The rendezvous point, in true Skrit Na fashion, was located in the most God-forsaken corner of the Sonoran Desert that the chawkwa traders could find. Fortunately, it being early December, the temperature was relatively reasonable – only 81 degrees Fahrenheit, as opposed to the 110 or 120 that the same spot might have achieved in mid-August – but, still, Hork-Bajir are not desert animals, and when Toloth stepped out of the fighter and felt the dry, parched air hit his borrowed skin, he found himself wishing that the Skrit Na captain could have found some equally isolated spot somewhere in the Cascades.
"All right, Toloth Two-Nine-Four," said the Sub-Visser. "You have half an hour to negotiate a trade price for the chawkwa seeds. If you fail…" He trailed off ominously, and glanced at a pale-yellow bloodstain on the floor that was left over from Temrash Six-Nought-Three's untimely demise of an hour before.
Toloth nodded grimly, and strode toward the preposterous, discus-shaped spacecraft sitting on the New Mexico sand.
A Na scuttled forward to greet him as he entered the ship. "Welcome, welcome, most noble and puissant Yeerk warrior!" he said in his thin, reedy voice. "As captain of the scavenger vessel Bisumalkan, I extend the most cordial greetings of the Skrit-Na people to you and your host. May I interest you in some exotic Talapsee refreshments?"
"I would like to see the chawkwa seeds," said Toloth.
"Of course you would," the Na captain readily agreed. "A race so thoroughly practical as your own has little time for pleasantries. Right this way, please."
He turned and scurried toward the back of the ship, bounding along Na-fashion on his knuckles and the balls of his feet. Toloth laboriously followed after him, his horns scraping against the absurdly low ceiling as he did so.
«He is big talker,» Gef observed.
«He's a Na,» said Toloth briefly. (He no longer found it odd or alarming when his host struck up conversations with him out of the blue like this; if he thought of it at all, he accepted it as part of the general degradation that had come upon him when he gave in to Gef's blackmail.) «They're all in love with the sounds of their own voices.»
«Toloth know Na?» said Gef, sounding interested.
«Me?» said Toloth. «Certainly not. I've never even seen one before today.»
«Then how Toloth know what they are like?»
«I just do,» said Toloth, who had no intention of attempting to explain the concept of general report to his bark-eating host. «Now shut up and let me concentrate. I'm going to need all my wits about me in a few minutes.»
Gef, who was completely ignorant of his Controller's plans, assumed that he was referring to the negotiations for the chawkwa seeds, and obligingly fell silent. Toloth followed the Na captain through the maze of corridors that made up the Bisumalkan's storage hold, until suddenly the latter stopped, reared back on his hind legs, and indicated a large crate propped against the wall. "Your chawkwa, O valiant one," he said. "I regret that I cannot present it to you properly, but, alas, the amount your Sub-Visser requested is more than my poor limbs can handle. However, you, using as you do the majestic arms of a young and virile Hork-Bajir, will doubtless find it a simple matter to…"
Toloth ignored him and lifted the lid of the crate. Inside were chawkwa seeds, certainly, although it was hard to recognize illutilagh – the soft, tingling liquid in which Hawjabran emperors bathed – in the small, brown, utterly unexceptional seeds in front of him. Still, as a Yeerk, Toloth knew as well as anyone in the galaxy how little appearances ultimately counted for.
He ran his hand through the box, searching for any seeds that felt flaccid against his palm. Finding no more than the acceptable number, he nodded and replaced the lid. "Your merchandise is satisfactory, captain," he said. "On behalf of Sub-Visser One Hundred and Sixty-Three, I extend my thanks."
The captain bowed in a manner reminiscent of an Oriental kowtow. "It is an honor to be of service to so illustrious a personage," he said. "If there is anything else that my humble ship can provide, please do not hesitate to…"
Toloth cleared his throat. "Actually, there is one other thing," he said.
"Name it, O mightiest of the sons of Silat," said the captain.
Toloth took a deep breath. "I don't suppose that you are familiar with it," he said, "but there seems to be a major religion on this planet that centers around a figure called Jesus. If, in any of your travels, you should happen to come across some source of information about this religion, I would be interested in…"
He trailed off. An expression was coming over the captain's face that he didn't quite know how to categorize, for the excellent reason that no non-Na had ever seen such an expression on a Na face in recorded history. Ever since the Great Persecution (a period in Skrit-Na history roughly coeval with Earth's Oligocene, when an alliance of ten alien races – including the Five – had decided that the newly-Z-space-capable Skrit Na were a threat to the order and stability of the Galaxy, and had duly attempted to exterminate them), every Na had been trained from pupation to keep his distance from aliens, to let them view him as an occasionally useful but ultimately insignificant curiosity, and, above all, to never show them any genuine emotion. Over the course of thirty million years, this training had hardened into something almost like instinct: many Na were not physically capable of showing emotion to an alien, and most of the rest could only do so under the influence of a severe shock – such as, it seemed, the one Toloth had given the captain by mentioning the name of Jesus.
"Is it possible?" the captain whispered. "Has the Word then reached even to the Visserarchy of the Yeerk Empire?"
"The Word?" said Toloth, puzzled. "What word?"
"The Word," said the captain. "The gospel of Jesus Christ, which brings the hope of salvation to all fallen beings."
This bit of pious rhetoric was not terribly illuminating to Toloth, to whom "salvation" was a move in the Korla strategy game kree-ulorrd, and "fallen beings" meant members of subjugated races. However, if he had learned nothing about Christianity from the captain's words, he had learned something quite remarkable about the captain. "You don't mean to tell me," he said in disbelief, "that the Skrit Na actually profess this human religion?"
"Indeed we do," said the captain. "Why should that surprise you? It is the task of my people to seek out the treasures of the universe; when we find the greatest treasure of all, why should we not partake of it?"
Put that way, it did seem logical. Toloth was acquainted with the tendency of collectors to take their little hobbies too seriously; the Skrit Na themselves were living evidence of that. As they collected various races' systems of philosophy, it was only natural that they should come to believe in them; probably every crackpot religion in the Galaxy had a few thousand followers among the Skrit Na.
"No," said the captain, "it is no wonder that our race has come to know the Lord. The wonder is that your master, the Yeerk Sub-Visser whose number I did not quite catch, should have done so. I know of the penalty that your Empire inflicts for sympathizing with host species; that a high official of that Empire should be so filled with the zeal for truth as to dare such a fate is as glorious a testimony to the power of Christ as has ever been recorded in this cosmos. I would fain speak with this blessed Sub-Visser, that I might hear from his own mouth how the grace of Christ has…"
"You misunderstand me, captain," said Toloth hastily. "Sub-Visser One Hundred and Sixty-Three has no knowledge of your religion. The information I seek is on behalf of my host, who has been persuaded by a young human female that this Jesus religion is worthy of his belief."
The Skrit Na captain cocked his head. "Indeed?" he said, sounding slightly disappointed but still basically pleased. "In that case, would you be good enough to extend your host's right hand?"
This request was so unexpected that Toloth complied automatically before he had fully processed it. The captain's next action was even more disconcerting: he extended his own right hand, touched the tips of his fingers to those of Gef's, and wiggled them back and forth with an air of great solemnity for about seven seconds.
"Um… excuse me," said Toloth at length, "but may I ask what you are doing?"
The captain glanced up at him with an air of mild puzzlement, as though surprised that he should have to ask. "I was greeting my brother with a holy kiss," he said, "as is prescribed by the Sacred Scriptures."
Had Toloth been a student of xenoanthropology, it might have interested him to learn that a Skrit-Na kiss consisted essentially of what a human would have called an electro-shock handshake. As it was, however, it was another implication of the captain's words that interested him much more. "Sacred Scriptures?" he repeated. "There are holy writings associated with this religion, then?"
"Certainly there are, O noble one," said the captain. "If the Word is to truly be the Word, it must be written as well as spoken."
"Can you give me a collection of these writings?" said Toloth eagerly. A book: perfect. No need for self-righteous human females or bombastic Skrit-Na captains; whenever Gef wanted to know something, they could just consult the book.
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, most illustrious Controller of my beloved brother in Christ," said the captain with a fresh kowtow. "If you will kindly excuse me one moment…"
He scuttled off through one of the storage-hold corridors, returning in about five minutes with a bulky volume bound in some red, shimmery material. Wordlessly, he extended it to Toloth, who took it and examined it critically. HOLY BAIBUL, said the Galard characters on the cover. (The fact that it was written in Galard surprised Toloth, who had expected it to be in either the original Earthly language or in the captain's own tongue. It occurred to him that perhaps the captain considered himself obligated to have a Galard copy available, on the off chance that an alien should someday express curiosity about the teachings of Jesus.)
He ran a claw over the smooth, red cover. "A curious binding, this," he said. "It almost feels like amber, yet I have never heard of amber this color."
"It is blood-amber," said the captain proudly. "You are perhaps familiar with the Djai'voro practice of making trophies from the blood of their enemies? We have discovered the crystallization process from them, and we use it to bind our Baibuls – in memory, you understand, of the most holy Blood that was shed at Calvary."
"Of course," said the mystified Toloth politely. "But if it comes to that, I have never heard of blood this color, either."
"It is not common," the captain admitted. "Apart from a few minor planets devoid of sentient life, the only modern ecosystem I know of that features red-blooded animals is that of Earth itself. Generally, therefore, the blood of Earthly sub-sentients is used for this sort of thing; I believe the material of that particular binding was taken from a large, grazing Earth-beast known as a cow."
"I see," said Toloth with a slight shudder. Like most Yeerks, particularly Hork-Bajir-Controllers, he had an innate aversion to unnecessary bloodshed, and the notion of carrying around a book bound with the vital fluids of an alien grazing animal was not a pleasant one for him. Nonetheless, if it had to be, it had to be.
"You are very kind, captain," he said. "However, your generosity presents a problem. There are a number of human-Controllers on board the Sub-Visser's Bug fighter, and, if I return to the ship with this… this 'Baibul' in my hand, they may possibly recognize it as a human religious text. As you have just now pointed out, the penalties for sympathizing with a host species are quite severe, and…"
"And you are unwilling to die for your host's beliefs," said the captain. "Quite properly. Let me see, perhaps a carrying dimension… or would they recognize that as well?"
Toloth blinked. "I doubt it," he said. "Why, what is a 'carrying dimension'?"
"A pocket in Zero-space," said the captain. "Tied to your host's biorhythms, so that it will remain in the same place relative to you at all times, and capable of concealing any object of a reasonable size. Here, I will make you one."
Before Toloth had a chance to either accept or decline this offer, the captain had scurried around a nearby corner, returning a moment later with a short, rounded rod that glowed purple at one end. He raised himself on his hind legs and made a number of movements with this rod in the air next to Toloth's upper right arm; then, with a quiet air of authority that was the most captain-like thing Toloth had noticed about him thus far, he took the Baibul from his hand and…
Toloth wasn't quite sure what happened next. As near as he could make it out, the captain had simply shoved the Baibul toward the patch of air that he had just been poking at with the rod, and the Baibul had obediently vanished. It looked like straightforward black magic, and Toloth couldn't keep from letting out a little yelp of surprise.
"The technology was Generational in origin, I believe," said the captain conversationally. "You will now be able to retrieve the Baibul at any time merely by placing your hand in the general area of the pocket and willing the Baibul to appear. Try it, I beg of you."
Hesitantly, Toloth did as the captain had described, and, sure enough, he found himself grasping the smooth, crystalline surface of the blood-amber binding. Then, to make sure he understood the principle, he willed it to go back, and it disappeared again. Then he took it back out and put it away again a couple more times, just for the fun of it. He might have gone on like this for quite some time, if he hadn't happened to catch sight of a Twelkish sulfur clock leaning up against the wall of the ship; it brought the idea of time into his head, and he suddenly remembered the Sub-Visser's warning about having half an hour to negotiate a price for the chawkwa seeds.
"Well, captain," he said, straightening himself hastily, "you have indeed been most remarkably generous. There remains only the question of the payment you expect for your goods."
"Ah, yes, the payment," said the captain. "There will be no charge for the Baibul and the carrying dimension; I would be a wretched fellow indeed if I expected payment for my works of mercy. As for your chawkwa, I believe a portion of the claw on your host's right thumb would answer nicely."
The sellith's mind is a curious thing. Toloth had realized, when he brought up the subject of costs, that the captain might well make some absurdly extravagant request, and that he would be forced to agree merely to meet the Sub-Visser's deadline. He had braced himself for this, and was fully ready, when the captain spoke, to concede anything short of the Sub-Visser's Bug fighter – and, as a result, when the captain set his price at a Hork-Bajir fingernail clipping, Toloth was utterly discommoded.
"A portion of my host's claw?" he repeated. "Come now, captain, that cannot be your whole request."
"That is the entirety of it, most eminent one," said the captain. "A bodily relic of the first Hork-Bajir saint is as worthy a treasure as I ever hoped to acquire; give me that, and you may have every chawkwa seed that I possess."
The definiteness of his tone annihilated any lingering desire Toloth might have had to haggle. With a sigh, he pulled out his Dracon beam, flipped it to setting one, and seared off a chunk of claw with a grimace and handed it to the captain, who took it with more tenderness than most humans would have picked up a baby. This done, he lifted the case of chawkwa seeds and made his way back out to the Bug fighter, wondering as he did so how he was going to describe this bizarre adventure to the Sub-Visser and his fellow guards.