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“And how was your time back home?” Savastan asked Varath. He had gotten the Korva Empire delegation safely ensconced in a single base apartment, after informing the Americans that they would probably desire to cook their own food and sleep in the same chamber. Well, except for the soldier who would always be awake and on guard. After all, the Empireparanoia when it came to protecting its mages.Savastan gave thanks that for at least a time, they would need him to serve as a translator, at least until the Americans and Russian’s ironed out the question of access. Dulles’ expression had indicated that the Secretary of State was probably developing a migrane just thinking about it.Marla had returned, singing the praises of the Brennan family and asking if she could have time to speak to David again. Savastan had granted it, though he had a feeling there was more to things than simple attraction.“I would have rather stayed here. There were a few times I was worried that the mob would rip me apart in their desire for a new deal,” Varath said. Korva didn’t tend to sweat but the captain was giving a good impression of breaking out into sweat as he remembered the last several weeks. “Savastan…the minute we showed them the contents of the hull—I could have bought aof skyships with all the bribes I was offered to spy on you. Here are the names, by the way.”“Did you take any offers?”“Told ‘em I couldn’t do so in good conscience. I expect to be in business atime and you know how hard it is to rebuild a reputation. Can’t say I wasn’t tempted though. Did the same thing with the rest of the boys and girls, but well, they decided to stick with me.”Savastan chuckled. Bribery wasn’t forbidden among the Trader’s Guild— so long as you were willing to accept the consequences. It also generally showed a rather short-term view of things.“But seriously, I’ve got a whole ship about a week behind me, full of traders who want to trade, and they aregoing to be happy if they’re stuck on this base.”“I’ve been speaking to the Americans about going public…” Savastan frowned. “They have been bringing some of their allies into this affair, as have the Russians—but public… I think they are concerned about it.”“Why—”“—Religion, for one thing.” Savastan leaned back. “They have no magic, none, and their traditions and legends are just that, legends. I have not been able to examine them in depth, but so far there is no sign of any “remembered knowledge.” Those claiming it appear to be deluded or charlatans. But that does not change the fact that many earth-humans associate magic with dark powers, and worst of all, the major religions are strictly monotheistic, not even accepting the legitimacy of other religions—or differing sects of their own religion.“So they’re worried that their own people may…”“May take excessive action. Now that the ship is on its way, I’m going to try to press them to start the process of introducing me to the world. I believe I might be less fearsome than a younger trader who has visions of riches dancing in his, her or its head.”“Riches enough here— those pencils and pens you gave me were going for their weight in precious metals when we left. The trading exchanges are.” Varath leaned forward and lowered his voice. “And that may be an issue for you.”“Oh?”“Don’t look innocent. You have enemies on the Trader’s Council and they aregoing to let you try and claim first discovery rights here.”“The rest of the Council would not allow them to simply abrogate those rights— it would strike attrader’s interests.”“Normally yeah, but this world isn’t normal. And just wait until that Korva battlemage gives a demonstration.”“Yes,” Savastan sighed. “Well, she deserves the notoriety— she has given up enough of her life for it, after all.”“And the fact that you could squash her like a bug?”“I have avoided displays that might give reason for worry. I would prefer to continue to do so.”“Yeah, well don’t expect that to last…” Varath said. “These people aren’t idiots and the minute they figure out how much our traders wantgoods, you can bet thatwon’t be the only ones offering bribes. Speaking of that, I haven’t seen my mage around.”“He’s off having a pleasant meal with a very nice earth human who I am fairly certain either is a member of or has been contracted by the CIA to report everything he says.”“Problems?”“Of course not. He informed me that just because she’s a spy, it’s no reason to turn down a perfectly nice day.”Varath chuckled. “Yep, that’s him, all right.”Marla sat in her little room, books open in front of her. Fortunately, they had books that spoke about chocolate, just one of a hundred items that hadn’t been that interesting until now.Marla took notes, especially about the fact that chocolate had to be processed and if the experience of the Trader’s Guild was anything to go by, it would be some time before the actual crop could be successfully grown on other worlds.But David could purchase chocolate from local stores or via the American mail. So, she could take that shipment, and offer it to the traders on the incoming ship as an initial sample, to build up demand and determine if theredemand.Which there would be.The substance itself was innocuous, so there wouldn’t be any problems with that, although they’d have to sacrifice some of it for the usual allergy testing.She would accept a single payment— once they realized what they had, they could easily go around Marla and David, so why demand a percentage of zero? But she would also demand that they state that Marla and David had been the ones to bring the bounty to their attention. That, combined with the money they would be certain to make this a tremendous boon for Marla.Now, the next thing she would have to do would be to… Marla nodded. She never made use of her allowance, or at least not all of it. She had enough savings to convert into a substantial amount of American currency, which David could then use to purchase chocolate— which they would then deliver to the traders involved in such things on the ship— in fact, she could play them off against each other. They would befor anything coming from this wonderland…Marla leaned back and smiled. She’d heard the occasional jokes about Savastan’s pet. Now she would show them that she was in fact a worthy apprentice trader of the Guild.And it didn’t hurt that David was quite handsome and very nicely spoken, though she had to admit she might be prejudiced, given that he was one of the only males her age that she had interacted with.“And that’s now things stand now, Colonel,” the CIA spook said.Thomas leaned back and frowned. “What are the Russian’s saying?”“They want to talk to the Imperial delegation— now.”Thomas didn’t sigh, looking around the hot conference room. Dinner had been nice; the 6 AM phone call, not so nice.“I’d advise we let them. I think with both the Empire and their slaver enemies, it’d be best to pretend that we are all one happy family, united and not at all prone to being vulnerable to divide and conquer tactics.”“Second issue,” Dulles said from the front of the table. “What do we do about this ship.”“I have to admit,” Thomas said, “I assumed a ship like the one they came in…but this…” he held up the single magical slate they’d been given, “Is more like a floating city.”“Damned thing’s bigger than our carriers,” Admiral Carney said. Looking around, he nodded. “Everyone here is cleared for Project Pan. Any progress?”Thomas winced at the name, as did some of the other officers, but there was no changing it now, and the nameless wit who had named their attempt to develop their own skyships after Peter Pan was no doubt laughing his ass off at his joke.“Slow,” James Killian’s voice said. He was back in DC, but for this meeting, a hook up had been arranged.“Slow?” Carney said. “I saw the photos of the initial tests. What’s the hold up?”“It’s easy to use a lab centrifuge on a test bed— but a self contained and durable pod? Also, unlike their own skyships, we’re talking discrete points of lift— evidently, the process they use impregnates the entire hull and thehull acts as a single lift component, which is why they can fly when our ships would fall apart due to the lack of support, even if we could lift them out of the water. That’s another issue— even if we get this working, our designs will have to have very strong hulls, or dozens of lift pods— more likely both.”“What about rigging the lift crystals as part of a turbine?” Thomas asked.“What, Colonel?” Killian replied. “Could you explain further?”“You get damned fast rpms in a turbine, and it’s self contained— no need to worry about running lines for an electric motor,” Thomas shrugged. “Oh, it’d probably be a hell of a kludge, but if we’re worried about getting them out fast, as opposed to making them look pretty…”“That’s a good thought; I’ll pass it along,” Killian said. “Granted, we want an electrically powered model for our display, but it’s a good idea for later development.“Remember that this isnot for discussion with the traders.” Dulles leaned forward. “The President and all of his advisers, including myself, are agreed, that given how central the difficulty in building skyships is for their society, we want to spring this on them at a moment when it will do our bargaining position the most good and wedon’t want to risk the chance of them figuring out a way to reverse engineer it due to early disclosure.”Thomas didn’t mind. Keeping your mouth shut was a virtue that too many civilians ignored.“And our Imperial guests?”“In the room we gave them, the bugs are recording their conversations, but it’s both unintelligible and some of our people think it may also be in a code. They’re paranoid,” the CIA officer said. “I wouldadvise you to suggest that any Casanovas refrain from the lady. Those big lizard—”“—Korva,” Thomas corrected him.“—Korva, make it very plain that they will err on the side of caution when it comes to killing anyone they think might be, is, or could one day in the far future be a threat to their charge.”“And with that, Gentlemen, I think we’ll have to adjourn,” Dulles said. “Colonel Brennan, Savastan has requested you to sit in when I meet with him and the Imperial Delegation.”“Yes sir.”Thomas suddenly paused. Everyone else was running around with titles and names, and from what he understood, “Master Trader” was a big, big deal. And yet even the Secretary of State was referring to him as just “Savastan”. Plain old Savastan, just a nice fellow who was trying to help the American’s in between being friendly and respectful to all and sundry.And who had been doing this sort of thing for longer than there hadan America.Thomas had a thoughtful look on his face as he left the conference room.