliens.

  “You goddamn traitor! You’re nothing but a fucking honky to those alien wolves!” screamed the overweight black man from the back of the ominous-looking crowd that encircled Jack. He looked around for the usual UN security cops, but for some reason there weren’t any to meet his redeye suborbital from Los Angeles into LaGuardia. The rest of the crowd, mostly curious, started to edge toward him and the weirdly glowing alcove reserved for Compact emissaries. There was only one thing to do. He laughed. Long and hard.

  “Who you laughing at man?” asked a lanky black man with Rastafarian hair braids.

  Jack took his opening. “Why, at the idea that I’m in tight with the aliens, of course,” he said, gesturing widely with his hands. “No one is tight with them. They’re not that kind of people. Look at me—do I have fangs, or tentacles or four eyes? No. I’m human. And I’m on your side.” The crowd, startled into motionless for a second by his unexpected laughter, began to mutter. “Really, I am. We need someone on the inside of these aliens and their doings.” He nodded to the Rastafarian. “Can you waltz into Tycho Base, tip your hat and have lunch with the chief centipede?” He gestured at an Asian woman. “Can you push for a bigger payment for our deuterium?” He looked over at a red-faced Anglo. “Can you find out if the Japs or Chinks are setting us up for the fall?”

  The curious members of the crowd frowned, then nodded. The two threatening black men did not move his way.

  “Well, I can.” Jack lifted his duffle to his shoulder and began walking toward the security station 500 meters down and around a corner of the concourse. “I’m working for all of us. And I need you to pull for me.” The crowd, mostly of transients who hung out at the concourse in the winter for the heat, began to follow after him. “Say, I just got in from an all-night bargaining session with the chief werewolf. Anybody got a smoke?” A dumpy bag lady on his left silently offered a Camel. He took it, tapped it against the wall to get it glowing, then sucked on it, glad for the illusion of normalcy. It all felt very tightly balanced.

  “Mr. Harrigan, over here,” called someone. Jack looked up and saw an NYPD sergeant leading her ten-person riot squad his way. The transient crowd, off balance and without an active agitator, broke up and headed into the shadows where the lights were broken, or just turned off to save electricity.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  The blond-haired sergeant pulled up in front of him, four inches shorter than him. But her mood was foul.

  “Dispersing another group of End-of-the-World types, damn you! Don’t get snotty with me—my lieutenant just had his leg broken by some paving concrete.” She gestured for her blue and white-uniformed squad to form a circle around them. “Anyway, your flight wasn’t due in for another ten minutes.”

  Jack knew that was bullshit, but he was very, very glad to see the riot cops, even if they weren’t UN. New York was starting to go to hell in a hand basket and unescorted people had a habit of turning up mugged, raped or dead. And he didn’t want to wave his .45 in public. He’d warned Co
lleen it wasn’t a place for her. She had reluctantly agreed and stayed behind at the Human Compound on Hekar. She said she was planning to do another vidcast of Persa piloting her fighter ship as part of the guardian cordon that surrounded Hekar. He’d hitched a ride on a Strelka courier ship to San Francisco to talk to an old Foreign Legion contact who he hoped would have a lead on the whereabouts of Pastor Hartman of the Church of the Revealed Word of Christ. Ever since Duvalier’s attack and demise aboard Hekar, the Penitents had gone underground. Now, no one dared admit they were ever a member of Hartman’s group. But the Penitents were behind plenty of ‘spontaneous’ riots whenever a Compact member appeared in public. It kept the hoverbots busy and the Compact reps alert.

  “That’s fine, sergeant. Uh, can you call me a chopper from the UN? I’ve got a meeting to attend over there. And no one gave me the Link number for their chopper station.”

  “The UN?” Her short-cropped blond hair looked sweaty. “Okay.”

  Her mood became distinctly cooler. But she did pull out an iPhone 14 and called in his request. He quietly followed the squad back to their barracks near the escalator that went down to the entry lobby. This was a place where people still went about their business, where folks still had jobs to do, and things looked safer. A little bit. He sat on his duffle next to the barracks, taking no chances, until he saw the swirling orange spotlight of a Blackhawk as it landed in the nearly deserted parking lot in front of the lobby. Then he got up, discreetly put his left hand in his coat where it could grip the old .45, and walked out the plexiglas swinging doors.

  A high caste Hindu dressed in a nehru suit opened the midships door for him. Probably another delegate to the Big Eight talks with the Compact representatives. Jack nodded his appreciation, threw the duffle in, and climbed into relative security. Donning the sound-deadening earphones, he quietly sat back in a padded seat, not wanting to talk to anyone. Several dimly-lit shapes behind and in front suggested other delegates to the meeting. As the chopper took off, he glanced through the porthole and down at the airport’s island of light in the cold winter darkness. Earth was in trouble and the coming of the Compact aliens hadn’t improved things that much. On the planet, at least.

  Passing over the Queens section of New York, he detected isolated dark patches, locations already taken over by local gangs with anti-armor firepower. The federales would have to move against them, eventually. The only problem was there were already too many such islands of anarchy in the country. And the U.S. was much better off than some places. It had deuterium osmosis separation plants on both seacoasts and the Gulf. They brought in enough credit to pay for food imports from South America and Australia. The Midwest crop fields were suffering from a long drought that had devastated corn, soybean, wheat and rice farms. Then they were crossing over the East River to land atop the heli-pad perched atop the Secretariat tower.

  Jack swung down off the chopper onto the pad, flashed his Compact ID at the UN swat team guarding the pad, and joined other humans for the maglev-elevator ride down. At the bottom, while the rest of the group headed for the dome-roofed General Assembly building, he walked across the wind-blasted plaza to an Assembly side entrance, pressed his right palm against the admit sensor plate, and stepped into the private suite of the Compact aliens. Or suites, to be more exact. Armor-walled, snoop-secured, hoverbot monitored and with a single-globe Strelka courier ship tucked away in a launch silo on the river side, Sargon’s UN headquarters were much more secure than most places governed by humans. By his own people, he reminded himself.

  “Hi,” he said to the scaly-skinned Arrik bat on entry post duty. “I’m the human Liaison, Jack Harrigan. Is Arix Sargon Arax around?” His nonchalance was slightly forced, given the reputation for aggression of the Arrik. But oversized reptilian bat simply stared at him from its railing perch before a bank of consoles.

  “Yes, Liaison, he is here,” replied the Arrik with only a brief wing flap, its long tail unmoving. “Pass down the purple corridor to its end, touch the sensor plate, and announce yourself. The Trader-In-Charge has given directions you are to be admitted immediately.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jack hoisted the duffle to his aching shoulder, looked about the hexagonal-shaped room for an opening that led to a purple corridor, saw it and started walking. On the way he dodged a Strelka centipede and two Gosay hippos on their own errands. Unlike most humans, he didn’t even bat an eye.

  “Sargon, you money-hungry son-of-a-bitch, open up!” he yelled as he touched the sensor plate.

  There really was no reason to be grouchy, but having to play the bigot before the locals didn’t sit well with him. Particularly when he shared some of the concerns of the more rational members of his species. The door slid open and glaring white light nearly blinded him.

  “Jack! You’re finally getting to understand us!” Sargon called from a work station pedestal on the far side of a square, metal-walled room. Jack, squinting to protect his eyes from the Horem-normal environment, resolutely walked into the room and headed for his friend. And mentor. And personal devil.

  “I don’t know if I understand everything about you aliens, but I sure as hell know you’re not the Antichrist!” That got the Horem’s attention. Sargon looked away from the pedestal’s holo, filled with rapidly flickering Trade data. The set of his jaw and face indicated sympathetic concern.

  “More trouble?”

  “Not really, unless you call the gradual unraveling of human society over the last year trouble.” Jack sat down on his duffle and looked with puzzlement at the Horem. “Sargon, you knew we’d have problems with your visit. You knew the Contact would mess with our world economy. That some industries would collapse thanks to tech you traded us. Wasn’t there any other way to do it?”

  The blue toga-clad Horem, alone except for the utilitarian tools of his trade, slowly sat back in a body-hugging, plush seat that quietly whirred as tiny motors adjusted to the alien’s every contour. The chair itself, he briefly reflected, was probably worth a king’s ransom to some Third World tyrant types, the kind with bulging Swiss bank accounts and starving populations.

  “No, Jack, there wasn’t. And there still isn’t.” The yellow eyes held his with a steady gaze. “You Humans now number nine billion, with 3,000 languages and over 863 separate cultures. Culture shock, the occasional extinction of some cultures, and the loss of some languages are all part of your pre-Contact history. We have caused nothing that isn’t natural to you, or to other sapient species.” Sargon paused and looked around the spare office, decorated only with holos of Bethrin, Peilan, Corin and Persa, a Navajo woven rug hanging, and perhaps the original of Seurat’s painting Dejeuner d’une Apri-Midi. He looked back to Jack, expression somber. “Growth and adaptation are necessary but painful processes. You outgrow certain things. Some people fail to adapt, and die. Some cultures fail to adapt, and perish. It is simply life. The rule is very obvious: adapt or die.”

  Jack watched his friend, seeing once again the alien in the familiar humanoid shape. He’d heard this from biologists and anthropologists at the Human Compound on Hekar over the last year. And the leaders of Russia, China, Japan, the EU and Brazil had all dealt with internal riots similar to what America was now experiencing. But the radical changes associated with Contact were still something he had a hard time understanding. And some humans had never adjusted. Like the Penitents.

  “Okay, you’re probably right. But I’m an eternal optimist, I guess.” He sat back in the soft bucket chair beside Sargon’s work station. “What new Liaison duty did you call me down here for?”

  “The Church of the Revealed Word of Christ, where is Hartman?”

  So that was the reason. Interesting. “I tried to find out from an ex-Foreign Legion friend in San Francisco. No luck. That shyster has sunk so far out of sight he’s probably in China now.”

  “China?” queried the puzzled-looking Horem. “That isn’t possible, your planetary core would get in his way.”

  Jack
grinned. The Traders of the Compact might know everything about the universe, but they didn’t yet understand human jokes.

  “Idiosyncratic speech mode, Sargon,” he explained, mimicking the highly logical diction of the Strelka. “No information on his whereabouts, to be precise. Considering the fact that his Tower of God’s Word is a thirty foot-high lump of melted rock, brick and glass after your little surgical strike 17 months ago, I’m not surprised. Even though you let local authorities evacuate the building, no one now admits they ever belonged to the Church. Or were a Penitent. Or has forgotten the attack.”

  His friend the werewolf cradled his furry chin in his right hand, a very human mannerism Jack felt sure was no accident. The yellow eyes turned away from staring at the room’s wall to look deep into him again.

  “Then why has this xenophobia arisen? Hartman is only the most extreme case. Why is there excessive fear of us?” Sargon growled. “We’ve helped you every way we could. Your Big Eight nations now use Compact ships to mine for deuterium in the Asteroid Belt, on Europa and to transport the fuel to the Tycho Base stockpile. We’ve loaned over fifty nations our prefab DOS plants, so long as we get our share of the deuterium. As you know, our DOS plants are far more efficient than your Human separation plants. And every nation that fields an indentured flight crew gets to keep the spacecraft they use when we depart. What could be more generous?”

  “That’s just the problem,” he explained wearily. “It is generous. But our human sense of self-respect insists that we should be able to do all this on our own, without outside help.” The Horem’s headcrest flared in the Confusion mode. “Yes, I know it’s illogical, but that’s us. We need your help . . . but we still resent it.”