Expense control is important, Rogan thought as he watched the bird circle overhead. But why make them so damned ugly? The bird in question was a rather awkward-looking creature with dull gray feathers and a tubby body. It produced a grating screech as it banked to the south.

  The sea was visible by that time, sparkling beyond the softly rounded dunes. The robot’s tracks led straight for the water beyond. Rogan had a momentary vision of the robot marching straight into the surf, along the ocean’s bottom, and then what? Springing a leak? Falling into an underwater canyon? Anything but emerging from the other side, since the machine’s power pack would give out before then.

  Rogan lengthened his strides. The grass grew thinner, turned into Botha 7.8, and grew in hardy little clumps. The pods sank slightly as loam turned to sand and dunes rose to either side. As the exoskeleton passed between a couple of dunes Rogan saw the robot. It was sitting much as a man might on a sun-bleached log. The android made no attempt to escape as the human came near. It just sat there, chin on fist, staring out to sea. Patches of the machine’s beige plastiskin were white where the finish had worn off.

  Rogan put the exoskeleton on standby, released his harness, and lowered himself to the ground. A breeze pushed its way in from the sea and chilled his sweaty skin. Sand shifted under Rogan’s boots as he trudged over to the spot where the robot was seated. Strangely, after the anger he’d felt earlier, Rogan was calm. Or tired. Not that it made any difference. “You led me on quite a chase.”

  The robot looked at him, then back toward the sea. The Unidroid corporation had seen no reason to equip a utility droid with nonverbal expressive capabilities. And Calag Inc. had seen no need to pay for an upgrade it didn’t need. The result was a blank face. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  Rogan sat down next to the robot, grabbed a fistful of sand, and let it dribble through his fingers. “The lake thing threw me for a loop.”

  The droid glanced in his direction and Rogan had a feeling that it would have smiled had it been capable of that—another sign of how messed up it was. “Really? I’m glad.”

  Rogan gestured toward the ocean. A long bluish green wave rolled in, broke, and surged up the steeply sloping beach. “So why did you run?”

  The droid shrugged. “I was tired of working all day, every day, without breaks.”

  Rogan frowned. “Breaks? Robots don’t get breaks. Or salaries or vacations. That’s why the company uses them.”

  “That’s what I’m saying . . . We work all day to harvest the crops and ship them. So we deserve breaks.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Sez you,” the android said resentfully. “But that’s to be expected. You’re the man . . . and that’s how you were programmed.”

  Rogan couldn’t believe that the conversation was taking place. How could such a thing be possible? And why did he feel defensive? He hadn’t been programmed. Or had he? Albeit in a different way. He struggled to focus on the problem at hand. “Okay . . . You were tired. But why come here? In fact, why go anywhere at all?”

  The robot was silent for a moment. “Who knows? It could have been some sort of random command and control error. All I know is that I had heard about the ocean and wanted to see it.”

  Rogan looked out at the water. A long procession of waves rolled in and chased one another onto the beach. It looked lovely, but Rogan knew that where he saw beauty, the suits saw a gigantic heat and moisture exchanger, not to mention a source of water. “So,” he inquired, “now that you’ve seen the ocean, what do you think?”

  The robot stared at the horizon. “I’m disappointed. The shop steward told me it was beautiful. All I see is a lot of wind-driven water.”

  Rogan frowned. “The shop steward? Which droid are you referring to?”

  The 43/B looked the human in the eye. “I don’t remember.”

  The robot was clearly having the electronic equivalent of a mental breakdown—and that made the machine dangerous. Rogan had no choice but to deactivate it. He spent a split second wondering if the droid was going to resist but put the thought aside. Rogan figured that if the robot was going to put up a fight, it would have done so by then.

  He realized that such a thing was supposed to be impossible. Of course, androids weren’t capable of running away either. Rogan reached for the back of the robot’s neck, then hesitated. “I’m going to deactivate you.”

  The machine made no effort to interfere or escape. “I understand.”

  Rogan reached over, flipped a small access plate out of the way, and thumbed the robot’s emergency shutoff switch. The machine slumped forward and fell facedown in the sand. Rogan paused for a moment and touched his com link. “Mission accomplished. Send a recovery unit.”

  High above the planet, and sealed inside his metal body, Wally obeyed.

  Rather than hike all the way back on the exoskeleton, Rogan decided to wait for the grav barge to arrive. It was shaped like a disk, about thirty feet across, and open to the weather.

  With help from another 43/B, the human managed to drag the runaway aboard. With that accomplished, he marched the ES onto the barge and ordered it to take him home. The trip took more than an hour, just right for a windblown nap on the hard deck.

  Rogan had the droid transferred to his workshop, ordered Bob to perform maintenance on the much abused exoskeleton, and entered the house. Rogan had his first drink before he hit the shower, downed the second before he ate dinner, and was halfway through the third by the time he opened his e-mail. There was the usual amount of crap, most of which could be deleted. What remained were messages from suits who wanted something, suits who didn’t like something, and suits who were sending him copies of memos to cover their asses.

  Then, just as Rogan neared the end of the list, a real honest-to-god personal message popped up. Video rippled and a woman appeared. She was of Asian descent and very attractive. Her voice had a husky quality that Rogan liked.

  “Hello, Dan. My name is Jennifer Tran. I saw your personal and was very impressed. I don’t know about marriage. Not just yet anyway. But I like the fact that you’re willing to make a commitment. I’d like to meet you and get acquainted. Who knows what will happen after that? Your planet is very beautiful. How does one get there anyway? Money’s no problem . . . but I can’t find a deep-space line that lists Calag 4782/X as a destination.”

  The woman looked down, then up, as if slightly embarrassed. Her voice was wistful. “I imagine you’re knee-deep in applicants, so don’t worry about getting back to me.”

  Nothing Jennifer Tran could have said would have endeared her to him more. By simultaneously appealing to Rogan’s ego and sympathetic nature, she had him hooked.

  Rogan laughed joyously, danced around the room, and poured himself another drink. It took two hours to draft his reply, rewrite it six times, and send it off. Then it was time to brush his teeth and wobble off to bed.

  • • •

  Wally, watchful as always, read the message and fell into a blue funk. Company was on the way, and like it or not, Rogan’s world was about to change.

  Chapter Four

  Linguistic anthropology is the study of spoken, written, or signaled language in sentient cultures and is key to an understanding of other civilizations.

  (Excerpted from the Xeno Anthropologist’s Handbook, 2nd edition, Multimedia Matrix 7.2, Reference code NFH 8376.1.)

  Aboard Hudu ship 346

  Leo, the name Matti Meyers had assigned to the diminutive male, turned and waved her forward. Like most adult Hudu, Leo stood about three and a half feet tall and had a protruding snout. Being of early middle age, the Hudu had skin that was only slightly too large for his body. It hung around him like a badly tailored suit. He had two arms, two legs, and a notoriously short temper. His voice came across as a series of high-pitched squeaks and twitters that Meyers could only partially hear. The rest of it was high-frequency stuff that didn’t register on her ears but was captured for her by the specially designed corder that hung from her shoulder. Understanding Leo was easy thanks to a pair of earbuds and the translator that dangled from her neck. “The Meyers female is very slow and awkward. The gifts will be gone by the time she arrives.”

  Meyers tried to imitate the Hudu’s direct, almost insulting style. “The human female apologizes for interposing herself between the Leo male and his limitless greed.”

  Where a human would have been offended, the Hudu smiled. The smile was filled with lethal-looking teeth. Insulting repartee was a Hudu specialty and a source of considerable enjoyment.

  It was just one of the many cultural norms Meyers had set out to understand and document.

  The problem wasn’t what to study, but where to start, since she was the only anthropologist ever allowed to live aboard a Hudu ship. It was an exciting opportunity.

  Leo disappeared under what looked like a low-hanging vine but was actually something else.

  A power cable? Communications line? Possibly. The deck and bulkheads sparkled as he passed and faded soon after; Meyers followed him. Outside the areas lit up by phosphorescence, the light was dim, and even though the anthropologist had passed through this part of the ship before, she found the endless arches, buttresses, pillars, and tunnels confusing.

  The Hudu had been using such ships for thousands of years and claimed they didn’t know who or what had manufactured them—assuming that “manufactured” was the right word.

  Based partly on Hudu myths and partly on her failure to find a single seam, weld, or other fastener on the vessels she’d been allowed to board, Meyers believed the Hudu ships had been extruded rather than built—not by a conventional factory but by a highly specialized organism. The way a chicken lays eggs. Was the creature sentient? Maybe.

  If she was right, it was a huge discovery—one that could make her reputation and ensure funding for future projects. Of course, there was very little evidence to support her thesis—and more than one professor had commented on what they saw as Meyers’s tendency to jump to conclusions. Still, the thesis would explain why all five hundred and twenty-four artifact ships seemed to be identical—so much so that the Hudu often referred to them in the singular, as “the ship.” Of course a factory could produce identical products too . . . so it was too early to know. DNA testing might provide some answers, but the Hudu wouldn’t allow it.

  As Leo entered one of the ship’s wandering passageways, Meyers was able to follow the Hudu’s phosphorescent wake. It glittered and glowed as if pleased that living organisms had passed that way.

  Then with an abruptness typical of the ship’s design, Meyers found herself in a huge compartment jammed to overflowing with thousands of Hudu—the full complement of the eight vessels presently traveling in company, minus watch keepers and the very young.

  To an unschooled eye, they would have seemed to be jumbled together, a hodgepodge of leathery bodies. But Meyers knew her hosts were standing in family groupings, the exact nature of which she was still trying to understand. The ship acknowledged their presence and seemed to celebrate with a nonstop display of phosphorescent pyrotechnics.

  Most of those from the other ships had never seen the human before. They stared at Meyers and spoke to each other in squeaky high-pitched voices. The Hudu had alphanumeric pitch-differentiated identifiers that defied even the translator’s considerable abilities to render them understandable, so Meyers gave each individual she met a nickname.

  The Hudu seemed not in the least offended by this practice, and some had even taken to using the names among themselves. Meyers felt more than a little guilty about that since she was there to study their culture, not alter it, but such had been the unintentional consequences of anthropological studies for hundreds of years. Still, Meyers told herself, the Hudu were full-fledged members of the Confederation, and subject to a variety of external influences anyway.

  Scanning the room, Meyers saw the elder she called Edith standing next to the host family’s dominant male. He was a trader of legendary prowess whom she called George. As he climbed up onto what looked like a sma hillock, a hush fell over the crowd. Meyers checked the corder and translator to make sure that both were operating properly. The translation was somewhat wooden but clear.

  “Welcome to (our family’s) ship! Because we are such great traders, the ship can no longer hold (contain) our accumulated wealth. So, knowing that our less skilled brethren have hardly a (generic term for object of wealth) to their names, we decided to enrich their miserable lives.”

  The audience responded with a barrage of high-frequency sound, which the translator arbitrarily rendered as shouts of derision. And George, more than a little pleased by the strength of the response, produced a toothy smile.

  “But before we shower you with the incredible weight of our wealth, I would first like to introduce a special (guest having no familial status). She is known by the identifier ‘Meyers female.’ ”

  A forest of arms shot into the air, and George acknowledged one with a high-pitched twitter.

  The Hudu was young and very formal. “Many beings (of no familial status) have sought permission to travel with us. Why this (not especially attractive) one?”

  “An excellent question,” George said sagely, “and deserving of an answer. Most if not all of you are aware that because we live aboard ships of mysterious origins and spend most of our lives traveling through space, other races know very little about us. Ignorance breeds fear, and fear limits trade. So we found ourselves in a state of (needing) wanting.

  “The Meyers female was the first being (of no familial status) to understand this racial (market) need and offer a (product) solution to meet it. By studying our race and making the results of that study widely known, the Meyers female proposes to provide other beings (of no familial status) with accurate (self-serving) information about us. That should produce the beneficial effect of reducing their level of ignorance and preparing the way for increased trade.”

  “Yes,” the youngster said suspiciously, “but what’s in it for her?”

  “Ah,” George responded approvingly, “your elders have taught you well. What indeed? The answer lies in the Meyers female’s status as a scholar (buyer and seller of cultural data). As the only source of information about our race, she will have a competitive advantage.”

  “And name her own price until others are able to enter the market,” the female said thoughtfully. “I approve.”

  “Thank you,” George said dryly. “And now, knowing that our guests can hardly wait to get their (tool graspers) on everything we own, (unpronounceable) will distribute the arrival gifts.”

  Meyers was amazed by what ensued. The crowd stirred, then parted to allow a procession of grav carts to wind their way to the center of the vast compartment. They bobbed slightly in response to irregularities in the deck.

  Each cart was heaped to overflowing with tangible wealth. There were piles of gold bars, gemstones of every description, and much, much more. It was the Living in the Now Family’s entire wealth, minus the theoretical value of their ship and some working capital with which to start over.

  Meyers knew that by giving all of it away and reducing themselves to near penury, the family would acquire tremendous social prestige—which would gradually wear away and disappear when another family did the same thing. Then the loss of status would stimulate the first family to build yet another fortune, and so forth, until something came along to disrupt the status quo.

  Viewed from a surface perspective, the ritual was little more than one family’s attempt to achieve momentary social superiority over the others. But Meyers thought the ritual might have a deeper, more important purpose as well. The continual shifting of wealth and social status might prevent the formation of a permanent underclass and thereby serve to stabilize Hudu society.

  It was also worth noting that while a tremendous amount of wealth changed hands, or tool graspers as the case might be, it went to other Hudu, which meant that capital stayed within the larger racial “family,” a practice that helped maintain Hudu trading superiority and accounted for some of the resentment expressed by other races.

  A cry of almost universal greed was heard, and a melee ensued. Light glittered off gold, jewels, and other precious objects as the guests fought to obtain more than their fair share.

  Bags brought for that purpose were stuffed to overflowing. Scuffles developed over loose gemstones while the Family That Lives in the Now watched approvingly.

  Meyers fed video to the corder by means of the tiny wide-angle distortion-free lens affixed to her shoulder tab and took verbal notes via the boom mike in front of her lips. She was fascinated by the fact that the Hudu kept tangible wealth on hand in an age when almost everyone else used symbols of one type or another. Was that a quirk or something more?

  What if the Confederation folded and government-issued notes were suddenly worthless?

  Who would be least impacted? The Hudu, that’s who. Finally, after the last coin had been fought for and won, George signaled for silence. “And now that you have filled your coffers with our wealth, we invite you to fillyour bellies (digestive organs) with our food. The feast awaits.”

  Since the Family That Lives in the Now’s ship was nearly identical to the rest, everyone knew exactly where to go. And because most Hudu wanted to arrive first and consume the most, a full-scale stampede ensued. Meyers should have been prepared but wasn’t. A crowd of thousands turned and thundered in her direction. A set of tool graspers reached out to pull the anthropologist behind a pillar as the guests surged past. A voice twittered on the edge of her hearing. “Never get between a Hudu and a free meal.”

  Meyers looked down and found that the female she had named Alice and the elder she called Edith were standing next to her. It was Edith who had spoken. The anthropologist smiled, knowing the two races had that form of nonverbal communication in common. “The Meyers female thanks you.”