Trader's World

by Charles Sheffield

  If that happened, he must somehow pull Mantilla away so that Melly could perform the interference test.

  Their behavior when they finally arrived was a complete surprise. They headed straight for Mike.

  "Hi there." Cesar grinned at him. "It's been a while, eh? Let me introduce you to Wernher." His manner was as casual as if they were still in the Azores training camp and saw each other every day.

  "Glad you made the party." Eckart shook Mike's hand. "When did you get here?"

  Drugged? They didn't act drugged, and Eckart, at least, seemed in perfect health. Cesar was another matter. Like Mike and Melly, he must have had shots for height accommodation before he left the base—they were above thirteen thousand feet here. But sometimes the shots didn't work. Cesar's wheezing voice and shallow breathing told of fluid buildup in the lungs. His slurred speech and unsteady gait suggested severe cerebral edema.

  "Got here just this afternoon," Mike said at last. He wondered how to get a detox shot into them without anyone noticing. "We'll be here for a day or two, then head back."

  Eckart laughed and gave Cesar a knowing look. "I hear you. But you won't be saying that in a couple of days. Once you get used to it here, you won't want to leave—ever."

  "Just like you two?" Mike reached across and casually picked up a filled glass, moving the palm of his hand over its top.

  "You bet." Cesar accepted the shot of testudo liquor that Mike passed to him and threw it down his throat. He gasped as the iced liquid started its afterburn, and a look of ecstatic pleasure crossed his face. He beamed around the room. "Wonderful stuff. Wonderful place. Where else could you get a drink like that?"

  Not many places, Cesar, if you want it exactly like that, thought Mike. For one thing, the detox formula was a Trader secret. He waited, watching for any change in behavior. Nothing happened. Cesar went on smiling, looking around the room with an air of total satisfaction. A shot in Eckart's glass produced no more effect. Mike gave it ten more minutes, then waited until he could catch Melly's eye, far away across the wide hall. She could be picked out easily, because of her companion's great height. Mike shook his head at her. Drugs were out. Time to test for surgical interference.

  It took a little while for Melly to wander across with Dominic Mantilla in tow. His face was flushed, he had his hand on her arm, and they were standing very close to each other.

  "Dominic and I will be leaving the reception soon," she said. "But I reminded him that he promised to show you around the special attractions of Dreamtown, and he will do it before we leave. Are you ready to go with him?"

  Mike nodded. Following Mantilla out of the main hall, he was uncomfortably aware that he had not given Melly an answer to her earlier question: Should she go to bed with the man?

  There ought to be another entry in the Rule Books. How to ruin a negotiation: Give a man an attractive partner, and let him spend more time worrying about her than about the mission.

  The path that Dominic Mantilla took led down a steep staircase, away from the brightly lit and over-decorated reception hall. They descended until they reached a long corridor with thick carpet on the floor and sound-deadening tiles on the walls. The loud buzz of conversation upstairs was replaced by an unnatural hush.

  Mantilla paused at the first of a dozen doors along the corridor. "This is under my control," he said softly, "but I take little credit for its functions. These are traditionalists—if I tried to change any element of the setting they would look elsewhere for their satisfaction."

  Mike was looking into a dimly-lit room containing one table with half a dozen chairs grouped around it. By each chair stood a small serving trolley holding tobacco and opium pipes, lacquered jars of rice wine, silver trays of finger-sized confections and sweetmeats, and piles of red and gold trading tokens. The players—four Chipponese and two Chills—did not look up at the newcomers in the doorway. Joss sticks perfumed the air, and clouds of smoke wreathed the intent figures of the players. The only sound in the room was the faint click of pasteboard cards on the table's dark green surface.

  Mantilla stepped back from the doorway and headed along the corridor. "This room and eleven others, just the same, are for the most dedicated players. Did you know that one-thirtieth of the world's wealth changes hands at cards?"

  He sounded bored. As they moved on to a turn in the corridor, Mike decided that Dominic Mantilla was certainly not a gambler himself. There had been not even a glint of interest in the card games, even though the stakes at the table were enormous. It was one more data point, of questionable value. After all, Traders did not gamble, either.

  He followed Mantilla along a steadily darkening corridor, and they finally halted before a black door of heavy wood. "Another one for the traditionalists." Mantilla swung the door open. "Fully equipped."

  The interior was deserted, barely lit by flickering wall torches. Mike recognized only half of the devices within, but that was enough.

  "Surely this isn't used?"

  Mantilla looked at him with raised eyebrows. "My honored guest, we are a commercial organization. Do you imagine that we would provide such facilities if there were no demand for them?" His tone was quietly ironic. "We provide the classical furnishings, and there has been a call for every unit within the past month. Eliminate any, and I would lose part of my clientele. They are sophisticated people who insist on both the equipment and the ambiance."

  He began to walk along the center of the long room. "The rack, of course, is a standard feature; and the braziers and hot pincers. Also the thumbscrew, and the iron boot, with a furnace to produce the molten lead. But some of the others are perhaps less familiar. That is the parrot's beam, to hang by thumbs and fingers; and there is the mala mansio—the Little Ease. We have one client who comes here regularly, and is squeezed into it for ten days at a time. And then there is the press, with fifty-pound weights, and the strappado; there are the hot plates of the lamina, the bilboes, the barbed hooks of the ungulae. The Iron Maiden is here largely for effect, since it would undoubtedly be fatal. But we have had requests. If you would enjoy watching the equipment in live use, as I do, we will arrange to come here. The iron boot is the most spectacular."

  Mike said nothing; he thought a great deal. He averted his eyes and followed Mantilla along the room and out into the next corridor.

  The next room held just two people, facing each other across a gray cabinet. One was a Strine bigmomma, all leather and ceremonial sword, the other a Great Republic cityboss in paint and feathers. Each wore a headset that covered her down to the nostrils. Both were sweating hard, with perspiration trickling down their faces and necks. The panels on the side of the cabinet winked on and off in complex patterns.

  "You know this one?" Mantilla asked.

  Mike nodded. He had read the Unified Empire's list of attractions. The Strine and the Yankee were locked in life-and-death battle for the whole world. At their command, armies and armadas and missile squadrons swarmed over the globe, all simulated in detail in Dreamtown's master computer. The stakes were a good deal less than the whole world, but they were substantial. The cost of occupying the computer's maximum simulation capability, with sound, vision, and all tactile inputs, was so large that only the wealthiest could afford to play at all. Mike guessed that a year's output of a Strineland biolab probably hung on the war game's result.

  "You designed this?" he asked Mantilla.

  His companion shook his head. "To be honest, I find it boring. Who would play at conquering the world, when there is a real world to be conquered? Let us look at a more interesting pursuit."

  They moved on and came out onto a balcony that overlooked a cubical room at least thirty yards on each side. The whole interior was filled with a maze of transparent tunnels and ascending and descending ramps, arranged so that it was impossible for a casual viewer to see any way from one side of it to the other.

  The great room was empty. Mike looked questioningly at Dominic Mantilla. "Counterpoint," Mantilla said softl
y. His face was intent and alive. "Now you will see something worthwhile. Watch carefully. They are about to begin."

  From one of a couple of dozen small doors scattered across the wall opposite, a black cat with white paws had emerged. It took half a dozen tentative steps forward, then paused. After a moment it jerked upright and moved forward again.

  "A little electric shock to its paws," Mantilla said. "Not enough to hurt, but enough to persuade the animal to move forward. The object of Counterpoint is to get one of the animals assigned to you—a pawn—through the maze and all the way across to enter one of your opponent's doors. The first player to do that wins, and the game is over. Each player has ten pawns, and several lines of defense. Just watch what happens."

  The cat was nosing its way through a swing door and ascending a shallow upward ramp. On the other side of the room a second cat had been released and was moving forward at the same level. After a few moments the two animals caught sight of each other. Both paused, then went cautiously forward to sniff for the scent of aggression. When the inspection was complete they went on their way.

  "Every game worth playing has two elements." Mantilla was crouched forward, watching the cats with obvious enjoyment. "It must call for a combination of luck and skill. Without both, a game is dull. The skill in Counterpoint is in the way in which the players release and control the pawns, opening and closing pathways and stimulating the animals to walk along them. Each player has ten pawns, which vary in their species from one game to the next. A good player can handle all ten at once with no trouble. But there is luck also. Some things cannot be predicted. Will two pawns back away from each other when they meet, will they fight, will they pass each other? No one can predict that. So the players must prepare multiple strategies."

  As he was speaking, a second door had opened. This time something different emerged, a familiar-looking pudgy shape. It shuffled forward a few steps, sniffed the air, and looked across to the other side of the chamber.

  Mike jerked around to face Mantilla. "That's a Cappy! It's Benjy."

  "Not any more." Mantilla's voice was casual. "It's a capybara, but it is no longer enhanced. As you see, it is not blind now, and there is no self-awareness. Benjy was not efficient, and twice he disobeyed orders. I was reluctantly forced to . . . demote him."

  A third Pawn had been released, this one a white-furred cat, and instead of moving hesitantly along the walkways it was racing straight across the room on the most direct course it could find. Two new pawns on the opposing side showed no interest in intercepting it. It sped along a spiraling up ramp, then over an arched crossway. In less than thirty seconds it was no more than ten yards from the gates on the far side of the chamber and heading straight for one of them.

  "Last ditch defense," Mantilla said urgently. "He'll have to, or he's done for."

  As he spoke there was a great crackle of electrical discharge within the chamber and a bright blue flash. The running cat leaped upward to bang against the ceiling of the ramp, then gave a single intense scream and collapsed with rigid limbs. The fur on its sides was aflame.

  Mantilla nodded in satisfaction. "Just in time. That man has played before. You don't use the high voltage until the last possible moment—and you can only use it four times altogether. The connoisseurs try not to use it at all."

  In the chamber beneath them the capybara had sunk quivering to the floor, staring at the smoking body of the cat with terrified eyes.

  "Look at him," Mike said. "He knows!"

  Dominic Mantilla laughed. "I'm sure it seems that way, but it's not true. He was startled by the sound, that's all, and maybe he's catching the smell of burning fur, but he has no idea what happened. You'll see, he'll start to move again in a minute. If he's not careful he's likely to end up the same way himself." He looked at Mike in surprise. "What's wrong? Don't you want to watch the game to a finish? This is exciting. It's one that I designed myself."

  Mike shook his head. "I must be getting back to Melly."

  He hurried away from the balcony. Mantilla followed reluctantly. "One more item," he said. "Then we'll go back. This next one is not for the gambler. It's for the sportsman who has tried everything."

  They were unexpectedly emerging from the underground play chambers into the open air. Mike felt an icy cold wind on his face and followed Dominic Mantilla into total darkness. As soon as his eyes adjusted he realized that they were standing on an open platform that jutted out from a cliff side.

  "Walk carefully. The mountain side is nearly vertical here and there is no guard rail." Mantilla stepped confidently forward. "This is the loading area for Glissando."

  The chute seemed to drop away forever. It was about fifty feet across, a half cylinder with curved sides of polished ice. On the platform in front of Mike were half a dozen bullet-shaped coffins, each large enough to hold one or two riders.

  Mantilla put one hand on Mike's shoulder, coaxing him along closer to the edge. "The run widens at the bottom, as it gets closer to the ocean—that's to make it more difficult to control the sled into the electromagnetic brake rings. And of course, close to sea level we have to maintain an ice surface by artificial means. But no one ever complains about that . . . or about anything. It is the perfect cure for jaded appetites. Fourteen thousand feet drop in altitude, a maximum speed of well over three hundred miles an hour, and any slight control error enough to ruin you. Pure excitement. Only one person has ever made the run twice."

  "Then I assume he'd had enough?"

  "I cannot say. On the second descent, he missed the braking rings. Boom!" Mantilla roared with laughter. "Perhaps you would like to try it?"

  Mike shuffled back from the edge. Mantilla was insane! He shook his head. "I don't have jaded appetites, thank you." And if I ever develop them, I'll sure look for some other solutions.

  Without waiting for Dominic Mantilla, he set a determined return path for Melly and the reception hall.

  * * *

  He had an answer to his main question before Melly said a word. She shook her head as soon as she saw him.

  "Slight signs of physical change, but not nearly enough for the behavior patterns Eckart and Cesar are showing. If only we had some way of doing a full brain scan!"

  "Forget it. I'm sure the equipment is here, but Mantilla would never agree. Anything else?"

  "Yes. Cesar is dying—of altitude sickness. If we don't get him out of here he won't last another week. But he doesn't seem at all worried. I couldn't get him to admit to feeling ill, even though he must be finding it hard just to stand up. What did you see?"

  Mike gave her a quick summary of his tour of the Dreamtown facilities, but he had to keep it short. Dominic Mantilla was entering the reception hall. Mike had time to add, "Don't let him get you alone tonight," and to wonder about his own motives in saying it, and then the master of Dreamtown was at their side.

  Mantilla was in excellent spirits, deferential to Melly and indulgent—almost paternal—toward Mike. "There were many more things to see," he said. "Why did you want to shorten our tour? Unless perhaps it was to return to Melinda, which any wise man would of course wish to do." He turned to Melly. "And you, my dear, you have seen nothing of our extensive pleasure facilities. May I be permitted to show them to you? They offer nothing to me comparable with the pleasure of your company, and no man or woman in them compares with you for charm and beauty, but perhaps you will find them entertaining. Shall we?"

  He held out his hand. Mike glared, while Melly appeared enraptured. She tucked her arm into his, nodded at Mike, and allowed Mantilla to lead her away across the chamber floor. They disappeared together through an archway on the far side. Mike remained at the reception until after midnight, but neither Melly nor Dominic Mantilla reappeared. Finally Mike headed back to their quarters. Melly was not in her rooms.

  Mike went through to his own bedroom and lay down. He had taken a precautionary pill himself, and he was not at all sleepy. It was the time when a Trader put his thoughts together a
nd established the final overall strategy for the mission. In this case, nothing fitted. In principle, the first task was complete; they had negotiated a treaty on behalf of the Chipponese, and it was a ridiculously good one from their point of view. Dominic Mantilla, representative for the Unified Empire, was worse as a negotiator than the newest Trader trainee. His line was thrills and torture, and he was surely a sadist.

  His thoughts returned to Melly. Was she safe with Mantilla? She was supposed to be experienced with men; Mike could only hope that she knew what she was doing.

  Their second task had also gone as far as it could. Clearly, neither Eckart nor Cesar had been tortured into breaking Trader Oath, and they were not staying in Dreamtown against their will—they loved it here, even though it was killing Cesar. Somehow, Mike and Melly had to get Cesar away.

  They love it here. That thought came back into Mike's head. He let it roll around on the edge of his consciousness, while he thought again about Dominic Mantilla. Lord Dominic, Prince of Pain . . .

  A pattern was finally beginning to form when Mike heard a soft spitting sound from the wall of the room and felt a moment of terrible agony in the top of his head. He started to sit up.

  The pain was gone as quickly as it had come. He lolled back on the hard bed and laughed aloud with satisfaction. Everything was fine—better than fine, it was wonderful. He reviewed the events since they had started on the mission and found that he was totally pleased with every one of them. Tomorrow they would examine the agreement between the Chipponese and the Unified Empire and make whatever changes were needed, and then they would celebrate. Already he was looking forward to the celebration.

  He rubbed his fingers along the bed sheet. The feeling of the cloth was cool, sensuous, wholly delightful. It made him want to fall asleep on it, to abandon himself to its caress. The prospect of a long, satisfying sleep filled him with gratification—with excitement.