On Whtyll

24

On Whtyll

    That was easy, noted BrTl groggily as they emerged from Whtyll C&E not only unscathed but barely blinked at, crossed the concourse and found themselves on free, so to speak, Whtyllian territory.

    Too easy? returned his Captain grimly. True, in their own personae, which they were all now in, the Whtyllian authorities had nothing on them. And there had been no sign of an IG M.C. presence as they came through the IG C&E gate. Though would there be, if the Minerals Commission wanted them to grab Shan out from under the Full College’s sticky grasp? She looked around, frowning, at the extremely civilised view of lanes of well-ordered public transport, coming and going, and parking-slot towers for private vehicles with the appropriate tran-pods to ferry one to and from them.

    “At least they have decent transport here,” said BrTl on a weak note.

    BrTl had sworn this was the nearest commercial spaceport to the Vt R’aam palace. Perhaps it was near in xathpyroid terms? “Shut up. Check that map,” Jhl ordered grimly.

    Glumly BrTl went over to the map. Where do you want to go? it asked politely in Intergalactic. “Uh—” he fumbled.

    The map must have been used to FW tourists coming on-world without a notion why: it gave them a rapid run-down of all the delightful tourist sights on Whtyll within convenient bubble-range of the spaceport. Unfortunately the Vt R’aam palace wasn’t mentioned.

    “Thanks,” he said feebly, tottering away from it. “I did say we should have done it in hyper-hop,” he said to his Captain.

    “Shut up,” replied Jhl grimly.

    “Cold, isn’t it?” said BrTl gloomily as she signalled for a public bubble.

    “Yes. It’s summer.”

    “Don’t they have—uh—those zones that some worlds have?” he said foggily as they got into the bubble.

    “Yes. We’re in the temperate one. –The downtown J’rd’s,” she ordered.

    BrTl lapsed into a glum silence.

    “It’s a big one,” noted the percipient G’gg as their tiny forms, even, in this context, BrTl’s, cowered before the flashing spires, turrets, domes, towers, mini tran-pods, lumo-blob signs and Federation-knew-what of the downtown J’rd’s in one of the larger cities of one of the wealthiest worlds in the two galaxies.

    “Do you have to pay to get in?” asked BrTl sourly.

    “Hah, hah,” returned his Captain grimly.

    “Well, what are we doing here?”

    “We’re going to buy a guide to Whtyll,” said Jhl grimly. “And nothing else!”

    Glumly they followed her in.

    About a Whtyllian hour later they emerged with a blob of Morpo’s Guide: Whtyll for the Intergalactic Traveller, a small Whtyllian nyr-hide purse for Fl’Oo-ooueroii, a small Whtyllian lady’s fan for Fl’Jfaffl, a packet of iirouelli’i-flavoured ooff-puffs that the Flppus were sharing between them—spores everywhere, needless to state—and a small but genuine Whtyllian hunting knife for G’gg. And a small packet of Whtyllian y’m, which was so expensive everywhere else in the two galaxies that BrTl had never tasted it.

    “Well?” said his Captain with a sigh as they stood outside the J’rd’s.

    “It tastes sort of brown,” he said sadly.

    “I told you you wouldn’t like it.”

    “You have it,” he decided sadly.

    Jhl took it eagerly.

    “Well?” he said glumly.

    “Y’m, y’m!” reported Jhl with a laugh. “Want some, G’gg?”

    “It does look brown,” he said dubiously.

    “More fool y—”

    “I’ll try it!” He tried it. His eyes went enormously round. “Galaxious!” he gasped.

    BrTl’s tail twitched.

    “Sorry, BrTl!” he gasped, going into a gale of giggles.

    Jhl was consulting the Morpo’s Guide—having convinced it she didn’t want the answers to her questions broadcast on the cool Whtyllian temperate summer air.

    “Well?” said BrTl glumly.

    “It’s about a hundred and fifty glps.”

    He gulped. “Sorry.”

    Jhl gave in. “Relax, asteroid-brain! We’re in the right hemisphere, the right zone of the hemisphere and the right whatever they call these small, lordship-governed areas on the plasmo-blasted dump! –It’s his. We’re in it. –Smallish.”

    BrTl looked at her indignantly.

    “Um, we won’t walk,” said Jhl, biting her lip slightly.

    “Lifter?” he said without hope, trying not to think of the state of the ship’s account.

    “Hah, hah.”

    ... “I was sure,” he said, as the bubble they were crammed into jogged on its way, “that the spaceport was much closer. Last time we landed it felt much closer.”

    “Setting aside the times you might or might not have been in hyper-hop,” said Jhl acidly, “any time any of us were here on semi-official business for Y-K-W, we did land closer. At a small, privately owned spaceport which charges RAFTS OF SUPER-IGS for the privilege!”

    “Oh, yes,” he remembered, subsiding.

    “I suppose the Gervaynian kryy’s got her claws in his fortune,” admitted Jhl, sighing. “That could explain why we haven’t been paid for rescuing Rhan-son.”

    “Yes,” agreed Trff.

    “Thanks, Trff. I needed that confirmation,” she sighed.

    BrTl coughed delicately. The bubble shuddered slightly but was otherwise unmoved: they cultured them up pretty sturdy on Whtyll. “How much does one have to pay to get off the plasmo-blasted dump?”

    Jhl consulted the Morpo’s Guide. “Ugh.”

    “We could sell G’gg,” he suggested.

    “Hah, hah,” said G’gg tolerantly through one of the iirouelli’i-flavoured ooff-puffs intended for the Flppus. –The small Whtyllian nyr-hide purse intended for Fl’Oo-ooueroii was now depending from Fl’Jfaffl’s appendage next to its silver one, and Fl’Oo-ooueroii was fanning itself happily with the small Whtyllian lady’s fan intended for Fl’Jfaffl. Oh, well.

    “Demand payment from the Gervaynian kryy?” suggested BrTl.

    “Try anything once,” agreed Jhl sourly.

    A glum silence fell.

    ... “That’s it,” said BrTl.—G’gg gulped and was silent.—“G’gg and the Flppus could stay here with the bubble,” he noted.

    “Yes, and then we could all end up in a Whtyllian jail because we haven’t got the price of retaining a public bubble here for an unspecified period,” his Captain retorted sweetly. “–We can pay you for the journey! Take us up to the plasmo-blasted front portico!” she snarled.

    The bubble did so. It demanded payment before it let them out, though.

    The portal opened. An s-being appeared at the head of the immense flight of Porvenian marble steps. Certain beings shut their visual organs...

    “Well?” said Jhl, sitting heavily on the foot of her nephew’s humanoid-style bed.

    “There’s lots of other boys here!” he reported happily.

    “Uh-huh.” Most of them Shank’yar’s part-grandsons.

    “And they’re letting Fl’Oo-ooueroii and Fl’Jfaffl sleep in my room!”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Mind you, that ole lady, she says they gotta sleep in them nests,” he added glumly.

    He meant old S-B’rtha. Jhl debated reminding him the “old lady” was an s-being and decided against it. “Well, they are proper Flppu beds, G’gg. I’ve never even seen one before.” –And certainly not on a planet where Flppus normally wore bracelets.

    “Yeah. Fl’Oo-ooueroii likes its.” He looked at her hopefully.

    Jhl cleared her throat. “All right: between you and me and the plasmo-blasted maxi-webs,”—her nephew grinned, he’d already verified empirically that they were—“Fl’Jfaffl can sleep on your bed. Only don’t tell any being I said so.”

    “Tha-anks, Aunty Jhl!”

    “They feeding you okay?” –G’gg had not been invited to join the adult beings for dinner that evening. One had to be thankful for small mercies.

    “Yeah,” he admitted grudgingly. “Only that ole lady, she makes ya eat vegetables.”

    “Hah, hah,” said Jhl heartlessly, going over to the door.

    “Aunty Jhl, do I haveta go to bed at nine point zero, zero one?” he whined.

    There were only ten Whtyllian hours in the Whtyllian day. “Yes. Whenever you’re told to,” she said heartlessly.

    “They make ya wear clingo-jamas!” he cried in anguish.

    “Good. Goodnight.” Jhl went out hurriedly before she could actually laugh out loud.

    Lady Myr-Lah gh K’ml Vt R’aam had had a dinner-party planned for that evening. The arrival of Jhl’s party hadn’t suggested to her that she cancel it. Chief amongst the guests was the elderly and very grand Lady Gw’dl-i’in gh Wl’hlm Nr M’snn, accompanied by three depressed-looking daughters-in-IG-law and their squashed-looking bond-partners—no-one was in any doubt as to who did the squashing—and a very beautiful granddaughter. In the course of the evening it was discovered that Lady gh Wl’hlm had destined the granddaughter to become Lord Vt R’aam’s IG-legal bond-partner but on the whole no being present was surprised by this. Lady gh Wl’hlm Nr M’snn spent the evening patronising Lady gh K’ml Vt R’aam unmercifully but Jhl at least was not surprised by this. She and BrTl rated a very slight nod from the grand lady visitor—between them—as from a great height, but on the whole they could only be grateful for this mercy. Trff was treated far more graciously. Even when it applied what it had recently learned about the diplo way of eating jolly-lolly flavoured agar-agar she didn’t visibly abate the graciousness.

    Jhl and BrTl were down at the far end of the long Whtyllian table, for which they could only be humbly grateful, on either side of Tm-Wm. Presumably he was no longer pretending to be Lord Vt R’aam. They let him sort of recognise BrTl but not Jhl. He was overcome to meet a “ladyship” who was a real Lieutenant-Pilot. After BrTl had explained clearly about the merchant captain’s bars on the merchant captain’s Number Ones he got the point and addressed her humbly as “Captain.”

    “Oh, by the way, Captain,” said Lady Myr-Lah as the company sat round limply in the pink sitting-room wondering what in Federation lordship-type beings did after dinner on Whtyll, “there was a message for you: one of your relatives, I think. S-R’aam has the details.”

    The elderly s-being came into the room, bowing, while Jhl’s jaw was still sagging.

    “I apprehend it was about your nephew, Captain,” he said politely. “May I suggest the Captain calls first thing tomorrow morning?”

    Jhl tried not to look at her hostess.

    “The comm-receiver is at your disposal, Captain,” said the old lady.

    Jhl smiled palely. “Thank you, Ladyship.”

    Aeons later they were released from the pink sitting-room and tottered into their rooms, to go out like light-blobs the moment they hit the bed, stall, or nest.

    ... “Where’s G’GG?” shouted a puce-faced S’zaan, very early the next morning, Whtyll- and Bluellia-time.

    “Here. He’s all right, he’s just seeing a bit of the two galaxies with me,” said Jhl feebly. “How did you get this frequency, S’zaan? It’s a—um—priority frequency,” she said, wincing.

    “It’s the frequency that that Commander Whatsit gave M’mri’in,” said her sister-in-IG law grimly. “We couldn’t figure out how else to contact you.”

    “Uh—right.” Jhl peered. “Is that a new comm-receiver, or are you over at Uncle Frdd’s?”

    “It’s your Mum and Dad’s, of course! Their new one! Didn’t you send it?”

    “No,” she gulped.

    “Well, don’t tell me J’f did: he’d have the entire family on its knees thanking him humbly for the next five generations!”

    “Uh—yeah. No, I agree, it can’t have been him. Um, when did it arrive, S’zaan?”

    “Just after you left.”

    Jhl shut her eyes for an instant. Shank’yar. Must have been.

    “Never mind that. What in Federation do you mean by carting G’gg off round the two galaxies on your vacuum-frozen smuggling trips?”

    “I’m not! I mean, it was perfectly respectable: I got a Wavey-Sp—um, Space Fleet Reserve call-up: seconded to one of the delegations to Old Rthfrdia’s F-Day.”

    “Where is it? Over near Athlor Kadry’s System?” said S’zaan blankly.

    “No. Right at the other side of the two galaxies, actually. Um, it’s a humanoid world.”

    “Oh,” said S’zaan, relaxing the grimness for an instant. “And?”

    “I was told to bring a staff, and he wanted to come, so, um—Well, it is pretty primmo, but he enjoyed himself.”

    “You mean he spent the entire summer stuffing himself on junk!”

    “He liked the meat,” she said feebly. “They eat a lot of meat.”

    “In between the maxi-shakes and the Gelbo-Delight, I presume. Well, send him home, he has to go back to school.”

    With a thud of relief Jhl realised that of course: if it was summer on Whtyll it was also summer on Bluellia: G’gg had been having his summer holidays! “Um, we can’t get away just yet, but as soon as—”

    “Send him HOME!” she shouted. “No-one wants you to bring him, in fact if his father sets eyes on you he’ll probably tear your arms off. Just SEND him!”

    Jhl licked her lips.

    “By the Federation: you’re broke again, aren’t you?” cried her sister-in-IG-law.

    “Only a temporary ig-flow prob—Well, to all intents and purposes, yes. But I’m expecting to be solvent very—”

    “What’s J’f’s frequency?” interrupted S’zaan grimly.

    “If he hasn’t given you—”

    “He’s given his father some vacuum-frozen frequency that’s always answered by an, if you please, s-being,” said S’zaan grimly.

    Jhl gulped.

    “Well?”

    “I only know the Blrtltonian diplo priority fr—”

    “WELL?”

    Weakly Jhl gave it to her.

    “Good. He can do something for one of his family for once in his selfish life, the vacuum-frozen little grqwary dropping. –I’ll be in touch,” she threatened, breaking the connection.

    J’f called just as Jhl was finishing breakfast. He was in a steaming rage but concealing it because he was hoping the Fleet Commander in person might walk in. As Jhl knew that Shan could not walk in, she wasn’t prepared to be exactly conciliatory. Unfortunately there was the small point that if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t get rid of G’gg.

    J’f wanted to know what in Federation she meant by giving S’zaan the diplomatic mission’s priority frequency on Blrtltonia. Jhl replied sweetly that it was the only frequency she knew there apart from those of the manager of the Blrtl City J’rd’s Food Hall and a certain nnru-dive not a megazillion glps from the city’s spaceport. And if he didn’t have all his personal messages filtered by an s-being she wouldn’t have had to.

    J’f wanted to know what in Federation she meant by dragging G’gg round the two galaxies without a by-your-leave. Jhl replied it was none of his business and was he going to send the money for a ticket, or not?

    J’f retorted that a boy of that age couldn’t travel all that way by himself and Bht had just rung him to say that M’mri’in was in hysterics and where were R’shn and S’zzie?

    “How would I know?” replied Jhl irritably.

    “They went with G’gg on that plasmo-blasted TRIP!” he shouted.

     “Oh. Um...”—TRFF! she sent at the top of her mind. It dozed on.—“The last I saw of them,” she improvised hastily, recalling certain ships’ manifests to mind, “they were on Mullgon’ya, heading back to the Bhylloblaster.”

    “The Bhylloblaster got back to Bluellia a week ago and THEY WERE NOT ON IT!” her brother shouted.

    Blerrinbrig’s, those things were slow, all right! “Uh—well, I don’t know, J’f. She is an adult, isn’t she? Perhaps she got off somewhere on the way.”

    “It didn’t STOP anywhere!” howled her brother.

    Oops. “Uh—still on Mullgon’ya?” she offered, wincing in spite of herself .

    J’f was observed to pass a well-tended hand across his well-tended forehead. “That’s what her mother’s afraid of. She thinks R’shn might have asked the Full Surgeons to cure her.”

    “Well, I can give you the frequency of the R’jt Vt R’aam Memorial Nursing-Home.”

    “What good will THAT do?” he shouted. “They’ll never give her up if they’ve got their plasmo-blasted claws into her for their revolting experiments!”

    “Isn’t that just spacers’ gossip, J’f?” said his sister sweetly, reminding herself that whatever danger R’shn might currently be in back on Old Rthfrdia not a megazillion glps from that IG M.C. Collector, at least she wasn’t incarcerated on Mullgon’ya.

    “She’s YOUR niece, TOO!” he shouted.

    “Um—yeah. Um, she didn’t say anything to me about meaning to stay on, J’f. Maybe she went on with the Bhylloblaster, have they thought of that? You know: picked up some being, a nice young officer or something.”

    “Oh. I suppose that’s possible.”

    “Yeah. And if Bht and M’mri’in were all that concerned about her fate, maybe they should have given her something a bit more interesting to do than look after the plasmo-blasted egg sheds.”

    “She’s got about two years to live; what is that, a dendrion rock you’re carrying round instead of a heart?” said her grqwary dropping of a brother bitterly.

    “Uh—Look, all right, I’ll ask Shan to use his influence and find out what’s happened to her, okay?” said Jhl feebly.

    J’f nodded, gnawing on his lip. “Yeah. Well, what are you going to do about G’gg? Who’s going to take him home?”

    Jhl suggested a direct flight. J’f shouted: “There are no direct flights and he’s fifteen years OLD!”

    Jhl suggested a Flppu that had got quite motherly, lately. J’f shouted: “Mok shit!”

    Jhl suggested borrowing a responsible s-being—trying not to shut her eyes in agony at the thought of having to ask Lady Myr-Lah.

    “All right, but just make sure he gives you a responsible one. Or an aide, would do.”

    “Uh—Shan hasn’t got any actual aides, he’s a only a Fleet Command—”

    “If you ever looked at the Space Fleet Gazette Service, you’d see he’s just been made up to Admiral!”

    “Uh—Right. Of course,” she said numbly. “But he’s on leave at the moment: no aides.”

    “Then an adult and responsible s-being. Not a Flppu,” said her brother, grinding his pearlized teeth somewhat.

    “No. Um—J’f, I’ve been wondering for light-years, where did you have your teeth done?”

    “WHAT?” he shouted.

    “I’m not getting at you! They look great. A bit like Shan’s.”

    “Oh. Well, if you want to know,” he said, putting his nose in the air and looking down it, very like the old J’f they all knew and loathed, the loving-uncle bit had clearly been just a momentary aberration, “I had them done at the Sh-Rn’s on Huyajhangwania. But don’t consider it, you couldn’t afford their prices. –I’m not sending you the credits. I’m sending non-refundable tickets, one in G’gg’s name and one for an adult, return, no on-world authorisation. You can pick them up at the Qw’nnpr spaceport on display of G’gg’s retinal pattern and his travel dokko.”

    He broke the connection before his enraged sister could say “Dokko? How down-market!”

    ... Glumly she watched Shank’yar crawling round his nursery cooing at a small yellow Flppu. Old S-B’rtha was there: Jhl asked her how, exactly, Shan’s present state of development compared with Whtyllian infant norms. The old woman told her instantly.

    Jhl didn’t glance at Full Surgeon Fl’nhrr’htia. He had already tried to penetrate her shield. She wasn’t in a good mood: she hadn't let him get through her Pilot-type shield, let alone get an inkling of what was behind it. It had been easy. Well—comforting, in its way.

    “He’s really doing very well, Captain,” said the old nurse with an anxious look in her eye.

    “Yes. Thanks, S-B’rtha.” Jhl got out of it: she couldn’t stand another instant of it. No wonder his old mum hardly ever went to see him.

    “Council of war,” she said grimly, going into BrTl’s room, where the pair of asteroid-brains were playing a desultory game of pwm. On a Whtyllian 3-D board, serve them right.

    BrTl winced, even though the place was hung with maxi-webs and Federation-alone-knew-what, not to mention the Ju’ukrterian shield that according to report would be unidentifiable as such except possibly by the combined minds of the—Etcetera.

    “Run this simple arithmetic by you,” said Jhl grimly. She reported her calculations of Shank’yar’s rate of progress, based on a quick comparison of the Whtyllian normal rate of infant development, in Whtyllian months and years, with the Bluellian normal infant development in Bluellian months and years, normalised to IG months and years. The maths had been easy: the problem had been recalling what the Bluellian month and year actually were, so as to get an affective picture of what was happening. Which wasn’t good.

    “Any and all suspicions of the vacuum-frozen Full College appear to have been well founded,” she ended grimly.

    “Yes,” agreed Trff. “That Friyrian is not encouraging the Fleet Commander to reach his-its full potential. He-it would be making much better progress if a Full Surgeon was helping him-it as much as it could. The it-being isn’t absolutely sure how fast the progress—”

    “Guess,” said BrTl through the crunchers.

    “Six IG months?” it said dubiously.

    “You mean years,” stated BrTl definitely.

    “No. Months. The progress should have been exponential from the time when he-it stood up. –Did he-it, when you-it saw him-it, Jhl?”

    “No,” she said grimly. “Though S-B’rtha says he has.”

    “Um, could you help him, Jhl?” asked BrTl.

    “Not much, no. Once he gets a bit older—I mean, once he’s learned to use his cognitive faculties a bit— Well, anyway, I can’t at this stage, I might do the wrong thing.”

    “Ri-ight. Run this by you,” he suggested. “Grab Fl’nhrr’htia, take them both a few megazillion glps away, and tear little bits off him until he does what he ought to be doing?”

    “No, BrTl,” said Trff. “The Full College would untranslatable noise.”

    “Huh?” BrTl shook his wrist.

   “That was a Ju’ukrterian concept, I use the word loosely, for which there is no translation,” said Jhl grimly.

    “So what did it mean?”

    “I don’t know,” she said grimly.

    “It meant break all that being’s—”

    “Bones!” said BrTl happily. “You know, Trff, as in skeletons!”

    “Or as in meat,” noted Jhl acidly.

    “No. Break all his-its connections, BrTl,” it hooted on an anxious note.

    “That sounds nasty, whatever it is!” he decided happily.

    “So—um—would he be dead, Trff?” asked Jhl limply.

    “Not immediately. He-it would… cease to function.”

    “Even better!” said BrTl.

    “No, you fool,” said Jhl limply. “How can he help us if his connections are broken and he’s shortly dead?”

    “Oh. Well, it’s a pleasant concept in itself,” he said, grinding the crunchers slightly.

    “I grant you that,” she granted. “No help, though. –I gather that means that if we tried to, let’s say as a for instance, kidnap, bribe or suborn any other Full Surgeon—”

    “Oh, exactly!” Trff agreed happily.

    “Even if we found one that would do it willingly?” said BrTl without hope.

    “Even faster,” it assured him.

    “I’d say that option’s out, then,” said Jhl acidly. “Suggestions?”

    BrTl looked at Trff. “Well, if Jhl can’t, could you-it help him, Trff?”

    “This it-being could help him-it to some extent.”

    BrTl eyed his Captain cautiously.

    “Look, Trff, ‘to some extent’ doesn’t cut it,” she said tightly. “We’d better go back to the plasmo-blasted dump and take him to The Old Woman, as Rh’aiiy’hn suggested.”

    “That being has the skills to help him-it,” agreed Trff.

    “But could it do better than you can?” demanded BrTl on a cross note.

    “Yes.”

    “Mok shit,” he muttered.

    After a moment he said: “How long did you say he’d take to get better at the current rate of progress, again, Jhl?”

    “Twelve IG years,” said Jhl through her pearlized teeth. “Up from a first guesstimate of seven, you may not recall. I know that’s nothing to a xathpyroid, but he’d be sixty-two in IG years and almost due for retirement. –He’s made Admiral, by the way: the grqwary dropping saw it in the Gazette.”

    “G’gg blobbed onto the Gazz?” croaked BrTl.

    “Not him! J’f,” she admitted. “He’s sending G’gg a ticket home. And the Gervaynian kryy’s lending an s-being to take him.”

    “Will he be safe, though?” asked BrTl dubiously.

    Jhl shrugged slightly. “Transfer at the third moon of Pkqwrd?”

    “You couldn’t get duller and safer than that,” he acknowledged.

    “True,” they said automatically.

    Then there was a thoughtful silence.

    “Ugh,” concluded BrTl at last.

    “Yeah,” granted Jhl heavily. “It’s obvious that the Full College is playing a game of its own, not favourable to Shan. So whether or not they’re in cahoots with the IG M.C., if we let G’gg wander round the two galaxies, with or without a Whtyllian s-being in a bracelet, it’s more or less playing into their appendages, isn’t it?”

    BrTl got up. “I’ll take him. What’ll it be, eight days or so? Can’t make any appreciable difference, at this stage. Where is G’gg? Have you broken the bad news?”

    “Uh—”

    “I’ll do it,” he groaned, going.

    After a moment Trff said sadly: “Is that eight IG days, or eight local days, on this vacuum-frozen dump?”

    Jhl’s chrono-blob replied immediately: Eight local days. Six point two IG days.

    They looked at each other glumly.

    “The Trff could spend some time in its nest,” said Jhl kindly in Ju’ukrterian.

    “It would welcome that opportunity,” it admitted.

    She got up, sighing. “Yeah. It belatedly dawned on some of us, back there in the IG M.C. hangar on Old Rthfrdia, that physically you’re a small, to be merely literalist, being that’s had too many late nights lately. Not to mention other excitements. You do that, then. I’ll make your apologies to Lady Myr-Lah.”

    “Thank you-it, Jhl. It’ll start now.”

    They went out, Trff to return to its nest, emanating gratitude, and Jhl to—uh—whatever beings of leisure did on Whtyll in the temperate Whtyllian summer. Though before that there had better be the small matter of a report to Lady Myr-Lah: after all, she was his mother. –Theoretically she could be in cahoots with the Full College because she liked being in charge of Shan’s fortune, but Jhl had long since seen that Lady Myr-Lah, with all her faults, was not that sort of mother at all.

    “Since you are supposedly here on a social call,” said the old lady grimly: “you may socialise. This morning I am due to pay courtesy calls on Lady Gw’dl-i’in gh Wl’hlm Nr M’snn, Lady K’mla gh Frdd’rach Blbr S’ng, and Lady Mhll-i’n gh R’Ju Raou. Oh, and on my distant cousin J’nfr gh Shank’yar Kadry. You may accompany me. I assure you it will be equally painful for both of us,” she said without the flicker of a smile.

    “Yes, Lady Myr-Lah,” said Jhl glumly.

    They went in a lifter. The one good thing about the whole trip. Paying calls apparently entailed getting dressed up in your best “morning gown” with, summer or not, some dead animal skins draped round your shoulders. Jhl wore her Number Twos: to Blerrinbrig’s with them. During the call proper you sat for a while in the other being’s sitting-room while, in the case of Lady Gw’dl-i’in, it looked down its nose at you, and, in the other cases, you looked down yours at it. Fun. If you were really lucky the being served cups of gl’g.

    By the time Jhl’s stomach was telling her loud and clear it was lunchtime they still hadn’t done “Cousin J’nfr.” Must be a poor relation: she rated a picnic basket and the old kryy hadn't referred to her as “Lady.” All the other calls had been to imposing spired and turreted residences rather like, though not as big as, Shan’s. Cousin J’nfr was definitely a poor relation: she lived in a small—smallish—house in the nearest town, the one where Jhl as a Pleasure Girl and Tm-Wm as his father had once displayed themselves in their furs and skimpies. The picnic basket was received with humble thanks and whisked away. Very probably she would have her lunch out of it, noted Jhl sourly.

    Cousin J’nfr had to be patronised terrifically and asked nicely how her daughter was getting on over in wherever; and whether her other daughter was still school-teaching (beyond the pale: Lady Myr-Lah was extra-kind about it); and whether they could expect to see her son back home on Whtyll soon. –What he did, if anything, wasn’t mentioned, so either it was so far beyond the pale as to be unmentionable in sitting-rooms or else he was prosperous and successful: take your pick. Jhl could have looked, but why bother?

    –They were, of course, all elderly widows. At a couple of the palaces Jhl had been vaguely aware of younger beings in the background engaged in more or less strenuous outdoor activities and actually enjoying themselves, so it was apparently possible on Whtyll. Just not for her, obviously.

    Lady Myr-Lah voted for lunch at the J’rd’s branch. Very public, but by now it must be apparent to the whole of Whtyll that she had a merchant trader captain staying at her plasmo-blasted palace and in any case Jhl was past caring. The lunch was delicious, of course, J’rd’s being J’rd’s all over the two galaxies, but Jhl was now so hungry she scarcely noticed.

    Tm-Wm was waiting for them when they returned. Would the Captain like to come riding with him? Yes, he confirmed with a startled laugh, one did it outdoors! Not Grandmother, of course. Jhl accepted immediately, not even asking riding what.

    It turned out to be horses. She was abruptly taken back to the plasmo-blasted time on Old Rthfrdia when she’d come to and realised what had happened to Shan. Ugh. Never mind, it was better than doing anything whatsoever in the company of the Gervaynian kryy. Tm-Wm thought she should wear “riding gear.” Jhl thought she should wear her Durocloth coveralls, and got into them. Tm-Wm blenched at the sight of her. Good. That was one little FW-head that wouldn’t make any connection between her coveralled self and a certain Pleasure Girl, then. The horses were, as she remembered from Old Rthfrdia, pleasant beings of an intelligence somewhat above Tm-Wm’s. The one he was riding told her tolerantly that he wasn’t a bad rider. Jhl managed okay, once she’d grasped the point, with her horse’s help, that one gripped with the knees and that one’s horse had a much better idea of what the whole procedure entailed than oneself.

    She thanked Tm-Wm with genuine gratitude on their return.

    “We could get out every day!” he said eagerly.

    “You’re on!” agreed Jhl fervently.

    Dinner that night entailed dress uniform and more vacuum-frozen Whtyllian lordship-type beings looking down their noses, but Jhl hadn’t expected anything else.

    She looked glumly at Trff in its nest. It had needed that sleep, all right. Three Whtyllian days, so far. Out of eight, right.

    BrTl had reported from Pkqwrd that they had, as expected, missed a connection. Oh, well, that meant the wait coming back would be shorter. G’gg was fine. And he wasn’t allowed qwlot, was he? No. Right!

    “The Great One’s still asleep,” noted the puce Flppu sadly.

    “Yes. Well, it was very tired, Fl’Jfaffl.”

    “Great BrTl’s gone away,” noted the blue Flppu sadly.

    “Yes, but he’s coming back, Fl’Oo-ooueroii. Quite soon.”

    –They had this conversation every time Jhl and the Flppus peeped in on Trff.

    Never mind, she was getting quite good at riding, and Tm-Wm had introduced her to grass-sledding. Great fun! Also, in order to do it you had to get in a lifter and go away from Shank’yar’s palace, not altogether a bad thing. Jhl wasn’t worried about the palace’s inhabitants, there was a nice, strong Ju’ukrterian shield round it, entirely unaffected, as far as her poor humanoid brain could determine, by the fact that the individual Trff was asleep within it. Or possibly made even shinier: the Ju’ukrterian it-being looking after its own? Anyway, it was good. As far as she could tell Full Surgeon Fl’nhrr’htia didn’t realise it was there, and he still thought her own shield was only a Pilot-type shield. He believed they were on Whtyll because they were worried about Shan. Mind you, Jhl couldn’t have said what the Full College believed. Still, at the moment it seemed safe enough to go off grass-sledding.

    Not, however, this particular afternoon, because this particular afternoon Lady Myr-Lah had guests coming to take “tea,” read gl’g, and she particularly desired the Captain to be there: Cousin J’nfr gh Shank’yar Kadry would expect to see her and it would not do to overlook any courtesy in that direction. Jhl’s wits must have been dulled by the prospect of the gl’g, because she returned groggily to this: “So they are descendants of Athlor Kadry, then?”

    “The explorer? Of course. On both sides of the family: Shank’yar Kadry and J’nfr were second cousins. But that is hardly the point. Cousin J’nfr, as you must have seen, lives in somewhat reduced circumstances.”

    “Surrounded by wtmyrian carpets, mm,” agreed Jhl drily. “I beg your pardon, Lady Myr-Lah, but to a Bluellian no Whtyllian lordship-class being lives in reduced circumstances. But I see what you mean.” –What she meant had nothing to do with the kindness of her heart, let alone actual liking for the faded, depressed-looking little old Cousin J’nfr, and everything to do with her conception of what was due to the Vt R’aam name and position. Blaach!

    Lady Myr-Lah nodded grimly. “I shall expect you in the small green sitting-room, then, Captain. In your Number Twos, if you cannot manage a tea-gown. In good time for tea.”

    There was no way Jhl was going to “manage” a Whtyllian tea-gown, they were reasonably soft and comfortable but they entailed approximately five glps of stuff trailing after you on the wtmyrian carpets while specially cultured blobs scurried round making sure the trailing was done “elegantly.” Great splintered shards of quog!

    In the meantime her presence was not required, so she and Tm-Wm got out of it on the horses.

    “Maybe Cousin Raj will be there,” said Tm-Wm. “Cousin J’nfr’s son.”

    “Uh—is this good or bad, Tm-Wm?” –That soup between his ears was swirling with ambivalence. Well, swirling was too strong a word for anything to do with Tm-Wm. Stirring sluggishly.

    “It’s good when he has a go at Grandmother.”

    “Uh-huh. But not when he has a go at you?”

    “He doesn’t really notice me,” the cognate returned glumly.

    Ouch! Goddit.

    Gl’g-time duly arrived. The Known Universe was like that, if you were a being governed by the commonly perceived space-time continuum. So Jhl, in spanking-clean Number Twos that the Whtyllian recyclers had had a go at, went along to the “small” green sitting-room.

    Lady Myr-Lah was sitting on a couch that was not a flop couch beside the depressed-looking elderly Cousin G’r Vt R’aam who lived in the palace and sometimes accompanied her on her courtesy calls, his only discernible function. He must have been some sort of a part-son of whoever his father had been: barely a fraction of his encoding resembled Shan’s, and his shield was almost imperceptible. Male Whtyllian lordship-type beings did not wear “tea-gowns” at gl’g-time, they wore any of a variety of breeches. Including riding breeches, only not the pair they’d just been riding in. And any of a variety of jackets, including a special soft jacket— Oh, don’t ask! He was in one. With a fluffy collar. And baggy Whtyllian breeches.

    Tm-Wm was there, managing to look uncomfortable even though he was on a flop couch. He’d opted for the narrow nyr-suede riding breeches. His thighs were very like Shan’s. That didn’t help in any way whatsoever. Next to him was the beautiful black-haired granddaughter of Lady Gw’dl-i’in gh Wl’hlm Nr M’snn whom Jhl had met on her first evening here as herself. Lady D’ffni, if any being cared. She was looking peeved. Understandable. On her other side was one of the depressed-looking daughters-in-law of Lady Gw’dl-i’in. Very possibly Lady D’ffni’s mother. Next to her again was an extremely pretty, very young man: her Pleasure Being? Oh. No. Son. Sorry. Brighter than Tm-Wm but not by much. He was sulking. Understandable. Then, sort of sunk into her flop couch, looking miserable, came Cousin J’nfr gh Shank’yar Kadry. And next to her—

    Jhl felt all the colour drain from her shlaa-tinted cheeks.

    “I don’t think you’ve met my son, have you, Captain?” twittered old Cousin J’nfr. “Athlor Raj Kadry. We call him Raj, in the family. Raj, dear, this is—”

    Athlor Raj Kadry or not, he was the IG M.C. Collector.

    He rose, looking sardonic, and bowed slightly, Whtyllian-fashion.

    Numbly Jhl bowed back. Palest fawn nyr-suede narrow riding breeches—his thighs were very like Drouwh Mk-L’ster’s, now she came to think about them—plain black jacket over a fawn mn-mn silk high-necked blouse that he must have got on Old R—

    Great steaming piles of mok droppings! Well, it couldn’t actually get worse, could it?

    His IG M.C. Collector’s shield was well in place but behind it, all shiny and nice, there was a monstrous one, going gdoyng, gdoyng. Why had she ever imagined that they’d fooled him or got away from Old Rthfrdia scot-free, or—or anything? And it was no use wishing frantically that Trff would wake up, because what, frankly, could it do? And Jhl would take her dying oath—which she realised she might well have the opportunity of doing very soon—that Collector Athlor Raj Kadry was fully aware of the Ju’ukrterian shield around the palace.

    The stormy grey eyes looked at her mockingly. “How are you, Captain?”

    “Very well, thanks. How are you, Collector?” replied Jhl grimly.

    “I see you’ve met before,” murmured Lady Myr-Lah.

    “Yes. We met as I was leaving Old Rthfrdia,” said Jhl baldly.

    Lady D’ffni produced a very silly giggle, at approximately which point Jhl realised that the being was annoyed not only because Shan wasn’t here and because she had to sit next to Tm-Wm, but because the Collector was ignoring her. Misguided child.

    “Don’t tell us Lord Raj inspected you, Captain Smt Wong!”

    “All right, then, I won’t,” said Jhl amiably, sitting down without bothering to pause and recall whether it was polite social usage on Whtyll for female beings in merchant captain’s Number Twos to do so before male lordship-beings in riding dress, or not.

    “Ah, here is the tea,” said Lady Myr-Lah smoothly. Instantly a train of s-beings brought it in. “Now, J’nfr, my dear, you must taste these cakes: Cook has a new recipe. I wager you will never guess what they are flavoured with!”

    Feverfew, sent the Collector, his face expressionless.

    Jhl ignored that. She accepted a cup of gl’g and a cake. Blerrinbrig’s, so they were! she recognised, choking.

    Collector Lord Athlor Raj Kadry leapt up, patted her on the back, handed her a bunch of senso-tissues, poured gl’g down her unresisting throat...

    Once Captain Smt Wong had recovered the company went back to its guessing-game, politely pretending the incident hadn't occurred.

    “I think they smell like that puce Flppu of the Captain’s!” decided Tm-Wm with a giggle.

    The Collector choked on his gl’g.

    Jhl leapt up, patted him on the back, handed him a bunch of senso-tissues, poured gl’g down his unresisting throat...

    The gl’g had almost disappeared and all the little cakes had; Lady Myr-Lah suggested “you young people” might like to walk in the gardens. Tm-Wm agreed eagerly: he could show the visitors his new horse! Lady D’ffni rejected this offer, pouting, and looked hopefully at the Collector. He ignored her. Her brother accepted, however: by this time it was clear he’d have accepted anything except possibly the opportunity to throw himself down a magma pit in order to get out of Lady Myr-Lah gh K’ml Vt R’aam’s sitting-room.

    “I’ve seen him,” said Jhl quickly as the Collector got up and offered her his arm. “His name’s Grey Horse.”

    “No, his name’s Summer Lightning,” said the cognate in a puzzled voice.

    The Collector’s elegant shoulders shook silently in their smart black jacket, and Jhl was suddenly struck by a horrible suspicion. She took a hard look at his encoding. No-o... Wait. By the Federation, was he shielding part of it? N—Was he? Great splintered shards of quog, she couldn’t tell!

    “Um—what?” she said feebly. “Oh—sorry, Tm-Wm. He thinks of himself as Grey Horse.”

    Promptly Lady D’ffni collapsed in giggles, and old Cousin G’r, who was jealous of Tm-Wm, both because he was more nearly related to Shan and because he was young, noted sourly: “That’s one for you, Tm-Wm. May one ask what name the horse has given Tm-Wm, Captain?”

    Jhl cleared her throat. “Uh—none,” she said unconvincingly.

    The Collector had not insisted she take his arm, but he was standing very close. She felt him shake slightly. “Come along, Captain, before Lord G’r encourages you to put your plantigrade appendage right down your speaking-tube!” And they went out, to the accompaniment of Lady D’ffni’s puzzled: “What did he mean?” and Lady Myr-Lah’s majestic: “Never mind, my dear.”

    “What has he?” murmured the Collector as the two asteroid-brains hurried off towards the stable.

    “Eh? Oh—the horse? Soft-Hands-and-Pulls-Too-Hard-on-The-Reins-and-Voice-of-Curly-Furred-Being-with-Four-Legs. –I don’t know what that is; some being you have on Whtyll.”

    The Collector went into hysterics—though his shield was unaffected. “Sheep—bleats!” he gasped.

    “Yeah. That’ll be it.”

    “Enjoying yourself on Whtyll, are you?” he said, taking her elbow gently.

    “No.”

    “No,” he agreed, smiling with his mouth closed, stormy grey eyes sparkling.

    Jhl’s own eyes filled with tears; she pulled away.

    Athlor Raj Kadry took her hand gently in his long, strong one. “I’m quite, quite sure it’s safe to say anything under this Ju’ukrterian shield. What’s that Vvlvanian-cursed Full Surgeon doing to him?”

    Jhl maintained her shield. She replied blankly: “What?”

    “I know that Shank’yar is as helpless as an infant and that Full Surgeon Fl’nhrr’htia is not here for Cousin Myr-Lah’s bunions. My information is that he should be progressing much faster than he is doing. What’s the Full College’s game?”

    “Collector, I don’t know what in the two galaxies you’re talking about.”

    “I’m on your side,” he said heavily.

    “No IG M.C. being is on my side in anything whatsoever, I can assure you of that,” replied Jhl evenly.

    He released her and ran his hand through the thick, swept-back, shiny black hair that was so like Shan’s. “If only you’d let down that stupid shield—”

    “It’s just an ordinary Pilot’s shield: thought you IG M.C. Collectors were a cut above us mere Space Fleet beings?” replied Jhl nastily.

    “Very funny, Captain.”

    “Let me put a counter-proposition, then, Collector Kadry. You let down yours.”

    There was a moment’s silence.

    “I— You don’t know everything,” he said in a low voice.

    “That’s certainly true. But I’m not interested in your pathetic little IG M.C. secrets.”

    “I think I actually believe that,” he said on a rueful note.

    They walked on in silence. He wasn’t trying to probe her, but Jhl didn’t relax.

    As they neared the stables she could hear the two little FWs loudly admiring Grey Horse. She could also hear Grey Horse loudly wishing they’d give him some sugar.

    “If I implant in that soup between Tm-Wm’s ears the idea that Grey Horse wants sugar, will you come grass-sledding tomorrow?” he said with a laugh in his voice.

    What did it matter, after all? It manifestly couldn't get worse! Jhl accepted and then realised that the Ju’ukrterian shield, though it certainly extended to the Vt R’aam stables, did not protect the mountain slopes where the grass-sledding was done. Blerrinbrig’s!

    “Tell me about Athlor Kadry,” she said feebly, as, having watched Grey Horse eat his sugar, they returned very slowly to the palace.

    The Collector replied unemotionally: “Family tradition has it that he was the sort of man who preferred adventuring round the two galaxies to staying home and minding his estates. Which could explain why the family is now in what on Whtyll pass for reduced circumstances. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

    “Uh—more or less, yeah,” she said feebly.

    “He had four wives,” said the Collector dreamily.

    “Really?” replied Jhl acidly. “As few as that? That must be a record for a Whtyllian lordship.”

    Athlor Raj Kadry said in perfect Bluellian, overriding her translator with ease: “Four IG-legal bond-partners.”

    Jhl felt her cheeks burn. In fact her ears also burned. Though she might have guessed: a facility for languages, unaided by helpful translators, was more or less a prerequisite for the IG M.C.

    “Successively,” he murmured.

    “Mate, I’m not interested,” said Jhl in the Bluellian demotic.

    He immediately identified the sector her family came from, but as he’d seen her IG ID, she wasn’t that impressed.

    “But I see thousands of IDs every working day,” he said in a plaintive voice.

    “Mok shit,” replied Jhl, lapsing into Intergalactic. “An IG M.C. being of your rank doesn’t bother itself with inspecting IDs.”

    He smiled a little and said: “I’ll pick you up early tomorrow morning.”

    “You’ll need a lifter, it’s a fair way to those grass-sledding slopes.”

    “We can take my lifter,” offered Tm-Wm.

    “Do you want to come, Veej’a?” the Collector said heavily to the asteroid-brained companion. He nodded eagerly, flashing the naturally pearly teeth. “Very well, on one condition. Don’t bring that sister of yours: I dislike being mooned at by cretins.”

    Lord Veej’a nodded in frantic, if inarticulate agreement.

    “We’ll take my lifter,” said the Collector with finality, opening the sitting-room door and—bones of Brqa and all fourteen of its moons!—bowing Jhl in.

    Don’t bow, I’m in my Number Twos, you fool! she sent.

    Athlor Raj Kadry smiled, mouth closed, stormy grey eyes sparkling. There was clearly no point in asking him not to do it.

    Not to do what? he asked, apparently genuinely puzzled.

    “Never mind,” she said with a sigh. “If I was a xathpyroid, and not in uniform, I suppose I’d wave a thank-you with my tail for this door-holding and bowing mok shit, would I?”

    “Not necessary: tail waving is not a Whtyllian tradition,” he said politely.

    “Oh, not like the four bond-partners, then?”

    “They all stayed at home on Whtyll and looked after the children,” he said in a dreamy tone. “And the estates, to the best of their ability,” he added affably.

    Jhl went into the sitting-room with her teeth gritted.

    Early next morning she and Tm-m were blessedly alone at breakfast. As usual, the palace cooks had laid on enough food to feed a small fleet. Not all of it recognisable. There was a dish of what Tm-Wm was thinking of as a vegetable, that was bright orange. Jhl had eaten all sorts of vegetables in her time, but to a Bluellian a vegetable did ought to be green. Or at least greenish, apart from the native Bluellian squash, which was allowed to be yellow.

    “Pass me some of that pink meat, thanks, Tm-Wm; and I’ll have some of that green vegetable.”

    “Try this one, too, it’s nice. K’ddoo,” he explained illuminatingly.

    You could only die once, if you were a humanoid. Jhl tried the orange thing cautiously. Not bad. Sweetish. The dish was spicy, like a lot of Whtyllian food.

    Tm-Wm then reiterated his injunction to be polite about the lifter that Cousin Raj would be driving.

    “Blobbed out, is it?” said Jhl tolerantly.

    “Yes. Cousin J’nfr hardly ever uses it. He blobs it up a bit for her whenever he comes home.”

    “Uh-huh,” agreed Jhl without interest, taking a bit more of the pink meat.

    … “What?” she croaked, twenty IG minutes later.

    “It must be his!” gulped Tm-Wm. “He’s never brought it before. Two galaxies!”

    It was a sleek little silver Addra Comet Mark VII. Jhl had not been aware that they were as yet available to the general public. The asteroid-brained Lord Veej’a leapt out of it, grinning. “Hey, isn’t Lord Raj’s lifter galaxious? It’s next year’s model!”

    “In that case, I’m so glad I wore my Durocloth coveralls,” said Jhl sweetly.

    His jaw had now had time to drop at the sight of her in them.

    Tm-Wm began gamely: “I’ve tried to tell her that you can get really nice ladies’ clingo-suits for sledding at J’r—”

    “Yeah. Get in,” she said, giving him a more or less friendly shove.

    They stumbled in, neither of the two FW-heads attempting to bow and usher her before them, Whtyllian-style. Heh, heh.

    “We can’t go on the advanced slopes!” gasped Tm-Wm, twenty IG minutes later.

    “Why not?” said the Collector coolly.

    “Raj, she’s only done it a few times before!” he gasped.

    “Then she’s grasped the basic techniques. –Or are you nervous?” he said to Jhl.

    “Terrified,” she agreed drily.

    The Collector stepped onto a lift-blob for the advanced slopes without further ado. Jhl grabbed the next one.

    “Not here,” he murmured, taking her elbow as she stepped off.

    She shook him off grimly. “It looks all right to me.” –The green, grassy slope was, technically speaking, precipitous.

    “All this area’s been developed for tourists,” he said, the elegant Whtyllian nostrils flaring with distaste.

    Jhl looked at the slope. One quick glance revealed three Friyrians sharing a sled, a dozen or so Whtyllian lordship-type beings going it alone, and a clutch of Nblyterians that were about t—Ouch, they just had! “So it would appear,” she agreed.

    “This way,” he said firmly, taking the elbow again.

    Tm-Wm and the dim Veej’a scrambled off the next lift-blob. “You’re not taking her off the beaten track, are you?” the cognate gasped.

    “Yes,” said the Collector simply.

    “Off the beaten track” entailed climbing to the top of the slope, where the lift-blobs didn’t go, negotiating a minor peak and a smallish crag or two, and emerging on the other side to a view of nothing but bare grass slopes and more crags. From behind the next crag a hairy face peered at them, then quickly withdrew.

    “What was that being?” said Jhl limply.

    “A Whtyllian alpine zh’g. Er—rather like a nyr.”

    “No, it isn’t, Cousin Raj!” panted Tm-Wm.

    The Collector looked at him drily. “You describe it, then.”

    “Um, well… It’s hairy. It’s got horns. Um, in the winter all their hair turns white except the very tips of their tails.”

    “Rather like the Old Rthfrdian lop-ears of the northern reaches, in fact,” said Athlor Raj Kadry smoothly.

    “Fascinating,” replied Jhl grimly. “Are we heading down this slope, or not?’

    “With the proviso that if we want to come up again, we have to climb,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

    Jhl took a deep breath and said through her teeth: “Spacers’ etiquette: I’ll go f—”

    The Collector’s hand came down hard on her shoulder. “No. Follow me.”

    She shrugged. “It’s your world.”

    The joy of the Whtyllian grass sleds was that they weren’t blob-driven. They were thin sheets of—well, more or less anything, ranging from lubolyon to finely tempered, extremely thin xrillion, like Athlor Raj Kadry’s. Tm-Wm’s was a sort of second-class version of the latter: so was the one he’d lent Jhl. You just lay on them, or sat on them, according to taste and proficiency, and went. There was no steering mechanism. Apart from the appendages of the being in question.

    The Collector, sleek in his plain black sledding suit, lay on his sleek black sled and whistled off down the slope at approximately one megazillion fluh per IG microsecond. Ignoring the anxious bleating sounds from Tm-Wm, Jhl lay down flat on her slightly less up-market bright pink sled and followed him.

    WOW!

    “Yes?” he said, grey eyes sparkling, as she tumbled off at the bottom of the slope.

    “Galaxious!” panted Jhl.

    Smiling, he held out a hand to her.

    Jhl had grasped it and let herself be pulled to her feet, panting and laughing, before she’d realised who he was and who she was and—

    There was an instant in which they looked into each other’s mammalian eyes, chest to mammalian mammary glands.

    Then she swallowed, and pulled away.

    Athlor Raj Kadry’s winged jaw hardened for a fleeting instant. He turned back to the slope and said lightly: “They’re quite good.”

    Tm-Wm and Veej’a had given Jhl plenty of leeway before following her. They were racing each other down. “Yes,” she admitted.

    “It requires only a minimal brain, and excellent reflexes,” he murmured. “Oh, and plenty of practice, but they have ample time for that.”

    “Mm.”

    They stood well back as the bright yellow sled bearing the being in the striped pink and yellow suit and the bright red sled bearing the being in the striped red and white suit swooped towards them. Tm-Wm won, but only by a nyr’s whisker.

    Or possibly zh’g’s.

    Ignoring that, Jhl cried to the grinning pair of asteroid-heads: “Well done!”

    They panted and laughed.

    Then they all set off back up the slope…

    Approximately ten aeons later they’d all had four more runs and Tm-Wm and Veej’a had gone off for a fifth before lunch.

    “What do we do for lunch: zap a zh’g?” said Jhl idly, lying on the grass in the warmth of a Whtyllian temperate summer’s day. The collar of the Durocloth Thing was loosened, but that was about as far as any being not actually from an ice planet would wish to go.

    “No: there’s lunch in this basket,” he replied simply.

    Jhl swallowed a sigh. Shades of that plasmo-blasted picnic of Rh’aiiy’hn’s.

    “What is it?” he said softly.

    “Nothing.” Jhl lay on her back and scowled up at a pale blue Whtyllian sky.

    The Collector was sprawled beside her. He propped himself on an elbow and looked into her face. “Can we talk, while the two asteroid-brains are out of the way?”

    “No. And don’t do that,” she said grimly.

    “It is a dominant position,” he said, the finely modelled, long mouth twitching just very slightly, “though not all cultures would regard it as threatening.”

    “Shut UP!”

    Collector Athlor Raj Kadry leaned right over and put that finely modelled mouth on hers.

    For perhaps an IG microsecond the normal laws of the space-time continuum were suspended: time stood still, and Jhl let Raj Kadry kiss her.

    Then she made an inarticulate noise of protest, and he drew back. “Now claim you didn't want it,” he said tightly.

    “No,” said Jhl faintly. A tear ran out of one dark eye before she could stop it and trickled down into her hair.

    He swallowed hard. “Which of them is it?” he said on a harsh note.

    “What?” she fumbled stupidly. She had long since given up trying to read him: no point. As far as she could tell, he had likewise.

    His nostrils flared. “That I remind you of: to such an extent that it’s painful for you to—to even look at me.”

    “It—” Jhl broke off, gnawing on her lip. “It isn’t—I mean—”

    “You were thinking of Prince Rh’aiiy’hn, a little earlier,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t read you: it was a very strong picture you were broadcasting. You, he, and several other beings, having a picnic out of a basket.”

    “Mm.”

    “Is it him?” he said in a hard voice.

    “I suppose you do look very like him, apart from the hair. But no,” she said, going very red in spite of herself: “it isn’t him, Collector. If it’s any of your business.”

    “Not that idiot, Drouwh Mk-L’ster?” Jhl ignored this, and he leant closer and insisted: “Is it?”

    “NO!” she shouted. “Of course not! And will you get out of my FACE and out of my HEAD?”

    He drew back a little. Whether he was still peering into her head, however, was any being’s guess. “So it’s Shank’yar. I thought so.”

    There was a long pause. Far below them, the sounds of Tm-Wm and Veej’a shrieking were borne on the temperate summer air.

    Finally Jhl said in a voice that tried to be defiant but merely shook: “I’m not in love with Shan. I grew out of it years ago.”

    A hard gleam appeared in Athlor Raj Kadry’s eye and he looked away from her for an instant, down to the asteroid-brains at the foot of the slope. “Or you thought you did,” he said lightly.

    Jhl had missed that hard gleam: she was staring straight before her, frowning. “Eh? No! Look, I feel responsible for him! Oh, for Federation’s sake! If you must have it— Ask the Encyclopaedia about the humanoid maternal instinct, Collector.”

    “That isn’t funny,” he said stiffly. The strong neck that was so very like Shank’yar’s had reddened, but Jhl missed that, too.

    She sighed. “No, you’re right, it isn’t funny, it’s ridiculous: he’s twice my age. Don’t ask me how I can feel as if he’s my son. But I do.”

    The Collector sat up, hugging his knees. He stared unseeingly at the crags across the valley. Finally he said in a low voice: “He’s child-like and incapacitated, I would suppose that’s why. But that sort of feeling isn’t incompatible with being in love with him.”

    Jhl stared at the chiselled profile against the pale blue sky and felt a little dizzy, not to say incapable of rational thought. Nor of expressing her feelings—not that she was too Vvlvanian-cursed sure what they were, any more! Finally she said lightly: “I see: you know me better than I know myself.”

    He jumped slightly and there was a tiny pause. Jhl was almost at the point of consciously wondering if he was now asking himself whether that was meant to imply she thought he was reading her when he said: “In that case, I’m right, am I?”

    “Ri—Uh, no,” she said, reddening. She plucked at the grass, frowning. “I thought perhaps I could be in love with Shan again, after meeting Drouwh and Rh’aiiy’hn. They’re both so like him, and yet unlike him. Rh’aiiy’hn’s got his intelligence, but there’s a certain spark lacking. He is a much more moral being than Shank’yar, but… And Drouwh— He’s not an idiot, but his mind isn’t as sharp or as flexible as Shan’s.”

    After a moment he said hoarsely: “And this ‘certain spark,’ that you didn’t find in the Regent?”

    “Drouwh would have that, if he’d let himself go,” said Jhl slowly. “He’s capable of fun, though I must admit he hasn’t got much of a sense of humour. Or not one that meshes much with mine. I’m not sure that’s it, though…” She gave an impatient sigh. “I dare say it’s something lacking in me: I couldn’t hack it with a being that’s so bound by the attitudes of his own little world.”

    “I see. Then it must be Shank’yar, or why this immense emotional disturbance I sense in you when you look at me and see him in me?”

    Jhl didn’t notice anything odd about the sudden progression from “Which of them is it that you see in me?” to “When you see him in me.” She swallowed hard. “In a way, I suppose it’s the—the might-have been.”

    He turned and stared at her. “What?”

    “The might-have-been,” she repeated hoarsely, going very red. “You’re— Of course I scarcely know you. And—and very likely it’s not the real you. But—”

    “But?” he said loudly.

    She looked at him awkwardly. “I don’t exactly see him in you. What I see, or what I think I see, is Shan without the years of—of self-indulgence and double-dealing and—well, just plain dishonesty, I suppose. Without what I most dislike about him,” she said, frowning. “What grates the most. Apart from the cursed lordship thing, of course.”

    After an appreciable period he said: “I see.”

    Jhl saw that his hands had clenched into fists. “You asked,” she croaked.

    Raj Kadry’s nostrils flared. “So I did. Forgive me, but I rather had the impression that the years of—er—let’s just call it moral turpitude, for short, shall we? That the years of moral turpitude were what appealed to you, in Shank’yar.”

    “Partly, yes. Especially when I was a dumb little sub-lieutenant. That’s to a large degree what I’ve grown out of,” said Jhl on a dry note. “If I’d met him twenty IG years back—I mean, when he was twenty IG years younger— No, it’s stupid. And in any case this—let’s call it moral rectitude, shall we?” she said nastily. “This moral rectitude of yours is no doubt totally spurious.”

    He stared at the hills.

    Something in Jhl trembled: she looked away.

    Finally he said, frowning: “I went into the IG M.C. partly because I needed a profession, and partly because, although I knew there were corrupt individuals within it, I felt that the organisation itself had the potential for representing, as you so rightly put it, moral rectitude, within a largely corrupt Federation. I thought that if I managed to rise sufficiently high, I could do some good, even if only on the level of preventing the despoliation of the odd unfortunate outer-rim world by IG-illegal prospectors.”

    “Whilst fostering its despoliation by the Minerals Commission itself—yeah.”

    “Something like that,” he said with an impatient shrug.

    Jhl looked at him doubtfully. He didn’t go on, so she said cautiously: “Is there a but in all that, Collector?”

    “I suppose the but is that I found the way to the top more difficult than I had envisaged without compromising my principles,” he said grimly.

    “And did you?”

    “I have done my best not to,” said Athlor Raj Kadry stiffly, “and to live up to my name and birth—though I am aware that there is no way I can convince you of it.”

    Jhl managed to overlook the name and birth rubbish: the being was, after all, a lordship-class Whtyllian. “I think I’m convinced,” she said slowly. “It’s not a matter of— Well, I’m not picking anything up, at all. It’s some sort of sub-sensory impression. Unless you’re an even better actor than the unlamented Captain Marvel.”

    “Who? Oh—of course, yes,” he said vaguely. He looked down the slope. “Here they come. Time for lunch,” he said lightly as Tm-Wm came up, panting and grinning.

    So they had the picnic. Jhl didn’t know whether to be grateful that the yellow-and-pink-striped FW had interrupted them or annoyed that he’d broken up the tête-à-tête with the most interesting man she’d met since— Mok shit. Raj Kadry was good-looking—the sort of looks she’d always fallen for, yes—and bright, yes, and apart from that it was a mere chemical thing! That, plus all that holding back on Old Rthfrdia. Just as well they’d been interrupted: in all probability the whole bit was a shield, and the Collector was a better actor than Captain Marvel! Quite possibly in control of himself down to the level of being able to send out the right pheromones on command— Mok shit, again, she was getting as paranoid as BrTl! But in any case he was a Whtyllian lordship-type being and a member of the IG M.C.

    In short, she’d better watch it! Not to say get a grip on her hormones.

    She was very careful not to be alone with him for the rest of the day.