Read Online Vietnam and Other Alien Worlds by Joe Haldeman - Free Book Online Page B

rights to tourism. Hartford might own a spaceport hotel, but it wasn’t really competition, and they were usually glad to hand it over to Starlodge anyhow. Hartford, with its ironclad lock on the tachyon drive, had no need to diversify.
    There was no doubt in my mind that this was the pattern Starlodge had in mind for Morocho III. It was a perfect setup, the beach being a geologic anomaly: there wasn’t another decent spot for a hotel within two thousand kilometers of the spaceport. Just bleak mountain tops sprouting occasionally out of jungles full of large and hungry animals. But maybe I could lead the Rabbit on. I leaned up against a post that supported a guttering torch. “At any rate, I certainly couldn’t consider entering into an agreement without knowing who you represent.”
    He looked at me stone-faced for a second. “Outfit called A. W. Stoner Industries.”
    I laughed out loud. “Real name, I mean.” I’d never heard of Stoner, and I do keep in touch.
    â€œThat’s the name I know them by.”
    â€œNo concern not listed in Standard, Poor and Tueme could come up with nine figures for extraterrestrial real-estate speculation. No legitimate concern, I mean.”
    â€œThere you go again,” he said mildly. “I believe they’re a coalition of smaller firms.”
    â€œI don’t. Let’s go.”
    Back in my luggage I had a nasal spray that deadened the sense of smell. Before we even got inside, I knew I should have used it.
    The air was gray with fish-oil smoke, and there were more than a hundred !tang sitting in neat rows. I once was treated to a “fish kill” in Texas, where a sudden ecological disaster had resulted in windrows of rotting fish piled up on the beach. This was like walking along that beach using an old sock for a muffler. By Lafitte’s expression, he was also unprepared. We both walked forward with slightly greenish cheerfulness.
    A !tang in the middle of the first row stood up and approached us. —Uncle? I ventured, and he waved his snout in affirmation.
    â€”We have come to an interim decision, he said.
    â€”Interim? Lafitte said. —Were my terms unacceptable?
    â€”I die. My footprints are cursed. I walk around the village not knowing that all who cross where I have been will stay in estrous zero, and bear no young. Eventually, all die. O the embarrassment. We want to hear the terms of Navarro’s tribe. Then perhaps a final decision may be made.
    That was frighteningly direct. I’d tried for an hour to tell him our terms before, but he’d kept changing the subject.
    â€”May I hear the terms of Lafitte’s tribe? I asked.
    â€”Certainly. Would Lafitte care to state them, or should I?
    â€”Proceed, Uncle, Lafitte said, and then, in Spanish,—Remember the possibility of a partnership. If we get to haggling…
    I stopped listening to Rabbit as Uncle began a long litany of groans, creaks, pops, and whistles. I kept a running total of wholesale prices and shipping costs. Bourbon, rum, brandy, gin. Candy bars, raw sugar, honey, pastries. Nets, computers, garbage composters, water-purifying plant, hunting weapons. When he stopped, I had a total of only H620.
    â€”Your offer, Navarro? Could it include these things as a subset?
    I had to be careful. Lafitte was probably lying about the 1500, but I didn’t want to push him so hard he’d be able to go over a thousand on the next round. And I didn’t want to bring out my big guns until the very end.
    â€”I can offer these things and three times the specified quantity of rum—(the largest rum distillery on Earth was a subsidiary of Starlodge)—and furthermore free you from the rigors of the winter harvest, with twenty-six fully programmed mechanical farm laborers. (The winters here were not even cool by Earth standards, but something about the season made the local animals restless enough occasionally to jump over the