“What table?” the trader asked.
Max sighed. Aliens. They were annoyingly literal.
Rick said loudly, “Humans perceive tables where there are none and find fluids of the body gross and undesirable. Twenty thousand credits for the weapon.”
“Five thousand. No one will purchase it. This is simple move toward establishing that humans are not morons.”
“Humans are not morons!” Rick said in an offended, trumpeting voice.
Max rested his hand on Rick’s mantle. “If you introduce me to buyers of weapons, I can impress them with the need to purchase weapons.”
“Humans are not impressive.” And there was the arrogant voice Max knew and hated. And here he thought that only people with ranks of lieutenant colonel and up could be that obnoxious. Apparently he was wrong.
“You introduce me, and I will impress them and get them to buy the weapons. You don’t have to get involved at all.”
“I have no profit in introducing my buyers to potentially useless designer of useless weapons. Five thousand credits.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Max said. “When we sell these weapons to your buyers, you can keep twenty percent of the sale as your profit for making the introduction.”
“I need eighty percent. Buyers are more valuable than weapons design.” The trader moved closer, which left Max wanting to grab the asshole and shake him until all his tentacles flopped. Maybe he was putting off some sort of aggravation vibes because Rick slid between them.
“Without weapons, buyers are not buyers because they do not buy. You may have thirty percent.”
“Buyers always buy something. To risk displeasing buyers on untested weapon from a moron species is dangerous. I need seventy percent.” The two of them continued fast-paced negotiations until they settled on the trader taking sixty-four percent of any sales.
As soon as they had reached that agreement, Rick retrieved his computer, and Max followed him back down the ramp. The trader pursued from a distance, giving Max the feeling that he didn’t trust them not to steal merchandise on their way out.
They were outside in the humid air before Rick said anything. “Danger. Other peoples lack a desire for weapons. A diamond is forever; weapons are not.”
“People want to defend themselves.”
“Not with weapons bought from assumed moronic people.”
“I can change their minds. People see what they want to see.” If Max could offer them a good product, they would change their minds at light speed.
“I see you.” Rick curled tentacles around Max’s wrist.
“Awww. I love you too,” Max said. Rick was a closet romantic. And it turned out that Max was too because he found he would’ve done anything and risked anything to get Rick the respect and compensation he deserved. And as a side effect, he wanted their children to have more opportunities in a universe that was a little less unfair than the one they’d been born into.
Funny enough, it turned out the universe wasn’t all that different from Earth.
