Fête

11

Fête

    The sun shone, the spring wind blew briskly though not enough to disturb the proceedings, and the female half of the crowd stared at the Ruler’s Mother’s clothes with their mouths slightly open while she made a meaningless but gracious speech in a vague, high-pitched voice. Mh’aii’rhi Roz was wearing mauve today, it was her favourite colour. Possibly none of her ladies-in-waiting had ever pointed out that it was not the best shade for her strawberry-blonde hair. The villagers and the many townsfolk, mostly their kinsfolk who’d come for the day, didn’t notice this. Every detail of the outfit was drunk in avidly. Those weren’t leggings, were they, Bh’s?—Where were your eyes, Mh’aaiivh, they were boots!—With teeny, weeny buttons all the way up them, see, our Gl’nndha?—Land, so they were, it must take hours to do them up, so it must!—Would she use one of them tiny button-hooks the ladies buy, do you think, K’haiitie?—And did you ever see the like of that hat?—Shut up, P’draiiy’h, what would a man know about grand ladies’ fashions! Lovely, that was what it was, lovely.—And see that? See that? That was one of them off-world chrono-blobs! What do you think of that?

    “I now declare this lovely fête open,” fluted Mh’aii’rhi Roz, smiling vaguely.

    Everybody clapped like mad, the majority also cheered, the Chairman of the Village Council gave the signal, and Jhymmai’h Mk-L’ster and his son P’draiiy’h fired off the first round of rockets. –The rest of the fireworks wouldn’t be let off until dark.

    Mh’aii’rhi Roz squeaked and clapped her hands over her ears and laughed, and everybody clapped and cheered again, and yet another small village maiden wobbled up uncertainly to the dais and presented her with yet another bouquet. This one was enormous snowball flowers, huge cultivated pink roses from Mrs U-Rh’aih’llyai’h’s garden, and great circles of early scarlet saucer-flowers from the rival Mrs Strt Rh’uissh’s garden, set in frilly pale green lyre fern. An odd combination, some might have said. But then, the first one had been cultivated crimson, pink and yellow roses from the horticultural developments, dried wayside feather-grass sprayed silver, and pale yellow humbleroses from the fields. Mh’aii’rhi Roz accepted the new offering with her usual laughing grace and immediately dumped it on a hovering lady-in-waiting. Unfortunately this lady’s dress was a brightish yellow-tan. But then, perhaps no bouquet would have looked good with it: Mh’aii’rhi Roz didn’t allow her ladies to outshine her.

    With much bowing and scraping the official party then descended from the dais, the Chairman began to conduct Her Royal Highness round the stalls, and the fête more or less got under way.

    Mh’aii’rhi Roz captured Drouwh’s arm immediately. This had the effect of relegating the three young ladies he was escorting to the background. It also had the effect of giving Mh’aii’rhi Roz the handsomest, richest and most important man there as her escort. Mh’aii’rhi Roz in most ways was as dumb as they came, but she wasn’t entirely slow. Naturally she allowed the Chairman to hover obsequiously at her other side: she was aware of what was due to her position.

    “She does that sort of thing!” hissed A’ailh’sa, scowling, as they retreated to the rearguard of the official party.

    “Yes? They make a pretty couple,” replied Roz vaguely.

    “She hasn’t even brought any nice men!” hissed A’ailh’sa crossly, ignoring that.

    “I’m here!” said Dh’aaych’llyai’n with a laugh in his voice.

    “Yes, but you came by yourself,” she said, pouting.

    “Never mind: take my arm.” She pouted but took his arm, and he politely offered the other to Roz.

    “I’m all right. You lean on him, M’ri: those shoes are pinching you, aren’t they?"

    M’ri pinkened and nodded and, as Dh’aaych winked, laughed a little and took his arm.

    They trailed in the Royal party’s wake. Mh’aii’rhi Roz encouraged her ladies-in-waiting to buy something from every stall, so it was a slow progress. However, Dh’aaych enlivened it for the rearguard by himself buying from every stall, the more unlikely the item, the better. Eventually he’d acquired a lady’s button-hook, a well-grown spring marrow, a thimble, a khyai’llh sachet, a fluffy toy duck with a hoarse quack, another, smaller toy duck made of some substance which Roz declared not to be lubolyon and which he claimed would float beautifully in his bath, a cake of rose-scented soap, a second-hand bucket, and a huge nyr-meat pie. And his companions were all in a state of helpless giggles,

    “Ooh, I must have one of these!” he said, as they paused by a stall laden with hand-thrown pottery objects.

    “Those arty ladies over to Nether Fl’oouu make them: that’s them,” whispered M’ri. This was more or less obvious: the ladies behind the stall were draped in a misbegotten mixture of clan colours which included the red and black of the Mk-D’rm’ds draped diagonally, and a clutter of dangling necklaces. With utter gravity, and apparently unaware of A’ailh’sa’s and M’ri’s smothered hysterics in the background, Dh’aaych bought a large, lumpy pot, coloured a greyish pink on the inside but on the outside what the arty ladies earnestly assured him was the Clan Rh’n’lhd mustard yellow. Having shaken hands with the blushing, giggling ladies, he then solemnly inserted his vegetable marrow into the pot. At this Roz abruptly broke down and joined A’ailh’sa and M’ri in their hysterics.

    “Oh, dear!” gasped A’ailh’sa, several stalls later, by which time Dh’aaych had acquired a large cake, a length of cream homespun, and ten tickets in the hggl raffle. “I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much!”

    “Ah! Now!” he said, spotting the buttonholes.

    “That round, fat, cream one would be very pretty with your breeches,” noted Roz. Dh’aaych wasn’t in the skirt. He’d explained that it wasn’t his territory, thank the old gods, so he didn’t have to get decked out like a dashed fool.

    “A snowball flower? They grow like weeds!” objected M’ri.

    “But they’re almost the same shade as his beautiful breeches,” said Roz, looking admiringly at the cream nyr-suede.

    “Roz! Don’t stare at a man’s breeches in public!” hissed A’ailh’sa, turning pink.

    “Oh: is that a social taboo? How interesting. Thank you, A’ailh’sa, I’ll remember that. Does it apply to the skirt, also?”

    “Yes,” she croaked.

    “Yes,” echoed M'ri faintly.

    “That’s a pity. Some of them have nice thighs, which you can see when—”

    “Ssh!” hissed A’ailh’sa, going from pink to purple.

    “She doesn’t understand,” said M’ri faintly. “Her world must be very—um—”

    “Rude,” said Dh’aaych with a grin. “Does she go on like this in front of Drouwh?”

    “Yes,” confirmed A’ailh’sa grimly.

    He raised his eyebrows. “He won’t like that. He’s a dashed prude, you know.”

    “R’rt thinks he’s a man of principle,” said Roz mildly.

    “Eh? What, R’rt Fh’laiin’s head groom?”

    She nodded and he said weakly: “I dare say he does—well, he is. But, dash it, Roz, that doesn’t mean he isn’t a dashed prude!”

    “I know. At first I thought it was social conditioning, but now I see it isn’t entirely that.”

    “Er—yeah,” he said limply.

    “Have the snowball flower, Lord, it’s very pretty!” she urged.

    “Hang on, here’s one with a red saucer-flower as well!” he beamed. “Ooh, and bluebells!"

    “You can’t!” gasped A’ailh’sa, but as she spoke he’d bought the huge flower spray and was inserting it gravely into the buttonhole on his smart tan leather jacket.

    “See?” he said kindly to Roz. “If you want to wear the collar opened, you button it back onto the button on the other shoulder.”

    “Yes, very nifty,” she approved.

    “It’s a bit windy for that, though, today. You girls warm enough?”

    A’ailh’sa was wearing a short, fluffy yellow fur jacket over her pale humblerose dress. She nodded. Roz shivered a little, however, and allowed Dh’aaych—with some manipulation of parcels—to help her into the white fur jacket she was carrying. Only bleached lop-ear fur, A’ailh’sa had explained, urging it on her. Roz had accepted the dead animal skins with a smothered sigh. Under further interrogation M’ri admitted, blushing, that she was a bit chilly.

    “Well,” he decided, “we'll head off to the tea table, that looks nice and sheltered. But first, we'll just go over—” With some reshuffling of packages and the purchase of two large leather kit-bags to hold most of his booty, he led them off to the shawl stall.

    “No!” gasped M’ri, as his fell intent then became clear. “They’re too good, Lord!”

    “Dh’aaych. Or Fat-Face, if you like,” he corrected cheerily. “They’re not too good at all. I’m going to get one for you, and one for K’t-Ln: she can put it round her shoulders while she’s still in bed and then later on she can use it when she’s well enough to sit out in the garden.” He bought a lacy pale lilac shawl of hggl wool with strands of mn-mn silk in it for M’ri, to match her dress, and a cream one for K’t-Ln. Even lacier, and also with mn-mn silk in it. In fact it was the most expensive shawl on the stall. “They do it all with one little hook, y’know,” he said to Roz.

    “Indeed. Blob-driven, I suppose?”

    “No—hand-driven!” he grinned. “Look, the old lady will show us.” He charmed her into demonstrating her art.

    Roz watched intently. Finally she said: “That would be very good therapy for the hands. Though you could get a blob to do it. –You were wrong, Lord, she does it with a ball of yarn and a little hook.”

    “Uh—yeah,” he said numbly, over the two girls’ choking fits. “Come on, then.”

    They set off, but after a moment their group crossed the progress of the Royal party and Drouwh, in the face of the Ruler’s Mother’s pouts, recaptured Roz—firmly handing the large cake she was carrying for Dh’aaych to a lady-in-waiting—and bore her off with them. Admittedly the arm which was not supporting her was supporting Mh’aii’rhi Roz, but you had to admire the fellow for his courage. Dh’aaych imparted this thought to his giggling companions, but then he said thoughtfully to A’ailh’sa: “Is she always like that? Taking everything you say dead literally?”

    “Um—yes, I suppose she is. I suppose it’s because it’s all foreign, to her. What do you think, M’ri?”

    M’ri agreed.

    “Bears’ claws: he’d love that,” he muttered.

   “He does get very angry sometimes. He thinks she’s getting at him and she isn’t. Only sometimes,” said A’ailh’sa, swallowing: “she is!”

    He gave a slight sniff. “Should have given her to me: I said so in the first place! No, only joking,” he said to M’ri’s shocked face. “But I’m surprised R’rt Fh’laiin hasn’t volunteered to take her off his hands.”

    “That isn’t funny!” cried A’ailh’sa angrily.

    “Eh? Well, no, on the whole: it isn’t. Typical, but not funny. He here today?"

    “He was supposed to come, but we haven’t seen him,” said M’ri nervously, not looking at the pouting A’ailh’sa.

    “Oh. Well, probably steering well clear of the Royal lot. Mh’aii’rhi Roz has had her eye on him for some time, y’know.”

    “What? She’s ancient!” gasped A’ailh’sa indignantly.

    “No, she’s not. Well, lessee, how old’s the boy? –Seventeen,” he answered himself. “And she was— Yeah. She’d be thirty-sixish.”

    “R’rt Fh’laiin’s only thirty-three!” cried A’ailh’sa crossly.

    “Nothing in it,” pronounced the expert incautiously.

    A’ailh’sa glared.

    “Oy, you don’t fancy our R’rt Fh’laiin, do you?” He shook his head. “Give it up. Most unwise: no future in that. You want a nice young lad—twenty-oneish, twenty-twoish. R’rt Fh’laiin’s been round the two galaxies and back a fair few times, y’know!”

    “I don’t care,” she said, very white.

    Dh’aaych perceived she was serious. He swallowed.

    “Shall we have tea now?” asked M’ri timidly.

    “Good idea.” Thankfully he steered them off to the long table that was decked with snowball boughs and laid for tea in the shelter of the large marquee where the spring produce and baking competitions were being held.

    Mh’aii’rhi Roz was monopolising Drouwh, of course, but on his other side Roz didn’t look as if she minded. They squeezed in humbly between a lady-in-waiting (dull maroon) and a member of the village council.

    To Dh’aaych’s relief, once he’d got a cup of fl’oouu tea and a nice fresh griddle bun with vtt’lberry jam inside A’ailh’sa she looked visibly more cheerful and began to discuss various other ladies’ clothes with M’ri and the maroon lady-in-waiting.

    He himself was peacefully embarking on his third griddle bun when there was a swirl of red and black skirts and cloaks at the top of the table and Mh’aii’rhi Roz cried: “There you are, you naughty boys! Where have you been this age?” and The Black Mk-D’rm’d, his Uncle Rh’uissh Mk’Eeain Mk-D’rm’d (bad as he was, and old enough to know better), and his cousin Jhymmai’h Mk’Rh’uissh Mk-D’rm’d (bidding fair to rival the pair of ’em), all laughing and very lit-up indeed, were squeezed in with the nobs. The only good thing that could be said about that, decided Dh’aaych glumly, catching sight of A’ailh’sa’s face, was that the copper-haired bit in the sunny light green of fl’oouu trees in first leaf was—apparently, apparently, me Lords, Ladies and nobles—with the old uncle.

    R’rt Fh’laiin—so he said—had come up to the Manor to relieve the boredom of the Season—trills of laughter from Mh’aii’rhi Roz—with a bit of lop-ear hunting. Old Rh’uissh, according to himself, was going to do a bit of fishing. Yes, well. Young Jhymmai’h had come along for the ride. Quite. Now explain why they were all decked out in the skirt. And old Rh’uissh, who was an U’Rhy’iior’thn on his mother’s side, was actually wearing a countryman’s beret with the U’Rhy’iior’thn ghrr-feather cockade on it into the bargain. For the fish? Possibly he meant to frighten ’em into submission.

    “It’s The Black Mk-D’rm’d,” whispered M’ri.

    “Aye, isn’t it? It’ll get worse,” he predicted.

    It did. First they started toasting one another in fl’oouu tea (old Rh’uissh setting the example by gingering it up a bit from his pocket flask) and then they started making up those cursed rhymes that were all the go at the cursed Court this season: you paid someone—well, not someone, me Lords, Ladies and nobles, when the Ruler’s Mother was present: you paid Mh’aii’rhi Roz an extravagant compliment in a rhyming couplet and anyone who could make it a triplet got—well, at the moment it was an extravagant kiss smack, bang on the mouth from Mh’aii’rhi Roz. Seeing as how it was R’rt Fh’laiin that had capped the rhyme. Lovely.

    “Is it like this at the Court?” gulped M’ri, after it had gone on for some time.

    “Yeah. Only worse. Much worse,” he said grimly.

    “Oh, dear,” she faltered.

    Dh’aaych glanced at A’ailh’sa’s face and repressed a wince. “Oh, dear” was putting it mildly. Poor dashed kid. Could barely rhyme “cat” and “mat” herself, that didn’t help. Oh, well—nothing for it. Squaring his shoulders, he took a fourth griddle bun.

    “Fainting at thy feet I swoon, Most brilliant star, third silv’ry moon!” declaimed the young man in the red and black cloak and skirt with sparkling unoriginality.

    The older man with the grizzled hair took his hat off and scratched his head a bit and said, very drily: “Oh, how I wish Jhymmai’h would push off soon.”

    There was a roar of laughter at their end of the table. The red-headed man next to her leant forward and cried: “Unworthy, Rh’uissh!”

    “Aye, but justified!” said the older man, chuckling.

    More laughter, and they passed silver flasks and the pretty woman in the mauve draperies and the preposterous hat gave a silly laugh and said: “Go on, Drouwh, darling: show them all up!”

    Suddenly Jhl was there. She grasped the edge of the table hard, feeling a little dizzy, and swallowed. Where in the two galaxies was she? And this Vvlvanian-cursed mob, carrying on worse than a bunch of qwlot-soaked IG diplo exiles on Belraynia, who in the name of Federation were they? There was a cup in front of her: she downed its contents. Ugh! Steaming Vvlvanian magma pits, worse than Whtyllian k’fi!

    —And what in Blerrinbrig’s name was she WEARING? ...Oh. Mok droppings. Pleasure Girl Roz, right? Right. So… So this was Old Rthfrdia. Ye-ech. Likewise, blech. Likewise she must have been full of klupf before she even set out for the FW place, to agree to anything so vacuum-frozen DUMB!

    The red-haired man on her left had made up some silly rhyme and everyone had laughed and the silly woman in mauve on his left had kissed him extravagantly. He waited until her attention was claimed by the narrow-jawed, sparkling-eyed man with very dark auburn hair on her other side and then turned and said: “Are you feeling okay?”

    Jhl’s shield was up and she didn’t think he’d caught anything. “Fine, Lord!” she fluted with a dumb little laugh.

    He gave her a hard look out of azure-blue eyes that were just like Shan’s and said: “Good. We’ll go and watch the livestock judging in a few minutes: you’ll like that.” He smiled at her, revealing pearly teeth just like Shan’s.

    “Thank you, Lord!” she fluted. Judging of sentient beings? Oh, well, it was a primmo. And it was to be hoped these preposterous and hideously uncomfortable things on her feet were waterproof, because it looked to her like the sort of FW dump where they didn’t have a Meteo—no, well, if they were Pre-Fed of course they wouldn’t have a Meteo—and where the rural parts specialised in mud. M,U,D, mud. The sort that oozed right through your boots unless they were Grade-A Space Issue. In fact, just glancing around at the dump, she could have believed herself home on Bluellia on a fine spring afternoon! Ugh. Likewise, ye-ech.

    Her neighbour turned his handsome red-gold head to say something to a man at the other side of the table and Jhl automatically took a quick look at his mind.

    Great steaming piles of mok droppings!

    She sat back on her uncomfortable primmo chair, very shaken indeed. He had what he thought was a shield against Pleasure Girl Roz, who he thought was probably a Federation spy. That was nothing, she barely noticed it. And the fact that he thought her a spy was neither here nor there: there was nobody on Old Rthfrdia that would be capable of proving it—and if this man had had any proof, presumably she wouldn’t be here today. But besides that, she’d glanced at his encoding. Shank’yar. Unmistakable.

    Behind her shield Jhl's thoughts raced. She had felt him to be a perceptive being, and she didn’t want to probe again too soon in case he noticed something. He had considerable powers there—pity he didn’t know how to use them. Well, theoretically speaking! Cursed lucky for her he didn’t, of course. Shank’yar’s encoding... Was the mission virtually over, then? This man was in no danger. Certainly his mind had held visions of enemies, but no-one he wasn’t confident he could handle. Jhl looked at him out of the corner of her eye and thought that physically he looked capable enough: a fine specimen. Had Shan’s intel been totally wrong, then?

    The Pleasure Girl accepted another cup of mok piss from a bobbing serving girl in a lace cap and bibbed apron—no bracelet, though, that was a point in the dump’s favour—and, since a merry-faced, brown-haired man further down the table was lifting his cup to her with a wink, lifted hers, simpered at him, and sipped. Ugh. Blaach. It was a miracle her system wasn’t rejecting it instantly! –Actually what her system was doing, she recognised drily, was absorbing it gratefully, humming happily to itself: vegetable, vegetable, vegetable... Had she been on a protein trip, then? Er—phew. By the three-tongued blurryankers of Trypthfymia, had she ever!

    The mauve female had just called him Drouwh. Yes, of course, he was The Mk-L’ster, the local Lord, it was coming back to her— Bones of Brqa. No: bones of Brqa and all fourteen of its moons: the evil D’ru! It must be, if those coordinates had been correct. But—Shank’yar’s full son? …Oh, yes. How likely. How very likely. And had he done it on— YES, asteroid-brain, he’d done it on purpose! For what tortuous reason, Shank’yar and the devil-dragons of Blerrinbrig’s alone knew—but of course, of course Shank’yar Vt R’aam had dumped her on this other son’s doorstep on purpose! Totally klupfed-out an’ all, as she’d been. Bastard. Jhl’s eyes narrowed fractionally.

    “Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.

    Asteroids of Hhum, he was quick, though!

    “Yes, Lord.” She flicked a glance up at him and added in a low voice: “Just a fraction bored, however!” and gave a tiny giggle. Ye-ech.

    The poor clown went all sort of pinkish and gave a very silly laugh and said: “Oh, well, in that case, shall we?” He got up without waiting for her reply—took their Pleasure Girls for granted on Old Rthfrdia, did they?—uh-huh—and said, taking the mauve female’s hand and kissing it: “Darling Mh’aii’rhi Roz, excuse us, won’t you? Roz is dying to see the hggl judging, she’s never been to a fête before, you know!”

    “Darling! Terribly dull!” she hissed, pulling an extraordinarily silly face that yet managed to convey to the Lordship that she wouldn’t half mind it.—Jhl absorbed the technique attentively. She didn’t think she could bring it off, though, without a bit of private practice.—“Enjoy, then, darlings!” she added more loudly, waving them away.

    “What do you think of her?” said Drouwh drily, taking her elbow, as they moved away.

    Jhl near as blazes told him to take his paws off the merchandise and quit imagining she couldn’t recognise a primmo mud pit when she saw it. Ulp.

    “Uh—very mauve,” she said feebly. Mok shit, that was wrong. However, it seemed to strike the right note, because he held her elbow even more… warmly, was probably the word, and said: “Isn’t she, though!” Laughing silently with his mouth closed, blue eyes sparkling, shoulders shaking, like Shan did. Well, there was no mistaking that!

    Hggls turned out to be woolly quadrupedal beings. not very bright. One looked exactly like another: why bother to judge ’em at all? Likewise the grpplybeasts. Well, larger, hairy not woolly, different smell—but certainly why bother. The kogs were worse. They had them on Whtyll, too. There were no grqwaries, no poultry bigger than a Whtyllian duck. There were ducks, in fact. Brownish one with nice faces. And duckish minds. Yes, well.

    “What do you make of it all?” he said, lips twitching a little, just like Shank’yar’s when he was determined not to actually laugh.

    “Oh, very interesting, Lord!” she fluted.

    “Liar,” he returned conversationally.

    Jhl hurriedly checked her shield, but it was intact. “What are they judging them for?” she said weakly.

    “For the best in its class, of course.”

    “I think I had got that!” Oops. Cool it, cool it.

    “They’re breeding stock,” he drawled. “I suppose they’re looking for characteristics which—uh—well, will provide the best wool, or meat or eggs.”

    Jhl had stopped by a long trestle table entirely covered in shallow trays of fluffy brownish-yellow ducklings. “I see. Very pragmatic. –These are rather too small for any humanoid being to form a judgement about, aren’t they?”

    “It’s a competition for the kids. Best brood of ducklings.”

    Jhl nodded dopily. She peered, but all the trayfuls looked the same to her.

    “Sweet, aren’t they?” he said.

    Sweet? He sounded like flaming M’mri’in! “Uh—yes.” She sought hurriedly for another word that would be equally sickening. “Very cute!” she fluted.

    “Mm,” he agreed on a dry note.

    She repressed a wince: that obviously hadn’t convinced him. At the same time she had to repress a strong desire to laugh.

    “Well, come on, do you want to see the horse trials, or shall we hang round and watch Mh’aii’rhi Roz award the prizes for these?”

    Trials? Horses were classed not so very far below Flppus by the Intergalactic Sentient Life-Forms (Beings/Group Beings) Definition and Classification Act, weren’t they? If there was no classifiable responsibility there, how could they reasonably be found guilty or— Forget it. Anything was better than having to watch the mauve female doing her thing.

    “Horse trials would be delightful, Master,” she cooed, varying the theme a bit.

    “For the zillionth time,” he said with a sigh, “I’m not your master, Roz.”

    Huh? Wasn’t he? She searched a few memories of Pleasure Girl Roz’s. Aw, gee, nor he was, how disappointing. Hang on, was he a homosexual being? Nope. Uh-uh. No way. Bond-partnered, maybe? Apart from her ultra-respectable relations on Bluellia, Jhl had never yet met a male humanoid that let that stop him. Always a first time, though: it was no use being surprised at anything the Known Universe turned up, because if you started that, you’d live in a state of continual shock. Probably not for very long, however.

    “No, Lord,” she said obediently, fluttering the eyelashes a bit, and allowing herself to be led off to the horse trials. It was gruesome! Some sort of involved endurance thing: if the being survived it, presumably it was innocent. She’d been on other worlds where they went in for that sort of thing: very nasty. Primmos, mostly, too. Steaming Vvlvanian magma pits, were they trying to impale them on those things they were making them jump at—Oh. No. Not that sort of— More... uh, tests. Tests! Jhl shook her wrist angrily. Piece of space junk!

    The horses were pleasant beings but Jhl Smt Wong, who achieved for the joy of achieving and didn’t have a competitive bone in her mammalian humanoid body, considered that watching other beings compete was even more mind-bogglingly boring than being made to do it yourself. The Lordship, however, was enjoying himself greatly. Greatly. Wonder he hadn't gone in for it himself, really. She stood there in the mud feeling the things on her feet beginning to leak, fluttering her eyelashes and giggling or alternatively simpering when her not-Master looked her way, clapping when he did, and thinking that this was the primmo dump to end all primmo dumps, that Shank’yar must have been due for Mullgon’ya to have wasted even an IG microsecond of his time on its surface, and that she was going to find Whatsisface, the other son, and, ignoring all possible interpretations of Shank’yar Vt R’aam’s machinations, blast out of here a light-year sooner than yesterday! And when she got back, she was going to tell His Vacuum-Frozen Lordship of Whtyll exactly what she thought of—

    “What is it?” said Drouwh in alarm as she clutched his arm and gasped.

    “Nothing,” she said faintly.

    He saw that she'd gone very white. “Come and sit down. I thought you were feeling rotten, earlier: the klupf fumes seemed to be back.”

    He led her to a primmo bench and pushed her gently down onto it. It didn’t have a back so she was really quite glad when he sat down beside her and put his arm around her. On the other hand, she could feel the vacuum-frozen grqwary dropping trying to probe her shield. She didn’t think he was picking up anything but klupf fumes and Pleasure Girl woolly-mindedness, though.

    “What is it?” he said, taking her hands in his free one and holding them tightly.

    “Nothing. I’m all right,” she said feebly.

    He looked at her anxiously and said: “Shall we go home? You’re overtired; I suppose it's been too long a day: after all, it’s not so long since, that you were full of klupf.”

    “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I’ll be perfectly all right in an IG microsecond—if I could just have a cup of zi, perhaps?” she said weakly.

    To her surprise he gave a little laugh and squeezed her hands and said: “Have you forgotten, Roz? We don’t have zi-i, here.”

    “‘Zi,’” she corrected automatically.

    “I still can’t say it!” he said with another laugh. “Zi-i.”

    Mok droppings, the poor asteroid-brain thought they had a little flirt going, here. Or something along those lines. Gone all soppy-looking. “I’m fine,” she said, pulling her hands away. “I suppose it was the klupf. I just felt odd for a moment.” She felt in her garment but of course there was no chemo-blob there! Galloping grqwary gizzards!

    He got up and said with a frown: “I’d get you a cup of fl’oouu tea, but I sort of got the impression you weren’t enjoying it over-much earlier. It was pretty stewed. Come on, we’ll go. Not much to wait around for, apart from Dh’aaych climbing up the greasy pole.”

    She looked at the picture that he was sending of the brown-haired man who’d winked at her from further down the table, and gulped. “He wouldn’t, would he?”

    “I wouldn’t put it past him. Do those nyr-suede breeches of his from Dh’aiich’s of North Wh’sh-fh’r all the no-good in the world,” he said drily.

    “Mm. –Is it a common name, then?” He looked blank and she said: “Dh’aaych. You said he got his breeches from Dh’aaych’s of North Wh’sh-fh’r .”

    “No: it’s two different names. Dh’aaych and Dh’aiich,” he said carefully.

    “They sound exactly— Wait an IG microsecond.” She removed her translator.

    “Dh’aaych and Dh’aiich,” he said.

    Jhl shrugged and replaced the translator. “Still sound the same. Like zi and zi-i!” she added hurriedly, fluttering the lashes. That raised a smile—oh, goody. How much of this primmo language had she absorbed? It was a very up-market transl— Oh, of course: Shan. She turned it Off.

    He took her arm and said: “Come on. I’ll send Dh’aaych a message: he can bring A’ailh’sa and M’ri home. And T’m, if he can find him!” he added with a laugh.

    Jhl understood all that—good. She wasn’t going to let on, though. You never knew when the ability to understand another being’s language could come in handy. Like, save your life, something negligible like that. IG-illegal or not, translators had been known to disappear mysteriously off the appendage while a being slept. She turned it On again and said: “If you’re sure? –I do feel a bit wobbly.”

    He immediately—bones of Brqa and its moons—put a hand under her elbow and helped her up.

    Jhl swallowed a sigh. She tottered along at his side in the repellent footwear, really quite glad, though she was Vvlvanian-cursed if she was going to admit it, to have him supporting her. It had been a terrible shock when she’d remembered what state she’d left Shank’yar in.