Welcome to the Blown Valve

[Descartes]

When Descartes heard the door chime again, he set down his tablet and trotted over to the front portal. He hoped the visitor wasn’t thirsty, because he had no libations to sell them. Yet.

Waiting at the door was a species he was unfamiliar with, but they seemed friendly enough. Apparently, they were keen to offload a wide variety of intoxicants and mildly narcotic beverages. Just the sort of thing he needed, and so he invited the trader in, and showed off his new aquatic room while they negotiated the deal. He needed a fairly full supply, and the price was more than fair.

Reclining by the aquatic pool with his new friend, Descartes felt a weight lift. This just might turn out.

[Derby]

Delightful! Jrak was quite pleased by this venture, especially considering this entrepreneur had kitted his establishment with such lovely amenities. They took the time to remove some of the light exosuit they wore to keep their skin moist, dipping in the pool. Water was always a better feeling than the efficient hydration liquid the exosuit rolled around them. Jrak explained the situation to @Descartes, showing him the bills of lading on their datapad.

“I will make you an offer, and it will be more than fair. For me, it is already a loss - a big price or a small price, I will not make any more. I think you will find this deal well?”

The amphibian creature touches a few rubbery fingers against the datapad, and turns it back towards Descartes. It was an extremely good bargain, honestly, if he had the credits to settle it.

“I can move the shipments, I have antigravity sleds, however that will be a separate deal with me for my time. You seem like a good person, and I am simply a cargo pilot - not a conglomerate, so I will not take your hide for this. I am pleased to have been your fortune.”

[Descartes]

Descartes looked over the terms of the deal, pursing his lips and slightly tugging on his moustaches as he read.

“Excellent deal, my friend. I agree to your terms, and appreciate the assistance with unloading. Will you be returning to this planet often?”

He watched them casually, wondering what the tell was on this species, without wishing to offend them. You never could be too sure when you could make a good price by way of repeat business.

One thing was sure, all that was left now was to get that blasted sign fixed.

[Derby]

Jrak waves one of their small arms, the splayed hand waggling. “I come and go. This area has been getting good spot-work, jump contracts, so it is a common place for me. I have been here already four times in the last three months. Perhaps more, soon, I have heard there is a Manufactory being built near this port - and like larvae they are always hungry. It is good money.”

They pop their lips, “We will set up a deal for the unloading service? If you are slim on credits, I will take barter or service. My people know the value of having a connection in distant places.”

[Descartes]

Happy to come to terms, Descartes proposed a mixture of reduced cost stays and solid credits, and passed the sealed tablet back to the merchant. With any luck, he would be receiving regular customers within a few days.

[Derby]

Jrak reviewed the terms of the lumping deal, and nods approvingly, their gills fanning out slightly in their respirator. Having a place to stay on the off-times would be nice, especially if the industrial sector on this planet does kick off. They pat the datapad and pull themselves out of the pool, starting to put on their hydration suit again.

“I will come within the hour to settle the unloading. Here, I give this to you as well in case you look to order more things. I know distributors, and it will be good to have more clients. I am competitive with the logistics megaconglomerates, much to their dismay.”

Jrak pulls a small translucent chip from a pocket of the suit, handing it over to @Descartes. It’s something he’s seen before, a ship business card or calling card of sorts, with the ID of the ship for intraspace communications. They would then begin to waddle out, so they can retrieve the new bar-owner’s goods.

“The bills can be signed and the payment processed on my return.”

[Descartes]

First
Second
Third
Visit from Jrak

Descartes leaned back in a working hoverchair letting the slight thrumming of the motivator work wonders on the drink that had gone down into his overcomplicated and overwrought digestion. His new friend had delivered as promised, the price had been good, and days of hard labor were behind him.

He relaxed for a few moments with both sets of eyelids closed, and then stood. Descartes strode to the front portal, keyed it open, and then took a deep breath before activating the sign from the newly repaired panel by the entry.

The Blown Valve illuminated to a bright, argon and mercury blue, now steady and proofed against the constant mist that filled the streets of this working-class area near the heavy pads. The deep rumble of a ship launching just a little ways off reminded
Descartes of better times and better fortunes, of life with a forcefield and tether as your only protection.

He returned the supple nod of a saurian passing by, and breathed in the unfiltered smell of kerosene and plasma coming off the spaceport and then went back into the comfortably lit bar.
Now Open

[Descartes]

A handful of patrons sat in the newly renovated bar, gambling and arguing around an augmented reality table game. One of the better players was being accused of cheating on account of having four stomachs. Descartes hadn’t yet tackled the food production facilities in the rear of the bar - that was a mess of permits and costs outside of his current interest. This Rockets and Reptiles fight was getting a bit out of hand though…

Descartes brought up a comm link to a local all-night pizza joint he’d spotted on his errands. He walked over to the game table, and asked the motley crew of freighters and dock workers for their preferred toppings, conveyed it to the polite automated pizza agent, and closed the channel. A few credits spent, but he’d surely make it back in beverages soon.

The crowd launched into a new round, tiny barely flickering drones appeared above the table in a cluster around the large capital ships, and a great space battle was once again joined.

Scarcely any time later, a mech-suited artificial intelligence strolled through the door with a tall stack of the good stuff. The hungry and inebriated patrons fell to the pizza like a half-starved deep space crew and Descartes settled up with the delivery driver.

He was never quite comfortable around sentient software. He wasn’t entirely sure how to treat a being (?) that was composed entirely of data and seemed to exist only by force of will. Did they have an existence outside of their robotic suits? What did they think of programs like the ones used to answer phones, or tally up his taxes? This one was very polite, so he gave a perhaps outsized delivery bonus.

[MiguelB]

Captain Danzig Intro
@Descartes

The cumbersome exoskeleton halted and executed an awkward turn in front of the illuminated gas-filled tubes that spelled out The Blown Valve. Excessive condensation was beading off every exposed surface and the ground was over 1.752 units deep in a highly complex solution composed of living and nonliving organisms and dozens of elements. It was also moderately adhesive.
▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ activated the door notification system, and patiently ran a spectral analysis on the sign. Patience was required when dealing with carbon life forms, even though their entire span of existence was a fraction of the operational life of even a single core module. It was difficult to comprehend how little they valued the time they wasted.

[Descartes]

Descartes looked up from his inventory, surprised by the chime. It was over an hour before he was due to open, and he was expecting the miserable weather to put a serious damper on his night’s business. The door viewer showed a huge hulking mech with a small interstellar cargo container held in front of it. His interest was piqued, and he palmed the portal open.

“Welcome to the Blown Valve”, he said.

[MiguelB]

The thermal and image scans confirmed that the life form at the door was the one sought. The speakers on the exosuit were activated.
“Greetings of the cycle. I am ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼, often referred to by beings with your speech capabilities as Captain Danzig. I have cargo you are 97.42% likely to purchase. I wish to continue this discussion where there are fewer beings.”
With that, ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ moved past the carbon based lifeform and into the building that a cursory thermal scan determined was empty of most forms of life. The EMF jammer was activated to produce a satisfactory degree of privacy.
“In your present occupation do you still traffic in navigational beacons?”

[Descartes]

The skin-tingling sensation, and the static on the tablet told Descartes that the AI identifying itself as “Captain Danzig”, or some similar high pitched staticy hiss that preceded that, had now activated some sort of jamming field. The brusqueness in its manner was to be expected, but the question was quite a surprise.

Descartes hadn’t ever been involved in the sale of contraband under this current name, or even on this planet. He suspected this was a trap, though if these sentient computers wanted something from him, they’d likely just take it and leave him dead.

It was entirely possible that the offer was on the up and up, though who knew what sort of price this thing might go for. One of his regulars had been talking about setting up a mining operation in the asteroid belt though… and that would be a perfectly safe resale.

“Well Captain, I might know a guy. Should be here later on tonight. A miner.”, Descartes explained.

[MiguelB]

▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ activated the speaker again. “That will be acceptable.”, then parked the exoskeleton in a corner where it could survey the room, and deactivated the jamming field.

[Descartes]

Various beings filtered in over the next couple hours, and it gradually grew warm and humid inside the Blown Valve. There was a quiet tune playing over the speakers, just enough to provide a background noise behind the subtle buzz of voices speaking a half-dozen languages between at least twice that many species. It was busier than Descartes had expected, busy enough that he would need to put out a call to his vendors for a resupply ahead of schedule.

While he mingled with patrons, served drinks, prepared and served small plates of provisions of varying types, he kept an eye out for his mining friend, and kept an eye on the AI in the corner. Currently pretending to be a drying rack or an abstract piece of furniture. Several beings had hung damp coverings on it, assuming it was either a piece of folk art or a disused bit of equipment.

Close on to midnight, a rowdy party of asteroid miners tumbled in, most barely sober. Descartes hurried to guide them to an area well out of range of anything especially fragile or easily damaged by refreshments, and got them fresh libations of all sorts. One particularly tall and lanky cereb he recognized through the grime and inebriation, and he leaned over for a discrete word.

“There’s an AI here with some equipment you might be interested in. Exotic equipment. Come see me in a little bit and we’ll talk to it.”, he said, just barely audible over the general din. The cereb looked sharply, and nodded, then proceeded to imbibe heavily.

[MiguelB]

A cereb approached close enough to activate the proximity system. ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼’s scanners activated and probed the being rapidly as primary neural functions switched from standby to active. The detailed star map analysis of this sector was moved to the slower background subsystem and the pulsing lights emitting from the core module changed wavelength and frequency.

▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ activated the EMF jammer and then activated the exoskeletal speakers at a decible pressure calculated to reach no further than required.

“Greetings of the cycle. You are the one who is looking for me?”, ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ asked.

The cereb looked a bit hesitantly around, his expression never changing.

“Yes. I was informed you might have some equipment of a more interesting nature. Let’s talk a bit more privately.”, the cereb replied, then extended a tablet with a complex symbol on it.

▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ recognized the symbol immediately as a communications system identification code and connected to the local ad hoc network at the very mimimum power level with all of the firewall systems activated against viral intrusion. It paid to be careful.

An earpiece lit up in the cereb’s pocket, and was put on. The earpiece provided audio visual stimulation directly to the cereb’s nervous system, allowing communication to occur without any outward signs. A beautiful means of talking without being heard - provided nothing was listening in. The cereb activated a button on the earpiece that enabled a scrambler, just in case.

▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ deactivated the external speakers on the exoskeleton in favor of the comms.

“I have acquired a set of navigational beacons that will allow precise jump gate operations. The price is expected to be within range for this system.”, ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ transmitted.

The cereb, now seeing an overlay of the bot’s avatar of itself on top of his vision of a slightly rusted cargo exoskeleton festooned with damp outerwear was very interested. He owned a bit of an asteroid mining stake, but it currently took a good pilot over 15 days for the hazardous trip at sublight. Navigating the asteroid belt was dangerous and slow, doubly so when fully loaded with precious ore that reduced the handling of the freighters. A nav beacon would allow the ships to jump right there and back… a considerable savings.

“I’m interested. What’s the precision?”, he asked subvocally by forming the words in his head.

“5,000 km radius, class Xeno Jump gate compliance”, ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ replied nearly instantly. Speaking with biological life forms was very trying and slow, but One does what one must.

The cereb tried not to show his shock, though he knew that the bot he was talking to knew more about his current physical state than any normal physician. It was well known bots conducted intrusive scanning while negotiating, and that was a bit creepy. The fact was, this was military-grade hardware. The closest thing a mere merchant could get had an accuracy 1/10th of that, and you’d be lucky to get it. The permits alone took years.

Suspiciously, he replied, “Ok, but how do I know this is legal and above board?”

▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ allowed the momentary frustration to display in a slight wavelength change in the light emitting from the core, briefly bathing the wet coverings in red tinged light. “You are wasting cycles. The cost is 80,000 credits. The delivery will be completed to the location you desire. Purchase or depart.”

The cereb looked skittishly around, then put the comm call on hold while trying to activate one to his partner. It failed to connect, and he realized that naturally there was a jammer in effect. Knowing full well that if he walked, he’d never see this opportunity again, he decided to risk it.

“Ok.”, he said, resuming the comms. “You have a deal. I will transmit the location for delivery.” He reached into his form fitting suit and retrieved a credit unit, activated the purchase mode, and held it up to be scanned. A laser flickered over it imperceptibly and money was exchanged.

“Very well. This exchange is satisfactory. Please transmit the delivery details.” ▲▽◀▽△▶▼▼ replied, activating the exoskeleton and shaking off the garments like damp leaves.

The cereb flipped through his PDA, then sent the coordinates for the shipping rendezvous to Captain Danzig. He wasn’t going to disclose the location of the mine, but picked a spot where he could grab the beacon and tow it there easily enough.

The exoskeleton clomped past and departed into the damp night.

[Descartes]

“Double or nothing sir? I believe I would prefer you just pay.”, Descartes said, indicating the order on PDA with an arched eyebrow.

The heavily built creature of some species unknown to its host grunted and placed an appendage on the screen, which lit up and accepted the payment. Descartes nodded urbanely and moved on to his next customer. A dull thudding alerted him to the movement of the sentient machine in its cumbersome loader suit as it departed. Better out than in, I suppose, he thought quietly to himself.

Late evening chaos continued unabated and barely dimmed by the weather without. It was going to be another long and profitable night here at the Blown Valve.