For the first time, one of the tall, helmeted beings standing behind Vantolos leaned forward. Its mouth flexed. Vantolos’s cylindrical trunk twisted slightly as it appeared to be listening. There must, Dev reflected, be some sort of membrane in the helmet that allowed for sound to pass. When the bodyguard, or whatever it was, straightened, Vantolos’s trunk resumed its former posture.

“It is interesting that you are offering to engage in—commerce? It may be, as you say, that your world has more to offer than organic feedstock. I will see to it that our pre-contact surveys are fully re-analyzed. If anything is found that could prove helpful to us, and easier to obtain from you than by exerting ourselves in additional extraplanetary efforts, such an exchange might be pragmatic.”

“What could you offer us in return?” Dev asked. The look Jakob Zimmer cast his way could have been interpreted as either praise or shock.

As always, Vantolos did not hesitate. “Some small aspects of our technology that would be suitable for adaptation by your simple minds might be provided. In fact, two of your fellow tribes have already put forth such a proposal. Theirs will be considered alongside yours.”

The shock that ran through every member of the contact team was palpable, none more so than that which afflicted Pavesi and Reed. The alien had as much as said that its counterparts elsewhere were considering the trading of advanced technology with at least the Russians or the Chinese—or possibly both. Excusing herself, Pavesi turned and walked away from the summit. Dev could see her working her communications instrumentation. What he could see of her expression was grim.

He could empathize with her position. He would not have wanted to be the one to inform her superiors, much less the entire government, that the aliens were in the process of trading some “small aspects” of their very advanced technology to countries with whom the United States did not presently exist in a state of boundless friendship. In lieu of specifics from Vantolos, such technology could be anything. A cure for advanced diseases. A cheap and easy means for generating energy. A better and cleaner way to produce the plastics that were part of everyday living. A better substitute for plastics.

And of course, weapons.

“What happens,” Katou-Zimmer asked, “if more than one of our ‘tribes’ can supply you with what you want? Will you exchange with all of us? Or only one?”

Vantolos was growing impatient. “You need not concern yourself with such trivial matters. We and only we will make that decision, which will be based not on what you desire but on what we deem the easiest and quickest for us. You will be notified of our additional requests, if any, tomorrow at this same time and location.”