Salem grinned. He thought that might grab this pair's attention. When Jasper asked what else he had, Salem started looking around- but he caught sight of the shapes of Mar and those around him on the ship's wall. Ossanlin was being moved as well.
"Actually," he said with a stutter, "I should be out there." He turned back to Al, "Al, can you show him some of the stuff we could offer?"
Al laughed, "Totally."
"Thanks," Salem said, and without another word he jogged down the ship's ramp and towards Mar. As he approached, he called, "Elayne! What exactly happened here?"
Al watched Salem leave and turned back to Jasper, "Well, Salem's a bit of a junk collector, but most of what he keeps is actually pretty sweet stuff. I guess what to give you guys depends on what you're into. Salem's got some Sparkle-Be-Good clothing that I could give you. He won't be happy about that, but he's not here to say no, and I think you'd look fabulous." He made a rectangle with his fingers and looked through it at Jasper, pretending it was a camera. "Totally fashionable, and the technology needed to weave it isn't something the Yeerks have. There's a ton of Furka stuff around here, if y'all like having fun. The technology of fun is pretty impressive where I come from. I know fun isn't for everyone, so Salem has picked up a lot of 'useful' junk as well." He made quotations marks with his fingers as he said the word 'useful.'
He continued looking around, pointing out some objects the shelves, "This is a Heprumei EZSplice miniature genetic engineering lab. This one's a Magneton Redirector" he said, indicating an object that looked like a cross between a magic wand and one of those long lighters with the trigger ignition. "For some reason Salem likes to collect tons of these things. Mmm... this is a combination small animal viewer and time acceleration evolution study chamber. I call it "Jeffry." This guy," he said, holding up a silverish wafer of electronics, "is a hologram projector that I finished recently. It's equivalent to my hologram generator, but it works on you guys- it can make you look like pretty much anything. We actually had to test it on a... um... bounty hunter person earlier, so I know it works. It just doesn't beat non-visual sensors, so it's not quite up to my internal projectors' standards yet. I'm still working on being able to build Pemalite-quality stuff. Um... man, I guess a lot of the stuff on the shelves here is fair game for you guys."
He turned back to them and continued listing things on his fingers that weren't on the shelves, "And some of our more fragile and valuable stuff isn't actually out here. I think I could let you have an Allstone, or a pair of hover boots like the ones Salem's wearing- those things are a blast, by the way- or a personal shield. If you want, most of what's in the computer banks is actually stuff that could be used to enhance your ship. How'd you guys feel about having the first Yeerk ship with Mohemian monomolecular resonance canceling armor? Mmm... that one might be out of your price range, actually, based on this trade. At least we could tweak your systems or whatever to make them do stuff that Yeerk ships can't normally do. We've got ways to enhance you physically... well, at least the human one of you... and ways to enhance most of the technology you're carrying if need be. Um..." He stopped and smiled sheepishly at Jasper. "I'm rambling. It's all about what interests you."
