Now that it had been brought to Sam’s attention he noticed the steady vibration coming from the tank—a low-frequency drone that went on and on. It was even more boring than the twittering of the Ja’aar.
On the other side of the chamber, sitting isolated and alone, was a tiny, reddish box-like affair. Sam started to approach it when Ja’aar’aaa touched him on the arm and chirped a warning. “Not to go close to the Sutr, respected Ear’t.” Sam shrugged off the touch and continued. How the hell was he supposed to be a negotiator if he couldn’t approach his clients?
The heat hit him in the face when he was still twenty meters from the box. With each step closer the temperature increased further, making sweat break out on his forehead. Apparently the box’s reddish hue was due to radiation, not coloration.
What sort of beings could possibly live in such an environment, he wondered as he stared at the radiating compartment? He looked back at the huge tank booming at his back and then again at the small box; The living conditions of the two races had so little in common that physical confrontation would be impossible. What could two races such as this possibly have in common that would be the basis for an accord?
His suspicions that this would be no trivial job were now in full bloom. He might have to ask Ahbbbb for that extension of time after all, and suffer the consequences as well.
The facts surrounding the accord were simple. Apparently the Sutr had established a settlement on the innermost planet of “their” system and were developing it as quickly as they could, spending much hard-won credit to extract the rich lodes of minerals the tidal pressures and broiling temperatures brought to the surface.
The Ginnungagup, on the other hand, had found a nice cold planet in the outer fringes of the same system. Their planet’s temperatures were so low that water ice was as hard as steel. They too had spent a large fortune to develop the resources of “their” place and establish their own settlement.
The expenditures of both races on their respective planetary development had been small by galactic standards, where kindling of new stars was considered to be a minor, local construction project.
Soon after they had invested heavily they had both discovered, much to their surprise, their next-door neighbors. Not only that, but those neighbors had turned out to be hideous, horrible, ugly aliens who inhabited each other’s version of hell!
The situation was intolerable. A brief war ensued in which the Sutr and the Ginnungapup steered comets and various debris at each other, posted glims of ligitous (whatever the hell they were) with the region’s races, and blocked each other’s shipping routes.
The squabble had expanded to include a few nearby systems, with the Sutr and Ginnungagup fleets firing upon each other and attempting to deny the other any possible base of operations. This latter had a definite effect upon real estate values, which was not looked upon kindly by the indigenous races. Clearly, the dispute was in danger of coming into the awareness of the Court, a possibility that sent fear through every race in the area. On the brighter side, many of those races thought, perhaps one would destroy the other and end the matter gracefully and painlessly, as far as the rest were concerned.
In the end the court did intervene and a Dre’t, the court’s enforcer, was sent to pacify the disputants until the court could rule. Luckily significant numbers of both races survived the Dre’t’s intervention.
And damage to nearby systems was minimal.
The court promised that the case was going to get a speedy trial in light of the urgency of the matter. In fact, the court had graciously moved the date to the earliest spot on the docket—a mere four hundred Earth years hence! It was no wonder that the local races wanted a settlement.
Two forces made Sam’s mediation talent so valuable. The first was the Hegemony’s millennial court backlog, which averaged about seven solar centuries or so before the initiation of adjudication, and usually another five for the actual proceedings. The only thing that kept this backlog so short was the limited lifespans of most of the plaintiffs, which often resulted in evaporation of cases long before they ever reached the judges themselves. Rather than wait for the courts, some parties just wrote off their problems and went on with their situation as best they could. The concept of lawyers had been the one blessing that the rest of the Galaxy had been spared.
The other forces that made Sam’s arbitration talent so important was the fact that the court often found in favor of the Hegemony, meaning that both parties lost claim to the item under dispute—and had to pay enormous fees to boot! After all, twelve to fifteen centuries of court costs can add up even at low hourly rates.
And low hourly rates had never been approved by the court.
It didn’t take much convincing for the other races to agree on transporting a few members of both the Sutr and the Ginnungagup to a neutral system for a speedy Earth-mediated accord.
Nobody knew what the Sutr and the Ginnungagup thought about the matter.
As Ja’aar’aaa explained in an endless chirping monotony, the Ja’aar had no translation mechanisms in common with the Ginnungagup since they had never had trade links. “La-la-la, la-la-la,…” Ja’aar’aaa trilled in apology; “We have requested that an Imperial, another nearby race, deal with the translation. The Ginnungagup have had trade with them.”
But that wasn’t the only problem, Sam learned soon after the Imperial’s arrival. The Sutr had also been incommunicado since their arrival. Ja’aar’aaa hadn’t bothered to mention that the superheated beings could not communicate in any of the local modes. It appeared that they used plasma exchange as their communication medium, a feature that would incinerate anyone trying to use the standard translators. Sam began to understand why the galactics wanted a “neutral” meeting place; either planet would be intolerable to the other.
Sam patiently spoke to his supervisor over the ansible, explaining just why he needed a slight extension of time to settle this simple matter. He could see his profits shrinking and his hardships growing as her voice lost the merry humming overtones. “I’m sure that you will be certain to find a way to make a profit on this, won’t you?” she demanded with a small hint of menace in her chilly closing.
“Of course I will,” Sam replied. “Trust me.”
It turned out that a Rix engineering team just happened to be at a nearby system and could be diverted to help out, for a slight fee, as their leader Sslivira had chirped with enthusiasm in answer to Sam’s inquiry. They had considerable experience in dealing with extremely high-temperature environments and could easily construct an appropriate interface for the Sutr. Naturally, the Rix clicked over the ansible, they would have to cancel some very lucrative work to aid the effort, compensation that it was certain that the Earth-thing would willingly provide. With a groan at their quoted price Sam agreed to fund their assistance. They assured him that they would be there within the week.
The Rix proved equal to their promises and constructed the interface in short order. Four days after they finished Sam gathered the principals of the three races around him in the conference chamber, an opaline room of small dimensions near the center of the station. To his right was Ja’aar’aaa, perched on a small conference tee that brought its head level with Sam’s. Across the table, squatting on the floor so that its “head” was even with the others, was Sallow Yellow Orange, an Imperial. That delegate’s visual organ continually scanned the room as his communication organ blinked lazily in its listening mode.
On his left, and standing on the table, was Sslivira, the tiny Rix chief, its mouth parts moving continually as it chirped and mumbled to itself.