Chapter 5: The Art Of The Deal

It was a matter of faith that AIs couldn’t or wouldn’t lie – at least Darjee AIs had told humans this fact. On the other hand, the Darjee are traders, and the Darjee AIs are their principal negotiators. The fine art of negotiating trade deals includes selective presentation of wants, needs, and resources. For the Darjee AIs, altruism was non-existent, and even the preservation of other Confederacy members was not even close to the top of the list of their negotiating objectives. Older members of the Confederacy, with centuries of dealing with the Darjee, understood this very well; humans were at a decided disadvantage.

During the early contact stages, Earth politicians were so intent on obtaining a monopoly for themselves that they failed to observe the Darjee maneuvering for their own de facto monopoly. The Darjee asserted that Confederacy member species were all cowards – couldn’t fight, couldn’t kill, couldn’t defend themselves. For a large number of species, all the statements were utterly true. For some, that first assertion wasn’t strictly valid; though the other assertions were accurate.

Take for example the Tuull who were traders, but also artists and poets and explorers. That latter trait was not an attribute of cowards. They were unable to fight or kill or defend themselves from the Sa’arm incursion, but their exploratory leaps into the unknown required courage and skill.

As they toured the planet, Inkie learned a huge renaissance was underway throughout the Tuullat culture, triggered by the utterly new art form brought to them by their new citizen, S’Rndult T’Blssut – in English ‘Principal Master of the Arts, Harmony’. From her first visit and the updated databases brought by her accompanying companions, the Tuull discovered the human concepts of ‘cultural exchange’ and ‘USO tour.’ This was fueled by the early progress in establishing the orbital music conservatory. So there were many non-cowards anxiously waiting for Inkie’s return and clamoring to organize and use these new ways to present their own art to the humans.

They even had an idea, prompted by the Musical, Hamilton and the presence of its originator, Lin Manuel Miranda.

The Tuull Planetary Council was unsure of how to address this upswell of interest and desire. They dithered and debated while interested parties went about acquiring a ship, Tuullat 57920, that they named S’Rndult T’Blssut to honor Inkie.

Appreciative of the trust and awe displayed by these artists, Inkie promised to return to Tuullat and help organize the desired cultural exchange tour.

As Caleb and his entourage toured, the general Tuull population became ever more aware of, and assimilated the concept of, ‘pet.’ The demand for kittens reached a crescendo. The fad was fueled by complete inability to meet the demand.

Later, when the future cultural exchange tour – The Harmony Tour – returned, the Tuull artists brought back more kittens, and Tuullat was inflamed with further desire.

Soon, like unwary human parents who buy chicks for their kids’ Easter baskets, they had untended kittens everywhere. Think The Trouble With Tribbles or Heinlein’s flat cats. Neither story was yet on the Tuull radar, or whatever they were then using, at least not in that context.

That might have turned out okay, because the Tuull really loved kittens. Then! In a matter of a few short months, most Tuull discovered that they really, really did not like cats!

Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they get little to no nutritional benefit from anything but animal protein. That, too, might have been okay, replicated meat being both nutritional and morally okay to all. But a significant proportion of cats had a biological imperative to hunt. That, too, might have been okay – after all, the Tuull still had free roaming pests – but ‘presents’ at the entrance to a home or on one’s sleeping platform, that wasn’t kittenish and cute.

The Tuull also failed to understand that the cats owned them, not the other way around. Correction of the cats’ aforementioned premise was misguided, ineffective, and sometimes resulted in retaliatory measures.

Added to the resulting confusion, the Tuull had discovered the sitcom ALF. Maybe because it was about an alien visiting Earthat, a few of the duller Tuull viewing a DVD of the old television show, mistakenly thought ALF was serious with his oft repeated appetite for cats. That did not turn out well...

The Tuull are traders, so they recognize that in a trade there must be the seller and the buyer. Sometimes that might involve more than two parties, but now they just needed to find a species that wanted to buy cats. Or just maybe, that could be tricked into buying cats.

The Tuull had just such a race in mind – the P’Ukerrchp by name.

As it happened, the Tuull had a grudge, a long-standing need for payback.

So long ago that no Tuull from that era was still alive, the P’Ukerrchp got one over, and the Tuull bought into a trade that proved to be so one-sided as to be worse than worthless for several generations. The Tuull were still biding their time – and it just might be nigh.

The P’Ukerrchp were very sharp traders, but they were also compulsive gamblers. Their AIs were masters at calculating odds – calculations that made a Darjee AI look like an abacus – and as we know, the Darjee AIs were known as barely adequate adding machines. Okay, Babbage Machines, but still...

A typical P’Ukerrchp bore a strong physical resemblance to an orange and green striped Earthat sloth, with manipulative digits instead of claws. They didn’t move as slowly, quite, but they thought pretty fast. Like the Tuull, they had an appreciation for the arts, but likely because they were asexual, they were not very creative. Instead, they imported entertainment from the Tuull and other Confederacy species.

The deal in question had involved the acquisition of Tuull artistry without, the Tuull felt, adequate compensation for, nor protection of, artists’ originality and effort. As noted, it rankled.

Trade between the Tuull and P’Ukerrchp was not high volume and consisted primarily of intellectual property rather than physical goods. Some items were worth the effort required to ship, but in most cases, the goods could be manufactured, replicated, or synthesized from templates traded between planetary systems. Be that as it was, the P’Ukerrchp trade vessel, Sulf’ubuze, entered the Tuullat System one year after the return of the Harmony Tour.

Once in a while serendipity strikes. When a Tuull trader casually mentioned that ‘cats’ were new to Tuullat and therefore not among the current offerings, the trap was baited. The P’Ukerrchp were enamored with the cats, and the cats reciprocated. Warm body heat and a body odor similar to catnip made the P’Ukerrchp irresistible to felines.

A deal was struck, and the entire stock of P’Ukerrchp’s trade goods was expended for one thousand tomcats. No females. It turned out that the slow moving P’Ukerrchp really liked the fact that cats were hunters. The presentations sometimes left a little to be desired, but that was okay. Some months later, when the toms had not budded, split, or otherwise reproduced, the P’Ukerrchp realized that they had been snookered. Domestic demand being what it was, Sulf’ubuze returned to the Tuullat System with figurative hat in hand, and the Tuull, pride assuaged, now struck a deal seemingly favorable to both parties.

By then, the Tuull had determined that they could prolong kittenhood to about eighteen months. Then fertility set in. The Tuull agreed to provide the P’Ukerrchp, on a take-or-pay basis, all their adult cats of both genders and all the females would be pregnant. In return, the P’Ukerrchp would pay with the desired, weaned kittens.

Both parties were very happy with the deal, until the P’Ukerrchp found that a take-or-pay contract could be a real bitch. Then, realizing that they were paying in kittens, they were happy to pay...

At some future date, both markets would be saturated. Vengeance should have no part in trade.

Upon first arrival, the colony’s cube ship had placed a factory replicator and support drones in orbit around the Rukbat System’s innermost gas giant and another replicator with drones in one of the three asteroid belts. The replicators were to duplicate themselves and manufacture drones until further orders and templates were received. Then the gas giant would become a refueling station, and the asteroids major manufacturing facilities.