Shaman (6 page)

o0o

In his dreams, Rhys Llewellyn was Myrddin. Powerful he was, and ancient and hoary, with green-ice eyes and a great ground-sweeping beard. He was pitted against a sinister black-clad figure that was part Mordred, part Dracula, and preponderantly Vladimir Zarber.

They hurled spells at each other. Zarber's magics were flashes of ruddy fire that fell to the ground, sizzling, to become horrid black lumps of living ooze. They moved, rippled like dying slugs, and then began to crawl inexorably toward their target. Rhys parried them with blazing balls of white light and desperately prayed he could win the battle without drawing on the bottomless pit of black magic the Adversary was sucking up.

Somewhere in the morass of pulsing, claustrophobic dark and blood-flame, he seized upon the idea that he was fighting not one, but two Adversaries: Zarber/Mordred and the darker side of Rhys/Myrddin. He indulged in that briefly; the ancient allegory of light on dark, the rationale of deeply buried evils and cinder-core morals, then he put an abrupt stop to it.

No
, he thought.
Stop that. That's not me. I'm not tempted to use Black Magic, I only think I should be. I've no intention of changing my nature. None!

And, like a petulant playwright, Rhys Llewellyn appeared from behind the dream proscenium and rewrote the scene. The “Tempting of Myrddin” was replaced with a straightforward duel to-the-death.

He awoke in a barrage of blood red magic, and lay sweating and wondering if he knew enough White Magic to save Arthur Pendragon's kingdom... or was that Danetta Price's company?

Oh, hell!
he thought, his head throbbing with suddenly acknowledged pain.
Go soak your ego. It's not even the company; it's just a damn contract!
An important contract, though, he had to admit. If it wasn't important, Danetta Price would still be on Jamal.

Plagued by dour images of nice guys finishing dead last, Rhys pondered his alternatives and wondered why, in Human history, it seemed that ethical businessmen had to struggle against being sucked into the undertow generated by their less scrupulous (and often more successful) competitors. Why did it rarely (except perhaps in the presence of a Divine Revelator), work the other way around? Why couldn't the good apples cause the bad ones to bob to the top of the barrel?

His mind foundered on the mixture of metaphors, making his headache seem suddenly much worse. He got up and groped for the medicine dispenser at the back of the bunk-side unit. His hands collided with the little pile of fetishes, talismans, and herbal concoctions Pa-Lili had given him during his last visit. He growled irritably and gathered them up, intending to put them away in his sporran.

“Light,” he said, and the cabin's VA dimmer obeyed immediately.

He was tucking the little pouches and vials away into the various pockets when he remembered that one of them was supposed to be a headache remedy. He peered into the bag.

“Okay, Alice. Is it the mushroom, the cookie, or the small bottle?”

It was a small purple bottle. He studied it momentarily, recalled the three word incantation that was supposed to accompany the administration of the cure, and put three droplets onto his tongue. He grimaced. If it didn't work any better than it tasted, he was in for a bad night.

He called out the light and rolled back onto his bunk, quite literally falling asleep before his head hit the pillow. His remaining dreams were decidedly more positive.

o0o

“You're awfully perky this morning.” Danetta Price studied Rhys's glowing face curiously. “Nice dreams?”

“After I took one of Pa-Lili's herbal cures. Before that, I was having nightmares.”

Danetta raised ash blonde brows. “What about?”

Rhys nearly blushed, recalling his grandiose self-image. “I guess it boils down to a fear that I was going to have to become a Zarber clone in order to compete with him.”

Danetta nearly choked on her coffee. “God forbid!” She glanced at him sharply. “Do you think that's necessary?”

“No, I don't.”

“Good,” she said, but continued to look at him, eyes looking for some discrepancy between word and manner. “Are you sure?”

He smiled at her. “Absolutely. Why should I change to accommodate him?”

She shook her head. “You have a funny look on your face.”

Rhys laughed. “You knew I had a funny-looking face when you hired me.”

“That's not what I meant,” she started to say, but was interrupted by the arrival of Rhys's apprentices, already decked out in their Pa-Kai finery.

Rhys steered the conversation to the negotiations. “The key to success here is flexibility,” he said. “We need to be ready to react both to the Pa-Kai and Zarber, but not appear to be reacting to Zarber at all. The last thing we need is for this to degenerate into one-upmanship between Tanaka and Bristol-Benz. Zarber is used to dealing with people who are as wily as he is. The Pa-Kai are...”

“Simple?” suggested Rick, munching a fruit bar.

“No, not simple.” Rhys suspected he was wearing what Hi-Pok had called his “Teacher Face.” “You can't assume simplicity, Roddy. I don't even think you can make a good case for naiveté. They're... honest. Honesty is highly regarded among the Pa-Kai. So, we have to be honest. To a fault.” He pressed the plastic table top with his fist.

“Zarber isn't going to be honest,” observed Rick.

“Zarber also thinks the Pa-Kai are simple, and he'll probably offer them trinkets and beads.”

“Excuse me?” said Yoshi.

“When white settlers first met the Native Americans, they assumed them to be simple savages. When the Indian held out his hand in friendship, the white man put a trinket into it. That's pretty much been the dominant society's track record in its inter-cultural relations ever since. When asked for friendship, we offer useless things.” Rhys shook his head. “Sorry, I'm lecturing again. Old habits die hard. Anyway, who knows? Maybe the Pa-Kai will bring out the best in old Vladimir.”

“Huh!” snorted Rick.

“What are we going to offer them that won't seem like trinkets?” asked Danetta.

“Returns on their investment. We sell them slatex products for the stuff from which slatex is made.”

“Ah,” said Rick. “Simple and elegant. And we already know that certain colorful slatex products are very much in demand in this part of Pa-Loana.” He tweaked his own verdant green waterproof cockscomb.

“And if Zarber offers them more?” asked Danetta.

“We offer to show them how to manufacture their own slatex products.”

“That would eventually make them independent of our production facilities.”

Rhys nodded. “It might eventually even put them in competition with our production facilities... or in cooperation, which is more likely, given the Pa-Kai nature.”

“You're putting a lot of trust in Pa-Kai nature,” observed Danetta. “Do you think that's wise?”

“If I didn't—”

She nodded. “You wouldn't be doing it... You seem very certain of yourself.”

“Of myself...? I guess I am.” Rhys shrugged and sipped his coffee, wondering how long that certainty would last.

o0o

The Tanaka banner waved gently in the breeze that lapped at the Council Tent and spiraled around its braces. Danetta Price looked as elegant as any Human could in Pa-Kai clothing. Her Shaman and his apprentices looked smart and Shamanly and her pallet was decorated with embellishments of Tanaka manufacture: Slatex gloves for work in water, weather and zero atmosphere, a boot or two for equally extreme environs. It was a tasteful display of a tiny part of Tanaka's product line and it was obviously of interest to the Pa-Kai. So were Pa-Lili's new cape and unisuit, also latex derived. Rhys thought it quite auspicious that she'd worn them today.

Just as he was beginning to relax, a trumpet sounded (at least he thought it was a trumpet) and through the wide entry came the Bristol-Benz train. And it was a train.

The B-B “Chieftain” entered first, flanked by a smug Vladimir Zarber. The Chief was not riding his pallet, but limping courageously along with a tragic expression on his face. He was dressed every bit as elegantly as any other Chieftain in the tent, while Zarber was made up in Shamanly splendor, his black unisuit over-laid with a stole of bright fuchsia. Behind him, came the standard-bearer, waving aloft the Bristol-Benz logo—two stylized inter-locked B's in bright red, rampant on a purple field.

Behind the standard-bearer marched every assistant Zarber possessed and, very probably, every member of his shuttle's flight crew. Four of them carried their Chieftain's pallet. which was gaudily attired in every ambient color known to man.

Rhys grimaced. Zarber was as good as his word; he was obviously prepared to play what he perceived was the Tanaka game, and to play it well—right down to making a stunning entrance. He settled into his pillows and smiled at Rhys toothily.

“Shuttle medical unit not working,” asked Rhys sotto voce, “or are you promoting missing incisors as a new fashion trend?”

Zarber's sleek, black brows winged upward with bat-like grace. “Why Llewellyn, that was a slight worthy of me. The med-unit is working fine, thank you, I simply couldn't find the tooth. I don't suppose you saw where it went?”

“Do you think I'd tell you?”

Zarber gave him a scathing glance that said, “O thou idiot.” What he actually said was, “Yes, I do. But it's all right. I still have enough teeth left to chew you to bits.”

Rhys faced front hastily, ostensibly to give his attention to Pa-Lili's opening chant, but his innards felt like a chilled pudding. He cursed the fact that Vladimir Zarber could make him react that way and tried to relax his grip on the spirit bag that hung from his necklace.

“Uh... sir?” Yoshi Umeki was leaning toward him from her position on his right hand. “Sir, you... you have a spot, sir,” she whispered. “On your suit, sir.”

He glanced down at the stain that spread across the front of his unisuit. “Oh, uh, I guess I was clumsier than I thought at breakfast.” He let go of the spirit bag. It hit his chest with a moist thump, then dangled in the perfect position to hide the stain. “There, that ought to cover it.” He gave Yoshi a reassuring smile, then turned to throw one over his shoulder at Danetta Price.

Pa-Lili finished her chanting. “The Great Being is now attending our discourses,” she informed the assemblage. “We may begin.”

The Eldest spoke. “Now that we are gathered like to like, the speaking after foon may proceed. Tell us what good is foon, that you wish to have it.” He gestured at Pa-Lili who spun twice, then hunkered down to point at Zarber.

“You,” she fluted. “Speak of foon.”

Just once
, thought Rhys, gritting his teeth.
Just once let going first not be the advantage he always makes it. Just once, let him be hoist on his own petard.

Zarber rose and made a sweeping bow—his concession to a Shamanly caper. “Foon,” he said lugubriously, “is a small thing (very small, said his fingers) from which we make a stretchy fabric which some people (he made the “I speak of silly things” face and a muted gesture) like to wear. We sell them these shiny, stretchy things (of no import) and so we seek foon, which is so plentiful (and disagreeable) here.”

Rhys's lip curled. Belittling the importance of the resource. Next came the beads and trinkets.

“So, you say this foon is of little worth to you?” asked Pa-Lili.

“It is of some worth to those who wear it.”

Pa-Lili stroked her new unisuit and made a thoughtful face. “Not worth a whole lot, huh?”

She actually said “huh” in such a Human tone that Rhys laughed out loud. He turned it quickly into a cough, but caught the gleam of humor in Pa-Lili's bright eyes.

Zarber, meanwhile, disguised his own smirk behind a head wag that said, “Oh, a little—a little.”

“Then why did you come all the way to Pa-Loana to speak of this (worth very little) subject? Star travel is very costly and so must be the time of your Chieftain.” Here, she jutted her long jaw toward the surrogate CEO. “The time of our Chieftains is very precious.”

Zarber stiffened visibly. He made a minute gesture of apology. “I did not mean to belittle the importance of foon. I only meant that it is not, ah...”

“Is foon important to you, Shaman Reeslooelen?” Pa-Lili asked abruptly.

“Very important, Resplendent Pa-Lili. As you know, our clothing is largely made from it. Also medicinal supplies, survival equipment, and enjoyment things... equipment for games of sport. Wherever Humans go and the environment is harsh, things made from foon are necessary to our survival. There are so many, many things we Humans use that have (wonderful) foon in them.” Rhys glanced sideways at Zarber.
Liar
, he thought.

“How say the Chiefs?” asked the Eldest in his dry-reed voice. His jaw designated the Bristol-Benz Chief as the first speaker.

The young man blinked dark, almond-shaped eyes and cleared his throat. He looked uncertain. He wasn't. “We find foon exactly important enough to come all the way to Pa-Loana to the Pa-Kai Council. We find it important enough to offer great wealth to you and your people.” The words were issued with calm, quiet, and dignified authority, leaving no question in Rhys's mind why he was Zarber's pick for the role of Chief.

“Great Wealth?” cooed the Eldest.

“Oh, wondrous wealth. Brilliantly colored wealth. Wealth such as you have never seen on Pa-Loana—” He cut off and glanced at Zarber, who was making a little cutting gesture at his own throat.

The Benz Chieftain cleared his throat again. “You will be pleased, I guarantee it.”

“And you, Chief Tanaka?” The Eldest's chin pointed at Danetta.

“Yes. Foon is very important to us. Our Clan manufactures products made with the essence of foon for billions of our fellow Humans and for men from other worlds, as well.”