Free Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds by Joe Haldeman Page B

the bidding is not over.
    There was a low, nervous whirring. “Better apologize first, Rabbit,” I whispered.
    He bulled ahead. —Let me introduce a new mercantile class: negative value.
    â€œRabbit, don’t—”
    â€”This is an object or service that one does not want to have. I will offer not to give it to you if you accept my terms rather than the Navarro’s.
    â€”Many kilometers up the river there is a drum full of a very powerful poison. If I touch the button that opens it, all of the fish in the river, and for a great distance out into the sea, will die. You will have to move or… He trailed off.
    One by one, single arms snaked out, each holding a long sharp knife.
    â€œPoison again, Rabbit? You’re getting predictable in your old age.”
    â€œDick,” he said hoarsely, “they’re completely nonviolent. Aren’t they?”
    â€œExcept in matters of trade.” Uncle was the last one to produce a knife. They moved toward us very slowly. “Unless you do something fast, I think you’re about to lose your feet.”
    â€œMy God! I thought that was just an expression.”
    â€œI think you better start apologizing. Tell them it was a joke.”
    â€”I die! he shouted, and they stopped advancing. —I, um…
    â€”You play a joke on your friends and it backfires, I said in Greek.
    Rapidly:—I play a joke on my good friends and it backfires. I, uh… “Christ, Dick, help me.”
    â€œJust tell the truth and embroider it a little. They know about negative value, but it’s an obscenity.”
    â€”I was employed by… a tribe that did not understand mercantilism. They asked me, of all things, to introduce terms of negative value into a trivial transaction. My friends know I must be joking and they laugh. They laugh so much they forget to eat. All die. O the embarrassment.
    Uncle made a complicated pass with his knife and it disappeared into his haybale fur. All the other knives remained in evidence, and the !tang moved into a circle around us.
    â€”This machine in your pocket, Uncle said,—it is part of the joke?
    Lafitte pulled out a small gray box. —It is. Do you want it?
    â€”Put it on the floor. The fun would be complete if you stayed here while the Navarro took one of your marvelous floaters up the river. How far would he have to go to find the rest of the joke?
    â€”About twelve kilometers. On an island in midstream.
    Uncle turned to me and exposed his arms briefly. —Would you help us with our fun?
    The air outside was sweet and pure. I decided to wait a few hours, for light.
    That was some years ago, but I still remember vividly going into the Council Building the next day. Uncle had divined that Peter Rabbit was getting hungry, and they’d filled him up with !tang bread. When I came in, he was amusing them with impersonations of various Earth vegetables. The effect on his metabolism was not permanent, but when he left Morocho III he was still having mild attacks of cabbageness.
    By the time I retired from Hartford, Starlodge had finished its hotel and sports facility on the beach. I was the natural choice to manage it, of course, and though I was wealthy enough not to need employment, I took the job with enthusiasm.
    I even tried to hire Lafitte as an assistant—people who can handle !tangish are rare—but he had dropped out of sight. Instead, I found a young husband-and-wife team who have so much energy that I hardly have to work at all.
    I’m not crazy enough to go out in the woods, hunting. But I do spend a bit of time fishing off the dock, usually with Uncle, who has also retired. Together we’re doing a book that I think will help our two cultures understand one another. The human version is called Hard Bargain.

Seasons
    Transcripts edited from the last few hundred hours of recordings:
    Maria
    Forty-one is too young to die. I was never trained to be a soldier.