1
Happy
Galaxy
The Slp-Og V. Trff looked out of a port and
gave an indignant whistle. “It’s winter!”
To this the taller and hairier of its
companions returned in a rude voice: “Aren’t you going on-world?” The shorter
and more smooth-skinned, to whom the remark had been addressed, didn’t reply at
all: she looked out of another port and shivered.
Trff began: “It— Oh,” it said. It fished in
the side pocket of its FW pack and glumly adjusted the translator round one
slender tentacle. “It’s winter,” it repeated. The translator obligingly
translated this into Intergalactic. Unnecessarily: Trff was speaking
Intergalactic already, but it was pretty much of a Special Offer translator.
“Yeah, it would be winter: it’s Galaxy Eve,”
noted Jhl Smt Wong glumly.
“Trff expected it to be midsummer,”
explained the hairy one.
“I’ve told you a megazillion times, Trff,
we have Galaxy Day in winter,” she sighed.
“It’s Federation Day they have in summer,”
explained the hairy one kindly, looking down his two noses.
Trff hunched itself round its FW pack and
asked sadly: “Why are we here, then?"
“They’re expecting me,” said Jhl gloomily.
“Didn’t dare to put it off again.”
“They lay on this foul FW feast,” explained
the hairy one kindly.
“Shut up! So do your lot!” shouted Jhl.
“The we-it doesn’t: we should have gone to
its home planet again, you-it could have spent the whole vacation bathing in
scented laa and being stroked with nga’a-nga’a feathers. Like last time,” said
Trff pointedly.
“Did she?” asked the hairy one with
interest
“Yes, and you could have, too, BrTl, if you
hadn’t gone chasing off on another stupid Lost Cause!” said Jhl irritably,
hunching herself round her FW pack. “It looks freezing out there,” she muttered
to herself.
“I love Lost Causes; nothing pays as well
as Lost Cause Guiding,” he said smugly.
“Dangerous and boring,” noted Trff thoughtfully.
“Yeah. Worst of both galaxies: him all
over,” noted Jhl.
Ignoring this, BrTl reported smugly:
“Success rate seventy percent. Only lost one dumb FW.”
Then they all went back to staring glumly
out of the ports.
Finally BrTl said: “Well, come on. Last one
off the ship’s an asteroid-brained FW.”
“Put your FW pack on,” ordered Jhl glumly.
“You’re o-breather, aren’t you?” he said,
staring at her.
“It’s below S/IG zero out there, that’s not
nga’a-nga’a feathers floating down out of the sky, you intergalactic clown!”
Resignedly BrTl assumed his FW pack. “Why
in Federation don’t they buy a Meteorologist?"
“Too mean?” suggested Trff, hunching itself
round its pack. “Or too poor, if they can’t even afford tran-pods. Though there
are other possib—”
“Yeah. Those ones’ll do, though, Trff,” he
sighed.
“We do have tran-pods at the big
spaceports. My family lives at the back of Blerrinbrig’s System, I thought I’d
explained that?” said Jhl heavily.
“What are those?” Trff returned, peering.
“Not tran-pods,” predicted BrTl, shivering.
“What?” said Jhl, peering.
“Those,” it said.
“TREES!” she shouted irritably.
“Didn’t you-it do basic c-based, o-breather
Bio at First School?” asked BrTl in a super-kind voice. Since his translator
wasn’t on it came over fully as super-kind as he’d meant it to.
“Your translator’s on the blink again,”
noted Jhl.
Muttering to himself, BrTl shook his wrist
fiercely.
“Bipedal,” said Trff thoughtfully, looking
at Jhl.
“Triple A: go to Space Cadet Training,”
said BrTl unkindly, still shaking his wrist.
“You-it’s a mammalian,” it noted, looking
at Jhl. Since had her FW pack on not much of her mammary glands was visible,
but she nodded anyway. “Sexual reproduction!” it recalled proudly.
“Well, don’t look at me, I’m only a product
of it!” said Jhl hastily.
“Anyway, one of those trees is definitely
alive and it’s not a mammalian,” Trff reported.
“It’s not particularly intelligent, either,
is it?” said Jhl drily.
Trff waved an antenna at it and reported:
“It is sentient, though not within the meaning of the Act.”
“Good, then ask it what ‘deciduous’ means,”
she said unkindly.
“It doesn’t communicate in that way— Wait,”
it said. “BrTl, did you-it know trees have an even worse form of sexual
reproduction than mammalians? –Not to be anything-ist!" it added
hurriedly.
“What? It’s a tree,” moaned Jhl. “Wake up, Trff! A plant!”
“Why didn’t you-it say so in the first
place? –‘Trees’; ‘plants’; ‘trees’,” Trff muttered crossly, adjusting its
translator. “Piece of space junk!”
“Well, come on,” said Jhl glumly. “OPEN,
are you DEAF?” she shouted at the hatch.
I
never heard you.
“I’ll turn you off once and for all!”
shouted Jhl.
I
never heard you, Captain, it sent quickly.
“You are deaf, I’m gonna get you overhauled
at the next decent spaceport,” she decided angrily. “I was sending ‘OPEN’ at
the top of my mind!”
Sorry, Captain. Chief Engineer Slp-Og V. Trff was sending “CLOSE”.
Jhl kicked it in the guts.
OW!
it screamed, opening.
“Works every time,” noted BrTl, going
first. “I’ll go first, shall I?” he said courteously. “Galloping grqwary
gizzards, it’s BELOW S/IG ZERO out here!” he shouted.
Jhl followed, hunched around her FW pack.
“I told you so,” she muttered.
Trff trailed in their wake, whistling sadly
to itself, hunched around its pack. It sent Close
but the hatch ignored it. “CLOSE!” it hooted.
The hatch closed slowly.
“It does need re-blobbing,” said Trff sadly
to itself.
At
your orders, Chief Engineer Slp-Og V. Trff, the hatch sent quickly, but
Trff ignored it and trailed sadly onwards.
A lot of loose greyish-white stuff lay all
around littering up the crinkled Special Offer U-Lay spaceport tarmac. It felt
curiously... Trff was tempted to turn the FW pack off for an instant in order
to experience the sensation of whatever-it-was on a tentacle, but thought
better of it. Instead it aimed the FW pack’s tacto-blob at the stuff. Eh? It
gave the tempo-blob a go—mind you-it, that had been on the blink last time
they’d had to flat-world. What? Oh, well, what being cared, some sort of FW,
c-based, o-breather stuff that lay around on spaceports beyond the last black
hole, to Zuittelfink’s Asteroid and gone, at the back of Blerrinbrig’s System.
The three huddled, unhappy figures trudged
doggedly across the crinkled Special Offer U-Lay tarmac in the direction of the
Terminal Building. A megazillion light-years away.
As usual the temperature of the interior of
the Terminal Building was unsuitable to sustain sentient life in any form known
across the two galaxies. In this case, stifling hot. Well, it had to be that or
sub-zero S/IG. Trff's pale jade fluff began to turn yellowish immediately. It
attempted to adjust its FW pack but all their FW packs were pretty Special
Offer, so nothing much happened.
Also as usual, but more especially round
Galaxy Eve, like it was, the interior of the Terminal Building was stuffed to
the bulging ports with pushing, shoving, yelling, baggage-laden beings. All dressed,
in the case of those whose ethnic customs permitted dress, unsuitably for the
occasion, for the season, and most of all for the interior of the Terminal
Building. Most of them were accompanied by pushing, shoving, yelling, and very
sticky young ones. Trff drew in its antennae as much as possible and coiled its
tentacles tightly round the parcels it was lugging for Jhl and tried to pretend
it was on a civilised planet very far away, where the nga’a-nga’a birds sang to
two silver moons in a pink sky and the fermented laa flowed like... Well, like
it had done last Galaxy Day, would do.
...“Nothing to declare,” said Jhl firmly.
“What’s all this, then?” the FW customs
official replied suspiciously.
“Galaxy Day presents for my family. Exempt.
Para 64, Subsection (C), Section 578-6, IG Home-World Regulations Number
72/E/43007,” replied Jhl glibly.
“Spaceport lawyer,” he returned sourly,
vaguely aiming a lumo-blob at her hand. Jhl stuck her wrist firmly under it and
got lumo-ed “EXEMPT”. You never knew when a nice lumo “EXEMPT” stamp might come
in handy.
...“You’re a what?” said Trff’s FW customs official, looking dubiously at its
small, spherical, fluffy pale green body and broadcasting dubiously: A Flppu?
“A Ju’ukrterian. From Zll. What it says
there,” replied Trff clearly, pointing a spare tentacle at its dokko.
The customs official gasped, and clutched
her round mammalian ears.
Trff shook the tentacle with the translator
on it a few times. “Sorry. This thing’s on the blink. It’s a Ju’ukrterian. From
Zll.”
“Oh.” She peered at the dokko.
Trff explained kindly: “Where the
nga’a-nga’a feathers come from."
“Oh,” she said. “I’ve heard of them.”
Trff watched with interest as her-its
cheeks turned pink. Jhl’s did that, too, must be species-specific. “It could
let you-it have a few,” it said carelessly. “Very Special Offer.”
“No, thanks,” she said. The cheeks had gone
even darker. Was she-it about to haul off and kick something in the guts? “What’s
all this stuff?"
Trff replied glibly: “Galaxy Day presents
for its friend’s family. Exempt. Para 64, Subsection (c), Section 578-6, IG
Home-World Regulations Number 72/E/43007.”
Fortunately the official didn’t ask what in
the two galaxies Trff imagined a family to be, but merely said sourly:
“Spaceport lawyer,” and waved a lumo-blob around vaguely. Trff hurriedly stuck
a tentacle right under it, you-it never knew when a nice lumo “EXEMPT” stamp
might come in handy. And this didn’t look like the sort of place where they’d
bother to cancel them when you-it left. In fact it didn’t look like the sort of
place where they’d bother, period, because what about those Friyrians over
there: they were just walking right on out to that rather nice Crmrokko Super
Maxi. Trff itself didn’t go for Crmrokkos, they had a decent turn of speed but
their blobs were apt to go haywire in tight corners—no staying power. But if a
being wanted something slick, fast and simple, they were a nice little craft.
...“Eh?” said BrTl’s customs official,
peering up at him.
BrTl looked down his two noses and smiled
ingratiatingly, humanoid-wise. Since the customs official was a male,
o-breather humanoid about two IG spans high and BrTl was a male-tended,
o/h-breather xathpyroid about five IG spans high including the neck, and a good
three at the shoulder, it was perhaps understandable that the customs official,
who did after all hail from beyond the last black hole at the back of
Blerrinbrig’s System, should have blenched. Especially since BrTl had very long
eye-teeth, which to the humanoid raised atavistic memories of o-breather
carnivores that had never actually been seen in the two galaxies for over two
hundred Intergalactic millennia.
“I said maybe you’d like to take a look at
these few items.” –As the strongest of the trio BrTl had been entrusted with
the largest packages, including the super-deluxe working model of the Class 4
Standard Intergalactic Space-Issue Plasmo-Blaster, a present for one of Jhl’s
younger cognates. (One of those intricate mammalian kinship things: BrTl wasn’t
admitting to any being, and more especially not to Trff, that he didn’t have a
clue what.)
The customs official looked weakly at
BrTl’s two armfuls, not to say several pseudopodfuls, of packages. “Um...
What’s this?”
On certain planets, mind you BrTl didn’t
have a clue if this was one of them, the super-deluxe working model of the
Class 4 Standard Intergalactic Space-Issue Plasmo-Blaster had been declared a
proscribed weapon within the meaning of the Act. As it was written into the
Constitution of the Federated Worlds of the Two Galaxies that every member
planet had the right to interpret the meaning of the Act, on other planets it
had merely been declared contraband. On still others it was a popular Galaxy
Day present. But he wasn’t too vacuum-frozen sure this was one of them.
Therefore he replied ingratiatingly: “A Galaxy Day present for my friend's
cognate. Exempt. Para 641, Subsection (c), Section 578-6, IG Home-World
Regulations Number 72/E/43007.”
The customs official didn’t say “Spaceport
lawyer” but he was definitely thinking it. All he said was: “Where do you want
this?”—waving the lumo-blob.
BrTl had depilated the underside of his
right wrist especially for this purpose. –The practice of lumo-stamping of
course discriminated against extremely hirsute beings. But who wanted to get
involved in an Intergalactic Personal/Group-Being Rights issue? Your
brood-sisters, immediate family, agnates, cognates, congeners, clonal affines,
tribe, sub-clan, glkp group or bond-partner/s, or simply your legal heirs,
depending on your type and status, would spend the next megazillion IG years in
litigation. And that was only to get as far as a first hearing! BrTl sometimes
wished—well, quite often, actually—that he’d taken the advice of an elderly
cognate of his and gone into intergalactic law. By now he’d have a palace on
Playfair Two, the latest sports model Zwp—the 2400A, probably, no, make that the
2401A, he’d seen it at this year’s Spacecraft Show, it was due for release in
the new IG year—plus naturally a deluxe Moodra Dyhillia. Customized. With the
new senso-tissue in every hygiene cabinet. And all the crew would be ex-Space
Service! Probably the captain would be a full commander, a real—
“WELL?”
BrTl jumped ten IG fluh. “Uh—put it there,”
he said weakly, holding out the wrist. The official waved the lumo-blob vaguely
at it but BrTl shot out a pseudopod—the official blenched, evidently he’d never
met a xathpyroid before—and grabbed it, positioning it firmly over the wrist.
You never knew when a nice lumo “EXEMPT” stamp might come in handy.
…“It’s a primmo,” he muttered, about a
megazillion IG hours later.
“It and you-it wouldn’t be allowed on it
without a permit if it was,” replied Trff, who could be maddeningly
matter-of-fact. Like all engineers. –Look
out, here she-it comes! it sent.
Jhl came up to them red-faced and panting.
Her First Officer and Chief Engineer recognised immediately that in mammalian
humanoid body-language this meant either that she was about to haul off and
kick something in the guts, or that the temperature in the Terminal Building
was no more suited to her metabolic rate than it was to theirs. –Well, that
figured, thought Trff, thinking of the sub-zero S/IG waste that was the
Terminal Building at the spaceport nearest its own brood pen. –Well, that
figured, thought BrTl, thinking of the blazing ninety-plus S/IG magma pit that
was the Terminal Building at the spaceport nearest his own culture-pod.
“Not
a hire-bubble in sight!” she panted.
“There wouldn’t be, it’s practically a
white-out,” returned BrTl sourly.
Jhl scowled. “There isn’t one in sensing
range, either, asteroid-brain.”
“Public bubble-train?” said Trff.
“It’ll have to be, won’t it? Unless you fancy a walk?"
Trff shook the tentacle with the translator
on it. “What?”
Jhl turned it Off. This was strictly against IG law, but then so, very probably,
were Special Offer translators acquired on the black market because you’d
flogged off your own expensive customized Space Issue models when in desperate
straits, or certainly when very broke, somewhere on an obscure FW planet well
beyond the back of Blerrinbrig’s System. For good measure she turned BrTl’s Off, too. Then she turned her own Off. That was actually IG-legal, if very
rude, unless some being was trying to communicate with you at that precise
moment. Then she said very loudly: “Unless you-it would fancy a walk!"
Trff retracted an antenna. “There’s no need
to shout!”
Jhl scowled. “Okay, be like that. You-it
could probably make it, now it comes to think of it, it’s only 150 IG glps.
You-it would probably only have lost three or at the most four tentacles to the
frostbite by the time you-it made it to Mum’s hot soup.”
In Ju’ukrterian, which they were both
speaking, this last phrase could only be expressed as “to”—meaningless
noise—“hot flavoured spicy beverage governed by possessive,” so in fact this
was what Jhl had said.
“What?” it replied weakly.
“IT'S 150 IG GLPS!” she hollered.
Trff hunched round its FW pack, emanating
misery. “It’ll have to be public transport, then.”
“Yeah. And if you-it or you-it was
imagining we’ll get a bubble to ourselves, don’t.”
Glumly they trailed off towards the sign
that said “Squiggle Squiggle”—must be Jhl's Bluellian dialect—and underneath,
in what was presumably supposed to be Intergalactic, “PUBRIC TLANSPOLT”. It was
a primmo, all right.
Sure enough, they had to share a
bubble—with a family of five mammalian humanoids, at first Trff and BrTl
thought there were six, then they realised that the furry one the smallest one
was lugging was not a sentient being within the Meaning of the Act.
But they didn’t really notice them, because
almost immediately they all got into another argument over whose fault it
really was that BrTl had lost five rafts of super-igs in a 4-D pwm game on that
obscure FW planet well beyond the back of Blerrinbrig’s System and had been
forced to flog off their customized Space Issue translators to settle his IOUs.
They got quite a few odd looks from the two older humanoids and a continuous
concentrated stare from the smallest one (not the furry one, the marginally
sentient one), but as they were used to flat-worlder planets where the primmo
inhabitants could barely stumble through a few words of Intergalactic none of
them realised the stares were because they’d automatically carried on speaking
Ju’ukrterian.
At long last Jhl yelled: “JUMP!” and Trff
sent a panic-stricken mind-shriek of OPEN!
at the bubble’s hatch, and BrTl, who was nearest, kicked the hatch in the guts
and they all jumped.
Into a dark, frozen—
“OW!” whistled Trff madly. “Help, help! It’s
drowning!”
“OW!” yelled BrTl. “This isn’t a stop,
what’s wrong with you-it, Jhl?"
Jhl sat up in the snowdrift, gasping. “It
knows it isn’t a stop, there isn’t a stop near brood pen!"
BrTl grabbed a handful of rapidly bluing
fluff and pulled Trff out of the snowdrift, kindly dusting off a couple of
tentacles and a bent antenna as he did so. “Where in the Asteroids of Hhum are
we?"
“Nearly at brood pen,” she said. “Well, see
that light-blob over there?"
They peered through the white-out.
“It’s the light of your-its brood pen,”
acknowledged BrTl.
“Uh—no. It’s the light-blob
its”—meaningless noise—“hangs out on the gate when any of its brood
(qualifier)”—meaningless noise—“are expected. If it’s dark, it means.”
“Why are we speaking Ju’ukrterian?” he said
politely in Intergalactic.
“Were we?” replied Jhl blankly in the same.
“Well, you just said your-its meaningless
noise hangs out a light-blob when any of its meaningless noise are expected,”
he pointed out.
“No: any of its meaningless noise qualified
by brood,” objected Trff.
“True,” BrTl allowed, attempting to brush
snow off his neck-hair.
“My DAD hangs it out when any of his KIDS
are expected!” shouted Jhl in Intergalactic.
“Very clear,” he groaned, stamping his
off-hind leg. Ugh, it had gone to sleep. Or, no: it was getting frostbite! He
danced up and down madly.
“What are you doing?” screamed Jhl. “That parcel’s got the working model of the
plasmo-blaster in it, it’ll GO OFF!"
“It didn’t go off when BrTl threw
his-itself off a moving bubble-train,” noted Trff.
“Why in Federation couldn’t we have
unlinked the bubble and ridden it to your home, if it’s not too much to ask?”
asked BrTl politely.
“There’s no junction anywhere near here.”
“THAT'S WHY I’M ASKING!” he roared.
Trff and Jhl shrank.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
Jhl sighed. “Quite apart from the fact that
we didn’t have the bubble to ourselves, we’d have had to deliver it back
tomorrow morning to the nearest junction—that’s thirty IG glps—or pay a
megazillion rafts of super-igs in fines.”
“No!” objected Trff in amazement. “It could
have talked to the timer-blob!"
“Don’t be an FW idiot, they don’t have
automatic check-in at the back of Blerrinbrig’s System,” said its Captain
sourly.
“Even easier,” it said, emanating
incredulity.
“Asteroid-brain! A little MAN checks you
in!” she shouted.
“A small male humanoid?” it said
cautiously.
—“Sentient within the Meaning,” noted BrTl
sourly.
“YES!” she shouted. “Are you DEAF?”
“No, but it feels as if it may soon be,”
decided Trff, retracting all its antennae and hunching round its FW pack.
There was a short silence.
“Do we walk from here?” asked BrTl
politely.
His Captain replied grimly: “I do. You can
carry it. And get moving, these Special Offer FW packs aren’t built for
Bluellia winters.” Hunching round her FW pack, she strode off into the
blizzard.
BrTl sighed. “‘I'll go first’,” he muttered
to himself. He picked up Trff with a pseudopod, ignoring the Ju’ukrterian’s
startled whistle, and trudged off after her.
After a considerable period it sent: Where does this hot, spicy beverage come
into it, BrTl?
No
idea. But I hope it’s had a few grqwaries waved at it. I could eat a flock of
them.
That’s very primmo, BrTl.
I
may be primmo, but at least I didn’t spend the entire trip dreaming up ways to
communicate meaningfully with a bunch of blobs!
It
might have worked, it replied mournfully.
“And grqwaries might have invented the
wheel, only they didn’t,” sighed BrTl. He trudged on through the blizzard.
At long last Trff reported: “It can sense
sentient beings!”
“They’ll be trees,” he noted. There was an
indignant whistle and the soft rustling sound of a Ju’ukrterian it-being
withdrawing all its antennae.
Trff was right, however, and they were
nearly at Jhl’s father’s farm.
Since Jhl’s father farmed grqwaries and
Galaxy Day, on c-based, o-breather worlds, at any rate, was the big time of
year for roast grqwary, there were a fair few sentient beings around, buying
grqwaries at black-market rates. –Bluellia was pretty primmo, all right, but
not so primmo it didn’t have a flourishing black market. Not in igs, no: the Bluellians
were pretty primmo but not totally thick. In kind, which was absolutely
IG-illegal on worlds within the Federation, and in Bluellian exchange tickets,
which were legal tender up to the amount of three farthnums. There being four
farthnums to a num, and one thousand nums to an intergalactic credit unit, or
ig. One plump grqwary at IG-legal rates was worth twenty-three igs. So there
you were. Well, there certainly half the population of this obscure part of
obscure Bluellia were. Complete with private bubbles and in the case of the
more affluent, actual lifters, why hadn’t SOME BEING been asked to collect them
from the spaceport?
Jhl introduced them but what with the
frostbite, the milling crowds, and, in BrTl’s case, the smell of roast grqwary
drifting from the house, not to mention the fact that until you got to know
them very well one mammalian humanoid looked pretty much like another (not to
be anything-ist), it wasn't until some time later, when they were actually in the
house, sipping grqwary soup in BrTl’s case and watery artificial laa in Trff’s,
that they were able to sit up—or down, in BrTl's case—and start taking stock of
their surroundings and the company. Well, sort of. Considering they were all
humanoids.
The older one with the large mammary glands
was a “she”. Closely related to Jhl but neither Trff nor BrTl wanted to go into
that too closely. Her name was Mum. BrTl had a vague idea that this was a
kinship term but didn’t express it, being unsure of his ground. She didn’t seem
to mind being called Mum by everyone, so they did. The older one with the
face-hair—BrTl felt almost akin to him, if such a thing could be imagined—was a
male, also closely related to Jhl and apparently the bond-partner of Mum. His name
was Dad. He was the one that had hung the helpful light-blob out for them on
the farm gate. Since Trff and BrTl were both hardened spacers they were
familiar with the idea of bond-partnering and were able to take it without
blenching. BrTl even started to feel comfortable about identifying the males,
they had face-hair: there were two more with it, larger than Dad and to all
appearances younger, with loud voices, and these were the ones Jhl had referred
to as her brothers. He knew that word, it was like saying they were cognates
from your own culture-pod. Only then some more came in and they were dressed
the same as the ones BrTl was sure were males, and they didn’t have mammary
glands, only they didn’t have face-hair either! Very confusing. They had even
louder voices than the hairy cognates. At first BrTl was sure they were working
up to a fight, they kept inflicting mild bodily injuries on one another, but
after a while it dawned that it was some sort of culture-pod thing. Like
pulling the neck-hair of those from your culture-pod, where you wouldn’t have
dreamed of doing it to anyone else, not even another cognate.
There were several younger females, around
Jhl’s own age, possibly—though it was difficult to tell with humanoids. BrTl
was quite interested to see that one of them was feeding her pup. So First
School Bio hadn’t been all wrong, after all!
They all, male or female, young or old,
talked incessantly, though none of them seemed to be sending, at all. At first
they were very polite and stuck to Intergalactic, which they all spoke less
than well. A lot less, especially the young, hairless, putative males. But soon
they lapsed into the local dialect, so it was just as well—well, probably just
as well—that BrTl’s and Trff's Special Offer translators were more or less
working.
The lapsing could have had something to do
with the fact that the brother called Bht who was one of the bearded males
pretty soon produced a large container of a local intoxicant.
BrTl was familiar with primmo intoxicants,
he’d absorbed variants all over the two galaxies, and most of them didn’t do a
thing for his metabolism. He accepted several glassfuls of this particular
intoxicant and, though he appreciated the fact that Jhl's family appeared never
to have heard of the Standard Intergalactic glass—these were more like portable
bubbles—didn’t manage to get even warmish, though the rest of the company
rapidly got very cheerful and even more loquacious. But BrTl left his
translator on anyway. Well, it was
Galaxy Eve.
The farm was quite comfortable, considering
it was on a near-primmo world at the back of Blerrinbrig’s system, to the
Asteroids of Hhum and gone, past the last black hole. It even had a Guest Room.
Mum allocated that to Trff because, she said, he was the one that really needed
a special atmosphere, wasn’t he? After they’d more or less worked out that when
she said “he” she meant Trff, it went into it. Since its metabolism merely
parked primmo intoxicants, Bht’s variant hadn’t done anything for it, either,
and in fact it had gone back to the artificial laa as soon as was polite.
BrTl waited a bit and then called into the
room’s comm-blob: “How is it?"
“Come in,” replied Trff gloomily. “It’s not
asleep."
The door opened obligingly and BrTl stuck
his neck cautiously into the room. Well, the temperature was about right for a
Ju’ukrterian. What had happened to the atmosphere, though? “What’s happened to
the atmosphere?” he choked politely.
“Mum can’t tell one atmo-blob from another.”
“You mean she bought the wrong one?” he
choked.
“Got it,” said Trff mournfully.
BrTl gave a bark of laughter. He choked,
withdrew his neck hurriedly, adjusted his Special Offer FW pack—the FW piece of
space junk—and stuck his neck into the room again. His neck-hair wasn’t
filtering at all well, not at all. “What is it?” he asked politely.
“It doesn’t know, BrTl.”
“You’re the one that did Basic Chemo at
Second School, aren’t you?” choked BrTl.
Trff emanated annoyance: it had a Third
School degree in Chemo, as BrTl was perfectly well aware. Most engineers did an
extra subject, engineering alone was pretty boring, blobs were the dullest
almost semi-sentient entities in the two galaxies.
“Well, can you-it manage?” he said, relenting.
“Yes,” it admitted mournfully.
“You could come into my room, it’s only
basic o-breather mixture."
“Thank you-it, BrTl, but it’ll be too hot.
–Hang on, hasn’t you-it got a proper stall?"
BrTl was used to the way it picked up your
thoughts before you realised you were having them. “No,” he admitted glumly.
Trff removed its translator. “Primmo dump,”
it said—politely in Slaetho-Xathpyrian, BrTl’s own dialect.
“Yeah.”
“You could park your neck on the end of its
nest,” it offered kindly, still in his dialect.
“Thanks, but I don’t think my FW pack could
cope with the temperature. There’s a thing in Jhl’s room that’s got a sort of
neck-rest, I might use that.”
All right, it sent sleepily.
BrTl perceived that the lowered
temperature—combined with the Ju’ukrterian's need to divest itself of the
parked local intoxicant, which it could only do while in doze mode—was doing
its usual job, so he said: “Well, goodnight, then. –Are you sure you-it won’t
suffocate?”
Its pack’s on alarm mode, it sent sleepily, turning round in its
nest.
BrTl withdrew his neck politely but stuck a
toe in as the door closed. It didn't say OW!
or Don’t! or anything, in fact, so it
was a pretty Special Offer door, but he wasn't exactly surprised. When Trff was
whistling melodically he crept in—at least, in xathpyroid terms it was a creep,
below in the kitchen several of Jhl’s less comatose relatives looked up at
their ceiling in fear and trembling—and checked its FW pack, just to make sure.
The alarm was on. Oh, well, digits crossed. BrTl crept out again.
“What’s he doing?” croaked M’mri’in, below
in the kitchen.
“Dunno,” said Jhl, yawning. “Might be
grazing in his sleep, he does that sometimes.”
There was a momentary horrified silence in
the kitchen—apart from Bht’s and young Frdd’s snoring, that was.
“Jhl, that’s not safe!" gasped
M’mri’in.
Jhl looked tolerantly at her
sister-in-IG-law. “Not in this Special Offer dump of Mum and Dad’s, no; it
probably isn’t. The ship’s primed to send out restrainos when he grazes in his
sleep.”
“Ship!” choked Bhl, her non-comatose
brother. “Deteriorating hunk of space junk, more like!” –G’gg, Bhl’s middle
son, sniggered rudely.
“It goes. Which is more than can be said of
that so-called lifter of yours,” she retorted pointedly. –G’gg sniggered.
“It only needs—”
“Vaporising,” she said.
G’gg sniggered again.
“GO TO BED!” hollered his father.
“Aw, Dad, it’s Galaxy Eee-eeve!” he whined.
Bhl’s chrono-blob immediately contributed
helpfully: No, it isn’t, it’s Galaxy Day,
local time.
“Yeah. GO TO BED!"
“Or you won’t get the extra-special deluxe
present I got you in Plentyville,” said Jhl with a wink.
G’gg’s face lit up. “Plentyville? Really?”
he gasped.
S’zaan, his mother, gasped: “Jhl! You
didn’t!”
“He’s gotta grow up some time,” said Jhl in
a bored voice.
“Yeah!” agreed G’gg, scowling at his
mother.
“Jhl, he’s only fourteen!” gasped S’zaan.
“How much is that in IG years?” replied
Jhl, sounding more bored than ever.
S’zaan reddened indignantly, glaring at
her, but Bhl got up, yawning horribly, and grabbed his offspring’s ear.
Ignoring the “OW!” and the “Don’t squash my audio-blob!” and the “OW-OOW!” he
said mildly: “Get off to bed or I'll feed your audio-blob to a grqwary.”
G’gg got up and replied to the sub-text:
“Can I keep it, though, Dad?”
“Whatever it is,” he noted drily. “Yeah,
you can keep it; Jhl’s right, fourteen's old enough to start growing up. –Ten
point six-four to you,” he added in a rude voice to his sister.
“I thought he was ten point eight,” she
admitted, though not sounding at all remorseful, or even interested.
G'gg paused in the kitchen doorway in
horror.
“YES!” shouted his father. “I SAID, you can
HAVE it! –However unsuitable it is,” he muttered. “Get going before I change me
mind!”
G’gg vanished.
“What is it?” said Bhl immediately.
“Secret,” replied his sister in a bored
voice.
Their sister Pt’Rshaa, who had turned up
for Galaxy Day minus her third bond-partner (third in succession, fours and
even threes weren’t legal under the primmo Bluellian Local Code—one more good
reason for Jhl Smt Wong to leave), but with the four offspring of her various
unions, said immediately, in a very sulky voice: “I bet it’s something
pathetic, anyway."
Everyone ignored her, it was the only way
to cope with Pt'Rshaa.
“Oh, well,” said Bhl peaceably: “let’s
unpack Tmmi’s super-deluxe Class 4 Standard Intergalactic Space-Issue
Plasmo-Blaster!"
To this Jhl replied mildly: “No. It’s for
him.” At the same time M’mri’in gave a horrified gasp and S’zaan screamed:
“WHAT? Jhl, they're ILLEGAL!”
Jhl took another Galaxy Eve bun. “I’ve had
too many of these things,” she noted, biting into it. It squeaked and deflated
and Jhl had to lick the blrtlberry jam off her chin, so it was a good one—not
that Mum’s blrtlberry buns usually weren’t, she had a great touch with the
culture-pans.
“Tmmi’ll be okay, S’zaan,” said Bhl
peaceably.
“If he doesn't blow himself up,” noted
Pt’Rshaa. She sniffed dolefully at her chemo-blob.
M’mri’in, momentarily distracted—she was
Tmmi’s mother but she had the sort of mind that got distracted by almost
anything, she was outstanding even for a flat-worlder—looked at her
sister-in-IG-law anxiously and said: “You shouldn’t take so much of that stuff,
Pt’Rshaa, dear.”
Pt’Rshaa glared sulkily. “It’s the most
expensive chemo-blob on the market, it's the purest Oononian super-health
compound, and it cost me—”
Bhl overrode this typical Pt’Rshaa
utterance with: “Come on, Jhl, let’s open it!”
“Grow up,” she said.
M’mri’in stopped listening to Pt’Rshaa
explaining how many igs she’d paid for her purest Oononian super-health
chemo-blob and said anxiously: “Jhl, he’s only a little boy!”
“Yeah, that’s what they make them for. –I
mean who.”
“Next thing we know he’ll be shooting Dad’s
grqwaries with it!” she wailed.
“Or his foot,”
noted Pt’Rshaa sourly.
“Intergalactic garbage!” exclaimed Bhl
irritably. “He’s not that thick! Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on him. –Or Bht
will,” he added on a dry note, glancing at Tmmi’s father’s comatose, snoring
form. “Come on, Jhl, be a sport!”
Jhl shrugged. “It’s in BrTl’s room, if
you’re that interested. The big package with the pale green sim-tissue and the
Customs Dekko that says: ‘Muu’uu Doll. Gift Only’.”
For more than one reason, there was a
momentary silence in the kitchen. Apart from the snores, of course. And the
bubbling noise of a culture-pan getting ready to prepare the pudding for the
Galaxy Day feast.
“Jhl, you don’t mean— Did you smuggle it?”
gulped M’mri’in at last.
“No,” replied Jhl on a virtuous note. “See
this?” She stuck out her wrist.
They all stared blankly at it.
“Well, you could see it if you had shades
on,” she admitted in a weak voice.
“Shades,” her brother reminded her grimly:
“are IG-illegal to all but IG-licensed Customs Officials, IG Militia, and Space
Patrollers!”
“And IG Minerals Commission officers,”
added Pt’Rshaa.
Bluellia had very few minerals. Bhl
shrugged a little but conceded: “That’d be right. –Are you mad?” he said to
Jhl.
Jhl shrugged. “It says ‘EXEMPT’,” she said
in a bored voice.
“Don’t expect any of us to chuck away a
raft of super-igs hauling you out of a Federation jail, that's all,” warned
Pt’Rshaa sourly.
Jhl shrugged again. “All spacers wear
shades. You don’t imagine BrTl and Trff aren’t, do you?”—There was a momentary
silence as the less sophisticated of her relatives wondered wildly where in the
two galaxies Trff wore its.—“And I want that Dekko back,” she added firmly. “It
could come in handy.”
Pt’Rshaa honked into the chemo-blob.
“Talking of Muu’uu dolls, you promised—”
“Yeah, yeah. One for each of the little
horrors. –It is three females, isn’t it?”
“Jhl!” gasped M’mri’in distressfully.
“All right: girls,” said Jhl crossly. She
scrabbled in a pocket of her discarded FW pack and produced her translator.
“Don’t, dear,” said M’mri’in faintly. “It
makes your voice sound… sort of strange.”
“It makes an awful noise, you mean,”
corrected S’zaan. “What happened to that lovely customized Space Issue one you
got when you graduated from Space Fleet Academy?” –Bhl made a rude noise.
“Lost it,” said Jhl briefly, adjusting the
translator on her wrist.
“Take it off, Jhl, stop being ridiculous,”
ordered S’zaan,
“Yeah: take it off, it might last for
another two split IG seconds,” noted Bhl rudely.
“It is a funny colour, isn’t it?” ventured
M’mri’in, looking at the strip of not-quite- translucent olive-green.
Pt’Rshaa gave a disdainful sniff—not into
the chemo-blob, for once. “Totally tasteless. Like that Thing she’s got on.”
Her sisters-in-IG-law looked dubiously at
the Thing. They’d been wondering if perhaps it was some sort of new
Intergalactic fashion. But if Pt’Rshaa was calling it a Thing, and tasteless,
it couldn’t be. Certainly it was nothing like the wonderful green and red
garment that Pt’Rshaa had seen fit to wind herself into for a quiet Galaxy Eve
at her parents’ home.
“Durocloth,” said Jhl briefly.
“Durocloth!” they screamed. –Not Bhl, of course: he just looked
bored. And sideways at the FW pack. The kids had been playing with it, earlier,
strictly IG-illegal though that was. He wouldn’t have half minded having a play
with it himself.
“Standard Space Issue,” said Jhl in a bored
voice.
“Yes, for Correctional Transports!” said
the robust S’zaan, actually sounding shaken.
“No: that’s the Standard Intergalactic
grey. This is the S/IG grey-green. Well, you could see the difference if you
had your shades— Sorry, sorry.”
“The grey-green’s just as bad: it’s what
the warders wear on the Correctional Transports!” said S’zaan, rallying.
“Couldn’t you at least wear Service greige?”
“That’s just as hideous,” noted Pt’Rshaa in
a bored voice.
“The colour’s immaterial. I wear it because
it’s so comfortable. But the greige is too expensive, and you can’t get the
grey through an IG C&E inspection, it sets off the—”
“Yeah,” said Bhl heavily. “We get it.” He
yawned, and got up. “I’m dropping, I’m off to bed. –You coming, S’zaan?"
“In a minute,” said S’zaan grumpily.
Bhl yawned again, and went off to bed
without her.
Jhl ate a last fried vtty nut and went off,
too, remembering at the last minute to take the FW pack with her.
In the kitchen, amidst the peaceful murmurs
of the culture-pan preparing the pudding for the Galaxy Day feast and the
comatose snores of Bht and Frdd, Jill's female relatives looked dubiously at
one another.
“Well!” said S’zaan. “That awful Durocloth
thing’s contraband, too, you realise that?”
“She’s getting worse,” said M’mri’in, near
tears.
“Impossible,” retorted Pt’Rshaa acidly.
“Though mind you, that garment’s the most hideous thing I’ve seen her in yet!
–And I have known her all her life,” she reminded the sisters-in-IG-law.
After a minute M’mri’in said timidly:
“Those goldy specks in the translator: aren't they meant to sort
of—um—flicker?”
“In decent Space Issue translators: yes,”
agreed Pt’Rshaa on a grim note.
“Oh, dear,” she sighed.
There was a short silence.
“Do you think—?” M’mri’in broke off.
“What?” said S’zaan grimly. “Go ON!”
“Well, are they, do you think?” she
quavered.
“Are who what?” said Pt’Rshaa without
interest, picking up a vtty nut and immediately discarding it.
M’mri’in looked nervously at S’zaan.
“She means,” said S’zaan, very grim,
voicing the speculation that had been exercising the minds of Jhl’s
sisters-in-IG-law ever since Jhl had announced her intention of coming home for
Galaxy Day this year with her two ship-companions—yes, that made three,
quite—“are they in a three, or not?”
“It’s illegal here,” said Pt’Rshaa without
interest.
“Pt’Rshaa! She is your sister! Don’t you
even care?” gasped M’mri’in, near tears.
“Not much. Well, she could hardly have
picked a more grotesque pair to do it with, could she? If she is.”
There was a short silence in the warm
kitchen. Even the sweet-natured M’mri’in could only produce a lame: “I think
Trff’s rather sweet… Well, its fluff’s very pretty.”
After a moment S’zaan ventured, though without
conviction: “Bhl said he thought the big hairy one with all the legs was quite
a decent type.”
“Huh!” snorted Pt’Rshaa. She sniffed at the
chemo-blob again.
“So did Bht, but you know what he is,” said
M’mri’in, looking sadly at her snoring bond-partner. “It was drinking more than
he was.”
“Yes.” S'zaan gave Pt’Rshaa a minatory
look, and got up. “I’m going to bed. And don’t get up at crack of first dawn,
M’mri’in, it’s my turn to give Mum a hand with the culture-pans.”
“I’ll have to get up fairly early, dear,”
said M’mri’in, bustling to her feet, "because there’s the hangar-loft to
be got ready for J’f and Lle’onee’ya."
“‘Lle’onee’ya'! She was plain L’yn when she
married him!” scoffed J’f's sister.
“Yes. And anyway, why can’t the dratted
woman do it herself? She’s a daughter-in-IG-law round here, same’s you and me!”
noted S’zaan crossly.
“Not when they’ve travelled all the way
from Blrtltonia, dear,” M’mri’in protested faintly.
“Is he still stationed there?” asked J’f’s
sister, without much interest.
“Yes.
And let’s hope the selfish grqwary dropping remembers to bring Mum some
blrtlberries this time,” said S’zaan grimly. “I’m off. Goodnight.”
“Nighty-night, dear!” fluted M’mri’in.
“Happy Galaxy Day,” returned Pt’Rshaa
drily.
S’zaan went out, still looking grim, and
there was a short silence. M’mri’in looked uncertainly at Pt’Rshaa.
“Well, don’t ask me! I've never met a three, I’m a flat-worlder, too!” she said
irritably, getting up and putting the chemo-blob in a fold of her garment.
“No. Oh, dear. –She’s swearing more, too,
don’t you think, Pt’Rshaa, dear?"
“She always did,” replied Jhl’s sister
grimly. “But since you ask: yes, I’d say she is marginally swearing more. Well,
she said ‘FW’ in front of Dad, she’s never done that before!”
“No. He’ll be awfully cross if she wears
her translator tomorrow,” she noted dolefully.
“Yeah.” Pt’Rshaa peered into a culture-pan.
“Ugh, not pudding?” she groaned.
It’ll be delicious, the pan promised.
“You mean it'll be exactly as Mum’s recipe
specifies,” she sighed.
Of
course.
“Get on with it,” sighed Pt’Rshaa,
wandering over to the door.
“I just wish she could meet a nice man!”
said M’mri’in on a cross note.
Pt’Rshaa eyed her drily. “She did, didn’t
she? The dashing Fleet Commander Whatsisname, and look what came of— What’s the
matter?”
“He called up! I forgot to tell her!” she
gasped.
“Good. –Well, come on, M’mri’in, the man’s got IG-illegal bond-partners all round the
two galaxies! You don’t want Jhl to be the megazillionth to be left with a
little IG-illegal package on her hands, do you?"
“Silly; she’s got more sense than that,
she’d check up on his bond-status first thing on the IG Regis—” M’mri’in broke
off. “Anyway, she doesn’t want a bond-partner, not even an illegal one,” she
said sadly.
“Tell us about it,” agreed her
sister-in-IG-law drily.
M’mri’in sniffled dolefully. Resignedly
Pt’Rshaa lent her her chemo-blob.
“Ta,” she said, sniffing dolefully into it.
“Ooh: this is strong, isn’t it?” she noted pleasedly.
Pt’Rshaa glared but the innocent M’mri’in
didn’t resister this. “Come on, M’mri’in,” she said resignedly, taking the
chemo-blob back. “Galaxy Day tomorrow.”
Today. Local time, her chrono-blob corrected her.
“Shut up, or you can join the grqwary
gizzards in Mum’s Galaxy Eve soup!” she said angrily, sweeping out.
A humble tidy-blob scurried in her wake,
picking bits off the trailing hems of her many-folded garment. M’mri’in, whom
no-one had ever managed to convince that they were not sentient beings within
the Meaning of the Act, side-stepped it hurriedly—poor wee thing! She went out
slowly. Oh, dear. It would be nice to see J’f again, of course, she told
herself valiantly, though not managing to convince herself. But Lle’onee’ya was
so—so—well, picky, really. And so sophisticated, their simple little Bluellia
ways would never... Oh, dear.
In their room S'zaan said grimly: “She'll
be up at crack of first dawn, you know!”
“Who?” groaned Bhl from under the cover.
“Mum? She always is.”
S’zaan got into bed, wincing as her
mother-in-IG-law’s old-fashioned clingo bedding duly clung. “Your mother, of
course. But I meant M’mri’in: she’ll be knocking herself out doing up the
hangar-loft for the sake of that dratted Lle’onee’ya!"
“More fool her,” he said sleepily.
S’zaan sighed. “Yes… ”
Bhl yawned. “Go OUT!” he shouted irritably
at the light-blob. It went out and he grumbled into the dark: “Why in the two
galaxies can’t Mum and Dad's light-blobs ever take a hint?”
“Old-fashioned,” said S'zaan, yawning.
“Yeah.”
There was a short silence.
“It still hasn’t dawned on M’mri’in what
your sister does for a living!”
“Eh? Aw—no. Well, she’s pretty thick, ya
know. But all space traders are smugglers, goes with the territory,” he said,
yawning.
“She’ll end up in a Federation jail,” she
predicted.
“Only if she gets caught.”
“Very funny, Bhl Smt Wong,” she said
dangerously.
“Only kidding,” he replied uneasily.
“She’s broke again, you know,” she pointed
out.
“Uh—can’t be: not if she's buying the
vacuum-frozen kids super-deluxe plasmo-blasters and Muu’uu dolls and similar
intergalactic garbage,” he said, yawning. “Go to sleep.”
S’zaan ignored this and insisted: “She is,
Bhl, otherwise why would she be wearing Durocloth? And that dreadful Special
Offer translator, she must have picked it up on a junk world!”
“Somewhere Off-Limits, anyway: yeah,” he
agreed drily. “All right: she’s probably broke and she hasn’t got her spending
priorities right and she’s risking her liberty not to say her IG credit-rating,
not to say her stupid neck, smuggling intergalactic garbage halfway across the
two galaxies for her FW nieces and nephews. So what’s new?”
After a moment S’zaan, who, in spite of
being in appearance about as square and unexciting as a Crypto-Rwthwarian in an
FW pack, was not entirely devoid of a sense of humour, admitted with a laugh in
her voice: “Nothing, I have to admit!”
“Right. Nighty-night."
“Nighty-night, dear. Happy Galaxy Day,” she
murmured.
“Hap’ Gal’y,” he mumbled, going out like a
light-blob.
Galaxy Day at Jhl’s family’s farm on
Bluellia proceeded on pretty much a predictable course. Allowing for minor
regional variations. The day started auspiciously enough, with Mum going into
the kitchen very shortly after the crack of first dawn and finding that the
culture-pan was doing the pudding beautifully. Then it slid downhill a bit
because she mentioned casually to the culture-pan appointed to do the roasting
that they had a xathpyroid guest and it pointed out that he could eat a whole
grqwary all on his own. Unless the guest was a “she,” in which case she could
eat two. Mum rushed out into the yard forthwith and zapped the grqwary that
she’d been saving for IG New Year’s Day. –That left the two she’d been saving
for Bluellia New Year’s, a celebration not recognised in IG law but for which
locally somehow everyone managed to take the day off work.
Everything went peacefully for a bit. M’mri’in
soon appeared in the kitchen and she and Mum had a cup of zi—without grqwaries’
milk in it because Mum was saving that for the sauce for the pudding and she
was a bit anxious that, in view of the culture-pan’s report, BrTl might also be
a great sauce eater—and they comfortably made up a few dozen blrtlberry
tartlets to use up the last of the blrtlberries—Mum being confident that dear
J’f would bring a fresh supply and M’mri’in not liking to voice her own inner
doubts on the subject—and popped them in a culture-pan. It was an old pan but
it had been culturing blrtlberry tartlets since Mum’s mum was a girl so it
would cope okay. As it duly assured them. As a reward Mum said it could heat
the mush for R’shn’s baby after that, and it bubbled away happily to itself.
Then there was a short digression on the
subject of the unsuitability of M’mri’in’s daughter’s choice of bond-partner
and the utter huggability and general splendidness of M’mri’in’s first
grandchild (and Mum’s first great-grandchild), and then M’mri’in went off to
pretty up the hangar-loft, taking with her all the kitchen tidy-blobs on
temporary loan.
Shortly thereafter, and shortly after
second dawn, Mum felt that dear Jhl might be awake and in need of a cup of zi
in bed.
So being Mum, instead of using the house
comm-blob which worked perfectly well even to the hangar-loft when there wasn’t
an actual blizzard or a sunspot storm, she went upstairs herself, and went into
the room that Jhl had had since she was a wee thing not much bigger than
R’shn’s baby.
BrTl had tried out the footboard of Jhl’s
bed and it made quite a comfortable neck-rest, so he’d stayed there. When Jhl
came to bed he’d thankfully put his head between her thighs, it was warmest
there, and the hair on the top of his head was thin. So they were like
that—both fast asleep, with the clingo bedding hurled to the floor and in fact
clinging to Jhl’s FW pack—when Mum came in.
It took two cups of zi and a belt of Bht’s
special brew to calm her down to the point where she could listen to any sort
of rational explanation. After another cup of zi and a blrtlberry bun she
suggested off her own bat that maybe BrTl would like her to knit him a warm hat
from grqwary down like she made Dad every birthday, and the family saw she was
herself again, and dispersed thankfully. With, in certain cases, their
intergalactic hangovers.
Naturally J’f and Lle’onee’ya arrived late.
Well into the afternoon. The roast grqwaries were drying out in spite of the
culture-pans’ best efforts and Mum was getting tearful and S’zaan was red-faced
and cross, and all the kids were whining because they hadn’t been allowed to
open their presents until all the company had arrived—
“A Moodra Dyhillia?” choked BrTl as it
landed—floating down like a nga’a-nga’a feather—in a convenient field, now
fortunately empty of grqwaries (though some of those present recognised with a
certain grimness that even if it hadn’t been that would not necessarily have
stopped J’f).
“He’s chewing up that field, freeze his
Space Service eyes!” choked Dad. –He allowed himself to swear. Not “FW” in
front of the women and kids, though.
“Customized, I’ll bet,” recognised Bhl
glumly.
“They cost more than all of us put together
have earned in our whole lives,” recognised Bht, pressing the tips of his
fingers gently to his temples and wincing.
“Do they, Dad?” croaked Frdd in surprise.
“YES!” he shouted. “Two galaxies!” he
gasped, clutching his head.
“You an’ Grampa an’ everyone can’t of
earned much, then, Uncle Bht,” noticed G’gg brightly.
“Shut up,” he groaned.
In answer, G’gg and all the younger boys
set off at a run across the intervening sea of sludge towards the Moodra
Dyhillia.
“How’ll her Ladyship get across that, I
wonder?” sneered Pt’Rshaa, concealing her panic that today’s elaborately wound
garment would not measure up to her sister-in-IG-law’s exacting standards.
“She-it’ll use a porto-blob,” explained
Trff.
“They cost a fortune!” she gasped.
“Vacuum-frozen J’f’s got a fortune,” said Bhl shortly. “–If you’da stayed on in Space
Service, you coulda had a fortune!”
he noted loudly to Jhl.
“And a pink Moodra Dyhillia,” she agreed
drily.
“How in the two galaxies did he get a
permit to land it here?” wondered BrTl. He didn’t care for pink. Though it
wasn’t exactly pink. Had a hint of
shlaa to it.
“He’s in vacuum-frozen Space Fleet,”
explained Bhl heavily.
“He’s a Pilot!” said Jhl angrily. “Acting
rank of Captain! And will you shut up about his vacuum-frozen Moodra Dyhillia,
they’re tarted-up space junk! J’f’s got the morals of a Quarvaynian kuk and
about as much heart as a sentient Cxvrt Class Two, and in case you hadn’t
noticed, Space Service DOES THAT TO YOU! –And what’s more, I’d bet five rafts
of super-igs he hasn’t bothered to bring Mum any blrtlberries,” she added
sourly.
Jhl was right, he hadn’t.
Lle’onee’ya’s garment was much more
fearsomely wound than Pt’Rshaa’s, in shades of blue and silver with small
silvery blobs looping it up strategically here and there. These, she explained
as they tinkled musically and Pt’Rshaa gasped enviously and everybody else
jumped ten IG fluh, had been specially cultured to sing. Yes, they were the
latest thing, actually, she added, smoothing a wisp of blonde hair.
At this S’zaan—though she’d sworn grimly to
herself she wouldn’t—broke down and said weakly: “Lle’onee’ya, how do you make
your hair do that?”
“Mm? Oh, this!” Lle’onee’ya gave a careless
laugh. “It’s my Oononian mini-web.”—Pt’Rshaa went green with envy on the
spot.—“Marvellous for the health of one’s hair, while creating any style you
care to name. The stand-out natural look’s all the rage just now.”
“I can’t see any web, Aunty Lle’onee’ya,”
said S’draa earnestly, peering at it. “It’s all little blobs, kind of. –It’s
galaxious!” she added hastily.
“Thank you, dear, but don’t call me
‘aunty’, that’s so jup,” she sighed. –“Jup” was a new word: S’draa and all the
other teenage girl-cousins memorised it frantically.
“Ya not meant to see the web, I read about
it in the Senso-Blob News,” said G’gg hoarsely.
“WHAT? We can’t afford that Service!”
shouted his father, turning puce.
“I read it on M’km’s dad’s Service, Dad,”
he said quickly.
Bhl subsided, muttering.
“If you never let him read anything
interesting, Bhl, he’ll end up a farmer like you and Dad and Bht,” noted Jhl
detachedly.
“Yeah! See, I tole ja, Dad—”
“SHUT UP!” he hollered.
There was silence, except for Lle’onee’ya’s
faint murmur of “Totally jup,” and the disgusting noises of R’shn’s baby eating
its mush.
The immediate pre-prandial period was
enlivened by Tmmi’s going out in the yard and vaporising the last two grqwaries
(the ones that were intended for Bluellia New Year’s, yes) with the
super-deluxe working model plasmo-blaster.
Dinner was enlivened by BrTl’s engulfing
his grqwary hungrily and informing Mum: “What a delicious starter, Mum.”
And by the company’s discovery that after a
certain amount of fermented laa Trff got the hiccups. And by the company’s
discovery that G’gg’s glass was full of Bht’s special brew. Though this last
might have been expected and indeed had been.
The immediate post-prandial period was
enlivened by Bhl’s, Bht’s and even J’f’s vanishing into Bhl’s and S’zaan’s
bedroom with the Handy-Pandy-Friendy Guide (Standard Humanoid model) that Jhl
had got G’gg in Plentyville and not being seen again for hours... Though some
very odd noises came out of the room. Which S’zaan for one had no intention of
investigating, as she informed M’mri’in, dragging her forcibly away from the
doorway just in time.
The post-prandial period was also enlivened
by BrTl’s taking several of the younger ones on his back for a nice gambol over
the fields in the fresh air. He only brought down two old-fashioned
senso-fences that hadn’t been cultured to cope with anything bigger than a
grqwary and triggered off one expensive set of restrainos that didn’t belong to
Dad.
The rest of them merely digested during
this period. Well, Mum went out to the kitchen and worried the disposal into
hurrying up with the disposing and the tidy-blobs into hurrying up with the
tidying but nothing in the two galaxies—as, indeed, Dad pointed out—could have
stopped her doing that.
After that most of them watched The Big
Game. The Big Game was intensely boring and the sim-cast went on the blink in
the middle of it, or possibly their sim-receiver did, but at least it gave
certain beings the chance for an unashamed doze, a long-recognised
intergalactic tradition.
It also gave M’mri’in the chance to come to
with a gasp and squeak: “Oh, dear! Jhl, dear, your Commander called the other
day, I forgot to tell you!”
“Yeah, the guy with all the sparf on his
uniform!” agreed Sth excitedly. “Is he really a friend of yours, Aunty
Jhl?" –J’f made a rude noise.
“Yeah. More or less. When did he call,
M’mri’in?"
M’mri’in had forgotten but she thought it
was yesterday or the day before, or—
“Did he leave a MESSAGE?”
Dad came to at this and said sharply:
“There’s no need to shout at your sister-in-IG-law like that; if you led a
respectable life like she does, these vacuum-frozen Space Fleet types covered
in sparf wouldn’t be calling you at all hours of the day and night!” –J’f
chewed his lip a bit and clenched his fists and didn’t say anything. Bhl eyed
him sardonically. So did BrTl. Bht didn’t, but only because he was asleep.
Jhl goggled at her father. “If I led a
respectable life like she does, I’d be dead of boredom!”
“That’ll DO!” he shouted.
“She’s only teasing,” murmured the
soft-hearted M’mri’in. “There’s a message on the receiver, dear. Um, if its
blob was working,” she added faintly.
Jhl got up and went out.
...“Vvlvanian CURSES!” she shouted.
“Their comm-receiver’s on the blink again,”
noted a voice from behind her right shoulder. “Use the Moodra’s.”
Jumping ten IG fluh, Jhl turned and glared
at J’f. “What do I have to do for that? Lick your Space Issue Number Ones clean
before next Federation Day parade? Or—no, hang on! You want an introduction to
Shank’yar, don’t you?” she crowed.
J’f went very red and glared at her.
“Listen, Service Issue asteroid-head,” she
said viciously: “Shank’yar wouldn’t give a Gervaynian worm like you the time of
day, much less a promotion to a cushy job at Space Fleet Command!”
J’f had more or less recovered himself. He
looked down his nose and drawled: “Service attaché in Plentyville would do. Or
to an IG Ambassador on any nice, warm pleasure-planet.”
“Right: I’ll ask him to wangle you a post
on Lesser Trylporia,” she said immediately.
J’f went rather red again and said shortly:
“O-breather, naturally.”
“Living in the atmosphere on Lesser
Trylporia’s like—mm… wading through Mum’s pudding sauce,” she decided.
“Very f— Have you been there?” he gasped.
Jhl just looked at him drily.
“It’s a Category 84-B world!” he gasped.
Jhl just looked at him drily.
J’f took a deep breath. “I suppose it never
occurred to you,” he said stiffly, “that your goings-on could put my career in
serious jeopardy? If you think Space Fleet Command looks favourably on Pilots
with connections like you, you’ve got another think coming! Why couldn’t you
take that perfectly respectable posting to Gertunny III?”
Jhl just looked at him drily.
“I know it was desk-bound, but it was
managerial level,” he said.
Jhl just looked at him drily.
“I could have got you in as equerry on
Blrtltonia, if you’d shown the least interest! You’d have had to take a
step-down in rank, but it would’ve established your credibility!"
She just looked at him drily.
“Look, just don’t count on me to bail you out of one of your filthy
IG-illegal messes!” he said between his pearly teeth.
“I wouldn’t count on you to bail me out of
a bowl of Mum’s pudding sauce. Always supposing that such could be
distinguished from your delightful innate self.”
J’f turned bright red and strode back into
the family-room.
…“Get through?” said Dad shortly as Jhl
came back.
“No,” she said shortly, sitting down.
“Hey, Aunty Jhl, is he a real Fleet
Commander?” Sth asked eagerly
“What do you imagine all the sparf was for?
YES!” she shouted.
Unabashed, Sth continued: “Hey, was he in
the Battle of Hhla AvR?”
“No,” she groaned. “Does he look as if he’s five IG millennia old?”
Sth pouted. “He coulda been. In the olden
times, see, they had all this machine
junk, see: it could make ya real old! –And alive, I mean!” he explained
quickly.
“Expand your life-span. He’s been reading
History Fiction junk,” explained G’gg.
“It’s good! In the olden days they really
did have machines that could expand your life-span, Aunty Jhl! An’ some of the
high-up Commanders, they’re real old!”
“Fleet Commander Vt R’aam is not real old,”
said Jhl heavily. “He’s about—um—a bit younger than Dad, I suppose.”
“A bit younger than Grampa?” he gasped. “Two galaxies!”
“Look,” said Dad on a fed-up note, setting
down his glass of moonshine, “go over to Frdd R’sn Smt’s place and use his
comm-receiver. –If he jibs a bit, just say the words ‘roast grqwary’ to him,”
he added on a dry note.
“How old is his receiver?” replied Jhl
suspiciously.
“It’s new! It’s real super-deluxe, Aunty
Jhl! I’ll come with you!” cried G’gg.
“So’ll I!” offered Sth immediately.
“How?” asked Jhl on a dry note, still not
getting up.
Dad sighed, and finished his glass of
moonshine. “Get your mate, there, to take you,” he said heavily, nodding at
BrTl.
BrTl’s Special Offer translator had coped
remarkably well with the local Bluellian dialect until now but it translated
this one as “Get your bond-partner, there, to take you.” He got up dazedly.
“Er—she isn’t my bond-partner, Dad,” he said weakly.
“I never said she was,” replied Dad in
amazement.
“He used a dialect word that—” Jhl tore her
translator off. She tore BrTl’s off.—J’f’s face turned white and his fists
clenched but he didn’t say anything.—“He used a dialect word for bond-partner
that for obscure reasons known only in outer Bluellia has been distorted here
to mean ‘being who shares your work-space and/or drinking companion’,” she
explained in BrTl’s Slaetho-Xathpyrian dialect.
“How curious,” he croaked in horror.
“It is, when you think about it, isn’t it?”
Jhl agreed cordially, replacing his translator.
“Can I wear yours, Aunty Jhl?” begged Sth,
forgetting he was into H-Fi for the nonce.
“NO!” roared J’f at the end of his tether.
“JHL! Put it on IMMEDIATELY!”
“Desk-bound Gervaynian worm,” she replied
amiably. “It’s not IG-illegal to take your own one off.”
“PUT IT ON!” he shouted.
“All right, all right,” she grumbled, putting
it on. She peered at it. “I think it’s dead.”
“Give it to your mother: she’ll put it in a
culture-pan,” said Dad
BrTl gave a bark of xathpyroid laughter: he
thought this was a terrific joke.
When the house had ceased quivering Jhl
said weakly: “She does that. Not just with translators: with any blobs. She
just asks the pan to warm them up.” BrTl started to look excited. Quickly she
added: “Don’t try this trick at your culture-pod, Mum’s got a symbiotic
relationship with those culture-pans.”
“I
noticed,” he murmured but his voice was drowned by S’zaan’s cry of “Jhl! That’s
disgusting!” and Dad’s bellow of: “That’s ENOUGH!”
“It must be working, after all,” she noted
mildly.
Her relatives glared.
“Well, come on, who’s coming?” she said.
After the cries of “Me! ME!” had died down,
and BrTl had stopped wondering why it was only the small males that wanted to
come—he’d worked out which they were from their dress, it was totally different
from that of the small females, and both cases aped their elders’
gender-dress—they put their coats and/or FW packs on, got onto BrTl’s back, and
went.
There was a short silence. Then J’f said
grumpily: “Can’t you talk to her, Dad?”
“No.”
“She’s putting my career at risk!” he
whined.
“Shut
up. Who gives a grqwary’s dropping about your vacuum-frozen career, you’re a
selfish little Service Issue dropping that couldn’t even be bothered to bring
its mother some BLRTLBERRIES!” he shouted.
“It’s the wrong season,” said J’f sulkily.
“Liar,” noted Bhl cordially.
The shouting had woken Bht, so he agreed:
“Yeah. Liar. Always was, even as a kid.”
“Yeah. I’ll say this for Jhl,” conceded
Bhl: “she’s honest.”
“Honest and an IG CROOK!” shouted J’f
angrily, bounding up. “Come along, Lle’onee’ya, we don’t have to listen to this
jup lot!"
They exited towards the hangar-loft,
Lle’onee’ya complaining as they went that it was cold and those dried snu
flowers that M’mri’in had put in there would bring on her allergies, but if J’f
wanted her to spend a fortune on Oononian chemo-blobs—
“He’s right in a way, you know,” said Bhl
cautiously.
“Shut up,” warned his father.
Bhl shut up.
“What happened to The Big Game?” ventured
Bht fuzzily.
“On the blink. And SHUT UP!” roared his
father.
And a happy Galaxy Day silence fell in the
family room…
