Swap Meet
                        By Tom Gordon

First, let's get this out of the way right now: I never wanted to be
Ruler of the World. In retrospect, the price was too high for any man
to bear. 

Another thing: the media came up with that asinine title. Nobody
swears allegiance to me. Governments may be delirious with boredom
nowadays, yet they're all still in place. And yes, Virginia, there is
a United Nations. An organization whose influence matches that of the
Benevolent Order of Elks, in a world of plenty.

What I DO have is a monopoly. On a few extremely significant products
People Just Can't Do Without.

It started with a handwritten cry for help from the Department of
Agriculture. The jurisdictional buck-passing on this one must've been
extraordinary. But the letter's tone was also desperate, hysterical.
Which was to be expected... since the problem at hand had absolutely
nothing to do with Minnesota corn silage.

At that point, my accomplishments in the private sector were
unremarkable. Wasted youth as a crackpot basement inventor, building
useless pseudo-scientific New Age (rhymes with "sewage") gadgets that
even Ron Popeil couldn't sell. Ditching everything to make some
legitimate bucks as an international merchant... and occasional
smuggler. While the possibility of extraterrestrial life 'out there'
held a certain fascination, I was never zealous about it; there was
still way too much to deal with on THIS tired old orb.

Nevertheless, a sonic boom could be heard as I bolted to Washington
the next morning. He who hesitates...

They called themselves the Quoggoth. A monumental disappointment. The
aliens resembled floating Hefty bags, played over with a multitude of
cheap-looking blue diode lights. Damn it, Ed Wood had come up with
better. Where were the tentacles, antennae? Later, an engineer
explained that these sacks were what passed for environmental suits on
their world. 

They were also in a foul mood. No prissy teabag English-spouting
translation gear could disguise that one. Turned out we'd intercepted
the Quogg equivalent of truck drivers. They had a shipment to make, a
deadline to keep back home. Lord knows what cargo their ship carried.
Precious metals carved from the asteroids? Plutonian frozen methane?
Brain-eating UltraMaggots of Alpha Centauri? In any case, our arcane
terrestrial formalities were killing their schedule. They had to
leave, pronto.

Everyone was grouchy. The scientists wanted information. The politicos
wanted more photo opportunities. The military people wanted to seize
the Quoggs and their vessel, assess their offensive capabilities,
maybe pickle them in formaldehyde. Pressure was mounting, no end in
sight.

So I stepped in.

This WAS my profession, after all. I'd placated unions, nosy
government officials and vengeful mobsters for years. With gentle
language and a feigned willingness to hear out all sides, yours truly
hammered out a compromise that almost completely satisfied nobody. A
single Quogg would volunteer to stay here on Earth, to serve as a
temporary diplomatic envoy. Human passengers would return with the
rest to their homeworld, to negotiate cultural exchange and trade.
Case closed. Right?

Wrong. In the eyes of the brass, I had now proved myself as a Crucial
Intermediary.. and a prime candidate for a voyage to the stars. It was
ridiculous. Didn't these people have a dossier or psychological
profile on hand? Did they honestly think I wasn't going to take
advantage of the situation, let them put my findings 'on display'
right in that space between the Ark of the Covenant and UFO wreckage
from New Mexico?

Apparently. There's one retired general who STILL keeps playing
revisionist historian before the press each year, sniveling about my
'betrayal of the national leadership.' (Doesn't hate me enough to stop
using my products, though.)

Barely twelve hours later a Navy destroyer carried us out into the
Pacific, to a stretch of isolated ocean somewhere near Kiribati.
There, a copper sphere half a mile in diameter bobbed like an enormous
metal beach ball; the Quoggoth spaceship. Scaffolding and dock
structures protruded from its hull... which is where I happened upon
my designated companion for the interstellar trip.

Dr. Bernadette Dufresne was an anthropologist, with credentials in
xenobiology. Unlike SOME people, she'd sense enough to avoid the Piled
Higher and Deeper syndrome. Dumpy and sexy-jolly, it also seemed she
ignored the prevailing wisdom that women should look like starving
fifteen-year-old boys. Thank God.

We strapped in for acceleration. I gave her a predatory smile. "They
say it's going to be an awfully long trip. Cramped quarters. We'll be
floating in zero gravity during most of it. Now, I think we'd need
Velcro at some point, but hear me out..."

She listened to my interesting scientific proposal, dimpled. "Well,
I'll give you points for directness. But sorry. I'm married."

Like that makes any difference? But I shut up.

---

It was an EXCEEDINGLY good thing the Quoggoth had worn those cheesy
billows during their time on Earth. Otherwise our leaders -- acting on
alien invasion mythology and/or deep-seated neuroses -- might've
catapulted us into a one-sided interstellar war. When an unconcealed
Quogg strolled into our cabin, the bulkheads shook with high-pitched
feminine shrieks.

"Your reaction is most distressing," said The Creeping Horror, in
Margaret Thatcher's haughty voice. "Perhaps I should come back later?"

"N-no..." I gasped, sucking in huge lungfuls of air, regaining control
of voluntary bodily functions. "I'm okay... I think. Ugh." Vomiting
suddenly sounded like an wonderfully life-affirming option.

Because beneath that idiot balloon lay a monstrosity that would've
sent Giger and Bosch running for their mommies. Mirrored black skin.
Spiky growths extending from a greyhound-lean body. A nightmare
collection of arachnid limbs tipped with iridescent lobster claws, and
red eyes shining from a featureless bulb of head. God was quite the
practical joker; a more significant amalgamation of traits humanity
long considered 'frightening' and 'dangerous' could NOT be achieved.

Naturally, while I was standing there paralyzed with terror, fully
expecting this unexpected visitor to rip out my liver, frau Dufresne
appeared. "Wow! Finally!" 

She fumbled through one of her equipment cases, removed an oversized
Personal Digital Assistant. A stylus materialized in her hand, began
scratching. "Wait, hold still, don't move." She drew closer to the
hideous beast, squinted, shifted to a different angle. "Uh huh. It's a
shot in the dark here, but... carnivorous? Hunters?"

"Yes. You are quite observant," replied the alien. "Many thousands of
years ago, my ancestors sought prey amongst our planet's native
jungles. You may call me Blorthakh. I am to be your guide upon our
return to the homeworld."

"Hello. Yeah, the arrangement of musculature tipped me off." She
reached out and touched a bare area along the Quogg's shoulder, while
I endured a minor heart attack. "Just like a cheetah's, designed for
the short bursts of speed. But the real clue was your extended torso.
It presupposes a longer intestinal path, essential for the digestion
of meat." She beamed. Gloat, gloat, gloat.

Annoyance cut through that fog of shock and adrenaline. I interrupted
her grandstanding. "Right, Bernadette. Just completely overlook the
obvious." I gestured to Blorthakh.

The Quogg complied, opening its mouth. Thousands upon thousands of
needle canines glittered, razor-sharp.

Bernadette smiled weakly, backed away just a little too hastily. "Ah
yes, that I did."

---

It wasn't long before we began feeling the sick pangs of a racial
inferiority complex. Our freighter had docked at a space station
orbiting the Quoggoth homeworld; a engineering feat that easily
demonstrated how far the Quoggs outpaced us technologically. During
the voyage Dufresne and I had heated discussions about the impact of
commerce between the two worlds.... mostly because there was little
else to do and My Science Project was strictly out of the question.
Looking at that complex, it had never occured to me that maybe
humanity didn't HAVE anything the Quoggs wanted.

"Still got Art."

"Huh?" I grunted at her mindreading abilities. Not psychic, of course.
Spend a long enough period of time with someone, they'll end up
knowing what you're thinking almost before YOU do.

"Paintings. Music. Literature. Big noisy movies and video games and
comic books." She dimpled again. "If all else fails, we can always
flaunt our creativity. I've brought libraries on disc. They'll buy
them for the novelty value... or to impress the neighbors. Think about
it, how many well-to-do families have primitive art objects in their
homes?"

"Yeah, but they're human beans." I sighed, her smile still burned into
my brain. "Oh well, we'll see."

---

A ground-to-orbit craft took us down to the blue-white rippled
surface, to the planet's most populous city. Bernadette pointed out
the hideous slabs of mile-high buildings as further proof of alien
cultural impoverishment.

I said nothing, paying far more closer attention to thousands of
personal aerial vehicles -- planes? hovercrafts? -- navigating the
grid-sliced air high above. A street level torrent of grim Quoggs
swathed in dark fabric, rasping sharply in their tongue. Ubiquitous
square receptacles with slots and keyboards on every intersection
corner, unholy progeny of a telephone stand and a mailbox. 

This last stood out. One Quogg had absently dropped an armful of trash
into one of these receiving bins, and skulked on. Low bass and a mild
surge of static electricity burst through the air, displacing my
coiffure like a breeze. Another alien stopped, weaved its claws across
buttons, opened the slot and removed a complicated-looking hand tool.

Fortunately, Dufresne didn't pick up on it. She was in tourist mode,
hypnotized by vanishing points, face lost in blissful contemplation of
Nirvana. One question from her would have instantly revealed to
Blorthakh how wretched our bargaining position really was.

Eventually we arrived at a squat, drearily bare structure. A small
team of Quoggs were waiting to greet us, their bodies covered in a
thin plastic sheath head-to-claw, deliberately spray-painted with
white rubber. Blorthakh referred to this group as 'joiners.' It took
some additional wheedling for him to explain their role fully: those
who traded in repairing injuries and treating disease amongst the
population... pronounced "sawbones." The distinctive coating served as
an antiseptic procedure and mark of ensign.

A tray with metal implements floated down from the ceiling. Joiners
frantically hissed and whispered amongst themselves, then waited
patiently. Bernadette scowled at me. "Well?"

"Well... what?"

Okay, so yours truly can be monumentally stupid sometimes. But I
honestly didn't know what she was talking about. It just seemed
obvious that doctors -- even alien doctors -- would respect that
sacred concept called 'privacy.' Airy hospital garb exempted, of
course.

So she sighed. And then she took off all her clothes.

I did a quadruple-take, tripped over my jaw. And (with just a smidgen
of guilt, not enough) followed suit immediately. Cosmic quacks rushed
forward, started scraping, prodding and poking in the name of Science.
I stared at the ceiling, forced my newly blood-deprived brain not to
dwell on her Sublime Glory. And failed, miserably... to the delight
and astonishment of the Quoggoth medical community.

Bernadette merely chortled. I hope it was only over my predicament.

We discovered the origin of the term 'joiner' shortly thereafter, as
we were led through an adjacent chamber. The temperature dropped,
indicating refrigeration processes at work. Inside were rows of
transparent tanks, filled with fleshy chunks trailing umbilicals.
Other sections marked with white curliques contained twitching Quogg
limbs.

"Ah. I see. Spare parts," piped Bernadette, peering at a
stomach-turning heart with detached objectivity. "You grow the organs
directly, from extracted genetic material. Then you transplant them
onto the donor." She scribbled on her padtop, stylus squeaking like a
deranged cricket. "Joining."

"Yes," replied Blorthakh. "As your people must know, such procedures
extend lifespans most dramatically. Quoggoth also regard their bodies
as machines whose components require replacement from time to time. It
was not always so."

"Well, this certainly gives the pan-spermian camp some ammunition. I'd
also like to check your species' sequence coding with what we've
mapped. Hey! You have six chambers. And what's THIS appendage for?"

Good. Of course her attention WOULD drift to picking out anatomical
details. She didn't notice the alien's innocent presumption. My own
mind was elsewhere.

---

A jungle sat in the center of the city, overgrown with long gray
grasses and vine-strangled mushroom growths the size of houses.
Creatures like bulky giraffes munched away on the soft underbellies of
these enormous fungi, and herds of dark-coated bovines concentrated
around a dribbling water pit.

Blorthakh explained this was not a park so much as a pocket historical
preserve... where urban Quoggs could, in spirit at least, maintain a
connection to their bloodthirsty past. Certainly HE seemed strangely
distracted as we walked through tangled depths. Spines along his
newly-taut back muscles had gone rigid, and the pupils had dilated to
nothingness. An evolutionary holdover, like human 'goose bumps' in the
presence of cold or danger, meant to bulk up (nonexistent) body fur?
Perhaps.

Then, as Blorthakh was lecturing Dufresne on his species' flatulence
rate (for all a desk jockey like myself knew about xenobiology) out
from the park's eastern end darted a black blur -- another Quogg,
stripped of adornment, assuming a stalking posture, ominous as hell.
Its jagged mother-of-pearl claws extended and a trail of drool issued
forth from its mandibles as it lunged toward one of the Cow Things.
Blorthakh and others screamed bloody murder; the grazing herbivore was
violently torn to pieces. A group of drably uniformed Quoggs appeared
and dragged this intruder -- still messily feasting upon the
creature's innards -- out of the park. Police forces, if my innate
suspicion of authority serves.

Blorthakh shivered with humiliated rage. "Please accept my apologies
for the horror you have witnessed." 

Untraumatized, I shrugged. The scene was remarkably like something out
of a nature documentary. The ones where a hungry lion makes hamburger
out of Cute Kalahari Bambi. Sure, it's sad, and a bit gross... but
that's how things work, out in the wild. Cycle of life, yada yada.
"Don't worry about it. On Earth, we watch things like that all the
time."

The alien bristled with visible disgust. "Clearly our civilizations
are most divergent. But you must believe we have outgrown the need for
such unnecessarily cruel rituals. Our native life is now cultivated
and protected."

I forced myself not to laugh. "What, you went vegetarian?" How long
would that last?

"No. Consumption of plant matter makes us unhealthy and feebleminded.
Instead, we synthesize animal protein through means your species are
familiar with. It is then processed and sold commercially. Thus we
avoid the needless violence and bloodshed of our past."

Bernadette nodded, her nose wrinkled at the mess. "Uh... yes. Another
worthwhile application. Very humane." She giggled. "Or should I say
aliene?"

Something almost whizzed over my head, there. Almost. Time to change
the subject. "Doesn't look like you have a united front though. THAT
fellow certainly had other ideas."

"Yes, A regrettable element amongst us, who choose to heed the old
instincts for sport and adventure. Our efforts to redirect their
energies toward more constructive pursuits sometimes fail. He will pay
restitution to the park collaborative."

Restlessness. It was all falling into place.

---

Then it was our turn at bat.

"I just can't believe it!" Dufresne moaned, after returning from her
presentation. "Masterworks of entire civilizations! Five thousand
years worth of exhibits! And no takers at all."

"Bernadette... I told you it was going to be a waste of time. These
are ALIENS, remember? A lot of what they're seeing just doesn't
translate. Even the non-religious stuff."

She couldn't have been THAT surprised. It had been a week. We'd seen
oodles of advanced Quoggoth tech and engineering, but nothing that
could be termed 'cultural achievement.' There were only two
conclusions that could be drawn from this: either the Quoggs were
entirely ignorant of Art, or else they DID know about it, but didn't
consider it to be of any importance. Both spelled doom for her
last-ditch effort.

"'But what does it's FOR?' they kept saying, over and over again. None
of my explanations made any sense to them. I don't even want to TALK
about how they reacted to the music. It was a complete disaster." She
threw herself on the couch-shaped protuberance rising from the floor
and looked at me, all eyes. "It's over, isn't it? We have nothing to
trade with them now."

"Yep."

"So what the hell are we going to do?"

That's when I told her.

I'd had a long time to reflect on this. I'd thought about what the
Quoggoth had already taken from me, their generous estimation of
humanity. The wonders they so CASUALLY revealed to the two of us... as
if they were obvious, as if only some drooling lobotomite could
possibly overlook their existence!

Tools which could transform Earth a million times for the better,
properly wielded.

Bernadette was absolutely outraged. "You can't be serious! That's...
the most horrible, the most immoral thing I've ever heard." To be
honest, I wasn't pleased with it either. If I ever got there, my
accommodations in the Afterlife were guaranteed to be uncomfortably
warm.

Then I reminded her of what was at stake, the worthless cards nature
had dealt our people. We simply couldn't return to Earth empty-handed.
With a pot in front of us THIS big, we had risk everything we had
left... and bluff our way into Paradise. She shook her head. "I can't
be a part of this. There are some lines you don't cross, and this is
one of them."

But she wouldn't stop me, either.

So I approached Blorthakh's trading concern. I made an offer. THE
Offer. Naturally, they accepted, immediately; the potential market for
my product was enormous. We cut a deal. I'd get their scientific data
on matter-energy conversion machines, medical techniques and antigrav.
"Comparison analysis" was the heaping pile of cattle excrement slung
here. Yes Mr. Alien, of COURSE we knew about all that stuff, we'd just
like to take a look at YOUR notes.

And they would get all I had to offer.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Gas stations and power plants were the first to go. Alas and alack,
the Middle East was rendered destitute overnight. But after a rough
decade or two, they wised up, got rid of all their religious wingnuts,
and concentrated on tourism instead. Protesters made a futile attempt
to stop 'water depletion' but got laughed out of the courthouse.

Hardware and department stores were a problem. Eventually my
corporation bought up these abandoned properties and created competing
franchise regeneration clinics; LifeDepot, Organs 'R Us and Gold
Cross. Whereupon the planet was newly deluged with Attractive Young
Things, an army of Kens and Barbies restored to the good life,
cruising the skies in their computer-individualized Stratomobiles.

(It's amazing how quickly a landscape of bulging muscles and
watermelon tits can grow tiresome.)

Textbooks dared to make reference to a planetary Golden Age. When,
after forty years, it seemed obvious this WASN'T a temporary condition
after all, they had to resort to more impressive language, like The
Great Transfiguration or the New Promethean Utopia. Hey, whatever
works for them.

Bernadette and I eventually buried the hatchet. She still considers me
to be Evil Incarnate. She also keeps bringing up her recent divorce
whenever we talk. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

Yet I have to wonder what the folks groundside would do, if they
really knew what I traded. Of course it WAS mine. The same ethicists
who approved organ cloning for life extension would be hard pressed to
criticize the arrangement. My contract explicitly states that nothing
with a brain shall be grown from my DNA. Every inspection thus far has
shown they've honored the agreement.

Still, I still throw up a lot. It sneaks up on me, this vision of a
Quoggoth family household, the kitchen implements, whether they're
cooking stew, or soup, or a Thanksgiving ensemble. "Hey Mom, what's
for dinner?" Yuck.

But what REALLY worries me is that someday the Quoggs will get tired
of the way I taste.

And decide to try someone new.