The Merchant's War by Frederik Pohl Read Free Book Online Page A

to say, though—and for now, you’re going to sleep.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t even an order. It was a fact, because they’d slipped me a shot when I wasn’t looking, and it was bye-bye time.
    When I woke up I had barely time to dress and get down to the farewell party in my honor.
    Now, really, that’s kind of a joke. The Veenies don’t have many public holidays, but the ones they have they celebrate with a lot of enthusiasm. That’s embarrassing for us dips. We need to be part of the festivities, because that’s what diplomacy is all about, but we certainly can’t admit to celebrating most of their holidays—they have names like “Freedom from Advertising Day” and “Anti-Christmas.” Still, we have to do something, so for every holiday we cook up an excuse to hold a party —for a totally different reason, of course—at that time. There’s always some excuse. Sometimes the excuses are arranged before the dip gets assigned here. There’s old Jim Holder, for instance, from Codes & Ciphers; they say he was sent here because he happened to be born on the same date as the renegade Mitchell Courtenay.
    So tonight’s party was—nominally—a send-off for me. All the people I ran into congratulated me on shaking this place loose at last—and, a couple of steps down on the priority list, oh, yes, your lucky escape from the tram, too, Tenny. That is, the Earth people did that; the Veenies were as always a whole other thing.
    Let’s be fair to the Veenies. They don’t like these ceremonial parties any more than we do, I guess. If they’re high enough on the totem pole they get invited. If they get invited they come. Nobody says they have to enjoy themselves. They’re polite about it—reasonably polite—if they’re female they dance two dances with two separate male Earth dips. I think they like that part, at least, because they’re almost always taller than their partners. The conversation is almost always about the same—
    “Hot today.”
    “Was it? I didn’t notice.”
    “The new Hilsch plant’s coming along nicely.”
    “Thank you.”
    —then the second obligatory dance with a different partner and then, if you happen to look around for them—though why you would do that I can’t guess—they’re gone. The male Veenies do about the same, except that it’s two drinks at the bar instead of two dances, and the conversation isn’t about the weather, it’s about Port Kathy’s chances against North Star in the rolley-hockey league. It’s just as bad when we have to go to one of their formal parties. We don’t linger, either. Mitzi says that her spies tell her the Veenies’ parties usually get to be real hell-roaring balls after we leave, but none of us are ever urged to stay. Dips’ parties are meant to be diplomatic: nothing heavy discussed, and certainly not much fun.
    But sometimes it doesn’t go like that. My first duty dance was with a slim young thing from the Veenie Department of Extraplanetary Affairs—fishbelly skin, of course, but it went well enough with her almost platinum hair. If I hadn’t been so sore about Mitzi I might have enjoyed dancing with her, but she would have spoiled it anyway. “Mr. Tarb,” she said right off, “do you think it’s fair to make the Hyperion miners listen to your advertising slop?”
    Well, she was very junior. Her bosses wouldn’t have said anything like that. The trouble was, it was my bosses who were nearby, and the conversation got worse: Why were armed Earth spacecraft orbiting Venus every now and then without explaining their errands? And why had we refused permission for the Veenies to send a “scientific” mission to Mars? And—and everything else was pretty much the same. I made all the right defensive replies, but she’d been speaking pretty loudly and people were looking at us. Hay Lopez was one of them; he was standing with the Chief of Station, and they exchanged glances in a way I didn’t much like. When the