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supposedly not for sale."
"Better to bribe than kill," Loo-Macklin replied. "I've done both when
necessary."
"As have I," the Nuel told him unthreateningly. "I too prefer to purchase
rather than take through violent action. Though there are among my kind many
who feel otherwise.
"However, I have been able to persuade sufficient of the Heads of the
Families (from his studies, Loo-Macklin knew that in Nuel society, a "Family"
might consist of several hundred thousand individuals, a Great Family of
millions) to allow me to make this contact with you. We occasionally find the
rare human with whom we can work."
"Work how?" Loo-Macklin leaned forward, interested.
"I have what amounts to a business proposition for you, Kee-yes vain
Lewmaklin. Would such coming from me interest you?"
"I am always interested in good business," was the calm reply.
"Even if it entails dealing with filthy, slimy Nuels?"
"Filth and slime are often personal, not physical characteristics,"
said the industrialist. "I know many humans who could be so described. Go
ahead, make your proposition. My acceptance or rejection will be based solely
on its merits, not on its source."
"Equitable is this creature," growled Naras Sharaf.
"Always equitable where business is involved."
"Even with a Nuel."
"Your credit line intrigues me, not your shape, Naras Sharaf. I do business
with Orischians, Athabascans, half a dozen other nonhuman sentient races. Why
not the Nuel?"
Naras Sharaf blinked, quite a production considering the size of his eyes.
Loo-Macklin had no idea what the gesture signified; if it was full of meaning
or merely a reflex. The Nuel did not blink often, so he suspected the former.
Double lids closed like doors over those vast orbs, slid slowly open again.
"And not the Orischians, the Athabascans, or any of your other half dozen will
have anything to do with us," commented Naras Sharaf, "as they find our shape
and appearance as abhorrent as do your own kind."
"Such prejudices are common misfortunes. I fear intelligence and common sense
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are not the same thing," replied Loo-Macklin. "I've told you that I'm not
subject to such primitive emotions."
"Told I was you were a most extraordinary human. The reports did not lie."
"I'm not extraordinary at all." Loo-Macklin shifted in his chair. "I'm just a
good businessman, always on the alert for a way to enlarge my holdings."
"Would access to a virtually unlimited supply of iridium enhance your
holdings?" asked Naras Sharaf.
Loo-Macklin offered no outward show of emotion. Inside, he was churning. A
rare and expensive member of the platinum family of metals, iridium was an
important component in the compact, efficient fuel cells which ran half the
independent motors in the UTW, everything from household appliances to free
transports like the one which had brought him here.
Access to a substantial quantity of iridium would give him control of a vital
industry, which he'd heretofore been able to penetrate only weakly. It would
also give him an inside line on every company that manufactured products
requiring the metal ... though he wondered how exaggerated was Naras Sharaf's
claim to have access to a virtually unlimited supply.
"I can see that it would," said the alien, without waiting for a verbal
response. The Nuel possessed an impressive panoply of expressions, so it came
as no surprise to Loo-Macklin that they might have studied those used by other
races.
"We can promise you that, at a price absurdly low by UTW standards, and more.
Much more."
Loo-Macklin's attention was distracted by the three caterpillarlike creatures
crawling across the bulging front of the alien's body. Each was extruding a
continuous silken thread. One was crimson, another yellow, and the third a
bright orange.
As they moved in tandem across the lumpish form, they wove the Nuel a new
gown, simultaneously devouring the old material that lay in their paths.
The effect was like those perpetually changing advertising signs, which
dominated commercial streets inside the tubes.
He'd heard about such well-trained creatures. They could weave four or five
new sets of clothing a day, converting old material into new silk.
Wardrobe was a matter of training.
No human could have tolerated the constant crawling sensation, but it was
typical of the Nuel to work in such fashion. They were arguably the finest
bioengineers in this part of the galaxy, preferring to alter or create new
organisms to provide services for them rather than develop the extensive
physical technology mastered by humankind and most of the other sentients.
When the periodic, almost ritualized little wars broke out between the
two groups, men dealt death with energy rays and high explosives while the
Nuel utilized poison projectiles and selective diseases. As man tried to deal
with the latter, which he found unnatural and insidious, the Nuel struggled to
cope with the former, which to them outraged nature and was unnecessarily
destructive. Meanwhile the dead of both sides watched and laughed. The
morality of the methodologies of murder is of little concern to the victims.
Neither side succeeded in gaining an advantage over the other. Mankind fought
with new biology, the Nuel wrestled with complex physics, and each side
shouted a lot.
Loo-Macklin had also noticed the organic recorder in the back of the room. A
small, flattened creature about half the size of his head, it rested in a
transparent acrylic container open at the top. Tiny cilia flowed underneath
it. It was photosynthetic, bright green, operated almost wholly on sunlight
and water. It was an auditory sponge, soaking up conversation, music, and any
other sound within its range and storing them in its copious memory.
When stimulated, it could reproduce from its formalized memory anything heard
earlier. It was independently operated with fuel-cell storage, wore out only
when it died, and functioned on sunlight and water. Another example of
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Nuel bioengineering substituting for the more familiar tools of human
civilization. As to which method was the more efficient, Loo-Macklin could not
say.
It was yet another thing that made the Nuel so alien to mankind where the tall
Orischians, for example, seemed like feathery, attenuated cousins. It didn't
trouble Loo-Macklin anymore than did Naras Sharaf's appearance. He found both
fascinating.
It would have been impolitic to enter into a long discussion with the
Nuel on such peripheral matters. Despite his seeming calm, the alien was on a
hostile world and risking considerable personal danger. Such risk had been
taken on behalf of Loo-Macklin. He wasn't flattered by this knowledge.
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