The outdoors markets on Ymilas were noisy, colorful and pungent--like shoppes and bazaars on Earth hundreds of years ago before they became neat little wired and webbed virtualities. My space service colleagues on the planet had said when I first arrived that striking out through a Ymilan bazaar reminded them of riding a rather corrupted holo-carnival. Like so many colonial outlands where the 'indigenies' existed in a more backward stage of social development, Ymilas attracted people from our solar system who wanted a more intense yet authentic existence. Any yutz could recline and soak in virtuality Earthside or in a starship. In my teen and college years I had thought I would be content to remain in Texas, which has its own intensity. Things became more so as the coastline moved inland, but when the old dams breached and Houston did a Venice, the surge of people inland convinced me I needed breathing room. Structural linguists are seldom needed in the service, but I thought being a joint major in linguistics and sociology would get me a posting, and I was right. I passed the exam, interview and physical, and was assigned to Ymilas, where my linguistics knowledge would come in handy. I already knew Ymilan semantics was torturous because a Ymilan always says the opposite of what he means. Physically, native Ymilans are humanoid but a dark blue hue. My roommate in the service there, Jeff Jocks, was a xenobiologist, and he once tried to explain thier origins, but all the talk of convergent evolution and oxygenation compensation went over my head like a space elevator riding a graphite cable. It was Jeff who first put the implant in my ear about visiting a Ymilan bazaar. His hobby was 'real' martial arts--"not the virtual crap," as he'd say--and one day he came back to the compound loaded with small weapons and pieces of body armor he picked up in a nearby souk. He was as happy as a grunt who just hit the telomere powerball jackpot, and grinning from ear to asshole as he spread out his loot on his side of the module. "Will you look at this shit," he grinned. "What a collection, for a scream and a few standard credits." Unlike Earth, in the older civilization of Ymilas science and technology over time had become a purview of the elite, and so while the Ymilan Soviet maintained an impressive fleet of starships and the planet's elite lived with as much scientific advancement as prosperous terrans, the normal inhabitants lived in villages, farmed in the fields and bargained in the bazaars. One effect of having such a long-standing marketplace culture is that it had evolved into a religion. Bargaining and haggling was not just commerce in Ymilas, they were religious rites. In light of what happened later, I wished I had made better notes for my xenosociology files. Jeff apparently knew how to take part in the ritual well, including the 'screaming'. One of the first things I picked up from passing conversations after I arrived a couple of years before was that Ymilan bazaar bargaining was so intense it picked up the nickname 'screaming' among Earthsiders. When Jeff came back from his trip to the souk, he laid out an impressive array of 'toys' and I idly ran my fingers over some greaves that showed the traditional intricate patterns which duplicated early circuit board designs. "Nice shin guards, Jeff. You fixin' to get into some heavy action?" He smiled and held a piece up to the light. The lacquer-black background and jade green filigree shone. "Naw, this is too pretty to use. Something to show off on the sidelines." He must have seen something in my face, because he turned and looked at me. "You know, you would probably enjoy getting jostled in the souk." "Sure, I always enjoy getting my rib cage cracked like a walnut." "Oh, it's not that bad." "Not from what I hear." "You believe everything you hear?" "I doubt they have anything I'm interested in." "I saw some coins there." "Terran?" "I think even some American. Didn't the American Republic mint a lot of silver? You know how fond the 'genies here are of silver." I'd been on Ymilas two years now and that was the first time I had thought about my coin collection, stored in a stasis box back home. A lot of precious metal had flowed to colonies over the years, especially metal-poor planets such as Ymilas. But the native Ymilans have a cultural tradition of never defiling an artisan's handiwork, and so little of the obsolete specie shipped from Earth in the early years was ever converted into bullion, except when it flowed back into terran hands. Jeff could tell I was interested now, but I didn't want him to dog me. "Give me a ding next time you're planning a visit," I said offhandedly. He smiled and I left him as he pawed through his new toys. |
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