Chapter 6
Cultural Divide
We arrived at Havint two days later. The planet was a mad house. In addition to the normal traffic to the system, there was the mass of diverted traffic from Pascal's World. Added to that, the news of the first contact with a seventh space faring race had made its way to Havint as well. It took a full day to receive landing clearance and even then, the Yirminthin was going to have to take off again after a day. I hoped the Captain was able to complete Its business by then.
Brusjin and I had just as much trouble finding a hotel to stay at. The prices were predatory and, unlike passage on starships, trading for sex wasn't an option (sexual availability on a planet was high). While we did have a fair amount of cash, we would have to move on relatively soon. Our money came from the interest from certain investments that Brusjin had made some time ago. Normally we could live off just the interest. The sexual trading we (I) did actually allowed the principle to grow on a good month. On Havint, we were going to have to dip into the principle. Neither of us was willing to leave before being reunited with Grankt.
Normally, with all the extra people here, and the strong interest in current events, searching the data nets for information on new applications for Federation membership would've been hell. Thankfully, Crystal's facility with accessing computers let us short circuit the delays everyone else was experiencing. In the last few weeks, there'd been four new applications for membership. Of those four, two had slavery as an institution. Brusjin's society wasn't an abolitionist society per se; it was more concerned about keeping planets from suffering colony status. Brusjin's and my interest in eradicating slavery had us focus on the two slave planets, as we thought of them.
Unfortunately, the two planets we were interested in were on opposite sides of the Federation (actually they were outside the borders, but in different directions from Havint). The first planet called itself Quisnet. They hadn't yet entered their industrial age and were still dependent on muscle power for their industries. Politically, the planet was a mess. There were numerous separate societies, many of which had no contact with each other; at least until contact was made with the Federation.
At one time, there was a motion put before the Federation Council to prohibit interference in the development of pre-space flight societies. It was soundly lobbied into defeat. The economic possibilities created by a technological divide are immense. There are times when it seems like the strength of the Federation economy is dependent on there being more primitive worlds to trade with. What that means is that a planet of very individualistic nations now has universal knowledge of all the nations on the planet
and
the ability for those nations to obtain advanced weaponry. Ironically, protectorate status is actually
easier
for these balkanized worlds. Without that coveted status, they would soon bomb themselves back to the Stone Age.
The second planet, Xylonia, was in far more danger. Xylons were an amphibious race; something quite rare in the universe. They were actually into their information age of development and had set up primitive (compared to ours) bases on their two moons. There'd be planets in the Federation with a strong motive to reduce Xylonia to colony status. Amphibians can settle more worlds than other species. Even when a planet's surface is hostile, the presence of water oceans makes the planet available for the amphibian. You see, as long as the atmosphere is breathable by oxygen breathers and the oceans are water, there's only so much that can be wrong with those oceans. Even better for the Xylons, they were adapted to ocean depths, making the entire ocean available for them.
More important for Brusjin and I was the nature of their slavery. The institution of slavery comes in many forms, from the relatively mild indentured servitude, which allowed the slaves eventual freedom; to class based total slavery, where one class of people are always slaves with no hope of freedom. Xylonia had such a slavery. And, like over half the planets with this extreme form of slavery, Xylonian women were slaves from birth until death. Bringing this planet into the Federation was a must.
Crystal and I started studying everything we could find on the planet and the race. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to study. Xylonia had only been discovered a year ago and very little study had been done on its culture and people. Most of their society lived in the oceans. They had, however, extensive settlements on the small land masses that made up 5 percent of the surface. This was where most of the industry took place. This is normal since the first industry for any race is fire (the primary reason that aquatic species almost never developed industrial societies).
The only oddity I encountered was that plural marriage seemed to be the norm on Xylonia. Actually, I use the term plural loosely, since there doesn't seem to be anything but tripartite unions; two males to one female slave. While plural marriages happen in most Federation planets, they aren't common and every two gendered species developed dual marriages as the norm. For this two gendered species to develop tripartite marriage as their norm begged for investigation. I wondered why such an anthological study hadn't been started yet.
Our decision made, we simply waited for Grankt's arrival. It turned out to take less time than we'd thought it would. Four days before what we expected to be his earliest arrival time, we received a vid-phone call.
"Brusjin, I've returned from my Lustrum Sojourn. Where shall I join you?"
"Grankt, it's a pleasure to see you. How did you get here so soon?"
"Word of the capitol's closure made it to home world, so I diverted to Havint."
"Great! We're at the Mylon Arms, room 2351."
"I know of it. Expect me in 35 minutes."
While I have a nearly infallible sense of the passage of time, Grankt has just as infallible sense of how long things will take, especially trips. At 35 minutes on the dot, he knocked on our door. Brusjin checked the security monitor and let him in.
If you haven't seen a Gravelian, they're an intimidating sight. Grankt was typical of his species. He stood about two and a half meters tall and weighed 200 kilos. I'm sure none of that mass was fat. Covering most of his tough saurian hide was Gravelian body armor. The ballistic cloth was embedded with a reflective mesh that made him nearly impervious to lasers. His mouth was full of razor sharp teeth (he never showed them, but I'd seen them on another Gravelian during sex). His hands have no claws, yet the muscles in his fingers could crush most species' bones.
His equipment was no less formidable. The traditional Scather was sheathed on his back. The meter and a half long blade was razor sharp and could, when wielded properly, cut through a ship's bulkhead. His Mark VII dual was at his hip, ready to spew forth laser beams or explosive shells, depending on which he thought he needed. I, however, was most impressed by the equipment he carried that wasn't readily visible. He had scanning contacts in his eyes that allowed him to see wavelengths other than light. He'd never be surprised by scanning fields, security nets, or spy beams. His left ear had an earpiece translator, as expensive a piece of hardware as could be had (Brusjin and I wore larger headset translators when we needed to). A tractor harness allowed him limited flight for short periods of time. All in all, he was equipped to keep us safe. I've missed having him around.
"Grankt, it's good to see you again. Everything went well, I hope?"
"Yes, sir. Any trouble while I've been away?"
Grankt would expect nothing but the truth, so Brusjin let him know what happened. "A member of the Hellfire group tried to kill Susan on Pascal's World. We had vital information that was time sensitive and the only way to stay in system long enough to deliver it was to have ourselves arrested. While in custody, an officer, or someone pretending to be one, tried to poison her."
"How did you survive, Susan?"
