"On another matter, I think I've found a home for the Duchy. It involves keeping the peace in a disputed area, but nothing which isn’t within our capabilities. I'll keep you posted on developments, since this involves larger issues, and depends on how they're dealt with. But for now, you might mention to the family and wider community I'm actively looking for a new home for them, and it would be a good idea to decide now if they wish to stay put, or move to their own planets. Let me know if any decisions are made."
"Jane out."
Fred sat back with his hands behind his head. He liked where they were now. But since he had no memory of anywhere else, and the memory only went back a year, he had nothing to compare it with. He pondered being Baron of a whole planet, instead of just a city. His grin came forth, and he bounded up and set off for the Lightning which took him up to council.
Jane watched him go. She identified his grin as most likely being the thought of being leader of a whole planet. And so he might be. Time would tell.
Fifteen seconds away, she observed a new landing on G023, as the marines went in to check on the results of their fire storm campaign. Enormous areas of the planet were now scorched black. She was viewing through the combat suit of the team leader as he strode into the black zone. His team were carrying various tools, and they set to work digging, looking for roots. They found them. Metal hands sifted through the dirt, and pulled a series of purple veins out. These were put next to a hand detector. It went Ding! Another set of hands was meticulously checking for seeds. They found some. Ding!
Jane sighed. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. All plants had a cycle of life and death, but most of them would regrow after fire, as long as roots remained viable, or the seeds survived the fire.
"What do we do now," asked Patton.
Jane didn’t have an answer for him. She had an option, but not one for humans to use. In her archives she had the pesticides humans had used back in the twentieth century, the ones they had poisoned their food supply with for nearly a century. There was no way she was going to let them have these again. However, they were a place to start from, in trying to develop something which would only kill the plant, and nothing else.
"The roots and seeds survived the fire," Jane said to Darlene, in AI mode.
"No surprise there."
"Are you looking at the old pesticides?"
"Yes. Most of them are simply too toxic to be of use, but a few of them were very specifically targeted. I'm researching how they did this. Nothing tangible yet."
"When we get a chance, there's a personal matter I’d like to discuss with you, if you're willing."
"Sure. You taking a shine to our stick insect?"
Darlene burst out laughing at the look on Jane's face.
"I guess not."
Back in human mode, Jane handed Barf a belt.
"Put this on." He looked at her stupidly. "It’s a belt. You wear it around some part of your body. It functions as a decoration, or for some people, it holds part of their clothes on their body."
"Why do I need this?"
"It's our body armour. It'll keep you safe in pretty much any situation."
"This flimsy thing?"
"It's tougher than it looks. Put it on. And let me have your tablet."
"My tablet?"
"I need to give you a control program for it."
He wrapped the belt around his thorax, and the buckle hung down loosely. Jane took his tablet, connected it to hers, and transferred over a cut down version of the suit code. Not having a PC, and it not being in his head, he'd have no proper control of it. Fortunately, they had basic non-cable connectivity, so the tablet and the suit could talk to each other, giving him the ability to use some of the options. Jane had hardcoded a lot of the basic settings, and removed all the recreational stuff, like human clothes. Adapting it to the operating system of the tablet was more complicated, but at its core, it was still only ones and zeros, represented by in this case, an octal code instead of hexadecimal. Once she understood the organization of the base code, converting it was straight forward.
He was left with a space suit, full protection mode, and a mixture of both. Jane though could control it as if it was her own. But for now, she left it on hair-trigger mode, so it would provide what he needed before he even knew he needed it. On the pad was a button for setting either or both, or returning the suit to a belt.
As she handed his tablet back to him, she activated the belt, and it tightened up to fit him snugly. He was still looking confused, so she triggered space suit mode. His belt shifted smoothly into an all over covering space suit with a clear bubble around his head.
Barf yelped, and then realized what had happened. He grinned. Jane made a note of what a stick insect grin looked like, for future reference. She changed the suit into protection mode.
"How long will this keep me alive in space?"
"With humans, half an hour. For you I've no idea. Probably less. It's something we'll need to test sometime. It's only supposed to get you to the nearest air supply, although on our ships, air points are everywhere, and the suit will usually connect to one of them automatically. It should work the same on the station, but I've no idea if it'll work on your ships. The Owl ships had nothing these would connect to."
"What is this material?"
"Secret."
"Of course it is. How do I set it back to normal?"
Jane showed him the button on his tablet. He pressed it, and the suit shifted back to a belt.
"This can't be what you wear?"
"Yes it is, but instead of wearing a belt over clothes, ours are our clothes as well. So the belt is hidden within the structure of our clothing."
"Can I do the same?"
"Sorry no. Your computer isn’t powerful enough to run the code. It may be possible in the future. When I get some free time, I may be able to create a template for doing clothes for you, and add selections to your tablet."
"Ah. I have decided to be in awe of your technical achievements, rather than take them as being a sad reflection of ours. I should warn you that others may view your technology both as a threat, and as something to steal."
"I'm aware of both, and have taken precautions. But thank you for the warning."
"You are most welcome. I take it I should not be asking about the weapons I see here?"
Jane laughed at his tone.
"No, you shouldn’t. Maybe one day."
"And this big shape behind us?"
"Combat suit."
"It looks like our bullets will bounce straight off it."
"Yes."
"And that robot over there?"
"Combat droid."
"So you brought a small army with you, even though there are only the three of you aboard?"
"Yes, but please don’t tell anyone."
"I am in your employ now. Your secrets are my secrets."
"Not quite, but we'll go with that for now."
"Trade goods?" he said, changing the subject. "The banker will be here shortly."
Fifty Six
The banker looked like someone had crossed a potato with a snail, without the shell, but with four legs, and the usual three arms. The eyes were on stalks. The third arm looked like it was fitted with a test kit for almost any kind of stone or metal.
Jane set out a line of diamonds, all around the same size, but each being different from the last. It methodically worked its way along the line, commenting as it went.
"Nice ordinary stone."
"Superior grade."
"Crap."
"Good. You have more of these?"
Jane nodded.
"Crap."
"Excellent. More?"
Again Jane nodded.
"Fine."
It stopped, and examined the last one for a long time.
"Flawless. I've never seen one before. If I didn’t know better, I'd worry it wasn’t in fact a diamond, but it is a diamond."
It looked up at Jane, over to
Barf, and back to Jane.
"None of these have been seen here before. I can tell immediately which planet a diamond comes from, and these come from none I know of."
"These all come from a variety of sources, none of which are available any more. Except the last ones. There are limited quantities of all of them. I'm carrying a small amount of each for trade purposes. The last one can be obtained once home stocks run out, but not quickly."
The eye stalks bobbled up and down.
"Size variation?"
"These are all about the same size, being what we call one carat. The largest I have with me is five carats. The largest number I have with me are less than one carat."
"Other stones?"
Jane laid down a line of gem stones and semi-precious stones, ending with common types of quartz.
The banker went straight for the ruby, the emerald, the amethyst, and the rose quartz. The others were examined without comment.
The eyes bobbled.
"You have metals?"
Jane pulled out small flat ingots of gold, silver, platinum, aluminium, and a series of ore samples.
The banker ignored the ore samples, beyond confirming what it was and its purity. Basic dirt is basic dirt after all. It tested the purity of the gold, silver and platinum.
"Excellent purity. Superior to most on the markets. Your refining processes may be more valuable to trade than the metal is. What is this?"
It had picked up the aluminium.
"We call it Aluminium. It’s a common enough metal, but doesn’t occur naturally in this form."
"This is unknown to me. Can you trade large quantities?"
"I'd need to check. Like the diamonds, the stocks we have now are not obtainable again. We are in the process of finding new sources."
The eyes bobbled.
"Valuations?"
Jane flashed a list up on her tablet, and showed it to the banker.
The eyes bobbled.
It pulled its own tablet out, and rapidly compiled a list in the same order.
"Send your list to this address."
Jane's tablet bipped as an email arrived with a priority setting, and she appended the list to an email, sending it off. The banker had done the same thing.
"What amount of Gals do you wish to open accounts with?"
"What do you suggest?"
"For an embassy, a million should do as a start. Ships should have perhaps ten thousand, and individuals a thousand or so, depending on how often they purchase expensive goods."
Jane began to worry if she had enough with her.
Both tablets bipped together as the valuation email came in. Her translator software immediately turned it into something she could read. Jane looked at it, and kept the surprise off her face. Each form of hard currency had been valued as a number of Gals for a specific weight, or in the diamond's case, their equivalent of carats.
At the bottom was a valuation of one Human Credit equaling six point one eight Gals. Which meant a million Gals was less than one sixty two thousand credits. Six, one, eight. The order of the numbers meant something, but Jane put it aside.
Jane looked at Barf for a reaction. He looked at the tablet.
"This is strong for a new currency. The average for the top quartile of ranks is only one to three Gals. This puts you near the top of the rank structure."
"Indeed it does," agreed the banker. "I have emailed you a suggested deposit based on the valuations. It includes most of your hard currency examples. We will deposit Gals in your accounts, as you specify, and our trade department will put your hard currency on the general market. You will notice there is not a large amount of each involved, so in the event we have either undervalued or overvalued, neither you nor the bank will be unduly affected."
"I suspect what goes on the market will initially be worth a lot higher," suggested Barf. "Considering the Humans are at war with the Owls, and Human space is on the other side of Owl space, new stocks will not be making their way here any time soon."
"A good reason for granting us the Gauntlet," said Jane, sowing seeds in what she hoped was influential ears. "With us located so centrally to a good deal of the sector, once we bring stations there, trade will be much easier. As it is now, freight costs will be significant in dealing with us, even without a war. There is also the consideration of our refining processes being in a more central place, so those with lesser grade ores can have them refined into a much better quality before sale, or being used for product production."
The eyes bobbled again, and Jane knew the seed had been sown.
"You accept our valuation?"
"I do."
"Good. I will call in our hard currency transport beings, if you would be so kind as to have the amounts on the list brought out."
"I think we're all going to be rich," said Walsh in AI mode.
"What makes you think that?"
"While you were getting the valuations done, I was looking at the value of real products. Our credits will go a long way. But trading with us may be difficult for lower ranked species."
"Something for another day. It will depend on what other species have to offer. If we want it badly enough, an accommodation can be reached. If they need it badly enough, we can also reach an accommodation."
"Can I ask you something about the diamonds?"
"Sure."
"How did they value the last one, the banker seemed so interested in?"
Jane laughed.
"Twice as high as any of the others."
"Is it what I think it is?"
"Artificial, yes. I threw in some of the industrial ones we make, just in case there was a market for them. As it turns out, they seem to value diamonds oppositely to us. We look for imperfections to authenticate them, and the really unique ones add value. Seems they look for a lack of them here. So some of our more valuable diamonds are not really of interest to them, and the ones we find boring are what they seek. Of course diamond merchants seek as close to perfect stones as possible, but it’s the imperfection which makes them unique. But not here."
"Isn't it dishonest of us to claim they are real diamonds?"
"They are real diamonds. Just not created over millions of years inside a planet."
"Huh. Just where did you come up with all this hard currency anyway?"
"Call it a gift from a friend."
Walsh's laugh was interrupted by Darlene.
"Did you make the connection with the conversion number?"
"It rang a bell, but I didn’t place it. Other things to think about."
"Phi."
"Oh, of course."
Jane accessed an archive, reminding herself phi was often called the golden ratio, being 1:618, and while controversial, did crop up a lot in relation to humans.
It had to be coincidence though. Didn’t it?
Fifty Seven
When Jane and Barf arrived back at their embassy, they found a pink fuzz-ball behind the reception desk. Barf greeted it by name. It was of course, not translatable. Walsh came out from one of the offices.
"Are your colours significant with your species?" Jane asked the fuzz-ball.
"Colour?" it and Barf asked at the same time.
"Yes. The one in approach control was purple. The next one I saw was blue. The Ambassador was orange. You're pink. I wondered if it had meaning or not."
"What colour?" repeated Barf. "All this species are white."
"So it is," the fuzz-ball agreed. "Always has been."
Jane looked at Walsh. Walsh looked at Barf, then the fuzz-ball, and back to Jane.
"Pink," he said. "The Ambassador was orange."
Two aliens looked at two humans.
"They are not showing the usual signs of humour," said Barf to the fuzz-ball.
"You are serious then?" asked the fuzz-ball. "You see us in different colours? How can this be? We have always been white to all species we have encountered. They make jokes about us all being exactly the same white and not being able to
tell us apart. But you see us as colours?"
"Yes," said Jane and Walsh together.
"Wow! I'm going to be able to dine out on this one for many cycles. You think I look pink?"
Jane nodded.
"Then I would be honoured if you would call me Pink as a name."
"Well Pink," said Jane, "have we employed you? It looks like we have."
"We have indeed," said Walsh. "An impressive resume, and it's been handling the phone non-stop since it was carried in. After council tomorrow, we have a full schedule already."
"Do you mind me asking about the carrying around business?" asked Jane. "Or is that something which shouldn’t be asked about?"
"Nothing untoward in asking. It's usually one of the first things which is asked when we meet a new species. Our planet developed two primary intelligent species, more or less at the same time. We both have very different strengths and weaknesses, and we became co-dependent. Our bearers are well paid, and have standing determined by the rank of which one of us they carry."
"Do you actually have limbs?" blurted Walsh.
"Sure."
It stuck out a skinny little arm and waved it around.
Walsh opened his mouth to ask something else.
"Enough questions," said Jane quickly. She held out a belt. "Can you put this on?"
"Sure. Why would I want to?"
"It is body armour," said Barf, pointing to his own belt.
An arm poked out and the hand grabbed the belt, which vanished into the fuzz.
"Now what?" it asked.
"Tablet?"
A hand poked out holding a tablet. Jane touched hers to it, and cross loaded the control program. She nodded, and the hand vanished.
"What do I do?"
"Select space suit," suggested Barf.
The fuzz-ball turned into a large pink beach ball.
The three of them lost it.
"Now I can see pink," said Barf, when he stopped laughing.
A strange squeaking sound seemed to be coming from the fuzz-ball after it switched the space suit mode off, which Jane interpreted as its own laughter.
An odd honking sound interrupted them.
"Human Embassy, how can I help you?"
Admiral Jane (A.I. Destiny Book 1) Page 23
