Read Online Shaman by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff - Free Book Online

(nearly grinned). “Is that all?” he asked regally.
    â€œThat is our opening offer,” said Rhys. “You may make a counter-offer if you wish.”
    â€œI doubt that will be necessary.” Zarber turned to Pa-Lili. “Do you wish to hear a counter-offer?”
    â€œDo you wish to have the foon?”
    Zarber turned a lovely shade of crimson. “I meant only, is there a need? We are offering so much more—”
    â€œYes, so it would seem. Let us hear your counter-offer.”
    Zarber nodded as if he had just seen a pattern emerging from a broken piece of ancient pottery. “Of course,” he said, and proceeded to replace the hors d’oeuvres tray with a smorgasbord of exotic items, entertainments, and technologies. Enough junk to put the Pa-Kai through what would make the sufferings of Earth’s aboriginal peoples at the hands of their more “civilized” brethren look like a kiddie story.
    Rhys gritted his teeth and felt grey and husk-like as he watched the Pa-Kai react to the descriptions of this entertainment or that technology like children hearing their first news of a carnival. With their simple way of life, it must all sound like the play of gods, he thought. Ground cars and trundle-buggies, synthovens the size of a melon that brought forth an amazing variety of hot, ready-to-eat food, discams the size of a cup with which you could take three dimensional images of your loved ones (why bother going to the Clan artists for portraits?).
    Yessir , thought Rhys, there’s enough in that offer to devastate the environment, destabilize the economy and completely undermine the balance of power among the Pa-Kai forever and ever, amen. Not to mention what it would mean to the other peoples of Pa-Loana to have such suddenly wealthy neighbors.
    It took everything he had to generate the enthusiasm he had once felt for his own counter-counter. He smiled, he made his gestures big and broad and encompassing, he even twirled and capered as he offered the Pa-Kai one technology: the simplest, most basic method of refining foon and using it to produce the products of their choice for themselves and for barter to other peoples.
    â€œYou could then,” he explained to the assembled Pa-Kai, “even sell the refined foon—the slatex—to the Tanaka Clan, as well as the raw stuff. You might be able, someday, to barter the finished goods for sale on other worlds. You might even, someday, be able to receive the goods those worlds had to offer.”
    The Pa-Kai nodded and hooted and cooed, but they showed none of the child-like excitement they had evinced over Zarber’s offer. While the Tribal Council considered the offers in the privacy of their voluminous tent, Rhys stood outside in Pa-Loana’s fresh, fragrance and felt something roughly the size and shape of the proverbial millstone settle in the pit of his stomach. He looked up at the pale, violet-blue sky overhead (and through it and past it) and thought, Was it too much to ask that today White Magic might win one? Was it too much to hope that the spirits of the Pa-Kai would be stronger than the technologies of the Human?
    He heard an abrasive sound behind him and cringed.
    â€œFoon-derived products in perpetuity?” chuckled Zarber. “Really, Llewellyn. What do you take these people for? They may be simple-minded, but they’re not fools. I’m offering them tomorrow and you’re bargaining with nuts and berries.”
    â€œBut whose tomorrow are you offering them, Zarber—theirs or ours?”
    â€œAh, that must be the philosopher in you speaking... or perhaps the theologian—more concerned with musty ideologies than solid realities.” He glanced across Rhys to Danetta. “An academic to the core, isn’t he, Ms. Price? But then, you knew that when you hired him.” His eyes moved back to Rhys, faintly pitying. “I’m winning this one on points, Professor. If