The Fleet Commander's Proposition

2

The Fleet Commander’s Proposition

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam was a charmer from way back (not as far as the innocent Sth had imagined, of course), and knew it. Jhl Smt Wong was aware of this, in fact she had always been aware of it. She might come from a flat-worlder planet beyond the last black hole at the nether end of Blerrinbrig’s System, and she might not be a sophisticated lady-being like her sister-in-IG-law, Lle’onee’ya, but she had never been particularly naïve. So even when, as an eager young Space Cadet, she’d developed a tremendous, silent crush on the then Captain Shank’yar Vt R’aam (seconded, for mysterious reasons known only to the Service top sparf, to the Academy for a couple of tours of duty) she had never been taken in by him. Not for an instant. –He hadn't noticed her, of course: there was no reason why he should do.

    Then, when she’d inadvertently won the Graduation Medal, he had noticed her. Sort of. Enough to point out that his tour of duty at this FW dump was almost up—the younger Jhl had gaped at this sacrilege from a Space Fleet Full Captain—and she could ship aboard his A-Class Seeker, if she liked. Jhl had liked. She had rapidly risen to sub-lieutenant and might have stayed there unnoticed by her commander for all time had it not been for a contretemps on a scruffy little Outer Limits world that had politely declined to surrender its independence and pay Federation taxes for the privilege of being in the Federation without a decent spaceport to its name. During this contretemps Jhl and the Captain plus three Spacers, Class One, had been stranded in a shuttle between the scruffy little moon of the scruffy little world and the Seeker. A lucky shot (or unlucky, depending on whether you were on the receiving end) had killed all three Spacers and wounded Shank’yar Vt R’aam. Painfully, but not enough to knock him out. Jhl had given him her own plasmo-blobs—Captain Vt R’aam had long since used his own up, he was notorious for getting himself into tight spots where plasmo-blobs got needed in a hurry—and piloted him home. Since Space Cadets weren't assigned duties as practical as piloting a shuttle the Captain was duly stunned. –Though he could pilot one, himself: he could do anything any of his personnel were required to do and most jobs he could do better. Shank’yar Vt R’aam was that sort of being.

    After that he couldn’t get his dark-haired, dark-eyed little sub-lieutenant out of his mind. But, reputation to the contrary, he didn’t do anything about it: she was a junior officer on his ship. Well, nothing direct. He got her transferred as Equerry to Belraynia, a very nice pleasure-planet indeed. Jhl liked the planet, who wouldn’t, but she hated the job: there was nothing to do except go to mindless parties and utter mindless inanities to a collection of mindless flat-worlders and qwlot-soaked intergalactic exiles. Shank’yar Vt R’aam made it on furlough to Belraynia about an IG year later. He didn’t disguise the fact that he was thrilled to see her again. Jhl didn’t disguise the fact that she was furious with him and blamed him completely for the transfer. They fought for three weeks non-stop under the interested eyes of the qwlot-soaked intergalactic community and then of course fell into bed and made mad, passionate, mammalian love for the remainder of Shank’yar’s furlough.

    Jhl still wasn’t taken in by him, though, and in fact laughed in his face when he proposed a bond-partnership. Shank’yar Vt R'aam was unabashed, he was that sort of being, and grinning cheerfully, went back to duty. Jhl didn’t expect for an instant that he’d bother to get her transferred to somewhere decent on the strength of their little fling. Which was just as well, because he didn’t.

    Five IG years later and with a lot of very varied experiences under Jhl’s belt they met again. –She’d quit the Service not long after the stretch on Belraynia: junior officers that had got transferred sideways didn’t get anywhere in Space Service. The Service wasn’t interested in why you might have been sent off as an equerry: it only recorded that you had been. Goodbye, career.

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam immediately perceived that Jhl had grown up a lot and become, in mammalian terms, an interesting woman. He pursued her in earnest. As much as a man of his type could. Jhl hadn’t forgiven him for ruining her career. Though she could see that he’d also saved her from a fate worse than death: she might have ended up like her brother J’f! She wasn’t about to give in and admit it, though. This time the fight raged for two IG years and Shank’yar pursued her to the Outer Rim and across the two galaxies. And back. He finally caught up with her, and with the help of some nnru juice got her into bed. At this point he thought he’d cracked it. Then he learned he hadn’t. Jhl wasn’t interested in his nirvana garden on Playfair Two (from where you could look right across and see the lights of Plentyville shining on Playfair One and sneer at the FWs who could only afford Playfair One), or his customized Spallin’gorno (worth five customized Moodra Dyhillias, at a modest estimate), or his ancestral acres on Whtyll (one of the most boring planets in the Known Universe, true) or even his collection of quog rocks. (She was somewhat interested in his collection of nga’a-nga’a feathers but took care not to let this become apparent.) She wasn’t even interested in an IG-legal half-share in all this wealth. No! Jhl had gasped, in a paroxysm, not even if he made her his IG-legal bond-partner, ow, help, don’t set me off again, Shan!

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam couldn’t turn red, exactly: he had a golden-tan skin (all over, unlike Lle’onee’ya’s or Pt’Rshaa’s efforts with Oononian chemo-blobs of one sort or another) which actually, together with the slanted blue eyes which sat oddly with his black hair, was a strong factor in his attraction for Jhl Smt Wong, whose family were all pale-skinned, dark-eyed and black-haired. (Even Lle’onee’ya. A long time back.) However, he had become very seriously annoyed, and his neck had noticeably darkened and he had shouted at her: “What do you WANT, woman?”

    Jhl had only been able to say she didn’t know, but she did know she didn’t want to be shouted at by an asteroid-head with a megazillion IG-illegal bond-partners, who wanted to turn her into another hunk of property and dump her on vacuum-frozen Whtyll with his old mum. Shank’yar had replied sulkily that it wouldn’t be Whtyll: he only went there once or twice in an IG year, it would be the nirvana garden, and Playfair Two was a lovely place. He hadn’t understood at all when Jhl had given him a dry look and said: “Quite.”

    Shank’yar had sulked for a full year after that but then, to Jhl’s utter astonishment—for she knew from the Space Fleet scuttlebutt retailed to her gleefully at almost every port she stopped at, that the sulking hadn't included celibacy—he’d come crawling back. Abject. Begging. It was the most wonderful feeling Jhl Smt Wong had ever had. Yes, even better than a laa bath and nga’a-nga’a feathers.

    Nevertheless she recognised very clearly that to a certain quite quantifiable degree the abjectness was designed not merely to hurl her into Shank’yar’s arms but also to make her go all woolly-kneed and give in to his vision of perfect bond-partnership. So she didn’t. Oh, her knees went woolly, all right. But she didn’t agree to anything except bed. And (very casual) if he felt like chucking in the Service, she needed a navigator. Shank’yar made the mistake of giving an amazed and superior laugh and calling her his dear girl. Jhl went right off and told BrTl the job was his. They winkled Trff out of a fermented laa dive and flew off to Athlor Kadry’s System and a lucrative contract in T-K fronds immediately.

    It would not be true to say that Fleet Commander Vt R’aam had given up after that. He had more or less become resigned to the fact that Jhl’s vision of the ideal life was not his. He still bedded her whenever he could manage to get together with her, though. And he sent the occasional scruffy little job her way. IG-legal, usually. Jhl wasn’t proud, she accepted any scruffy little job that was offered to her. Whoever offered it.

    “Hullo, darling,” he said, grinning, as Jhl made contact from Frdd R’sn Smt’s place. (Frdd was, of course, related to Jhl Smt Wong—one of those complicated mammalian kinship things). “Who are these, your lovely family?”

    Jhl sent a furious glare round the room and most of the audience slunk out. Not BrTl, G’gg, Sth, or Sth’s friend M’km, of course.

    “Some of them,” she said tightly. “What do you want, Shan?"

    “She called him by his nickname!” hissed M’km to Sth.

    “Yeah!” he gasped.

    So she had. This was the more impressive in that, while Jhl was in her Durocloth Thing, the Fleet Commander was in full dress uniform, about to go out to a boring diplomatic ball on boring Whtyll. Where he was spending Galaxy Day with his elderly mother, he explained with his charming smile.

    “Shut up. No-one wants to hear that,” said Jhl tightly.

    “Yeah, we do, Aunty Jhl!” objected Sth.

    “Shut up,” muttered G’gg, turning puce and kicking him in the shin. He fought down an impulse to salute, as he did so: his asteroid-headed FW little cousin and the cousin’s equally asteroid-headed little FW mate obviously didn’t have a clue—not a clue—how important a Fleet Commander was in Space Service. Well—look at all the sparf! And the medals! Two galaxies!

    BrTl put a restraining pseudopod around M’km and Sth. Another pseudopod saluted of its own accord.

    “Tell your xathpyroid friend to stop saluting, for Federation’s sake, it’s giving me a sympathetic crick in the neck,” drawled Shank’yar Vt R’aam.

    “Block my friends out, if you don’t like them!” shouted Jhl angrily.

    Shank’yar blocked them out. For good measure he blocked out a hovering s-being at his end and the background of a family portrait and a basket of imported fruit (probably from the vacuum-frozen nirvana garden, noted Jhl sourly as it went fuzzy), and smiled into her eyes. “Well, darling?”

    Jhl’s colour rose. “You called me!” she said angrily.

    “Did I? Not on that frequency, I think?”

    “It’s our cousins’! Mum and Dad’s receiver’s on the blink!” she said impatiently.

    “Darling, do let me give them a new one!” he said with a laugh in his voice. The slanted blue eyes sparkled, and the lips curved in a smile, not revealing the pearly teeth. His shoulders shook, just a little. “One of the latest models: portable, impervious to sunspots or—”

    “NO!” shouted Jhl. “What do you WANT? It’s Galaxy Day here, in case you hadn’t noticed!

    “It is here, too. Did you have a lovely dinner, darling Jhl?”

    “We had roast grqwary, and pudding with sauce, and vacuum-fr— I mean FRESH: FRESH blrtlberry tarts!” she shouted. “And stop laughing, you mok lover!”

    “Sorry!” he gasped. “Why don’t you come on over to Whtyll for supper, Jhl? Use the hyperdrive, you’d be here in—”

    “The ship’s hyperblobs are on the BLINK!” she shouted.

    “Oh, dear. Ten rafts of super-igs shall be deposited to your account immediately, darling.”

    “NO!” shouted Jhl furiously but Shank’yar said briefly over his shoulder: “Do it.” And a fuzzed-out voice from the background said subserviently: “Yes, my Lord.”

    “WHAT?” shouted Jhl. “Must you order them to address you like one of the vacuum-frozen Lords of Whtyll, Shan?”

    “Er—I am a Lord of Whtyll. I thought you knew: I told you about my ancestral—”

    “YES! All right, you’re one of the Lords of Whtyll, and you make me SICK!”

    “Then perhaps I shouldn’t offer you the job?” he drawled.

    “What job?” she said immediately.

    –BrTl’s head poked up out of the fuzz suddenly, looking eager. A pseudopod immediately shot out of his neck and saluted.

    “Get it out of my sight,” said Shank’yar faintly, waving a feeble hand. His shoulders shook.

    “Stop LAUGHING, you mok lover!” shouted Jhl, as BrTl withdrew reluctantly. “He’s gone. Go on,” she said.

    Shank’yar smiled into her eyes and slowly removed his translator.

    This meant—though his Intergalactic was faultless, he didn’t need the translator—that the plasmo-blasted being was going to speak in Whtyllian. Jhl perforce followed suit. She wasn’t going to let a vacuum-frozen Lordship show her manners up!

    “Goes on,” she said in her bad Whtyllian.

    He smiled. “I adore your accent, Jhl, love.”

    Jhl just glared.

    “Well, it’s a delicate matter,” he said, rubbing his pointed chin. “Er—maybe I should come over there?"

    “Yes, to land the Spallin’gorno next to the Moodra of J’f, that will be look good!”

    “Sweetest little Jhl, I’ve graduated to an Addra, the Spallin’gorno was a millennium ago!”

    “To a what is?"

    “An Addra Reonia-5.”

    Jhl gulped.

    “Sweet craft.”

    “Sweet craft which could to support a planet full of s-beings of yours in comfort and laa bath, for the rest of miserable LIFE of them!”

    “You’re not a federo-demo-nut, are you?” he asked in alarm.

    “I not to be an any nut thing!” she shouted.

    “An anything nut,” he murmured. –There was an echo in the fuzz behind Jhl: BrTl’s Whtyllian was quite good.

    Jhl glared. “Is there to be a propose?”

    “Proposition. Mm. Um... Do you speak— Of course.” He changed to Ju’ukrterian and said: “Its s-beings do not to understand Ju’ukrterian. We-it shall to speak in it.”

    “Your-its is awful,” she noted.

    “Doubtless. It is stationed there many years ago. Also it be archaic, it thinks?” he said, lips twitching.

    Jhl nodded, humanoid-wise. He smiled and said: “The diplomatic tongue. It is about to make you-it an interesting proposition, Lady-being Jhl.” Jhl’s mouth opened in shock and he said: “Its apologies, Lady-being Jhl. It is its archaic Ju’ukrterian. It does not to know the other—er—term of address to a being of gender.” She nodded, and he said: “It has a—a being of close acquaintance, also of ‘lordship’ brood pen—of another brood pen.”

    “Got it, got it,” she sighed. “An old mate,” she muttered grimly in Bluellian.

    “Er—yes,” he said doubtfully. “This acquaintance-being inhabits a world which is not yet within”—he eyed her uneasily—“the great brood pen,” he said, swallowing.

    “It understands you-it fully,” said Jhl in a steely voice.

    “Good,” he said in some relief. “This it-being is a Great It-Being—it begs its pardon—a lordship-being in its brood pen. The world of this lordship-being is about to—uh—enter the great brood pen.”

    “Uh-huh. It gets your-its drift.”

    “Good. For economic reasons which it shall not to go into, the great brood pen has much interest in its world.”

    “You-it doesn’t say!”

    “It assures you-it that it does say, Lady—”

    “Get ON!” she hollered.

    Shank’yar said over his shoulder in Whtyllian: “See that this call gets debited to my private account,” and Jhl went very red. “It has interests on this world,” he said.

    “Uh-huh.”

    “Yes. Well, it is in need, on a semi-official basis as it is sure you-it does not need to have explained in full at this juncture, Lady-being Jhl,”—Jhl would have yelled again, only she perceived this was a diplomatic phrase that had come out automatically—“of a representative-being on this world. A being which can to speak to its acquaintance-being and to understand its interests whilst—er—”

    “Keeping its antennae firmly fixed on the main chance.”

    “Yes.—Where did you-it learn this demotic?—Well, there you-it has it.”

    “Has what?"

    He glared.

    A voice from behind Jhl said out of the fuzz in excellent Ju’ukrterian: “He-it wants you-it to spy for him-it on this primmo world where he-it’s grabbed the mineral rights, is it right or is it right?"

    “He-it is right,” said Shank’yar grimly. Switching to Whtyllian, he said: “I think we understand each other; may I come and discuss details with you?"

    “How much?”

    His lips twitched but he said solemnly: “The fee will be most generous.”

    “Uh-huh. Well, we can to discuss it, certainly.”

    “Okay. Well, see you soon. –Thundering galaxies, is that the time, I’ll be late for the old she-mok’s ball! See you, darling!” His sim-image shimmered and vanished. Slowly the fuzz dispersed.

    “Did you really not know he was one of the Lords of Whtyll?” said BrTl curiously.

    “No. –A lordship, and filthy rich, but no, if it’s relevant.”

    “Oh. I did wonder, round about the time your female cognate called Lle’onee’ya a ladyship, and then it went right out of my mind. –Can’t imagine why.”

    “Roasted grqwaries wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, of course!”

    “No, of course not. Um—if you’d accepted the Fleet Commander’s offer, you’d be a ladyship now,” he pointed out politely.

    “A ladyship bored out of my mind in his vacuum-frozen nirvana gard— Ooh! Lle’onee’ya’s face!” she gurgled.

    “Yeah!” he choked. They fell around the room laughing themselves silly.

    When the R’sn Smts’ house had stopped shaking Sth said in a puzzled voice: “How can a man be a Fleet Commander and a lordship, Aunty Jhl?” and M’km said in a puzzled voice: “Could you really have been a ladyship, Jhl?”—and they remembered they were not alone.

    Fortunately G’gg answered this last with a gruff: “Yeah. Shut up! –Sorry,” he said awkwardly to Jhl.

    “That’s all right. –He was born a lordship,” she said to Sth, “and then he went to Space Fleet Academy, and did his Pilot Training and Advanced Pilot Training, and—uh—then he just rose in the Service,” she ended on a weak note.

    “Figures,” agreed BrTl.

    “Shut up, who was it that kept saluting?”

    “Ro’aan-Furi’yo’s reaction. Happens whenever I see a load of sparf,” he said airily.

    “What sort of uniform was that, Jhl?” asked M’km eagerly.

    “Fleet Commander’s dress uniform. They only wear them for—um—”

    “Diplo junkets,” said BrTl airily.

    “Shut up! Um, yes; well, um, formal, um, receptions, M’km,” she said to the puzzled young face, “and—uh—diplomatic garbage. You know.”

    “He’s got a lot of medals,” he returned keenly. “Has your uncle got a uniform like that, Sth?”

    “Um—has he, Aunty Jhl?” he said weakly.

    “No, he’s only a Pilot. –Oh, I see what you mean, M’km. Yes, J’f has got a full dress uniform—though I don’t suppose he’s brought it with him.”—“Much,” muttered BrTl.—“But his isn’t nearly as fancy as a Fleet Commander’s."

    “He’s a Gervaynian worm, anyway,” said Sth sourly.

    “Maybe he was just hungry,” suggested M’km valiantly. “You know: maybe if you asked him again he’d say you could go in it! Now he’s in a better mood!”

    “He won’t, he’s never in a better mood.”

    “You could come out to the spaceport with us and come in our ship,” said Jhl kindly.

    “For a ride?” he gasped, turning puce.

    “Me, too?” gasped M’km, also turning puce.

    “Uh—” She looked warily at BrTl.

    He scratched his neck-hair airily. “It could take off accidentally,” he noted.

    “Um... These two big-mouths’d let on, though.”

    “No, we wouldn’t!” cried Sth. “PLEASE, Aunty Jhl!”

    “PLEASE!” cried M’km.

    G’gg was too old to beg but he looked at her pleadingly.

    “We'll all end up in a Bluellian jail,” she said weakly.

    “Surely Mum will bring us relays of blrtlberry tartlets if we do?” said BrTl politely.

    “Shut up. Um—we could go and look at the ship. I suppose Uncle Frdd would lend us his bubble, he isn’t using it.”

    Frdd R’sn Smt, though he wasn’t admitting it, had been terrifically impressed by Jhl’s A-Class sim-call to Whtyll to a real Fleet Commander on a priority frequency. He lent them his bubble without a murmur. He started to point out that there might be some trouble in getting it blobbed up, then as BrTl produced a small hyperblob from his pocket gulped, and fell silent.

    “It’s a tired one,” explained BrTl kindly. “I’m giving it a little holiday.”

    “Don’t blow the guts out of my bubble,” said Frdd faintly.

    “A hyperblob!” gasped M’km. “Two galaxies!”

    “I thought it was IG-illegal to recycle hyperblobs,” offered G’gg, very puzzled.

    “Shut up!” said Frdd quickly.

    “Two galaxies,” the boy muttered, turning puce.

    BrTl inserted the hyperblob. The bubble shuddered all over. Its light-blobs went haywire. “It’ll do,” he decided.

    They got in the bubble. Where to? it asked brightly before they’d even sat down, it was hypered up, all right.

    “Hang on,” replied Jhl. “You wanna come, Uncle Frdd?”

    “Um... Better not, not on Galaxy Day,” he said sadly.

    “All right, then. We won’t be long.—To the spaceport, bubble.—See ya!”

    “See ya,” he said glumly as the bubble shot out of the hangar as if propelled by—well, Vvlvanian rr’trrs sprang to mind. Or an IG-illegal jab of hyperblob, of course.

    The trip proceeded pretty much as expected, with all three of them insisting on looking down the hyperdrive. As the drive was off and the blobs were pretty well clapped out, and as BrTl, Jhl and the ship were all keeping an eye on the three little asteroid-brains, nothing disastrous happened. G’gg even remarked brilliantly that the blobs didn’t look very hyper. Then a few blobs were “accidentally” urged into action and after the predictable shouts of “SIT DOWN!” and “DON'T TOUCH THAT!” and “I said, LEAVE THAT ALONE, ARE YOU DEAF?” they took off. The boys pronounced the flight galaxious, predictably.

    It was dark when they got back. They returned Frdd’s bubble to its hangar—ignoring its bright assurance that it could go any number of further glps—and returned the reluctant M’km to his parents. Slumped in front of the sim-receiver in the family room watching a replay of The Big Game. As was to be expected.

    Back at the farm the entire family, even J’f and Lle’onee’ya, were discovered slumped in the family room. There was a tray of blrtlberry tartlets there but no-one appeared to be eating them.

    “Ooh! Tartlets!” he said.

    “Have them, BrTl, dear, no-one else wants any,” sighed Mum, getting up to get them a cup of zi. Or in BrTl’s case a basin.

    “You were a fair time,” noted Dad.

    “We went for a ride,” said Jhl airily.

    Dad grunted.

    “We went up in Aunty Jhl’s ship, it was galaxious!” burst out Sth.

    “WHAT?” thundered J’f.

    “You’re MEAN, Uncle J’f!” he shouted, turning puce.

    “I’m not an asteroid-headed IG-law-breaking CROOK, you mean!” he shouted, forgetting himself and descending to his nephew’s level.

    “That’ll do. Treat for the kids,” said Dad mildly.

    Wm burst into tears.

    “You’re too little. You can go next time,” said G’gg kindly.

    Tmmi burst into tears.

    “You got a plasmo-blaster, what are you bawling for?” said Sth aggressively. “Anyway, you’d of fallen off BrTl’s back: he galloped!”

    Trff whistled admiringly.

    “Shut up,” growled BrTl.

    Wm and Tmmi were still bawling but at this point S’zaan, deciding: “That’s enough Galaxy Day for you two,” swooped on them and bore them out of sight.

    They met later in Jhl’s room to discuss the proposition. But, as Trff pointed out, there was nothing much to discuss, they hadn’t heard what it was. Except that it was risky. And did Jhl have any idea whether the Fleet Commander meant them to spy for his interests, the Federation’s, or both? Or his old mate’s, added BrTl. When they’d sorted that one out and had agreed that it could well be all three, Shank’yar Vt R’aam specialised in playing both ends against the middle whilst not letting one hand see what the other was up to, or as Trff put it, one tentacle sense what the rest of them were up to, they all went to bed. BrTl wore the grqwary-down hat that Mum had lent him. It was a bit small but it was definitely the better part of valour.

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam didn’t land the Addra Reonia-5 in a muddy field next to J’f’s Moodra Dyhillia, he didn’t land it anywhere near a muddy field, or indeed anywhere near Jhl’s parents’ farm in the obscurest reach of obscure Bluellia, which, as some of them pointed out, might have been expected and in fact had been. He landed it in the VIP section of Bluell City’s spaceport. The section reserved for lordships and ladyships, Bluellian Senators, Federation Representatives, and favoured customers of the biggest hotel in Bluell City (four categories which were not mutually exclusive). Naturally he was transported thence to the Bluell City Astoria in a VIP tran-pod which not only came right up to the ship—or so it was said, who amongst their humble circle had ever seen one let alone been privileged to use it—but carried out any tiresome customs formalities for you on the way. Thus enabling you to step right into your palatial suite (which of course automatically checked you in) without having to be bothered by any lower beings at all.

    Naturally he then just sent Jhl a casual message that he was there. Or a Lordly Summons, you could have put it that way, yes. They went anyway. There was a certain contretemps in the hotel lobby: it could have had something to do with Jhl’s Durocloth Thing, or possibly with the fuzzy hat that BrTl was still wearing, having found it an ideal supplement to his FW pack in a Bluellian winter, or even with the fact that they had with them G’gg, to whom they’d given a lift, he was going to the New Year Trade Fair, Sth, Sth’s friend and distant relative M’km, both of whom G’gg had been ordered to take to the Trade Fair on pain of instant refusal to let him go either, and the very small Wm. No-one was absolutely sure how they’d got Wm, it was something to do with his parents’ being away for the holiday period and R’shn’s having promised to look after him for the said holiday period, and with S’zaan’s deciding that since they were going to the city in any case they could easily take him to meet his parents. At the appointed hour: seven local hours after the appointed time at which they were to meet Shank’yar Vt R’aam. So there you were. Specifically, in the Bluell City Astoria’s lobby,  surrounded by ladyships sipping feverfew tea and lordships and Senators and Federation Reppos sipping qwlot, and free-floating Oononian maxi-webs and that sort of stuff. Two galaxies, as Sth put it.

    Surprisingly, the desk clerk, who was a real clerk, Trff prudently checked him out—well, he was sentient within the Meaning of the Act, though sometimes a being realised the Act didn’t mean all that much—refused to believe they had an appointment with Fleet Commander Vt R’aam. Or, as he put it, looking down his one nose: “Indeed? And what would your business be with Lord Shank’yar Vt R’aam?”

    Casually remarking: “The temperature in this FW dump’s unfit for any sentient being in the Known Universe,” Jhl casually undid the collar-fastenings of the Durocloth coveralls, allowing the merchant captain’s star on the shoulders of the uniform that that was underneath the Durocloth to become visible to the unshielded eye. “Official business. Just give the Fleet Commander a buzz, will you?”

    “Yessir!” the clerk replied, going almost as puce as the carpeting of the Bluellia Astoria’s lobby. –It not only looked like a large puce wtmyrian colony, it was, as Trff reported. And Jhl was right about this atmosphere: they were suffering badly in it. Trff went over and stood in the main doorway (thus forcing the main door to remain open), in order to let in a bit of o-breather mixture for them. There was a faint whine in the air as the lobby’s tempo-blobs went into overdrive, and all the light-blobs flickered. Though the maxi-webs remained unmoved. In fact if anything they seemed the brighter for it.

    The Fleet Commander was apparently doing five thousand other things, and one of his Whtyllian s-beings showed them obsequiously to seats in the palatial anteroom of the palatial suite. And proffered food. And, more importantly, drink. Real laa. They all three plumped for it. Even though it didn’t do a thing for BrTl's metabolism—but he felt he needed to keep his mind very clear indeed at this particular juncture. G’gg had never had it. It wasn’t until after he’d absorbed a fair quantity that any of them realised that possibly he still shouldn’t be having it. Oh, well, too late. Sth, M’km and Wm weren’t interested; but the s-being must have been used to youngsters, he immediately offered them each a super-deluxe maxi-galaxy shake.

    “Certainly with flaming Vvlvanian ooff-puffs on top, young Masters,” he added, bowing.

    “Only good thing that ever came out of Vvlvania. I’ll have a couple on my laa,” BrTl decided.

    “Yes, sir,” the s-being agreed, looking shaken. He tottered off to get the refreshments. There was a short silence.

    “Was that being a humanoid?” asked BrTl politely.

    Trff began: “Yes, within the Meaning of the—” but was drowned by Jhl’s shout of: “YES! He’s one of his, he brings them when he travels First Class!”

    There was a short silence.

    “You don’t mean it’s a person, do you, Aunty Jhl?” said Sth.

    “Yes. And don’t call him it, he’s a he.”

    “But he’s wearing a servo-bracelet!” he gasped.

    “That’s because he comes from Whtyll, Sth,” said Jhl in a very kind voice.—Her young relative eyed her uncertainly. So did BrTl and Trff. G’gg possibly knew her even better than they did: he stared very hard at his toes.—“And on Whtyll very rich people like lordships own people. If you’d been born on Whtyll probably Fleet Commander Lord Vt R’aam would own you. –And you,” she said to M’km’s loud thought.

    “Two galaxies,” said Sth numbly.

    Perhaps fortunately the refreshments then arrived. Sth and M’km stared fixedly at the unfortunate s-being as he served them but he didn’t appear to notice.

    When he’d gone out BrTl asked politely: “Does he ever free them?”

    “Only if they perform some extra-special service,” said Jhl grimly.

    “Oh—right. Like licking his Number Ones clean before Federation Day parade?”

    The boys grinned cautiously.

    Jhl bit her lip. “Mm. Something like that. No, well, if they saved the life of—of someone in his family. That sort of thing."

    “Yeah,” the boys said thoughtfully.

    Jhl then perceived that Wm didn’t know what to do with his phthyffia straw. She lugged him onto her knee and explained that you only had to put it in your mouth and think Drink at it. After a few abortive tries, which entailed a terrific lot of scowling and very red cheeks, he got it. She had to send Go out at the ooff-puffs before he’d eat them, though, he was terrified of them—though at the same time thrilled by them. Naturally Sth and M’km informed him at the tops of their voices that he was a BABY and it was EASY—SEE? and he was a BABY—

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam came wandering out of an Inner Sanctum in a flowing zpandria-cloth robe saying: “What in Federation’s going on, is this an intergalactic circus?"

    The s-being shot in and began apologising profusely for the intergalactic circus. Sth and M’km just gaped at the robe and at the expanses of golden-tan Fleet Commander which its pellucid green-blue, gold-spangled folds revealed and couldn’t even say “Two galaxies”. But G’gg stumbled to his feet, going very red. And BrTl stood up, grabbing the pseudopod which was automatically saluting, and forcing it down, as the Fleet Commander was very much not in uniform.

    Wm had mastered the phthyffia straw. He was too little to recognise genuine zpandria-cloth when he saw it or to realise that the leisure garments of lordships had nothing in common with the hard-wearing, no-nonsense garb of the working men of Bluellia. He just went on drinking.

    “Stop apologising, S-D’rk, this circus is none of your doing,” said Jhl.

    “Yes, madam—I mean, Captain, sir!” the s-being gasped.

    “How do you know his name?” gasped M’km.

    “I asked him.”

    “No, you never!” the brilliant boy protested.

    “She can mind-read, asteroid-head!” his peer hissed scornfully.

    Trff came up behind them and put a tentacle on their shoulders. “Yes. And send. She-it thinks that immature beings should stand up when the Fleet Commander comes into the room."

    The two boys got up, gulping.

    Shank’yar had merely looked sardonic throughout this exchange. Now he said: “How do you do? I presume you’re G’gg, and you’re Sth—Jhl’s nephews, is that right? And this must be M’km. But that object is unknown to me,” he noted, glancing at Jhl’s knee and wincing.

    “He’s a being, sir,” croaked G’gg.

    “Oh? Almost sentient within the Meaning, is he?"

    G’gg gasped: “Yessir! Almost!” and went into a strangled fit of laughter.

    “Witty, Shan,” noted Jhl sourly.

    “And I do know these, of course. Good morning, Lieutenant; good morning, Chief Engineer,” he said smoothly.

    BrTl and Trff replied extra-politely: “Good morning, Fleet Commander,” but thanks to the fact that they both had their translators on, it was to be feared this politeness was lost on the Fleet Commander . He certainly looked as if it was.

    “The boys are only here because they wanted to meet a real Fleet Commander,” Jhl then explained in a terrifically dry voice.

    His shoulders shook a little but he didn’t permit himself to laugh. “Ah. All becomes clear.”

    “They’re going to the Trade Fair,” she admitted.

    “Oh. Alone?”

    “This is Bluellia. Anyway, look at them, if you were an Outer Limits trader, would you want to kidnap any of them?”

    The Fleet Commander looked at them and winced. True, on Whtyll small boys were also naturally scruffy. True, smears of super-deluxe maxi froth from chin to eyebrows were not unknown on Whtyll. But where the small boys in his own family would at least have started off the day in neat clingo-suits, these small boys were dressed in garments as about as unattractive as that Thing Jhl was hiding her delightful person in. And very much the same colour. Sort of loose and wrinkled. The one who was only distantly related to Jhl was wearing into the bargain two bandoliers of full-size plasmo-blaster cartridges across his chest, plus the blaster on the hip. Impeding his movements to a quantifiable extent.—It was immediately apparent that these were only toys: they were made of cheap recycled lumo-blob culture medium and had that nasty bluish-white glow that only lubolyon could attain.—All three boys wore huge boots. Very muddy. The sort of boots that made one feel considerable sympathy for the Bluellia Astoria’s wtmyrian carpets. They all had huge ex-Space-Issue belts, and myriads of unlikely insignia on their shoulders, but Shank’yar was used to that, Whtyllian boys did it, too.

    “Er—you have a point. Nevertheless, S-D’rk shall accompany them. I insist."

    The boys looked sulky.

    “Oh, all right. –It’s all right, S-D’rk will just walk along behind you, he won’t stop you doing anything you want to do,” Jhl explained.

    They eyed him dubiously.

    “You may speak at liberty,” the Fleet Commander said, sounding very bored.

    The s-being bowed to him and bowed to G’gg and said: “It would be a pleasure to accompany the young Masters. I have never seen a Trade Fair.”

    “Never?” they gasped.

    “No, indeed.”

    “They’re galaxious!” gasped Sth, recovering his full powers of speech all of a sudden. “There’s a real genuine Destroyer that you can go in, an’ a huge H-Fi display with galaxious machines an’ everything, an’ a Topsy-Turvy Blasto-Tube, an’ a booth where they let ya fire real genuine plasmo-blasters, an’ Super-Gigantic Frzzo-burgers with free Hyper-Whammo Mustard, an’ a Giant Satellite Whirly Dumper as big as the one on Playfair One!” He gasped for breath. “Well, almost!” he gasped.

    “It sounds most exciting,” said S-D’rk. “I shall enjoy it very much, young Masters.”

    “Yes, he will, so you’d better let him come,” said Jhl.

    “You can,” said G’gg abruptly, going very red.

    “Thank you, young Master,” he said, bowing again.

    “Take a lifter,” the Fleet Commander said to him in a bored voice.

    “A lifter!” gasped Sth and M’km. G’gg just turned puce and swallowed.

    S-D’rk bowed and went over to the big windows at the far side of the room. The maxi-web which had been discreetly veiling the real view of real Bluellian spires and roof tops in winter shimmered and withdrew, and a lifter appeared outside.

    “Galaxious!” gasped Sth and M’km. G’gg was too old to gasp this, but he gulped excitedly.

    “They’ll need to use the hygiene cabinet, first,” warned Jhl.

    The boys went very red but didn’t say they wouldn't.

    “Lord Vt R’aam’s lifters all have hygiene cabinets, Captain,” said S-D’rk, bowing very low.

    “They would. Okay, they’re all yours, S-D’rk. Oh: they’re strictly forbidden to go on any rides where you have to fill your lungs with snuhl. Or klupf, but that’s illegal on Bluellia anyway. And M’km’s not allowed to swallow hypno-blobs, he’s allergic to them.”

    The boys all glared but didn’t say none of this was true.

    “Very good, sir,” agreed S-D'rk.

    Jhl smiled at him and he flushed a little and bowed again. “And they usually take turns to pick a ride—you know. And G’gg has got the money, but it’s to be shared equally.”

    “Pay for them,” said Shank’yar briefly.

    “Naturally, my Lord."

    “No,” said Jhl, frowning.

    “I can afford it,” he murmured.

    “Not that. If S-D’rk pays for everything, G’gg’ll let these two—what am I saying, G’gg will encourage these two—to eat and drink themselves silly on their own money.”

    “Isn’t that what Trade Fairs are for?” he drawled.

    “Don’t be silly, Shan, they’ll be sick all night!”

    “Very well, then, S-D’rk: pay for yourself, and—er—treat the boys to—er—whatever their aunt decrees,” he said, waving a bored hand.

    “Um, what’s an expensive ride that Bhl would actually let you go on if you had the money, G’gg?” said Jhl on a weak note.

    Ignoring the eager and entirely untruthful suggestions from the two younger ones the valiant boy replied honestly: “There isn’t much. Most of the expensive ones you have to get juiced-up for. –I mean take snuhl!” he gasped. “Um—at three o’clock the Destroyer takes off, only that—”

    “YEAH!” cried the younger ones.

    “ –costs a super-ig each,” ended G’gg, swallowing.

    “Would your father let you go on a Destroyer?” asked Shank’yar, straight-faced.

    “Yes, sir. Not if it was going into battle, of course,” he added honestly.

    “Or into hyperspace, presumably?”

    “Um—no. Only it doesn’t, sir, honest!”

    “Splendid. Let it be the Destroyer, S-D’rk. And please go, my sensibilities really can’t take any more of the way the carpet’s suffering under those boots.”

    “This way, young Masters,” said the s-being, ushering them out. “Shall I take the youngest Master, sir?” he added to Jhl.

    “No. I’m afraid he’s too—um—L,I,T,T,L,E. And far too much of a handful, you’d lose track of the others while you were trying to keep an eye on him.”

    Over Wm’s wails Shank’yar Vt R’aam said irritably: “Come in here, for Federation’s sake. –Do these have to come?”

    Jhl got up. “Yes. Two witnesses and it’s an IG-legal contract.”

    “Two unbiased witnesses, isn’t it? –Oh, very well. But give that to an s-being.”

    “No, he bawls when he’s with beings he doesn't know.”

    “He— He’s bawling NOW!” he pointed out.

    “Yes. Don’t cry, Wm. Later on we’ll go to Blobbo World.”

     “Don’ wan’ Blobbo Worl’!” he hiccuped.

    “Yes, you do, you’ll be able to ride on Big Blobbo.”

    “Don’ like Big Blobbo!”

    “Yes, you do, what a fib,” said Jhl, hugging him. “–Can’t one of you useless beings produce a senso-tissue?” she snarled.

    An s-being hurried in with a bowl of tissues, bowing. When the tissues had mopped Wm up and he’d got so interested in them that he’d stopped bawling and demanded some to play with—they obligingly stroked his hands and face for him—they all went into an Inner Sanctum.

    “Comfortable, I trust?” said Shank’yar Vt R’aam courteously, seating himself.

    Trff sank into a nest. “Yes, most. Thank you-it, sir!” it hooted gratefully.

    BrTl collapsed into a stall and rested his neck on its wonderful neck-rest. “A real nirvana garden,” he groaned. “Humblest thanks, Great Lord.”

    “BRTL!” shouted Jhl.

    “Well, he is,” he said. “It’s windy here, too, have you noticed, sir?” he added courteously to his host.

    “No,” he said drily.

    “It blows his-its neck-hair around, and it doesn’t filter properly, sir,” explained Trff, graciously allowing a servo-being to refill its glass with fresh laa. Mmm, best quality, A-grade laa, scented with eeaiiaya flowers...

    “Really?” replied the Fleet Commander on an acid note. “–No, take that muck away,” he said as the s-being offered him some laa.

    “I don’t want any more, either, thanks,” said Jhl. “Can we get down to business? Blobbo World gets awfully crowded in the afternoons.”

    “Ah. The purpose of your being here is, of course, to take that near-sentient object to Blobbo World. Whatever that is.”

    “You must have them on Whtyll, surely!”

    “Big Blobbo!” said Wm, suddenly beaming at his host.

    “Yes, Big Blobbo!” agreed Jhl. “Don’t be dim, Shan, it doesn’t suit you. It’s huge artificial blobs made of lubolyon. The kids climb on them."

    “Bouncy, bouncy,” explained Wm illuminatingly.

    “Yes: ‘Bouncy, bouncy, with Big Blobbo!’” she chanted. Shank’yar gaped at her.

    “Sit on Big Blobbo’s knee."

    “Yes. –If there isn’t too much of a queue by the time we get there,” she added, looking hard at her host.

    “Is it far?” asked BrTl courteously. Mmm, this neck-rest was...

    “No!” replied Jhl in amazement. “It’s in the downtown J’rd’s, what’s wrong with you: have you been asleep all d— BRTL! WAKE UP!” she shouted.

    BrTl blinked and opened his eyes. “Sorry. It’s this neck-rest: I haven’t felt so comfortable since— Oh.” He came out of the stall and ambled over towards the window. A sim-view of summer somewhere. He coughed slightly. “I suppose you’ve—er?” he said delicately to his host, glancing round the choice ambience of hovering Oononian maxi-webs, palest blue wtmyrian colonies, and similar stuff.

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam replied very drily: “Lower your shades, Lieutenant.”

    BrTl blinked. Ooh. Wonderful things, these shades. “I’ve always wondered,” he said conversationally, “what the point of these concealed anti-surveillance devices is, when the very beings you’re going to anti-surveil will of course be equipped with the very, uh, you know. Doesn’t you-it agree, Trff?”

    It didn’t respond.

    “What temperature is that nest, may one enquire?” he enquired delicately, going delicately over to it.—The Oononian maxi-webs shivered.—“Doze-temperature,” he reported grimly. “TRFF!” he shouted.

    Nothing happened. Well, the wtmyrian colony on the floor shrank together, the light-blobs flickered, the maxi-webs shivered and for an instant the sim-view quivered. But Trff didn’t stir. It had retracted all its antennae, too.

    BrTl sent: WARMER! angrily at the nest. “OW!” he gasped, clutching his head and retreating. “He’s put a shield round that nest,” he reported aggrievedly to Jhl.

    “Yeah. Hoik it out bodily.”

    BrTl hoiked it out. After some trouble with the antennae it came to and said: “It wasn’t in doze mode.”

    “Quite,” agreed BrTl courteously. “Sit on a flop couch, Trff.”

    Trff sat on a flop couch. The fine tendrils of the couch had visible trouble adjusting to its tentacles. Jhl sniffed slightly.

    “Special Offer from the Bluell J’rd’s?” suggested the Fleet Commander. “I have much better ones at my place on Playfair T—”

    “YES!” she shouted. “Get on with it!”

    “It’s rather more delicate than I indicated to you… Er—well, you must have been on worlds that have been about to come into the Federation!” he said on a slightly desperate note.

    “No,” said Jhl blandly.

    “No,” agreed BrTl blandly.

    “Certainly not, it’s IG-illegal!” added Trff indignantly.

    The Fleet Commander sighed. “Quite. Well, now that we’ve got that over with, this FW dump of my friend’s is a typical pre-Fed world. Full of scheming primmos out to stake a Prior Claim to whatever they can before the place enters the Federation. And preferably out to topple the régime so that—”

    “–they can fix the Referendum, yeah, yeah,” sighed Jhl.

    “Instead of your friend fixing the Referendum to go his way,” noted BrTl politely.

    “Just LISTEN!” he shouted.

    They listened.

    It appeared that Fleet Commander Lord Shank’yar Vt R’aam’s friend was not only a lordship, he was the lordship of this primmo dump. Well, sort of. It took some time but eventually everyone had grasped what a Regent was, and that the hereditary Ruler of the dump bore a similar sort of relationship to this Regent-being as did G’gg, or come to that Sth, to Jhl. –Perhaps fortunately, by this stage Wm had discovered the delights of rolling round on a flop couch and letting the tendrils readjust to the displacement of your body weight just fractionally after your body weight displaced, and was doing it. Instead of whining miserably, which was what he'd been doing just before.

    BrTl pointed out that the top lordship of this primmo dump would of course welcome a scruffy tramp-trader captain into his palatial residence with open arms, and got glared at for his pains. Trff asked whether the Regent had arms and got shouted at for its pains. He was a HUMANOID, all RIGHT? “Yes, sir,” they both agreed. –Jhl was asking an s-being for a blrtlberry bun at the time.

    “I see,” BrTl then added. “You’d like us to stir up a popular counter-revolution, no, sort of pre-revolution counter— Um, well, one of those, in your friend’s favour, sir?”

    “All three of you: yes. One small, scruffy female humanoid tramp-trader captain, one pale green fluffy Ju’ukrterian, and one hairy xathpyroid three times the height of any sentient being on the world in question. You’ll do it so unobtrusively, too."

    “Well, whob do ya wan’?” said Jhl through the blrtlberry bun. It squeaked and deflated and she licked jam off her chin but reported: “Not as good as Mum’s.”

    Shank’yar bit his lip. “I want you to find out what’s happened to Rhan.”

    “’Oo?” she said through the remains of the bun.

    “My friend. The Regent. He’s disappeared.”

    “The revolution,” noted BrTl. “They’re further on than I thought.”

    “Very possibly,” said the Fleet Commander through his beautiful pearly teeth. “Rhan’s disappeared and a palace clique’s apparently taken over— I don’t know, I can’t get any news out of the vacuum-frozen place!” he admitted.

    “Shupposin’,” said Jhl thickly. She licked her fingers politely and then allowed a hovering senso-tissue to dry them for her. “Supposing we find out what’s happened to him, what then?”

    “Let me know,” he said grimly.

    “Ah. Easy. Through that Pre-Fed World-Shield that’ll be up round the whole planet,” noted BrTl.

    “It could speak to the shield,” offered Trff.

    “From what? The ship that they’d spotted a megazillion, megazillion glps out and trapped in their x’nb web?” he returned politely.

    “It could speak to the x’nb web,” it offered.

    “Even a Ju’ukrterian it-being would have difficulty doing that with the latest model, Chief Engineer,” said Shank’yar grimly. “It’s got some new fail-safe device that blows your mind the instant you attempt to communicate with it. I’ve got my beings working on it, but so far without result.”

    “I see!” said Jhl brightly. “We get onto this world we can’t get onto because of the x’nb web round it, and then we find this friend of yours and send you a message through the World-Shield that we can’t penetrate. We’ll do that before first dawn on the first day. What would you like us to do after breakfast?”

    “We won’t do it,” decided BrTl.

    “He’s right,” agreed Jhl cordially.

    “There’s that contract for a trio of Vvlvanian cptt-rvvrs,” Trff reminded them.

    “Yes. Even though we won’t get the stink out of the hold for a megazillion light-years, it’ll be a better bet than this—this—” Words almost failed BrTl. “Lost Cause!” he said brilliantly.

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam got up, lips tight. “May I speak to you alone, please?” he said to Jhl. “It can stay!” he shouted irritably as she glanced uneasily at the wallowing Wm.

    “Well—all right. –Don’t accept any offers of neck-rests or nests,” she advised as her two ship-companions went over to the door. “You’re not going to con me, Shank’yar,” she warned as the door closed after them.

    “I’ve no intention of conning you,” he said tiredly, sitting down again. He passed a hand over his face.

    After a moment Jhl said uncertainly: “What is it?"

    Shank’yar Vt R’aam looked up, biting his lip. “He’s my son.”

    “Who is?” said Jhl, sounding almost as foolish as she felt.

    The Fleet Commander was rather blue around the lips. “Rhan.”

    Now she came to think of it, it did sound like a Whtyllian name. Jhl licked her lips. “This Great It-Being of Wherever-It-Is? Your son? But you said he was the Regent of the place?”

    “He is. His mother was the sister of the last Ruler,” he said, frowning. “The boy who’s Ruler now is a grandson: his father died while the old man was still alive.”"

    “Oh? Male primogeniture, then?”—He nodded wearily.—“Um, well, how old is the boy?”

    “Is that relevant? He’ll come of age, according to their customs, in another three IG years. I suppose he’s several years older than your G’gg.”

    “Well, how old is this son of yours?” croaked Jhl, goggling at him.

    “Thirty point four IG years,” he said, with a little shrug.

    “Thirty— That’s forty Bluellian years!” she gasped.

    “I dare say.”

    There was a short silence. The Fleet Commander sat on his flop couch in his gauzy robe looking depressed—though also golden-brown, fit, and very beautiful with it—and Jhl sat on her flop couch looking stunned.

    Finally he said tiredly: “I’m coming up for Admiral next year, if you must have it.”

    “That makes you fifty IG years next year, then,” said Jhl faintly.

    “Yes. And don’t tell me what that is in your FW Bluellian years, I don’t want to know!”

    Jhl swallowed. He was older than Dad, actually.

    “He is my oldest son,” he pointed out with some difficulty. He waited for Jhl to ask him about Rhan’s mother but she didn’t. She was, reflected Shank’yar involuntarily, undoubtedly the only woman in the two galaxies who wouldn’t have. “I could hardly acknowledge him: his mother was bond-partnered, and Space Fleet Command would never have overlooked a relationship on a proscribed planet thirty-odd IG years before it came up for Full Membership.”

    “No,” she recognised, swallowing.

    This time there was quite a long silence.

    “I can’t see what I can do, Shan,” said Jhl at last.

    He passed his hand across his face. “If I let my mind-shield down to you,”—Jhl goggled at him: at his age, and with the shield in place for as long as it had been, that would be very dangerous for a humanoid—“you’ll be able to pick up my encoding. Rhan’s encoding is very similar: you’ll be able to identify him unmistakably.”

    “Unless his shield is up,” she said weakly.

    “They’ve never heard of them. No-one mind-reads there. It’s the main reason why it’s taken so long for them to get Full Federation Status. They’re quite advanced in other ways—well, for a primmo world.”

    “I see. But—but I’d have to get close enough to be able to pick him up, Shan, I’m not as good as you or Trff, you know,” she said uneasily.

    “I know. That’ll be the hard bit. –Providing he’s still alive,” he said grimly. “But I do have a few odd clues. I think I know who’s behind the whole thing, but— Well, will you?"

    Jhl hesitated. She saw that Shank’yar, head bowed, was clenching his fists very tightly on his knees. He didn’t look up, but glared at the fists.

    After quite some time she said: “I don’t understand why you picked me. If this is Old Rthfrdia we’re talking about?”

    “Yes,” he said flatly.

    Jhl looked at him dubiously. His face was very grim. Finally she ventured: “You must have fleets of experienced spies you could send. I mean, it’s a standard humanoid world, any of your Whtyllians would do.”

    Shank’yar’s fists clenched again. “You’re the only being I can trust.”

    “What?” she said with a little laugh.

    “Yes.” His lips trembled. “Trust with the truth. And trust not to betray me.”

    “Oh,” said Jhl uneasily.

    Another silence.

    Finally he sighed. “I shouldn’t have— I’m sorry, Jhl.”

    “I’ll do it,” she said hoarsely.

    “No,” he said. The colour rose darkly up his neck.

    “Yes. I take your point: there is no-one but me. Not with a world at stake on the one hand, and—and—”

    “My son on the other. Yes.” He gave a strange laugh. “Well, at least you won’t sell him for his claim on my estate, you’ve been offered as much as that and more!”

    Jhl replied thoughtfully: “I think I might have accepted, if it had been a lot less.”

    “That has recently begun to dawn on me,” replied Shank’yar Vt R’aam very grimly indeed. He got up and strode over to the window, where he glared at the sim-view. After a considerable length of time he said, not turning round: “I accept your offer. Thank you.”

    “I’ll do my best,” she said uncertainly.

    “I know.”

    This time there was a very long silence. Rather fortunately Wm broke it with a demand to use the hygiene cabinet. Jhl smiled and picked him up.

    “Give him to an s-being,” said Shank’yar with a sigh.

    “He might bawl: I told you, he doesn’t like beings he doesn’t know.”

    “Beings!” He smiled wryly. “You should like Rhan, if you do manage to find him. He’s almost as much of a federo-demo-nut as you are.”

    “I’m not. And how can he be, he’s a lordship!"

    “Be that as it may, he’s stuffed full of principles. Which include the notion of—er—free beings.”

    Angrily Jhl retorted: “If Whtyll wasn’t so vacuum-frozen wealthy, it and its miserable s-beings would never have got into the Federation!”

    “Rubbish. Most of the Known Universe has s-beings of one sort or another. –Oh, there you are at last, S-B’rtha. Take this horrible object to the hygiene cabinet. And then give it—er—a blrtlberry bun,” he said with distaste. “You may speak at will,” he added as an afterthought.

    This s-being was a plump, grey-haired woman not unlike Jhl’s Mum. She immediately cuddled Wm to her mammary glands, cooing: “There now, young Master! You come along with old S-B’rtha!” To Jhl’s relief, Wm accepted this treatment. Possibly he’d got used to it at the farm.

    “I suppose this Rhan of yours must once have been that age,” she said on a dry note, when they’d gone out.

    “Yes. –I met his mother when I was posted there as Service Attaché with one of the early Federation Official Delegations. She was some years older than me.”

    “I see.”

    “I—uh—went back there a little later, on a semi-official—”

    “Spying, don’t wrap it up in clean clingo-cloth, Shan,” she sighed.

    “More or less, mm. I thought I was pretty well disguised, but she recognised me—she could have betrayed me, Federation knows, but she— Oh, well. It’s a long time ago. I lived there for about three of their years. The boy was younger than that sticky, semi-sentient relative of yours when I left. I didn’t see him again for some years, not until he was about G’gg’s age.”

    “You missed—” Jhl broke off.

    “So my mother kept telling me,” he said drily. She looked at him, startled. “Oh, she knows. We tried—very unofficially, of course—to get Mh’aaiivh, that’s his mother, off-world, but... Mother spent a small fortune on it. It was years before she gave up. Don’t look like that, darling,” he said with a twisted smile. “Mother’s a howling snob, and Mh’aaiivh’s a full-blown princess. Mother’s always wanted to see me in an IG-legal bond-partnership with a woman of exalted rank.”

    “Mm,” acknowledged Jhl, smiling a little.

    “The next time I was on-world it was as a licensed trader.—Yes: spying again.—The boy resented me like fury at first, but— Well. I stayed for two of their years, then I had to leave. By the time I got back again Rhan was an adult and had worked up considerable scorn for me and my wicked ways.” He grimaced.

    “I see.” Jhl hesitated. Then she said: “Does he know your real identity?”

    “Two galaxies, no! Well—wouldn’t be safe for him if any being picked the knowledge up,” he said on an awkward note.”

    She nodded silently.

    Shank’yar shrugged slightly. “After that I more or less—uh—”

    “Went straight: yeah. That must have been around the time of that classic skirmish out near the far arm of Blerrinbrig’s. When you got the Federation Medal—or was it the Two Galaxies Star?” she asked on a dry note.

    “No, that was— That’ll do.”

    Jhl smiled a little. “I know your career by heart, actually: I had the most tremendous crush on you when I was a Cadet.”

    “What?” he said weakly.

    “It soon wore off, of course,” she explained sweetly. “Go on. What’s the plan?”

    “When Rhan vanished some disaffected faction was stirring things up and there was a bit of popping and flashing, lifters crash-diving into the undergrowth—that sort of thing. Once we’ve got you there, one lifter more or less crash-landing won’t look like anything unusual.”

    “Oh, really? Once you’ve got me there, yes.”

    “At a certain speed, which has been tested and re-tested, a ship can pass through a x’nb web.”

    “Yes, so it can,” she agreed cordially: “that’s perfectly true. The only drawback being that any sentient life-form on it is immediately reduced to some crystalline substance.”

    Shank’yar cleared his throat. “That’s providing the being is sentient at the instant of traversing the x’nb web.”

    “Klupf,” supplied Jhl heavily.

    “Mm.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t do it, Jhl, I had no right to ask you. Rhan can get himself out of his own messes.”

    “Asteroid-brain,” replied Jhl mildly. “I've never had any problems with klupf.”

    “I know,” he said unguardedly, “but—”

    “Drop it, Shan. I've said I'll do it, and I’ll do it. Who am I supposed to be, for this crash-landing?”

    He told her.

    “WHAT?” shrieked Jhl.

   … “WHAT?” hollered BrTl, when the ship-companions had been readmitted to the Inner Sanctum, and the Fleet Commander had given them a very brief outline of the plan. Need-to-know only.

    “It’s a good disguise, Pleasure Girls hypered up on one substance or another trip out of Playfair One every other day,” noted Trff.

    “Do I look like a Playfair Pleasure Girl?” she gasped.

    “Yes, very,” it assured her earnestly. “A mammalian humanoid one, of course.”

    “All right,” she said glumly, “I’ll be a Pleasure Girl, but I’m not paying for the refit job.”

    “Naturally I shall cover all expenses,” said the Fleet Commander smoothly.

    “Naturally we shall need new Space Issue translators and FW packs,” noted BrTl smoothly.

    “You two are not going,” he pointed out heavily.

    “Then under our ship’s Terms of Agreement, Jhl is not going,” said Trff calmly.

    “Um—well, you could still be involved,” she said weakly.

    “How?” asked BrTl politely.

    Shank’yar passed a hand wearily over his face. “Look, all right: I can get the two of you in as fourteenth attachés to the Official Inter-Worlds Delegations, something like that. But Jhl will have to go first—alone.”

    After a few moments BrTl said glumly: “That is the FW lot I’m thinking of, is it?”

    “Yes. You-it will have to wear a Grand Occasion Saddle,” stated Trff pleasedly.

    “I’m afraid you will, Lieutenant,” agreed Shank’yar smoothly.

    “It’ll look good with his new FW pack,” noted Jhl.

    “There is no Ju’ukrterian it-being in this Delegation,” stated Trff.

    “Very true, Chief Engineer,” agreed Shank’yar smoothly. “You-it will be a Lone Delegate. Standing by your-its banner—I presume there is a Zll banner?” he added courteously.

    The tips of Trff’s fluff turned dangerously mauve.

    “Stay behind, then, Trff,” said Jhl kindly.

    “No. This it-being will be a Lone Delegate.”

    “What is this world?” asked BrTl heavily.

    Jhl began: “Old Rthfr—”

    “WHAT?” he hollered.

    Quite. The primmo FW dump to end all primmo FW dumps.

    Wm bounced deliriously on Big Blobbo’s large lap. Or knee. Whatever you liked to call it—it was all lubolyon. And the whole procedure was mind-bogglingly mindless. Trff had withdrawn most of its antennae.

    “What precise bribe did he offer?” enquired BrTl politely.

    There was a brief pause. It could look, but she-it does have her shield up, it reported sadly. And it couldn’t penetrate his-its.

    BrTl shuddered slightly. “No.”

    “Don’t do that, Bluell’s downtown J’rd’s isn’t built for the xathpyroid frame,” noted Jhl.

    “Sorry.”

    She realised they were both emanating expectancy. “It’s something to do with his private life. I can’t tell you anything more.”

    BrTl sighed gustily. –A few giant imitation blobs detached themselves from their peers and bumbled mindlessly through the humid, steamed-up, barely o-breather atmosphere of Blobbo World, but the kids didn't seem to mind. In fact some of them gave admiring cries, as if it was all part of the show. Actually several of them had asked if they could have a ride on BrTl, so they undoubtedly thought he was part of the show, too. “This Great Lordship-Being’ll be one of those pups he’s got scattered all over the two galaxies,” he noted. “That’s why he’s so worried.”

    Jhl went very red, but as she didn’t haul off and kick anything in the guts BrTl’s surmise was undoubtedly correct, the ship-companions silently recognised.

    “It and he-it don’t need to know anything further,” Trff assured her kindly. “A Ju’ukrterian it-being couldn’t get itself into such a situation, but if it did any it-being would go to its rescue.”

    BrTl began: “Yes, but humanoids— Forget it, forget it,” he sighed.

    There was a short silence. Apart from the megazillion decibels from the little kids enjoying Big Blobbo and his Blobby Friends, of course.

    “Playfair Pleasure Girls are wearing little gold skimpies this season,” noted Jhl glumly.

    Trff agreed placidly with this observation, but BrTl shook so much he had to leave the choice precincts of Bluell’s downtown J’rd’s, where all the nice beings shopped.

    “You’ve lost what’s left of your snuhl-blown mind,” he noted grimly that evening, when they were closeted in her room.

    “Soon-to-be klupf-blown,” corrected Trff literally.

    “There isn’t anyone else. He said I was the only one he could trust,” she said simply.

    “There’s an expression for that,” noted BrTl dreamily.

    “A mammalian humanoid expression?” asked Trff.

    “Um, not necessarily, if it’s the one I’m thinking of.”

    It concentrated for a split IG microsecond. “Emotional blackmail.”

    “That’s it.”

    Jhl sighed. “I know all that. But we’ll get the ship refitted on the strength of it.”

    They just looked at her.

    “I know he's a manipulator. But I felt... I don’t know, I felt I had to."

    “Her-its desire to be his-its bond-partner is dissipating,” announced Trff.

    BrTl gasped: “Then why—?”

    “It doesn’t understand, either, BrTl, an it-being isn’t capable of such contradictions. The fact that it is dissipating is making her-it all the more determined to do this for him-it.”

    “Uh—yeah, it probably is,” she admitted weakly. “All right, it’s odd. Stop emanating at me. We'll take off for Sfthnyxer and get the ship refitted day after tomorrow.” Yawning, she got into bed and allowed the clingo bedding to wrap itself round her.

    “What about New Year’s?” cried BrTl indignantly,

    “Ssh! You’ll wake them up! –What am I saying: you’ll wake them up over at Uncle Frdd’s,” she muttered. “We can’t wait. And anyway, Tmmi’s disintegrated the last two grqwaries, or has that slipped your notice?"

    “What about the—um—eggs? You know, that Dad’s big shed is for. Aren’t they supposed to turn into grqwaries?”

    “There won’t be any more eggs until spring, BrTl. And when the grqwaries hatch,” said Jhl in a silly squeaky voice: “they’ll be very, very, tiny.”

    “Tiny balls of fluff,” agreed Trff.

    They looked wildly at it. Small, spherical, fluffy—

    “That’s Mum’s phrase,” it explained.

    Jhl had a choking fit. “Sorry!” she gasped.

    “She-it doesn’t think, in the sense of forming rational connections,” it noted.

    “Not really, no,” agreed Jhl weakly.

    “However, she-it is extremely sensitive to impressions from other sentient beings. And near-sentient beings, of course.”

    “And culture-pans,” she sighed. “Yes, Trff, if only she’d been born on another world at another time she could have been an engineer, I entirely agree with you.”

    “And if she-it’d passed the Entrance Exam,” it noted.

    They looked wildly at it.

    After quite some time BrTl managed to say: “Um, to get back to the mission, how will you recognise this evil D’ru that the Fleet Commander mentioned, who may or may not have kidnapped this Rhan?”

    “I’ll have to wait until someone calls him by name, won’t I? Well, if Shank’yar’s information’s correct, and I crash-land as a Playfair Pleasure Girl on his estate, there's a pretty fair chance one of his s-beings will usher me into his presence immediately.”

    “Then he’ll usher you into this Rhan’s presence, and you can both leave immediately,” he noted.

    “Have you got a better plan?”

    “No. Short of moving in with a fleet of Destroyers and blasting the place.”

    “Not with his son in it, asteroid-brain!” shouted Jhl.

    After a moment BrTl said: “I was right.”

    “So was it,” Trff agreed.

    Jhl chewed her lip. “Look, I never told you.”

    “Oh, agreed,” agreed BrTl hurriedly.

    “Absolutely. No it-being of sense wishes to incur the wrath of a Fleet Commander, and particularly,” said Trff with a delicate shudder, “not of that one.”

    They winced, nodding, and BrTl asked: “Can you really not penetrate his shield?”

    It hesitated. Then it said: “The it-being would rather not try. It uses the expression ‘rather not’ loosely.”

    Neither of them attempted to examine this statement: they knew that the Ju’ukrterian it-beings (though the use of the plural was doubtful) were all in contact with one another all the time, and it was a really bad sign if the individual Trff had to hesitate before replying to such a question.

    Jhl swallowed. “Talking of which, he’s going to lower it to me.”

    BrTl opened his mouth. They shrank, but nothing happened. Finally he whispered: “What?”

    “I've got to be able to recognise his encoding. Rhan’s is very like his. No-one else on the FW dump has got encoding like it.”

    “Unless he’s left a litter of them there,” he retorted sourly.

    “Uh—yeah, that did occur to me. I think he would have mentioned it, though.”

    “If it destroys his-its mind—after all, he-it is fifty IG years old, that isn’t young for a mammalian humanoid, and he-it must have had the shield in place for half that period—no sensible being would wish to be there. Or, indeed, associated with the business,” stated Trff.

    “Two of us!” noted BrTl in astonishment .

    “I can’t refuse. Not if he’s willing to take that risk,” she said.

    BrTl started to scratch his shoulder with a hind foot and thought better of it, in view of Mum and Dad’s ceilings. “If it does destroy his mind, will you still go on with the mission?”

    “Yes. More than ever,” she said grimly.

    “Oh, dear,” sighed BrTl, sounding just like M’mri’in.

    “Oh, dear,” echoed Trff mournfully.

    There was a long silence.

    Finally BrTl got up, stretched, and laid his neck politely on the footboard of Jhl’s bed. “I think I’ll go to sleep now,” he noted.

    Trff got up thankfully. “So will it. That atmo-blob we bought at J’rd’s is working very well, the Guest Room should be just right by now.”

    “Good,” sighed Jhl.

    Trff went over to the door. “Even supposing the Fleet Commander’s mind remains intact, how is you-it going to get this Rhan being off-world?"

    “I was wondering that,” reported BrTl glumly.

    “Or even contact the Fleet Commander?” it wondered.

    “I’ve no idea,” said Jhl grimly. “Have you?"

     They hadn’t, actually—no.