Read Online March: A Tale of Salmon and Swedes (The Glothic Tales Book 4) by Derek Haines - Free Book Online

salmon trade with Erde, before it was obliterated by its own inattentiveness to massive, rotting piles of thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads, the Erdean dollar exchanged at around four EdErg Minutes. Before it destroyed itself, Erde sold a decent sized salmon to the Glothic Salmon Conglomerate for around ten Erdean dollars, or forty Minutes. On Gloth, the same salmon wholesaled at well over twenty-five Hours. This was the reason March had been sent to Earth. There were Decades, if not Centuries of profit to be made on Earth from salmon alone.
    The only minor complication was that unlike Erde, there was no single base unit of currency on Earth, as each county had its own monetary system. But this was a problem for another day, as March had a lot of fish to fry before he could begin to think about salmon exports and settlement terms.
    *****
    The rain had cleared, and bright sunshine accompanied March and Tryskolia as they walked the streets of London following their coffee, and after an hour or more, and a quick wander through Hyde Park, they were back at the entry to Tryskolia’s apartment in time for lunch. March’s questions had lessened the further they had walked, and in their place were long silences, dotted with his occasional involuntary humming of choruses from Waterloo and Chiquitita .
    ‘I should give these back to you,’ he said, as they waited for the elevator.
    ‘No need, you can keep them, and oh, that reminds me. I have to give you your entitlement and your diplomatic passport,’ she said, as she saw the coins he was still clutching in his hand. March looked bemused. ‘Money. You’ll need a lot of it while you’re here, and the passport will keep you out of trouble – if you get into trouble.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Everything here costs money; so you will need a lot of it to buy the things you need and want. And the passport is a small book with all your details. Well, your fake earthy details that is, but it will prove that you are a diplomat from Lithuania and therefore protected by diplomatic immunity. Should you have any problem at all, you only need to show it, and…’
    ‘Oh, like our visiting diplomats from the Twelve Sun Systems to Gloth – they get away with anything!’
    ‘Exactly. They can park their car anywhere, get drunk in a restaurant and upend all the tables, insult a police officer and even run up huge debts, all without fear of any repercussions.’
    ‘Very useful.’
    ‘Oh, indeed.’
    ‘Um, can I ask you something?’ he asked, as the elevator took an age to arrive.
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Do you think anyone in this Camera Stellata knows about Abba?’
    ‘I’m sure they all do.’
    ‘That’s very good, then.’
    ‘Why?’ Trys asked, as the elevator finally arrived and the doors opened.
    ‘I’m not sure yet. The days are very long here, aren’t they?’
    ‘Twice as long as on Gloth, yes,’ she replied, trying to keep up with the constantly changing topics of his questions.
    ‘So people don’t live as long here then?’
    ‘It depends how you look at it. In years, no, but in time, perhaps only moderately less than on Gloth.’
    The doors opened to Tryskolia’s apartment and March stepped through, in pensive silence, and then stood quietly, as he tapped away at his Q’muniktor. He let out a sigh, that Trys took as a sign of defeat.
    ‘A problem?’
    ‘It doesn’t work.’
    ‘You need to set it to band one-seven-two point five-five and then do an iris and saliva verification before you validate with Glothic High Command to make your connection to your secure account at Glothcom. You’ll need to be patient, as there is a lag in reception time due to interference by the force field.’
    March handed his Q’muniktor to Trys, admitting immediate defeat. ‘Ok, I’ll help you with it, but you’ll have to do the licking and looking,’ she said, laughing and heading toward the kitchen. ‘Lunch, March?’
    ‘Eh, ok,’ he grumbled, as he followed her, and