Star Traders

Just what are your plans, anyway?” Jayne asked Eric the Elder as they all sat around the huge fireplace in Lodge 16.

“That’s easy. I want to go where no man has gone before. Sounds crazy when you say it, doesn’t it? It’s something that we have all been hearing from Captain Kirk of the Enterprise since the 60’s. But we really have that opportunity now. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, someone has already been there, and from the looks of it, they are the only ones around. From all indications, the only intelligent life form in the universes is humans. That’s what I want to find out. There is a possibility in the worlds outside of the E-6 universe other species may have developed.

“The Larn race appeared on the planet Larn soon after the Big Bang billions of years ago. An accident produced a mutation millions of years later and resulted in a man of such superior intelligence he was able to change the future of mankind forever. I say mankind because that includes us too. The man called Dran single-handedly brought mankind into a space-faring race. You already know about his attempt to increase the intelligence of the Larn and his failure to do this to his satisfaction. He did have limited success in that he increased the intelligence of selected Larn to about our own level. Those people were then given the power to continue making their own decisions as to who would be elevated to their own level of intelligence. A whole bureaucracy grew up around the need to elevate the best of the Larn to the level of what they now called themselves; The Dran.

“The reason the Dran, and ultimately the Larn, went off into space is lost in antiquity. I’d like to think it was pure curiosity, but I’m afraid that’s not it. I have studied both branches of that race, and curiosity doesn’t seem to be a motivational force with any of them. I believe it was more of an edict from Dran himself; one they have never questioned. Apparently, when the population of any planet becomes large enough, some friction occurs between factions. As far as I can tell, about that time they have a large spaceship built and the smaller faction will leave the planet for another. As to how they know where to go, I’m just delving into that, and the answer is hard to imagine.

“The farsighted planning of the man Dran is unbelievable. All indications are that early on he sent ships off in all directions to seed planets in each system with the stepping stones that led to the evolution of the flora and fauna of desired planets, i.e., those fitting the parameters their own planet. There is absolutely no indication that life has occurred by itself on any other planet in the universe, or universes, whatever your pleasure.

“What that means to us is that E-1 may very well be the only planet in our own universe capable of maintaining life, not having had the advantage of a man like Dran to have seeded our own universe. I’d like to find that out for sure. Somewhere out there I’d like to think there’s someone else. It’s possible that in the millions upon millions of years that have passed in our own universe without the benefit of our own Dran, other life may have been able to establish itself. We can only find out by searching for it.

“Not being Dran, I certainly can’t do this by myself, and I surely don’t have the long life to do what Dran did. What I want to do is introduce the Gravity Well into the technology of Earth. Not just drop it on them, but control the introduction by being the only source of production of the Gravity Well. By doing this, we can pretty well control the direction space travel will take on E-1. I don’t want them to know how readily they can find the wells around their own planets. Eventually they will find out, but not for some time; especially if they find we have a ready supply of the wells for them to purchase. In order to do that, we have to have an abundant and varied supply of the wells. To do that we need a stockpile of the wells to sell to companies on Earth. I feel that existing companies on E-1 have the infrastructure already in place to best use the Gravity Well power source. General Motors or Ford, for instance, will continue to build automobiles but will replace the engines with Gravity Wells. Construction customers will install Gravity Wells instead of furnaces and the wells will produce all the power a home will need. Gravity Wells will almost instantly replace all internal combustion engines, and we will have a monopoly on the supply of those wells. I plan to trade those wells for more trading goods and the building of spaceships. I am convinced E-1 can build much superior ships than the Larn civilization can. So we trade Gravity Wells for the goods we bring the Larn worlds.

“In other words, we need to find out what those worlds need or want and trade that for the wells. We will then trade those wells to E-1 for the trading goods for other planets of the Larn. That’s what we are attempting to do now. It’s going to take a while. The biggest problem we have right now is determining just what to trade to the Dran on their worlds. We have no idea what they need. We can hypothesize, of course, based on information the Dran on E-6 have given us, and at what level their civilization is there. Computers look like the best bet in the long run. Theirs are pretty primitive. But that alone won’t do it.

“I’m afraid we are going to have to play it by ear in the trading business. Trial and error seems to be the only choice we have. We have sent word along the communication lines that we will be dropping in on their planets to trade, and that we will be interested in trading for Gravity Wells. So far their responses have been incredulous about our ability to visit them let alone being interested in trade. Visitors from space are unheard of for them. Trade with the closer suns has already been going on for a time. We have not yet been able to find the one hot item to trade for the Gravity Wells. I hate to admit it, but these people drive a hard bargain!

“We’re at a standstill. What can you offer a civilization whose major population has minds of 12 year olds that are happy working for their overlords in any capacity at all? What can you offer those overlords whose slaves never need to be disciplined and who never rebel? Both sides seem to have whatever they need. And to top it off, none of them seem to want to improve their lot. Their relative populations are low, so there’s always plenty of food. Neither the Larn nor the Dran have any sexual taboos, so we can’t use that route at all. They seem to indulge their sexual appetites at will and happily. It was thought to perhaps come up with some kind of makeup or perfume to make the women more appealing to the men, but with their lack of sexual taboos, none of them seem to care about that.

“We are thinking about special foods, or some simple manufactured goods that will appeal to them. Our traders so far haven’t come up with anything specific. Generally, the Dran and Larn like our goods, but not enthusiastically. It costs us as much to bring the goods to them as we expect to get from the trade in Gravity Wells. Once we have found trade items that will give us a cheap supply of Gravity Wells from those planets, we can set up a trade with E-1. We have not yet introduced the Gravity Well On E-1 as a power source. It looks as if we are several years away from that yet.

“Basically, that’s the overall plan of action in the foreseeable future. We have several side issues of course. Setting up an infrastructure on the known tangent worlds to E-1 is a major task in itself. It takes a tremendous number of people to do that. We are taking it one city at a time, and letting the natural growth evolve from there. Right now we have cities on each of the nine planets supporting each of the portals.Excluding Earth, of course. It’s too expensive to try to get all the raw material to these cities from E-1, so each world has to be self-supporting right down to the manufacture of clothing and drugs. We are running out of people to do the necessary work, even though the labor through the Larn is cheap. It just isn’t that plentiful.

“So, Jayne, we need your help. Quite desperately as a matter of fact. We need to train our people to trade with the Dran. Seems easy, doesn’t it? The truth is the Dran are extremely apt traders. Except on the most sophisticated worlds, they have no reason to have a medium of exchange. In other words, they have no money, as we know it. Commerce, what there is of it, is done by trading. They have millions of year’s experience in the field, and are kicking our butts! As we expand outward, we are finding more of the Dran worlds using some kind of exchange medium, but even that is not doing us much good. Over time, we may be able to use their mediums of exchange, but not on initial contact planets. That’s where you are going to come in. We want to send young trader cadets on training missions to the outer limits of our contacts. We need that experience.”

“And you want me to take them there?” Jayne asked, with some trepidation. “Come on, guys! I have all I can do to find my way in the fog!”

Eric the Elder laughed. “That’s one of the reasons we need you! You can find your way in the fog! Eric here has told me of your skills in navigating your own vessel back on E-1 when you went fishing on Lake Michigan. Believe me; I know how it feels to be caught in a fog with nothing more than a compass and a watch. I think you will do just fine navigating around in space. Actually, it’s a lot easier than finding your way home in the fog, computers being what they are. The routes you will be traveling are programmed into computers. In fact, ALL the known routes in existence are programmed into your on board computer and several back-up computers. Automatic entrance into Hyperlink is also programmed in, so you won’t have to do much more than flick a switch and wait for the mission to complete itself. The only real navigation you will have to do will be the entering of the various solar systems you will be visiting, and you will have a navigation officer to do the technical work.

“You will have a lot of help. You will be sent out with an experienced crew the first few times. They will have some experience in space travel. They will all know their way around space very well. Even after that, only a few inexperienced men and women will be on each ship for training purposes. Our main thrust is to gain experience in trading. All cadets on your ship will be engaged in that training under one or two traders that have been trading on other worlds. They will take care of the training.”

“Sounds like I won’t have much to do at all,” Jayne commented, giving both of them a suspicious look. “Is there something you’re not telling me? This sounds too easy!”

“Actually,” Eric the Younger stepped in, “It will be easy. For you, anyway. For others it will be very difficult. You are very unique in that you have a natural ability to travel comfortably in Hyperlink. About 99.9 percent of the human race does not have that ability.”

“Eric is downplaying it a bit,” Eric the Elder broke in, placing a hand on his sons’ shoulder. “Much of the human race cannot travel at all in Hyperlink. It makes them deathly ill, and in many cases it is suicide for them to do so. Oh, it doesn’t kill them right away. The effect of repeated entry into Hyperlink is cumulative to many, much like the exposure to radiation. Eventually it will kill some. Eric is close to that limit. So, if you were expecting him to go along with you I’m afraid you will be disappointed. About all he can do is to go through the portals safely. Hyperlink is definitely out!”