Star Traders

Jayne and Jake walked down the loading ramp of the Earth Princess into a crowd of cheering Larn and their own crew. Tables had been set with food and musicians seemed to be everywhere. If there was one thing all people seemed to have in common, whether they were Larn, Dran or Earthmen, it was music. The diversity of musical instruments was wide but all seemed to be having a good time, and, most of the time, quite tuneful.

Acrobats performed all around, and knife-throwing competition seemed to be going on at every corner. Artur and his committee were seated on a raised dais and he waved Jayne and Jake to join them there. They pushed their way through the crowd and mounted the stairs to sit at the side of Artur.

“Quite a celebration, Artur,” Jayne commented as she sat down. The table in front of them had been heaped with food and drink. Several of the dishes were recognizable as copies of what the Earthmen had brought with them. Spices purchased with the Gravity Wells were in abundance.

“You will find, Captain, that we need little excuse to have a celebration here!” Artur smiled. “We enjoy our time of getting together.”

“Looks like a good way to get indigestion!” Jake said, eyeing the abundance of food being consumed by the crowd.

“Indigestion?” Artur asked blankly. “What’s that?”

“You don’t know what getting sick to your stomach is?” Jake turned to him with disbelief.

“That is something we do not have. Our medicine is obviously better than your own in that respect. As far as I can remember, we have never had that affliction. One moment. I will ask one of our medical people.” Artur called a man to his side and talked to him earnestly, nodded and turned to Jayne.

Artur bent over to make sure Jayne could hear him over the din around them. “He said we used to have that affliction a lot, especially motion sickness, but that we have a cure for it. It is part of the treatment we take every year or so. All people take a battery of drugs at some time or another over the year. Part of that group of drugs is one to prevent motion sickness and upset stomach.”

Jayne looked wide-eyed at Jake. “What do you think, Jake?”

“I think we should ask Artur for a large supply of those drugs,” Jake nodded. “This may be just what Eric the Elder is looking for. If we can get around that sickness, we can send out a hell of a lot more ships for trade.”

“Artur,” Jayne bent to Artur’s ear. “Do you think we can get a supply of those drugs from you in trade?”

“I will do better than that, Captain Rice. I will make you a gift for as much of the drug as you may need,” He turned to his medical man and talked to him some more. Then nodded again.

“I will have 5000 doses ready within the hour. Will that be sufficient?”

“More than enough, Artur,” Jayne assured him. “And thank you. I will credit your account with 500,000 of the credit value we have been using here.”

“500,000! My goodness!” Artur exclaimed. “A simple thing like that is worth so much?”

“If it does what we think it might do, it will be more than worth the price!” Jayne said.

“Think it might work, Jake?” Jayne bent close enough to Jake so he could hear.

“I don’t see why not, Captain,” Jake nodded again. “Our bodies and theirs are close enough to breed, so we sure as hell should have a compatibility close enough to be able to take their drugs with the expectation they will work on us as well. I sure as hell am looking forward to maybe not getting sick for two days.”

“And I’m not looking forward to taking care of you, either!” Jayne agreed.

“If it does work, we can look forward to sending out a lot more trading vessels. The only thing stopping us has been the fact that we didn’t have enough people who could take the trip without getting deathly ill for two days, Not to mention the cumulative effect of space sickness we will not have to deal with any longer.” Jake said thoughtfully. “This could shorten the time of getting sufficient Gravity Wells to E-1 considerably.”

“Not only that, the expansion into the various universes will go on much more rapidly, though the only one we could trade in would be E-6,” Jayne commented.

“E-6 is the only one that has life as we know it, anyway,” Jake said. “But that doesn’t mean there’s no life at all in the other universes. We just haven’t found any yet.”

“Do we want to?” Jayne asked.

“Want to what?” Jake asked.

“Find life in the other universes,” Jayne explained. “They may be a lot more advanced than we are.”

“That’s possible, I guess,” Jake said. “Who knows?”

“Pure conjecture, I think,” Jayne admitted.

The party continued on into the wee hours of the morning. Jayne left early and headed for her cabin to call it a night. She was exhausted. The fast pace of the trading sessions was telling on her. She needed a lot of rest.