VINCEN STAFFORD PREPARED TO EJECT another beacon into the starry void. How many was this, now? He'd have to check his records to be exactly sure. It was all becoming so mechanical and routinized-jump, release a beacon, jump, release a beacon, jump…even the jumps themselves seemed to be less traumatic. Was there such a thing as acclimation? He shrugged. He'd never heard of it, but maybe it happened. And if it did or didn't, so what? He was more than halfway to the Perseus arm. If he reached it without being contacted, he could turn back and go home. So far, so good.
There was a buzz behind him. He turned and saw his communicator light flashing. Someone-or something-was trying to contact him. Opening the circuit gave rise to no audio or visual signal. That meant the incoming message was not on the standard frequency. Stafford was liking this less and less every second. Reluctantly, he activated the search mechanism. It would lock in on the frequency of the incoming signal when it located it.
It didn't take long. The vidscreen suddenly lit with a face like nothing Stafford had ever seen. No, wait…there was something vaguely familiar there…the snout, the sharp yellow teeth, the bristly patches of fur around the ears…canine. Yes, that was it. The creature was definitely dogfaced. But not like any dog he ever wanted in the same room with him. He was glad the probe ship was equipped with only flat-screen reception. A holograph of that thing would be downright frightening. No torso features were visible but that was okay.
“Greetings,” the image said in interstellar that was garbled and gutturalized far beyond the capability of a human throat.
“Who-who are you?” Stafford blurted inanely. “Where are you?”
“I am an emissary of the Tark nation”-at least it sounded like “Tark,” a barking sound with a harsh initial consonant-“and my craft is approximately two of your kilometers aft of you.”
“You speak our language.” Stafford was reaching for the aft monitor. He wanted to see what kind of welcoming party had been sent to intercept him. An intensified image of a bulky ovoid filled the screen. At first he thought the emissary had understated the distance, but the readout showed a large mass two kilometers aft. Stafford took another look. That was no peaceful envoy ship. He had no idea what alien weaponry might look like, but he saw all sorts of tubes pointed in his direction and there was a definite feeling about the ship that said it wasn't built for mere information-gathering duties. It reminded him of a Sol-System dreadnought. But then, maybe they were just being careful. In their position, he'd probably come armed to the teeth, too.
“Of course,” the Tark replied. “We've been keeping watch on your race for quite some time. We are not so timid as you: as soon as we had sufficient evidence of an interstellar race in your arm of the galaxy, we investigated.”
“Why didn't you contact us?”
“We saw no need. Your race is obviously no threat to the Tark nation, and you are much too far away to be of any practical use to us.”
“What about trade?”
“Trade? I am not familiar with the term.” He looked down and seemed to be keying a reference into a console to his right.
Stafford couldn't resist prompting him. “An exchange of goods…and knowledge.”
“Yes, I see now.” He-for no good reason, Stafford had automatically ascribed a male gender to the creature-looked up. “Once again, we do not see any purpose in that. Your race does not appear to have anything that interests us sufficiently at this point.” The subject of trade apparently bored the Tark and he turned to another. “Why do you invade Tarkan space? You made certain that we would intercept you. Why?”
“To offer trade with us.”
The Tark gave a sharp, high-pitched yelp. Laughter? Annoyance?” You must understand-we do not trade with anyone. That would involve an exchange, requiring Tarks to give up one thing in order to gain another.”
“Of course. That's what trade is all about.”
“But Tarks are not weak. We do not surrender what we have. If you had something we truly desired, we would take it.”
“You don't understand…” Stafford began to say, but heard his voice trail off into silence. Perspiration had been collecting in his axillae since the comm indicator had buzzed; it was now running down over his ribs. They didn't understand, not at all. And to think that he had dreaded being in the contact ship for fear of unintentionally offending the aliens. This was worse. These creatures seemed devoid of anything approaching a concept of give and take. They were beyond offending.
The face on the screen had apparently come to a decision. “You will shut down your drive mechanism and prepare to be boarded.”
“Boarded! Why?”
“We must be assured that you are not armed and that you pose no threat to the Tark nation.”
“How could I threaten that monstrosity you're riding?” Stafford said, glancing at the aft monitor. “You could swallow me whole!”
“Shut down your drive and prepare for boarding! We will-”
Stafford switched off the volume. He was frightened now and needed to think, something he couldn't do with that growling voice filling the cabin. He felt a sharp tug on the ship and knew that a tractor beam or something very similar had been focused on him. He was being drawn toward the Tark dreadnought. In a brief moment of panic, he stood frozen in the middle of his tiny cabin, unable to act, unable to decide what to do next.
He was trapped. His real space propulsion system was the standard proton-proton drive through a Leason crystal tube, but small. Too small to break free of the tractor beam. Activating it now would only serve to move him through space pulling the dreadnought behind him, and that futile gesture would last only as long as his fuel or the Tark commander's patience. If the latter ran out first, his probe ship might become a target for those banks of weapons which could easily reduce it to motes of spiraling rubble.
There was the warp capacity, of course. It could be used for escape, but not now…not when he was in the thrall of a tractor beam and in such close proximity to a mass as large as the Tark ship. The thought of attempting a subspace drop under those circumstances was almost as frightening as the thought of placing himself at the mercy of the Tarks.
No, it wasn't. A quick look at the canine face that still filled his comm screen convinced him of that. Better to die trying to escape than to place his life in that creature's hands.
He threw himself into the control seat and reached for the warp activator. If the tractor beam and the dreadnought's mass sufficiently disturbed the integrity of the probe ship's warp field, it would be caught between real space and subspace. The experts were still arguing over just what happened then, but the prevailing theory held that the atomic structure of that part of the ship impinging on subspace would reverse polarity. And that, of course, would result in a cataclysmic explosion. It was a fact of life for every spacer. That was why the capacity of the warp unit had to be carefully matched to the mass of the ship; that was why no one ever tried to initiate a subspace jump within the critical point in a star system's gravity well.
He released the safety lock and placed his finger on the activator switch. A cascade of thoughts washed across his mind as he closed his eyes and held his breath…Salli…if the ship blew, at least he'd take the Tarks with him…Salli…was this what had happened to the few probe ships that had been sent this way in the past and were never heard from again?…Salli…
He threw the switch.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When two coins are equal in debt-paying value but unequal in intrinsic value, the one having the lesser intrinsic value tends to remain in circulation and the other to be hoarded or exported.