Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [39]
For a second time the three Pitar conferred, giving Saluafata and his cohorts the opportunity to gaze long and lingeringly at their fetching alien counterparts.
“I am not sure we understand,” the female finally declared. “We want nothing from you.”
“Nothing?” HoOdam blurted. “No compensation at all?” So stupefied was she by the response that bordered on the ingenuous that she did not even notice Saluafata’s disapproving glower.
“How can we claim compensation?” The female concluded with one of the few, restrained Pitarian body gestures. Saluafata recognized it and enjoyed it. “Treetrunk is not ours to give. It is an empty world. We wish only to see you, our friends and close relations, settle and enjoy and populate it. The coincidence of stellar proximity grants us no special claim to it.”
Saluafata took the risk of pointing out something now in the hopes of avoiding disagreement or confusion later. Everything said at the conference was being recorded. Neither he nor the council wanted the Pitar or anyone else coming back years later insisting that a certain right had not been granted, that specific permissions had not been obtained.
“By galactic standards the Argus system lies much nearer the Twin Worlds than it does to Earth or any of its colonies. Members of the scientific team that you encountered there were told that your people had visited Treetrunk previously. To our way of thinking, that does give you the right of prior claim. Yet you wish to waive this privilege without recompense?”
“Quite,” the male on the right stated. “We have no use for the place. We are certain your people will find much success there, will multiply and fill the narrow ecological niche that is suited to mammals. We encourage you in this.”
“After all,” the other male added with an inviting smile, “why waste it? You want the place; we do not. Take it and welcome, and in friendship.”
“We will of course make periodic visits to monitor your progress.” The female’s smile, aimed exclusively at Saluafata, melted any lingering concerns. “It should be interesting to observe how your people spread themselves across a new world, since it is something we do not do and have never done ourselves.”
The minister found himself beaming back. “Naturally your people will always be welcome on the world you have so generously yielded to us, as well as here on Earth.”
“Then if there is nothing more to discuss…” The Pitarian representative left the implication dangling.
“Your people are fond of markings on documents,” one of the two males pointed out.
Saluafata would rather have spent the next hour staring into the amethyst windows that were the female’s eyes, but while he might be feeling like a love-struck schoolboy, he was not one. With regret, he broke the hypnotic connection and sat back in his seat. The buttressed chair groaned as he shifted his weight.
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s a tradition even a contemporary government adheres to. If you do not object, that is,” he added hastily, wondering what he would do if they did.
“We do not,” the female replied, to the minister’s relief. “We only find it a curious but harmless anachronism.” Again the supple smile that could melt lead. “We will be happy to put the written equivalent of our names to any material of your choosing.”
The official signing of the settlement agreement took place in the rooftop assembly chamber, a dome of iridescent, polarized glass that provided a much more dramatic backdrop to the ceremonies than the tiny conference room in which the unexpectedly meteoric negotiations had taken place two weeks previously. Given the presence of not one but several of the glamorous Pitar there was no shortage of media coverage and attention.
Though outranked by several more prominent