Watchers of the Dark (13 page)

“Trader,” he said again. “Would you like to be one?”

“No, Sire. I would not care to leave Yorlq.”

“All I had in mind was your obtaining employment with a trader. Gul Isc, for example. If you worked in his trading office, we might be able to learn the truth about such matters as why he recently sold two of his warehouses.”

“I could try, Sire.”

“We could also make a record of who visits him at his office, and perhaps of some of the people he visits. We can’t get anywhere watching the outside of buildings that have no exits, and we’ve already learned that we can’t follow people through transmitters. Let’s see if we can plant investigators on all nine of the traders. Start with Gul Isc, and if he turns you down have one of the others try. Don’t stop until someone has been hired, or until the whole staff has had a shot at every trader.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“But not all of them on the same day. And don’t feel too badly if you aren’t successful. None of the traders has a Yorlqer on his staff. I’ve been wondering why. If they turn you down, you might ask them. I’m going back to Trans-Star.”

“Yes, Sire.”

In his Trans-Star office Darzek activated the ceiling screen and arranged himself to study the Dark. An enlarged view of the galaxy’s perimeter showed the black corridor looking like an immense, bottomless chasm. Darzek spent hours gazing at it when he could think of nothing better to do, and asking himself questions that only the Council of Supreme could have answered, and each time he was left feeling more frustrated.

He wasn’t aware of Gud Baxak’s presence until the under-trader said apologetically, “Sire?”

Darzek swore and darkened the screen. “What is it?” he asked wearily.

Gud Baxak stood before him unsteadily, face pink with fatigue, his strange, tripodic underpinnings arranged in exaggerated stance. He was obviously exhausted, but his great, faceted eyes were shining.

Darzek knew the symptoms. Gud Baxak had the endurance, determination, and infinite patience of a good trader, and several times a day his tireless search for bargains would strike pay dirt. Then he would rush to Darzek with the announcement that he was onto something big.

“I’m onto something big,” he said, his voice squeaky with excitement. “Have you time to appraise the data?”

Darzek strirred resentfully. He’d had rather more than he wanted of inventories, product anticipations, solvency bids, and all the rest of it. He said dryly, “I’m onto something rather big myself. So big, in fact, that it’s going to take all of my time from now on.” He got to his feet. “Gud Baxak, I’m promoting you. Consider yourself a partner with Gula Schlu and myself. Handle your deals as you think best. I’ll see that you have the privilege of solvency transfer. You have my full confidence.”

“Yes, Sire,” Gud Baxak said, beaming.

He departed, and Darzek sank back to contemplate the Dark.

And his nine traders.

“If they’re trading with the Dark,” he mused, “they naturally want to keep their monopoly to themselves. If they aren’t, or if some of them aren’t, I should be able to play them off against each other. The question is how.”

He had a faint glimmering of a plan, with E-Wusk as the central figure. E-Wusk, at least, was willing to discuss the Dark. Darzek paced the floor fretfully until he had shaped his idea into something he could act upon, and then he stepped to the transmitter and touched out the code for E-Wusk’s office.

The old trader whooped when he saw him. “Gul Darr! Oh, ho ho! Have you come over for a little water dancing?”

“I was hoping you’d give me a lesson,” Darzek said.

“Oh, ho ho!” E-Wusk quivered with merriment. “Me—water dancing! If they thought
you
were funny—oh, ho ho!”

“I have a business proposition for you,” Darzek said.

“A business proposition from Gul Darr is a rare honor,” E-Wusk said, instantly serious. “Rest yourself, and tell me about it.”

“You have experienced the Dark—” Darzek began.

“Rather too frequently,” E-Wusk agreed, “and it’s about to happen again. You will soon experience the Dark yourself.”

His train of thought completely derailed, Darzek could only gape in amazement. “How soon?” he demanded.

E-Wusk gestured absently with three arms. “Perhaps the word ‘soon’ was mischosen. But the Dark is coming—will come.”

“I see. For the moment I am concerned with where the Dark has been. And I have had this thought: the remainder of the galaxy once carried on a vast trade with those worlds the Dark has consumed. What has happened to the needs that this trade once satisfied?”

E-Wusk shifted arms and legs uneasily but did not answer.

“What I propose is that we undertake to fulfill those needs.”

“Trade—with the Dark?” E-Wusk whispered.

“What is the Dark?” Darzek demanded irritably. “Is it alive? Does it have a mind and a being of its own, or does it exist only in the minds of those who flee from it?”

“I do my thinking in terms of shiploads and solvency exchange,” E-Wusk said slowly. “Such questions are not for me.”

“You are perceptive. You have encountered the Dark four times. Have you ever seen it?”

“I have seen the fires and the raging mobs. I have heard them shout, ‘Grilf, Grilf!’ Do you know that word? No, and I should not have said it. Only the Dark pronounces it. My friend, I would not care to have dealings with the Dark.”

“Nor would I,” Darzek said. “As far as we know, the Dark has no needs that trade could satisfy, so I do not propose to trade with the Dark. My concern is for those worlds the Dark has cut off from trade. We know that they have needs.”

E-Wusk had slowly shrunk into a tangle of limbs. “It is an attractive thought,” he agreed awesomely. “Attractive—and terrifying. Who would dare?”

“I would. I intend to. I want your help.”

“You,
Gul Darr? But of course. You are a bold trader, you willingly accept risks, and because you have had no experience of the Dark you do not fear it.”

“Do you fear the Dark, Gul E-Wusk?”

“Assuredly.”

“I would not have thought so.”

“I do not wear my fear,” E-Wusk said simply. “I do not let it consume me. But I fear.”

“Then why do you remain on Yorlq?”

“I am defying the Dark. It has routed me four times, and when it comes here I shall gladly flee with the others, but until it comes I can defy it. I must defy it, to assuage in some small measure the humiliation I have suffered.”

“Even when the defiance can only bring you more humiliation?”

E-Wusk heaved his enormous body with a sigh but did not answer.

“I think perhaps you
are
a philosopher,” Darzek said with a smile. “But what about the other traders who have been routed by the Dark? Are they also defying it?”

“I do not know. The Dark is not a thing one talks about by preference.”

“The others won’t talk about it at all.”

“I know. They wear their fear. This thought of yours is attractive, Gul Darr—to trade with so many worlds that have no trade. Alas, it would be impossible.”

“How do you know that it isn’t being done?”

E-Wusk’s body jerked convulsively. “You mean . . . what
do
you mean?”

“My instinct tells me that those worlds cannot exist without trade. They have needs, and where there are needs there will always be a trader to fill them. Therefore someone must be trading with those worlds.”

“Someone . . . must . . . be . . . trading . . .” E-Wusk repeated slowly. “I had not thought of such a thing. Proof will exist if this is true, though finding it would take much time and no small amount of solvency. Ship arrivals and departures would have to be tabulated. All the ships in half the galaxy would have to be traced. It would be a staggering chore.”

“I believe you,” Darzek said. “Even that would not suffice. Would arrival and departure records reveal that a ship rendezvoused in space with a ship from a Dark world and traded cargos with it?”

E-Wusk’s body jerked again.

“I can think of a much simpler way,” Darzek went on. “Some of the worlds of the Dark must have products that are unique. Are these products still in good supply? Are they being exchanged? If so, then someone must be trading with the worlds of the Dark.”

“Yes. That would be much easier to check. One would need only to publish anticipated needs for such products and evaluate the response.”

“Are you willing to make such publications? I should be happy to put my solvency at your disposal.”

E-Wusk waved the offer aside. “The expense would be trifling. Mmm—it would not be necessary to investigate
all
unique products. Just a few that have considerable demand and a high value per volume unit, since the trader would want the most profitable use of his cargo space. Mmm—yes.”

“It wouldn’t do to list them all at once,” Darzek said. “I’d suggest that you spread ten or twelve items over two terms.”

“Of course.”

“And the listings may bring you legitimate bids of small quantities which may still be available. You should think how to deal with these.”

“I’ll decline them. I never deal in less than shipload quantities. The handling costs are too high.”

“What specific products do you have in mind?” Darzek asked.

E-Wusk mulled over the possible choices, and Darzek relaxed, and made mental notes, and attempted to quiet his conscience. He liked and admired the old rascal, and he wasn’t proud of what he was about to do to him.

Darzek began avoiding the Trans-Star office, except to check the daily need anticipations for E-Wusk’s listings. His presence was not needed; Miss Schlupe kept a wary eye on the company’s solvency, the undertraders were performing competently, and profit per centums were improving each term.

After his investigators had tried unsuccessfully to obtain employment with the nine traders, Darzek could only keep them snooping futilely around the edges of the traders’ apparently impeccable activities. There was so little for Darzek to do that he took the time to fashion a flimsy rocking chair for Miss Schlupe and carve a pipe for himself, and he tried out Miss Schlupe’s alleged tobacco. It lacked even a fanciful resemblance to its namesake, but he smoked it anyway.

He spent most of his time in the apartment he shared with Miss Schlupe, pacing a fretful circuit of its compact dimensions, reception room to bedroom to bedroom to reception room, or stretched out in prone position racking his brain for ideas. He cursed himself for suggesting that E-Wusk spread his anticipations over so long a time interval, though he knew that haste could easily ruin this one positive action he had evolved since reaching Yorlq. There was nothing for him to do but wait.

E-Wusk published his needs one at a time and advised Darzek that he’d had no response. Life on the world of Yorlq went its placid way; if the Dark was threatening, only E-Wusk seemed aware of it.

Darzek was engaged in a reverie in which he contemplated buying a fleet of spaceships, outfitting them as a private space navy, and invading the worlds of the Dark to find out what was going on there, when Miss Schlupe bluntly roused him.

“What is it now?” he asked resignedly.

“Prepare yourself for a shock,” she said. “Your Trans-Star trading empire has gone smash.”

“Schluppy, I’m in no mood for jokes, and even if I was I wouldn’t appreciate that one.”

“Do I sound as if I’m joking?”

“What’s happened?”

“Gud Baxak has translated the irresistible force of Trans-Star’s solvency into immovable objects.”

Darzek got up reluctantly. “I’ll go see him.”

“It won’t do you any good. He’s delirious. I have three doctors looking after him, but what he really needs is some of my rhubarb beer.”

“If he’s delirious he needs a tranquilizer.”

“That’s what my beer is. A tranquilizer. Do you know anything about bark?”

“Bark?
Tree
bark? No.”

“You will,” Miss Schlupe said confidently. “You now own every scrap of one particular kind of tree bark in the galaxy.”

Darzek sat down again. “How long has he been delirious? He wouldn’t be buying bark without a darned good reason.”

“He had a good reason—he thought. I got the gist of what happened before he became incoherent, and what I understand of it isn’t good. Do you know what
tizc
is?”

Darzek reached out and tapped the wall. “Certainly. The common building plastic. It’s produced everywhere from local materials, because it’s cheaper to manufacture where needed than to transport through space. As E-Wusk would say, it has a low value per volume unit. Don’t tell me Gud Baxak has been dabbling in that!”

“Indirectly, yes. He studies everything, you know, and he happened onto the alluring news of a revolutionary change in the manufacture of
tizc.
The new process requires a kind of unpronounceable crystal, which naturally Gud Baxak investigated, and he learned that it is derived from an unpronounceable fluid, which is obtained from the bark of an equally unpronounceable tree.”

“Ah!”

“So he proceeded to corner the bark market.” Miss Schlupe shook her head awesomely. “It was a brilliant operation. He didn’t use a smidgeon of solvency, he bought nothing, and yet he tied up the entire available supply and also the anticipated output for more time than he now wants to contemplate. I never would have credited him with such imagination. He used a kind of promissory option, and just to show you how imaginative he got, I think he invented that, too. But it is binding. Oh, how it is binding!

“Then he learned that crystals obtained from the bark fluid are too expensive for general commercial use. The new
tizc
process was made possible by the discovery of a cheaper source for them. Trans-Star now owns options on all that bark, and must eventually pay for it, and even the limited market the stuff had no longer exists.”

“How did he manage to make such a mistake?”

“I don’t know.”

Darzek got to his feet again and paced the floor thoughtfully.

“Pay for it with your bottomless solvency credential, and burn the stuff,” Miss Schlupe suggested.

“I can’t. If my carefully contrived reputation goes up in a monumental smudge of bark I’ll be a laughing stock, and the next trader I approach with a wild idea like trading with the Dark will spit in my face. I’ll have to straighten this mess out quickly, or we might as well pack and go home.”

It took him less than an hour to track down the basis for Gud Baxak’s error. A description of the new
tizc
process had failed to mention the new source for the crystals. Darzek was not satisfied. “It may have been bait,” he said. “I’ll have to look into that. Even if it wasn’t, Gud Baxak managed his coup far too easily. I’m wondering if someone was leading him on—someone with a large stock of bark just rendered worthless by that new source for crystals.”

The clues were few; the facts obscure and tenuous. The trail was crossed with the names of small, virtually unknown trading companies that on investigation proved to be owned by other equally unknown companies. After several days of driving both his undertraders and his investigators unmercifully and investing a small fortune in space transmissions, Darzek reached the top of the pyramid.

“Gul Rhinzl!” he breathed. “That’s very interesting.”

“It can’t be,” Miss Schlupe protested. “He wouldn’t doctor a report.”

“He didn’t. At least, I don’t see how he could have, or why he would have wanted to. Every trading firm in this part of the galaxy received that identical incomplete announcement. The others—those who were interested—investigated it properly and ignored it, as Gud Baxak should have done. If a firm is intent on squandering solvency, there isn’t anything unethical about cooperating with it. Rhinzl cooperated like the master that he is. Any other trader would have done the same, or tried to.”