This one — well, I felt like writing some space opera. Which is what this would be, once it got rolling.<\/i><\/p>\n
“The problem with you Kletti,” the Nominian said drunkenly, “is that you think you’re better than anyone else.”<\/p>\n
Jeret smiled crookedly. He glanced at his drinking companion, then focused once more on his beer. There had been a time when he would have given the question of how best to respond to such an accusation serious thought, but some months ago he had concluded that the optimum choice was always the same. Old Sarg had always said that the truth was never believed and never gave offense if you made it sound like a joke, and Jeret’s experiences on a dozen worlds had yet to prove Sarg wrong.<\/p>\n
“That’s because we are<\/i> better than anyone else,” Jeret replied.<\/p>\n
“Aaaah.” The Nominian waved a hand in dismissal. “You’re as bad as the Firrim.”<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably worse,\u201d Jeret cheerfully agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouldn’t be much<\/i> worse,\u201d the Nominian said. \u201cThe Firrim are really<\/i> aggravating. You Kletti, the ones I’ve met, you’re just annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you’re saying we’re better than the Firrim.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nominian hesitated for a moment, working through this, then said, \u201cYeah. But that’s not hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStill, it’s a start on being better than everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nominian snorted, blowing foam off his beer. \u201cYeah,\u201d he said. \u201cI guess it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo tell me about the Firrim; I don’t think I know them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought you Kletti all knew everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re working on it, but we aren’t there yet. So, these Firrim \u2013 where are they from?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomewhere in toward the Ruins,\u201d the Nominian said, with a wave toward the back of the bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes them so special, then? Or what makes them think they’re special?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re cyborged. Phones in their heads, enhanced senses, all that crap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what’s special about that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk them<\/i>,\u201d the Nominian said. \u201cThey’re<\/i> the ones who think they’re so great.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just might do that. Know where I could find one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, you never find just one<\/i>,\u201d the Nominian said. \u201cThere are always at least three of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNetworked?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nominian shrugged. \u201cI guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
That, Jeret thought, might be worth checking out. Networking a few brains together wasn’t new in itself, but maybe these Firrim had a new angle on it. \u201cSo where would I find some?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow should I<\/i> know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you’ve obviously met some before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHa! That was here in Port, a few times over the past couple of years. But I haven’t seen any in days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeret nodded. \u201cFair enough.\u201d If these Firrim had been here, they had presumably come in on a ship, and there would be records. He already had a data tap into the port’s systems; he could search them easily enough. He sipped his beer. \u201cSo you said we Kletti are annoying \u2013 how many of us have you met?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI dunno \u2013 half a dozen, maybe?\u201d The Nominian gulped beer. \u201cI haven’t kept count.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course not. I was just curious; we don’t travel much.\u201d That was certainly true of the Kletti as a whole, but of course the exceptions, himself among them, traveled a lot<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The Nominian set his now-empty mug down on the bar, and the bar top displayed a row of options. \u201cThere’s you, and there was a woman here last year, and back on Diplodocus there was a creepy old man, and when I was a kid there was this bossy woman who visited our school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was in the Nominian system?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d the Nominian agreed. \u201cI grew up in Shaftsbury, on Seven.\u201d He stared wistfully at his mug.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me get that for you,\u201d Jeret said, tapping his credit finger on the REFILL circle; the options vanished with a beep, and the little \u201cComing right up!\u201d logo blinked.<\/p>\n
A school on Nominia Seven \u2013 that probably would have been Zella Tarasco. She was retired now, back on Central. An old man on Diplodocus \u2013 Lenster Capor, maybe? Also retired. And a woman passing through Port could have been anyone. Odd, that a random Nominian had encountered four research agents. Odd enough to be suspicious, perhaps? He brushed a finger against his temple, and signaled for a probability analysis.<\/p>\n
The bartender set a new beer in front of the Nominian and cleared away the empty mug, and as the Nominian picked up the mug Jeret slipped away. He thought he had heard everything interesting the man had to say.<\/p>\n
He had not learned the Nominian’s name, but identification should be easy enough, since the entire conversation had been recorded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This one — well, I felt like writing some space opera. Which is what this would be, once it got rolling. “The problem with you Kletti,” the Nominian said drunkenly, “is that you think you’re better than anyone else.” Jeret smiled crookedly. He glanced at his drinking companion, then focused once more on his beer.… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","category-work-in-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}