Trader's World Read Online Free PDF Page B

Question one was: Do the Hivers practice a ritualistic form of life prolongation? Answer: Yes, that's quite true. We don't know if it works or not, but there's some pretty persuasive evidence that it may. Question two: Are some of the Hivers a couple of hundred years old? Answer: No, of course that's false—it couldn't possibly be true, they've only been using the rituals since the Lostlands war, and that's less than fifty years."
    He pressed the control panel, and the globe silently moved back into a broad recess in the wall. "You'll learn. Before you're through here the right answers to questions like this will be second nature. We're going to take a break now, but before we do it, let's talk one more piece of geography. Here's where we are now." A touch of the control panel brought a map into position on the display screen. "No surprise. This is Pico Island. We're right here, on the southwest side of the mountain. If you go up to the top of Mount Pico—try it this afternoon, if you like, after the classes are through—and look northeast, you'll see this other island, St. George."
    A long, thin island, twenty miles in length but only three or four across, was highlighted on the screen.
    "Now so far as you are concerned, that island isn't going to be 'St. George' for the next few months. I don't want you even to think of the name. It's going to be the Great Republic—I'll bet my uniform some of you were calling it Yankeeland until today. Don't do it. The natives there hate to be called Yankees, even more than the Unified Empire people object to Greaserland. We'll be making a field trip to that island in a month or two. The whole place is a simulated Great Republic environment: language, people, manners, morals, and lifestyle. The only thing we can't do much about is the climate. When you're ready for it, you'll be going over there solo, for practice negotiations in a Great Republic community."
    The pattern of highlights was moving again, drifting up the display screen. "Same over the whole group of islands," Connery said. "Here's Cap City—Chill Central, if you've been muddying up your mind with Trader slang. You won't find snow and ice there, the way you would at the South Pole, but you'll see most of the other things that the Cap Federation pride themselves on. And over there is the Economic Community, and way up to the north you've got a simulated Lostland. Before you are done you're going to visit and negotiate in every one of them. You're not likely to die in those simulation areas, but you can easily fail, and for a lot of you that will seem almost as bad when it happens. One failure in the simulations, and you're out. It sounds harsh, but it's not. Because after the simulations you'll be going on to real test missions. And you can die very easily there, with a single, small failure. Any questions?"
    A hand was raised over on the right, a thickset youth with bright, fair hair and a ruddy complexion. "What about the Chips—the Chipponese, sir? How do you simulate their environment?"
    "Not very well, I'm afraid. We've set up one of the islands to use the Chipponese language and mimic the customs, but it hasn't been a great success. And of course, they live in zero gee or one-sixth gee, and we can't simulate that down here. You won't get much useful experience in advance for Chipponese negotiation—that's why negotiating up on the Geosynch Ring is such a challenge. And no Trader has ever yet been allowed as far as the Chipponese lunar settlements. Maybe one of you will be the first. Don't worry, though, it won't happen for quite a while. The Chipponese and the Lostlands only come when you're fully trained—if ever."
    He looked to the back of the room, where the windows were showing another bright spell. "All right, let's take that break now. Grab a copy of the Rule Book, have a look around the walls here, go outside if you want to. We'll start again in twenty minutes—and this time, you'll have to do more than