Getting the Business on Viriinil

Author's Notes: This is a long story and it's science fiction, so there's a lot of world-building before any sexy bits. In case you can't figure it out from the category (and from the comments I get, some readers can't), this contains gay sex.

The on-planet customs officer came into the office and sat down across the desk from Mel. "You're Mechizedek Randie?"

"That's me," Mel said. "Is there something wrong with my visa?"

"No, but I wanted to talk to you personally before I pass you through," the other Terran said. "I think you're making a big mistake not staying in the approved area. You don't know what you're in for."

Mel smiled derisively. "I've traded on planets with primitive cultures before, lieutenant. I've studied all the available data on Viriinil. I know which trade approaches have worked in the past and also the ones that haven't. I've had the most common language in the landing area and two less-common ones cortically impressed, plus I have a translator/cognizier implant that will let me figure out anything I don't understand at first. I've memorized all the local etiquette and cultural taboos that your xeno-sociology boys have found. As for 'what I'm in for,' I agree I can't foretell the future, obviously. But I rather doubt you can either."

"Maybe so, but I've been on the planet awhile so I know what I'm talking about and you don't," the man said. "The Viriin are different in a way you don't truly experience in the sim sessions. It's not like dealing with some of the xenos who are entirely foreign. When you interact with the natives face to face, you begin feeling... well, it's an odd feeling."

The bearded officer paused, lost in thought, then shook his head. "The way they look so much like us is what fools you. I wouldn't want to try living solo among them for any length of time."

Mal snorted. "They're xenos, I'd be surprised if they didn't act odd."

"That's not what I meant," the lieutenant began, then he shrugged and turned to the final inspection of Mel's luggage. A hand check to make absolutely sure that none of the trader's gear was on the embargoed list. Viriinil had "tech limited" status meaning that many types of devices were strictly prohibited and the ones visitors were allowed to bring in had to include full personal lockouts so that no one but the visitor could use them. Not only that, on Viriinil the devices also had to be the type that would self-destruct if someone tried to disassemble or tamper with them.

Mel sighed inwardly. As an independent trader he was used to dealing with Alien Sentient Service officers, but the Assos assigned here seemed to be actively trying to hinder his visit. He'd faced all sorts of runarounds and unofficial discouragement, which seemed strange since there was already a Terran trader presence on the planet. Of course those other fellows were all official trade representatives rather than independents, and protected under the landing treaty signed with the Taylpat of Yetter, a local potentate. As a result they were also restricted to Yetter proper, whereas Mel had waived the treaty rights and applied for a roaming visa. This meant he'd be without the official "favor" of the Taylpat as a protection from native misbehavior, but it also meant he'd be free of intrusive local oversight and could travel anywhere he wanted.

Travel to any place native transport could bring him, anyway. The Service had let Mel know there was no way in space he was going to get to bring down a floater, or even a buggy. The Assos seemed to be making keeping higher techs away from the locals a big priority here. Mel was pretty sure they weren't even happy that he was bringing along nonlethal self-defense weaponry, though they couldn't stop him from doing it.

"All right, Trader Randie, everything checks out," the customs officer finally said. "You have your hairpiece on tight?"

"Of course," Mel said. "Anything else from the briefing you'd care to repeat?"

The officer looked at him and shook his head yet again. He reached back and grabbed a flask off the shelf, pushed it over the desk toward Mel. Mel lifted an eyebrow quizzically.

"More perfume. It can't hurt to have a spare," the Asso explained. "Make sure you wear it at all times. And yes, I know that's in the briefing, but it's important."

Mel shrugged. Xenos always had their kinks, and here apparently one of them was your scent. The newcomer guide was adamant that humans should always wear heavy perfume of a specific kind when interacting with the natives, though it didn't explain why. For all Mel knew it could be a religious practice. It wouldn't be the weirdest one he'd come across in his work as an independent trader, not by a long shot.

Another of the local kinks was facial hair. Every human on the planet, male and female alike, was supposed to wear a full beard when locals were around. Like a lot of men of his generation Mel had been permanently depilated everywhere below his scalp except for eyebrows and eyelashes as a hygiene measure. Rather than reverse that (an expensive and rather uncomfortable process) he would use a fake beard, as did the majority of humans on-world.

To tell the truth, everything about visiting the planet was ridiculously annoying, but the goal was worth it. Because Viriinil had ulverm and no place else did.

Ulverm was the reason Terran traders were on such an otherwise low-tech (and low-profit) planet dealing with a protected xeno species to begin with. It was an oily liquid that had unique stimulant, euphoric, and aphrodisiac actions on humans. For the Viriin it worked quite differently, being a tranquilizer and pain-killer. The important thing was that absolutely no one had yet figured out how to synthesize it, or even where it came from. From the very beginning the natives were pretty cagey about it, and the best guess the bio boys had was that it was a plant extract of some type. The stuff was also thought to have some sort of religious connotations (which might be another reason the xenos didn't discuss it with Terrans), based on the fact that the name for ulverm in a neighboring region's native language translated as "sacred ooze."

Once the natives realized that humans wanted ulverm they became more reluctant than ever to discuss things like where it came from, and the Taylpat of Yetter had declared a monopoly on the stuff and jacked up the price. Which was a problem, as tech transfer to Viriniil was forbidden by the Service which meant you had to pay in something that had local value. Such as gold. Gold, particularly gold shipped over interstellar distances, was hardly cheap. ulverm as a result bcame even more valuable.

A trader who was able to connect with a new source for the drug at a cost lower than that demanded by the Taylpat of Vetter would make a tidy profit. A trader who managed to find something new that the Viriini wanted and for which they'd take instead of gold in in exchange for the drug could make a mint. And of course a trader who discovered how ulverm was made and was able to replicate that off-planet would be filthy rich.

Which was why Mel was here on this otherwise useless mudball.

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Upon clearing customs Mel paid a visit to the Taylpat's court in the nearby palace to give him (well, give the Taylpat's vizier, Mel didn't actually get to see the high muckety-muck himself) the customary bribe. Ignoring the other Terrans, several of whom clearly wanted to talk Mel up and see why he was on planet, Mel next made for the local docks. Yetter was a seaport and everyone was pretty sure ulverm was an import rather than produced in the vicinity of the city. Other Terrans had looked into this before of course, but Mel wanted to check things out himself.

Now that Mel was away from the palace and the Terran compound the sense of being on an alien world finally grew on him. Mel had of course known that Viriini were substantially larger than humans, the males averaging about 125 kilos and 230 cem. But knowing those dry facts didn't really prepare him for how big they seemed when you were mingling among crowds of them... or rather, how small Mel felt in comparison, considering everyone around him was so much larger. There were times he had to step lively to avoid being crushed.

The xeno males all had beards. Some of the beards were short-cropped, others flowing, still others braided or otherwise ornamented. What Mel could see of their exposed skin was orangish in hue, from his short xenobio lessons he knew this was because their blood was orange as well. The men, but not the women or children, also all apparently wore exactly the same perfume, a spicy and slightly-sweet smell that reminded him of cinnamon. Eventually it dawned on Mel that this wasn't perfume at all but their natural scent. This explained the insistence on humans wearing a similar artificial fragrance, Mel guessed human body odors must smell pretty awful to them.

Mel noticed a few natives covered head to toe in opaque robes and knew these must be the females. They were somewhat smaller than the males but almost all were still taller than his 180 cem. Female Viriin were largely a mystery, as due to some social taboo or reason of etiquette that the males refused to discuss the women never interacted with humans. Mel also knew that early on when human women had self-identified as female the male Viriini would either pointedly ignore them or very aggressively demand to know why they did not have "their" males with them. This was one reason why all humans, both male and female, wore beards and claimed to be men while on-planet these days.

There were also children running around, which looked oddest of all to Mel as they were naked and covered with silky fur ranging in color from gray to blue-black. The bio-sci boys said that Viriin were mammal-analogues quite similar to humans in a lot of ways, but unlike humans their offspring were born covered head-to-toe with a thick furry pelt. At puberty males lost most of that fur except on the head and around the face, giving rise to the bushy "chin curtain" beards they all had. Strictly speaking they weren't beards at all, but manes around the edges of the face. The females were thought to have only head hair and not the full mane, but as far as Mel could tell this was purely based on things overheard from natives and not direct observation.

Upon reaching the docks Mel wandered more or less randomly, asking questions about where the sailing ships were from and what cargoes they carried. What he was really trying to do was to get the sense of which of the xenos were comfortable talking and interacting with an "alien" from Terra. At this point he was not ready to leave Yetter, though it was part of his eventual plan.

Meeting a jovial group from someplace called Tenza, Mel decided to accompany them to a local tavern. Mel knew that ethanol had effects on the xenos similar to the effect it had on humans. Bringing out some of his supply of local coinage he proceeded to buy drinks for his new "friends." He seriously doubted he would be lucky enough to solve his problem as soon as he arrived, but getting the sailors drunk and pumping them for information would be good practice for doing it in more important situations later.

The next few days Mel followed a similar routine, meeting ship crews from other native cities and taking them out drinking, building up a sense of the local trading networks. One thing that was becoming obvious was that while Yetter was the largest settlement on the main continent (which was what had originally caused the Terrans to make it their base) it was not by any means the most dynamic city nor a major producer of trade goods. Yetter was large because it was the capital of a formerly-powerful empire, but both the city and the empire it governed had been in decline for a good century now and Yetter was steadily losing population and trade to other cities.

Another thing Mel was learning was what the Asso lieutenant he'd met on arrival had been trying to tell him. Interacting with Viriin in a group wasn't too bad, a bit like being in a room with a bunch of professional athletes. There was the same sense of boisterous masculine display and casual one-up-manship. It was when you interacted with them one-on-one that you really felt it, the sense of challenge and aggression, the invasion of personal space, and the probing for weakness that seemed to be automatic to them. As any given male Viriin was much bigger and stronger physically than Mel it took conscious effort on his part not to quail when one of them leaned in close or poked him on the chest.

He'd noted too that when this happened the spicy smell from his interlocutor usually increased. Even though the briefings hadn't mentioned it, Mel wondered if it might not be some pheromonal thing. He reacted by splashing extra perfume over himself whenever he knew he needed to meet privately with someone. It was hardly scientific but Mel was pretty sure it helped.

At this point Mel came to the conclusion that it was time to up stakes and move on. He booked passage on a Yetteran sea vessel making the eight-day voyage to Eystro, which according to the various Viriin he'd interviewed was a place where you could find "anything." Eystro was a relatively new city, formerly a minor town in Yetter's empire but now more or less independent and extremely active as a transshipment port for cargo from all over the continent. It's marketplaces were famous (and infamous) for the wide variety of legal and illegal goods available.

It sounded like exactly the sort of place Mel might find out more information on ulverm.

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Mel had never made an ocean voyage on a primitive watercraft before. He'd assumed that it would be something like a cross between a starship transit and the recreational sailing he'd done.

It wasn't, not even close. The cabin he'd hired (the captain's own) was tiny and uncomfortable, the food almost inedible, and even with antinausea medication he felt sick most of the time. The only "sanitary facility" consisted of buckets; you filled them and dumped them over the side for elimination, you filled the same ones with seawater and dumped them over yourself to wash. After his first experience trying to bathe with the frigid seawater Mel had decided not to bother and just applied extra perfume.

On the morning the ship finally arrived in Eystro it was instantly obvious how different the place was than Yetter. Louder, dirtier, even more crowded. Also Mel stood out more. In Yetter the locals had usually seen other "umahn" before, but here some natives actually stopped and stared when they laid eyes on Mel passing. As the xeno briefings had indicated however, none of them seemed actively hostile. Supposedly the Viriin never bothered strangers who didn't bother them. The thought was that so as long as you looked like you knew what you were doing and avoided breaking local taboos by, say, pointing at someone or not covering a yawn, you were relatively safe.

There was no Terran compound here, of course. Mel avoided the sailor's dives close to the docks and made his way to a tavern he'd heard catered to trading ship's captains and others of a better grade of customers, where he rented a room.

As soon as he was in his room Mel dropped his backpack, peeled off the annoying and now salt-crusted false beard for the first time in days and tossed it on the backpack, and fell on the bed. He was exhausted after the voyage but he fully intended to get up and start working the bar downstairs for information as soon as he'd cleaned up. Instead, without meaning to, he fell deep asleep.

Mel came awake with a start, heart pounding, then realized where he was. It was already late afternoon, he'd wasted most of the day sleeping. Sitting up and groaning Mel rubbed at his chin where the guaranteed non-irritating adhesive he used for his fake beard has making him itch regardless.

The inside of his mouth tasted terrible so he rolled out of bed to get his sonic dentifrice. Mel's eyes went wide in shock. His backpack wasn't where he'd left it. In fact, it was nowhere to be seen!

For the next several minutes Mel searched frantically, making sure that he hadn't somehow stowed the backpack elsewhere in the room without remembering he had. There was no doubt, it was gone. Along with his comm device, his analyzer, his recording equipment, his changes of clothing, his emergency food supplies, his medical kit, his e-maps, his ranged stunner, and most of his local currency. So was his fake beard, for that matter. Everything was gone.

Mel bit off a curse. He'd only just arrived and he'd been robbed. And he had only himself to blame. He'd brought intruder alarms and doorseals along for the very purpose of preventing such a thing but he'd used neither, relying on the idiotic primitive lock on the door!

The thief wouldn't be able to use most of the stuff in the pack, in fact if he tampered with it too much it would become useless to anyone, including Mel. But Mel's main cash supply was in the pack, the money he'd planned to use for bribes and gifts for the locals at well as that he needed to live on. And if the Service found out that he'd let all those clever devices he was carrying fall into xeno hands so easily they would not be happy with Mel.

Mel took inventory. He still had his belt. This contained a smaller amount of local money, a multitool, an extensible stunwand, and an emergency beacon. The beacon would bring the Service running if he activated it, but he'd have to explain what had happened and that would give them all the excuse they needed to pull his visa and kick him off-planet. So that was out except as a last resort. No, he had to either recover his belongings (and soon), or make contact via the natives with the Terran compound in Yetter so he could access his credit accounts and purchase new equipment.

Mel then realized his next problem, which was that the thief had stolen his beard. Not to mention both his flasks of perfume. After thinking for a bit, Mel used the multitool to cut off a long piece of blanket and wrapped it around his head like a keffiyeh, covering his mouth. Not a perfect solution as natives considered covering one's face when conversing to be rude, but the best he could do. As for the perfume, he had doused himself just that morning. After it wore off he would just have to be a stinky foreigner and hope it wasn't too off-putting to the locals.

He took a deep breath and opened the door to head downstairs.

{}

"A thief in my tavern? It does not happen. You left your belongings with the sailors, yes?"

Mel knew that the idea of customer service was different on primitive worlds, but the innkeeper seemed exceptionally resistant to the idea that Mel had been robbed. He tried again.

"Look, I know I had my belongings in the room. I fell asleep, and someone took them."

The tavernkeeper crossed his thick arms, which seemed to mean the same sort of thing to Viriin as it did to humans. "It is impossible. It could not happen."

Either there was a cultural problem here he did not understand or the innkeeper was in on the robbery, Mel decided. "Perhaps my belongings were accidently mislaid," Mel suggested. "If they are returned untouched there would be a reward for the finder."

The innkeeper uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, thrusting his face at Mel. Mel knew that this was a typical native attempt at intimidation, but he had to admit it was pretty effective.

"You suggest I am thief?" the innkeeper grunted.

Mel swallowed. "No, but..."

"No is correct!" was the shouted interruption. "I am not a thief, I do not know any thieves. Do you claim that because I rent rooms and serve customers, I have no honor of my own? Do you, umahn?"