Profiteer

There were the Dolbrians, who had died out over a hundred million years ago, leaving very few traces.

 

There was the Race, who had fought humanity and had been nearly exterminated in the Genocide War. The Race now never ventured off their world orbiting Procyon, where old United Nations battle stations still blasted anything that achieved orbit.

 

There were the Paralians, an aquatic civilization with little technological base, but who were so advanced in mathematics and theoretical physics that they had known the structure of tach-space centuries before humans launched a wormhole at Vega.

 

There were the worms of Helminth, with whom Confederacy scientists were still, as far as Zanzibar knew, trying to communicate.

 

Then there were Flower’s people, the Volerans.

 

Volera was discovered during the Indi Protectorate’s massive colonial expansion. Sixty-two years ago, one of the hundreds of Indi scouts had come across a highly attractive planet circling Tau Puppis, a star not only on the fringes of the Indi Protectorate, but on the fringes of the Confederacy.

 

It was found to be inhabited by a small population of highly technological avian creatures while it was still called Tau Puppis IV. Sometime after the planet was named Volera, it was realized that this planet was actually a remote outpost of another interstellar civilization.

 

Ever since, diplomats from the five arms of the Confederacy and the Voleran “Empire” had been engaged in a delicate dance on the fringes of both civilizations, trying to prevent any potentially disastrous contacts. That diplomatic dance was going on on the other side of the Indi Protectorate from Bakunin, almost ninety light-years away.

 

And, here, sitting behind a green metal desk was a Voleran named Flower who was purporting to be an expert on Paralian ship design.

 

Zanzibar slowly sat down, trying not to stare.

 

Levy closed the door. It looked like a simple swinging wood door, but Zanzibar heard a telltale static hiss when it closed—either more antisurveillance or some physical protection. Zanzibar assumed both. She could see almost instantly that all the clutter in Levy’s office was carefully staged and ordered. The rumpled little man was probably never out of arm’s reach of a weapon while he was in the store.

 

The little ones were always the most dangerous.

 

“Your name is Mariah Zanzibar, is it not?” he asked.

 

“And you’re Mr. Johann Levy.”

 

He nodded. “I’ve found you an expert on Paralian ship design who might be willing to work on this escapade.”

 

Zanzibar nodded and took the opportunity to look at the Voleran. It looked like a cross between a snake, a bird, and some sort of bush. Wings rose from a set of broad shoulders and were at the moment, draped about it like a cape. Its torso was long, broad, and tapered down to become—Zanzibar could only suppose as the desk was in the way—a tail.

 

The feathers—if that’s what you called them—were red, brown, and yellow, lighter on the underside and darker on top. They were flat and veined like leaves.

 

The neck was extremely long. Fully extended it would be a third of its height. The neck was bare of feathers—or was it foliage?—revealing leathery-looking brown skin.

 

Equally bare were its limbs. Each seemed double-jointed and had an extra knee/elbow. They all ended with three opposable digits. Two arms rested on the table in front of it, fingers locked in a disturbingly human gesture.

 

In a very inhuman gesture, it had one leg—built exactly like one of its arms, only longer and more muscular—bent up, backward, to support its head in a cupped three-toe foot.

 

Its head looked to be off some sort of dinosaur. A long bony beak emerged from a domed skull dominated by huge jaw muscles. It all sloped seamlessly back into a neck arched like a question mark. Zanzibar looked for a face in among the mottled yellow and black markings on the head, but couldn’t find one. Except for the mouth, its head was as featureless as a bullet.

 

“Hello,” Zanzibar said. “As Mr. Levy mentioned, I’m Sergeant Zanzibar.” She hoped she was looking at the right place when she talked. She considered offering her hand, and decided not to. “You are?”

 

“My name has translated himself as Flower.” It conducted an elaborate gesture with its hands that Zanzibar supposed was a greeting. “I am pleased to discover your need.”

 

Its voice was extremely odd: high-pitched, nasal, and very deliberately phrased. It was like listening to someone perpetually on the verge of a sneeze. “It has been long since I have heard someone who requires my expertise.”