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By Root 1771 0

law.’ Isn’t that Robert’s Golden Rule, exactly? What Kant called it was his ‘categorical imperative.’ By that he meant that it was what every human being—and, I guess, every space alien, too, if Kant had ever let himself imagine such things—should establish as his basic rule of behavior, with no exceptions.” He tousled Robert’s hair affectionately. “Now, Robert,” he said, “all you have to do is get your father to prove that particular theorem and the world will become a better place.” He glanced across the room to where Ranjit had placed himself before the screen that displayed the One Point Fives’ multitudinous activities. “Care to try it, Ranjit?” he called.

When Ranjit looked up at last, the expression on his face was seraphic, but he wasn’t looking at Nigel De Saram. “Gamini,” he said, “do you remember when, years and years ago, you and I were discussing something from a lecture I’d wandered into? About an idea the Israelis had—they called it a hydro-solar project—for generating power at the Dead Sea?”

Gamini took no more than half a second to search his ancient memories. “No,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

“I finally figured out why the One Point Fives might be digging that tunnel!” Ranjit said triumphantly. “Perhaps they’re building a power plant! All right, the Americans won’t let the aliens give the Egyptians all that money, but the Americans can’t object to the aliens’ sharing some of the electrical power the Egyptians really need!”

46

DEAL-MAKING

Since important decisions were to be made, some eighteen or twenty of the visitors from space were crowded together—Nine-Limbeds and One Point Fives alike, even including a couple of the Machine-Stored who were the armada’s pilots. The place they were in had once been the equivalent of an admiral’s bridge for the One Point Fives’ invading armada. Now it was the approximate equivalent of a Kremlin or an Oval Office. The crowding was distasteful to the One Point Fives, since most of them were wearing only the minimal protective garb and thus were more exposed than ever before to the sounds, sights, and smells of all these others.

Of all the One Point Fives, the one least happy with all those unwanted sensory inputs was the one charged with keeping them out of trouble. Her official title was “Identifier of Undesirable Outcomes,” but she was usually called just “Worrier.” Actually, what Worrier disliked most of all was being compelled to sit through a lecture on antique human technology as delivered by the chief arbitrator of the Nine-Limbeds. When you came right down to it, Worrier didn’t really care for Nine-Limbeds in any relationship, especially one that might involve touching their nasty little ninth limbs. But sometimes she had no choice.

The bit of human gadget-building they were now being taught was quite important to the humans. Actually, it was not uningenious, Worrier admitted to herself. Water would come from the sea, drop to the floor of Qattara, and there turn turbines to generate electricity. “And this electricity,” Worrier said to the speaker for the Nine-Limbeds, “is what these creatures want?”

The Nine-Limbed said, “It is what you promised them. I have a copy of the agreement if you wish to see it.”

The creature was actually holding out a data rod in its manipulating limb. Worrier shuddered and moved a bit away. Since she did not want these negotiations to fail, she offered a more constructive comment: “When you first proposed this,” she said, “I thought you were considering teaching them the harvesting of vacuum energy as we do it. I am glad we aren’t doing that. When the Grand Galactics come back, it might anger them.”

The Nine-Limbed did not respond. Worrier pressed. “And this matter of what they call the categorical imperative?”

The Nine-Limbed covered a yawn. “It is how these creatures wish to run their planet. They want us to do the same. And actually”—it leveled its ninth limb at one of the Machine-Stored pilots, who was following the conversation with his own Nine-Limbed translator—“some technology transfer has already begun.