The Mutant's Tale

19

The Mutant’s Tale 

 
    Most of the rest of that day and the next was occupied by Ponicho Mull’s ceaseless stream of chatter. BrTl couldn’t stand it: he blob-locked S-Budg to Dohra’s wrist again and went and lurked on Level Blue, keeping a wary eye open for large IG Militia beings with definite probes on their putative hips. Anyway, Trff was keeping an eye on her: it didn’t really seem to mind Ponicho Mull, even if it had agreed that strangling was the best thing that could happen to the being. All grist to the Ju’ukrterian mill, no doubt.
    The day after that was the day that Trff decided, or discovered, whatever, that the blobs on their own ship needed its presence, and took off in the pod. The absence of the pod didn’t matter: in spite of the faint, lingering aroma of dead plush-moss, he and Dohra could always sleep on Didg’s ship. Somehow these comforting reflections didn’t stop him from getting very, very drunk in the Level Pink ISLA bar that evening. He did manage to crawl back to Didg’s ship with Dohra and S-Budg in tow, however.
    But next morning he awoke to a monumental hangover and the discovery that it was way past breakfast-time and the two of them had gone off. He fell into a moogletube and whooshed across to the centre of the spaceport complex and guess what? There she was in the bar hearing all about how exciting it was on Intergalactica, specifically in Intergalactica Central, and what wonderful opportunities for further education the place offered, and something about vacuum-frozen picnics, the lawns being any shade you cared to name. And which small vlohffert being was not present to undo the Thwurbullerian’s damage? Right.
    Glumly he sat down. “I’ve always thought Intergalactica sounded like the boring FW dump to end all boring FW dumps,” he said glumly.
    Dohra gave a loud giggle. “BrTl, you’ve got a hangover! Have a basin of spring water!”
    Yeah, well.
    Pretty soon Ponicho Mull came up and began agreeing with every word the Thwurbullerian said, capping its stories with even more exciting—or boring—stories of his own about F Senators and F Reppos and “charming” rich beings that haunted the dump, meanwhile showering him, the Fix-It Being, with exotic and expensive gifts—none of which were in evidence at this moment, a point that didn’t seem to occur to Dohra—and blah, blah, blah… But BrTl couldn’t go to sleep, could he? Even if there hadn’t been this throbbing pain in his head bone he wouldn’t have dared to risk it. He did manage to suggest a few negative thoughts about Ponicho Mull’s stories, but Dohra was just so excited by the colourful pictures of Intergalactica she was getting from both of them that her mind was pretty well unreceptive to negative thoughts. Certainly to those produced by his poor powers—and he was all there was, wasn’t he?
    After a bit Lu Rullan came up, and emanated shock and horror as it dawned what was going on, but what good was that? He couldn’t stay, he was on duty, he’d only looked in to say Hullo. And off he went, sending BrTl a last string of apologies and accompanied by Dohra’s emanations of admiration: looking smart in his uniform, yeah, yeah…
    Then BrTl found himself faced with a dilemma. Go off to contact Jhl and let it get worse behind his back, or not go off to contact Jhl while it got worse and he couldn’t figure out what to do about it? Um… What would she have done in such circumstances? Er, beyond stopping plasmo-blasted Forty-Four in its tracks; she was pretty modest about her mind-powers but he was in no doubt she could’ve. Well, uh, was any action better than none? Not according to his instructors at Space Fleet Academy—no. On the other hand they hadn’t actually expressed admiration of the xathpyroid tendency to sit there getting further and further wound up in the dilemma while the xathpyroid paranoia crept up closer and cl—Er, yeah. So he got up and went off to contact her.
    She sounded very sleepy, ouch. Then she sounded very, very annoyed.
    “Sorry,” he said glumly.
    “Keep OFF the intoxicants from NOW ON!” she shouted. “That’s an ORDER!”
    “Yes, sir,” agreed BrTl miserably.
    “YES, I DO MEAN ALE AS WELL!” she bellowed.
    “Yes, sir,” he agreed meekly.
    Jhl could be heard breathing hard. Then she said: “Dare I ask, just by the by,”—ouch!—“if that comm-blob you’re squashing in your great fist,”—hurriedly he relaxed his grip—“is the one Trff cultured up?”
    “Yes, sir. Um, of course.”
    “Then WHAT’S IT USING OUT THERE IN THE POD, A MEGAZILLION GLPS BEYOND THE LAST BLACK HOLE?” she bellowed.
    Ooh, help. This thought had never occurred to BrTl.
    “Did it give you its frequency?” demanded Jhl between her teeth.
    “Um, no,” he croaked. “I mean, no, sir. Um, I assumed it’d get in touch with me. Or you. Um, it has got lots of blobs out there to… work with,” he ended miserably.
    “Blobbed-out bobs, as I understood it,” she said sweetly.
    “Mm.”
    “Then we won’t contact it and ask it to fix the pink being at long-range, will we?” she said sweetly.
    “No, sir,” agreed BrTl glumly.
    Jhl breathed heavily for some time.
    Finally he ventured: “Um, I know you’re fed up with the pink being and everything about her and I’m really sorry—”
    “Shut up, I’m thinking,” she said mildly.
    This sounded slightly more hopeful, and BrTl was respectfully silent.
    “When is her transfer due?”
    “An IG week and a half. Fifteen IG days from now. It’s the Trans-Gal Loop Service, Route 756. It doesn’t go anywhere near Btcx,” he reported sadly.
    “It wouldn’t do, the vacuum-frozen dump’s on Route 84,613.”
    He brightened. “In that case, you could change at Njneeainwearia and come straight here on Trans-Gal Route 93, it’s only four stops!”
    “I could, yeah. And you’re right, Trans-Gal Route 93 does leave every IG day, best ferry service in the two galaxies. Unfortunately Trans-Gal Route 84,613 calls at Btcx every other IG month, and it went two days ago. Taking with it, I might add, a load of lucky Service clowns with more influence with the top sparf than I’ve got!”
    “I geddit,” he said glumly. “Sorry.”
    “And NO, I could NOT ASK HIM TO TAKE ME HALFWAY ACROSS THE TWO GALAXIES ON HIS VACUUM-FROZEN MOODRA DYHILLIA AS A SPECIAL FAVOUR!” she bellowed.

 
    “It only crossed my mind for a fleeting—Um, sorry, sir.”
    “Stop sirring me, for Federation’s sake, BrTl,” she sighed.
    “Yeah. Okay. Sorry, Jhl.”
    “Look, if you or Trff were in danger—”
    “I know,” he said quickly.
    After that he didn’t say anything, but Jhl could see what he was thinking. “Uh, BrTl,” she croaked, swallowing, “I don’t even know this Friyrian captain, and I don’t think Shank’yar knows him, either. Well, he sounds to me like a being with far too much sense to hang out with the crowd of play-beings and qwlot-soaked diplo clowns that he mixes with.”
    There was a certain confusion of personal pronouns here, but the pictures were very, very clear, in fact horribly clear in the case of the Whtyllian, so he just agreed glumly: “No, you’re right.”
    “Added to which,” she said cautiously, “we haven’t yet determined if the whole bit was just in the pink being’s imagination, have we? –Wishful thinking,” she reminded him.
    “Uh—no. But if you contacted him, as one captain to another,”—he tried to ignore the picture she was sending of a blobbed-out hunk of rusting space junk lurking out beyond the last black hole with one small, fluffy vlohffert being in charge of it—“you could find out if it was true and, um, if it was, wouldn’t he want to rescue her?”
    “From a fate worse than death?” said Jhl very drily indeed. “Well, perhaps he would, mm.”
    “I see. You’d have to make a fool of yourself, in mammalian terms,” said BrTl miserably. “Sorry I suggested it.”
    Jhl took a deep breath. “Mok shit!” she said briskly. “Who in Federation cares if I make a fool of myself in front of seventeen thousand vacuum-frozen Friyrians in their gill-collars? Not to say,” she added very drily indeed, “in front of vacuum-frozen Fleet Commander Shank’yar Vt R’aam of Whtyll! After all, I’m only Wavey-Spacey, aren’t I, and Federation knows I don’t want another call-up like this one!”
    “Um, no,” he said cautiously. “‘Course you don’t, no. Um, so you will?”
    “Sure! What’s the name of the ship, again?”
    “I only got this off her, but Trff thought it was accurate. Silver-Ash Flyer, Silver WF Line, Hinnover City to Orbiting Transit Station 643 of Playfair One.”
    “Great splintered shards of quog,” said Jhl in awe. “One of the most boring routes in the Known Universe. –Right, I’ll get onto it. Did you get his name?”
    “Uh—well, it sounded like a genuine Friyrian name to me. Captain Ccrainchzzyllia.”
    There was a strange silence echoing across the hyper-link in space or whatever in Federation it was you blobbed onto when you blobbed onto a comm-blob tinkered with by the aforesaid small vlohffert being. Then Jhl said weakly: “Ccrainchzzyllia, like with ‘chzzy’ in the middle of it, yeah?”
    “Yeah. Oh! Hang on: the other day the Fix-It Being was going on about Friyrian names and Dohra spotted—You don’t mean that ‘chzzy’ means it isn’t a lordship-type name after all?”
    “No,” said Jhl in a hollow voice. “I mean that it’s a very high-up lordship-type name indeed. Think the phrase is ‘one of the oldest families on Friyria’—oldest culture-pods, to you.”
    “Um, aren’t they all from the same original germplasm, though?” he fumbled.
    “Indubitably!” she said with a sudden laugh. “No, well, just a silly saying. But it is a genuine lordship-class name. Possibly large parts—well, some parts—of her story are true, after all. I’ll get onto it. Should get back to you later today. Well—nothing else to do, here! Oh, and if by any mad ninety megazillion-to-one chance our Chief Engineer should contact you, tell it to get onto me ASAP, will you? Captain out!”
    “Thanks,” he said quickly. “BrTl—” She’d blobbed off. “Out,” he finished uncertainly. Uh—well, not as bad as he’d feared. She must be desperate for something to do, all right. 

 
    He didn’t feel much like lunch that day, for various reasons, but managed to gnaw on a juicy grpplybeast roast, refusing Dohra’s offer of some vegetables or a nice salad to go with it. The thing was, herbo-carnivores tended to assume that quantities of vegetable matter were good for the metabolism, whatever it was. Her own lunch was all vegetable matter, ugh. That stuff that looked like walking-chicken breast-meat, cubed, was actually some poisonously revolting squashed, reconstituted vegetable something. Forty-Four was eating it with enjoyment, too, and as far as he could tell this was not a ruse. Ponicho Mull was only pretending to enjoy it, but the rest of his lunch was vegetable matter, too. No, well, whatever blobbed you up, but why try to force vegetables on a xathpyroid? Or on a mutant: S-Budg, growling horribly, was attempting to dump the vegetable matter off his plate and onto the ISLA table, only to be foiled, as usual, by the ISLA plate.
    “Why did you make him take that? He doesn’t like it.”
    “He needs a certain amount of vegetable matter and fibre in his diet,” replied Dohra firmly. “Yummy worsnip, Budg! Yummy roast quoshy!”
    “I’d call them yucky worse-and-worse-nip and yucky burnt squashy,” noted BrTl.
    Stop—it! she sent crossly. “Look, Budg, Dohra’s eating it!” she cooed, taking a minute piece of his black and crimson burnt-looking squashed thing. “Quoshy, it’s a lovely root vegetable, it’s Nblyterian!” she reminded BrTl crossly.
    “Squashy,” said S-Budg experimentally.
    “Quoshy,” said Dohra firmly.
    “SQUASHY!” he shouted, hurling the plate to the fl—Uh, not. It came flying back and hit him on the nose with a horrid “clonk!” before settling on the table again.
    “See? The lovely ISLA plate thinks you’re a naughty boy,” said Dohra crossly. “Eat that lovely quoshy that the culture-pan went to all the trouble of making for you!”
    “I WANT MEAT!” he shouted.
    “You’ve had your meat. Eat that quoshy,” said Dohra grimly. 

 
    “NO!”
    “Couldn’t you—” began BrTl.
    “No, he’s on a protein high already,” she said grimly.
    Perhaps he was: it wasn’t easy to tell. Resignedly BrTl implanted the suggestion that quoshy was really yummy, and S-Budg fell upon it ravenously. Likewise the other thing, possibly under the impression that it was also quoshy. Uh—was he colour-blind? Hard to tell, actually.
    “Thanks,” said Dohra on a weak note.
    “Uh—did you spot that?”
    “Mm.”
    Uh-huh. Was she getting better merely because, in the wake of Trff’s tweaking or whatever it had been, she was exercising her powers more, or had Trff done more than he, BrTl, had suspected, or was there a Thwurbullerian digit or two— No. He didn’t want to end up on Mullgon’ya like elderly cognate BrShl, thanks. Grimly he concentrated on his meat and spring water…
    “Then,” finished Ponicho Mull on a triumphant note about fifty megazillion IG hours later, “of course F Minister meeanshinkreD py hundreL in person contacted my F Senator, just as she’d promised me she would, and so it was all fixed! Ck, ck, ck!”
    “Very satisfactory,” said Forty-Four valiantly.
    “Yes, well done, Ponicho Mull!” agreed Dohra valiantly, wrenching her attention off a yellow-crested Nblyterian who was optimistically inspecting the pink ISLA bar’s mannanna plant for signs of flowers.
    BrTl just glumly ordered another round…
    “And naturally,” finished Ponicho Mull on a triumphant note another fifty megazillion IG hours later, “the company representatives all agreed that it was impossible to go down that route, and that my suggestion was the only way to fix it! And so an agreement was drawn up with Field-Marshal Bo Grn Laallainweyigh, and the project was off and running, as they say! Ck, ck, ck!”
    “Very good,” said Forty-Four with a perceptible effort.
    “What? Um, yes, of course: excellent!” gasped Dohra, wrenching her attention off a cluster of uniformed space cadets drinking nnru juice, playing Spinno with a credit disc, laughing, hooing and whistling noisily, and just generally doing their best to be a disgrace to the uniform…
    “Then His Gracious Holiness,” finished Ponicho Mull on a triumphant note another fifty megazillion IG hours after that, “offered his actual appendage, and so it was all fixed! Mighty Moon-Glo Maxi Co. made a mega-fortune out of the deal! Ck, ck, ck!”
    “Um, yes, their shares are quoted on the IGSE at ninety-three point seven igs after an issuing value of twenty-five,” admitted Forty-Four somewhat limply. “So that was your doing, Ponicho Mull? Congratulations.”
    “Um, yes, congratulations,” said Dohra vaguely, her eyes on a developing confrontation over in a far corner between a Wynonian Bugler and a scarred Slgr, not to mention the latter’s mutant Cxvrt Class, um, Two? Whatever, it was in a bracelet, and every time the Slgr sneered it growled.
    Ponicho Mull was just embarking on yet another thrilling saga of his own remarkable abilities when there was a slight stir in the room and all signs of confrontation vanished. And a burly Meanker in the blue-trimmed black uniform of an ISLA Warder came in looking round and emanating hopefulness.
    “Ku Fellan!” cried Dohra, bounding up and waving madly.
    “Hoo, hoo, hoo! There you are!” he said, coming over to them. “Got that mutant in a bracelet, eh? Plasmo-blasted good idea.”
    “It’s keeping him safe,” explained Dohra over S-Budg’s growls. “Ssh, Budg! Ku Fellan won’t hurt you! He’s our swiller! –Sorry: that’s a DorAvenian expression,” she said to the stunned emanations from the warder.
    “Uh—yeah. Oh—right! Goddit! Thanks, xathpyroid.” His emerald eye swivelled in the direction of BrTl’s beaker of spring water and he gave a muffled “Hoo!” but otherwise didn’t comment. “I’m off duty: mind if I join you?”
    Far from minding, Dohra greeted the suggestion rapturously; and Forty-Four didn’t appear to mind; so regardless of the fact that S-Budg was still uttering muffled growls and the Fix-It Being had shrunk into his seat and was eyeing him in horror, Ku Fellan sat down happily and generously ordered a round. Well, as ISLA Warders went he wasn’t a bad being, though true, that wasn’t saying all that much—and possibly his presence would shut the plasmo-blasted Fix-It Being up. So on the whole BrTl didn’t mind, either.
    Forty-Four and Dohra in concert were just telling Ku Fellan all about the exciting story that Lu Rullan had told them—one of them with no ulterior motive—when S-Budg’s growls increased alarmingly, and up came—
    “It’s 62 and 310! Oh, look at you!” cried Dohra distressfully. “What happened to you? Oh, Musho, it’s you,” she said as TRAINER came up to them. “What happened to the poor beings?”
    Wasn’t it obvious? UrGur Blue 62 now had three and a half arms, and UrGur Blue 310 now had half a nose. Well, he’d match that other clone, 78, had it been? No, well, mirror-images, so to speak.
    “Gidday, Dohra,” growled Musho. “They been in a howdy-gurdy. Rolly Bollybeer Green, they come up into our league, an’ they thought they was gonna take it out, see, only our side powered away and took it out for UrGur, you betcha! Only their back line, they got in a few good ones, see, an’ 310, he went down, only he took one right out, you betcha! An’ Rolly Bollybeer Green 33, it took out poor ole 62, an’ Coach, he said, comes of having mutants on the team, what he never would, see? Poor ole 62, he was right out of it for three IG hours.”
    Any being might have been forgiven for not understanding this speech, in fact even Ponicho Mull’s mixture of offence and incomprehension was forgivable—though that smell wasn’t Musho himself, it was the stuff he rubbed on the clones, it did tend to cling when a being had its appendages in it every day—but actually Dohra replied: “I see! Poor 62, does it hurt dreadfully?”
    “Nah! I took out that Rolly Bollybeer Green 33!” he growled.
    “He did get in a good one: yeah,” noted Musho temperately.
    “I took out that Rolly Bollybeer Green 111!” growled 310 proudly.
    “In quintupled 5-D triangles: that’s one Rolly Bollybeer Green clone that’ll never walk again,” admitted Musho with satisfaction.
    Dohra blenched but said valiantly: “Well done! Come and sit down. So, you’re on your way home, are you?”
    The two clones just stared stolidly—though emanating, as much as they were capable of emanating anything, pleasure at seeing her again—but Musho blinked a little and said: “Uh—wouldn’t say that. Back to quarters. Uh—yeah, thanks, Warder, since you’re buying, UrGur for us.” 


    “UrGur for it!” shouted 310.
    “UrGur for THEM!” shouted 62.
    “UrGur for ME!” shouted S-Budg.
    “Can he have another, Dohra?” asked Ku Fellan on a weak note.
    “What do you think, BrTl?”
    He thought the mutant could sink twenty more that size—the tankards that the ISLA bar served UrGur in were generously sized, but that didn’t mean they weren’t optically altered as well—and remain unaffected. “Yeah, he’ll be fine. Thanks, Ku Fellan. Uh—no, make it a maxi-galaxy shake for me, thanks.”
    “On the waggon, are you, xathpyroid cognate?” said Musho sympathetically. “Us clones all know what that’s like—don’t we, clones?”
    “Training! NO BEER!” shouted 62.
    “He’s got it,” said the trainer comfortably.
    “So where are your quarters?” asked Dohra kindly.
    Their quarters were on Quarvaynia. Well, it was o-breather, true. And there were large native herds of bovine quadrup—“MEAT!” shouted 310—Quadrupeds, quite. There’d be no distractions, that was for sure. Well, the jugglers were good.
    “They like the jugglers,” said Musho mildly.
    “Uh—yeah. Was I broadcasting? Sorry.” BrTl tried to warn the being that Dohra was gonna ask—Too late.
    “So will you take them to a Full Surgeon there?” she was asking anxiously.
    “Uh—” Musho looked round for help. Forty-Four was carefully emanating nothing at all. BrTl was hurriedly doing likewise. Ku Fellan, with a certain amount of fellow-feeling, was sending: She’s like that. Can’t help it. The Fix-It Being was looking down his shiny black nose in a superior way and emanating superiority. S-Budg and the clones were, of course, just drinking their UrGur beer.
    Finally the trainer said feebly: “Um, we got like, a being: now, I’m not saying it’s a Full Surgeon or nothing near it, only it’s not bad, we call it Doc. It’ll stick a new arm on ole 62.”
    Dohra nodded, still looking anxious. “That’s good. And what about poor 310’s nose?”
    “Uh—well, thing is, ya got the wrong end of the ban-ban-ban, Dohra. The Ref, it suspended him for the rest of the season, see? That’s why he’s coming back to quarters.”
    “That clone, I took him right out, Dohra!” he said proudly.
    “Um, yes, 310. Well, he deserved it, didn’t he? He was a bad being,” she said valiantly.
    “Yeah! Them bad-being clones, we take them out! Yay TEAM!”
    “Yay, Team!” she agreed, nodding brightly. “Um, I see, Musho, but couldn’t your Doc—um—you know?” she said, touching her own humanoid nose.
    “Well, I’ll ask it. It never done a nose before, only I guess it could culture one up, why not? It does arms real good.”
    “Oh, good!” she beamed. “Then you’ll both feel better, won’t you, 62 and 310?”
    “I feel good, Dohra! UrGur for ME!” shouted 62.
    “UrGur for ME!” shouted 310. “I feel good, Dohra!”
    “UrGur for ME!” shouted S-Budg. “Dohra for ME!”
    Yes, well, that made it fairly clear, didn’t it? Surreptitiously BrTl checked that bracelet out. It was holding up well, but on the whole it was a pity that he’d given Dohra its key rather than keep it himself.
    The clones then demanded a story from Dohra but S-Budg shouted: “NO! My Dohra! Go AWAY!” and so forth. After a little of this Forty-Four sent: Shall I? and BrTl replied: Be my guest. So S-Budg stopped shouting, the clones stopped demanding a story and sat back and drank their beer nicely, and Musho, emanating a wistful desire to be able to control them like that, sat back and mopped his almost-mammalian forehead—he had a dent for a goperball, too, so maybe he’d once been a sports-clone himself—and Dohra told them a nice story all about her and her little brother going on a fishing expedition.
    A certain amount of checking revealed that the clones didn’t understand what fishing was or what a boat was, let alone what a brother was—though oddly enough they did get the point that he was an immature male humanoid—and that S-Budg, who did understand about fish, was seeing something about fifty times the size of the piscine beings that Dohra was picturing; but at least no being was attempting to rip pieces off another being’s anatomy right in front of the ISLA Warder. Or not in their corner: over the way the scarred Slgr and his mutant Cxvrt provoked the Wynonian Bugler into hurling itself at them. Ku Fellan remained unmoved, but two hefty IG Militia beings lumbered in and removed all three of them.
    Then S-Budg decided it was his turn to tell a story—well, the repeated shouts of: “My turn now! My TURN!” indicated he thought so.
    Can he? sent Ku Fellan dazedly.
    Doubt it. You wanna volunteer to monitor slash interpret? replied BrTl. Gee, no, he didn’t: fancy that. BrTl could feel Forty-Four would rather hear what the mutant had to say—Federation knew why: after all it had had a perfectly good DorAvenian story off Didg, what more could the mutant possibly add? Oh, well, let him. If it got too bad he supposed he could interpret. “Go on, Budg, swiller, tell us a story,” he prompted. 

    There was a big fish. Them three brothers, they went out to catch it! There was Gidg and Didg and Lidg, he was only little. I catched the FISH! GRRR! Fish for ME! Dohra, you can have some of MY fish! YAY! 

 
    The clones and Musho brightened, and cheered.
    Is that it? sent Ku Fellan weakly, as Ponicho Mull gave a series of smothered Ck, ck, ck’s, and Dohra clapped her hand over her mouth.
    “Budg, cut that out,” said a severe voice from somewhere behind the clones, and several beings jumped ten IG fluh where they sat.
    “You beings are letting him get away with a load of space garbage,” said the owner of the voice, coming forward. “I’m looking for a xathpyroid cognate called BrTl: that’d be you, would it?” he said, taking off his DorAvenian helmet.
    “Uh—yeah,” croaked BrTl, staring. Humanoid faces were all very similar, of course, but if this one wasn’t the clone of that Silver Warrior being in Didg’s story you could certify, him, BrTl, as ready for Mullgon—
    “Good to meet you. I’m Lidgeonfyllewend np Afftn do’ DorAven,” the being said.
    BrTl just stared.
    “Didg’s brother,” said the newcomer. “Yeah, hi, Budg,” he said tolerantly as Budg got up and bashed him on his half-armoured shoulder. “That’ll do: siddown.”
    “Huh?” groped BrTl. “Oh! Brother! Um, yeah, hullo, Lidgeon—uh—”
    “Call me Lidg,” said the young man on a resigned note. “Didg said he’d left his ship in your care and that of your Chief Engineer: that right?”
    “Um, yeah. Trff’s not here just at the moment. The ship’s fixed. Uh—I suppose I should ask to see your IG ID, but we can see that you’re Didg’s cognate, so I won’t.”
    “This here is Lidg! He’s my swiller’s little brother!” explained S-Budg helpfully, if belatedly.
    “That’s right. Siddown and shut up, Budg. –Who in Federation managed to get a bracelet on him?” asked the DorAvenian.
    “Me,” admitted BrTl. “Dohra’s got his key.”
    “Didg’ll go plasma-ballistic if he finds out you had him in a bracelet. Though for mine, he could stay in it. I better take the key. Which one’s Dohra?” asked the young humanoid with a pleasant smile.
    There was a short silence.
    “Me,” said Dohra, getting up, her face very red. “I’ve got his chain, see? He’s been looking out for me, haven’t you, Budg? Do you want to go home with Lidg?”
    “YAY! Go HOME! See my SWILLER!” he shouted.
    “Apparently he does,” she said grimly, handing the chain to Lidgeonfyllewend. “Here’s the key.”
    “Thanks,” he said, shoving the blob in a pocket. “Think I’ll leave him like this until we’re in orbit round DorAven. Didg ever tell you beings about the time the plasmo-blasted being tried to change the course just when they were going into hyper-hop?”
    There was another short silence.
    “No,” said Dohra grimly, “but that’s hardly surprising, given that he doesn’t tell any beings anything much. I’m afraid we’ve been using your ship. I’ll just get my things out of it.”
    “We’re going home, Dohra,” said S-Budg on an uncertain note.
    “Yes, you are, Budg. You’ll see your swiller.”
    BrTl got up slowly. “Yeah. Um, so Didg couldn’t come?”
    “No: he can’t leave DorAven.”
    Forty-Four waggled its frontal lobes slowly. “I see. I’m very sorry about your close affines’ deaths, Lidgeonfyllewend np Afftn do’ DorAven.”
    “Uh—thank you,” said Lidg, looking at the large being in considerable surprise.
    “Oh, dear, what a terrible tragedy!” twittered Ponicho Mull, looking avidly from one to the other of them. “I see! Not exactly affines, respected Forty-Four: father and brother. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
    “Yes. I’m very sorry,” said Dohra grimly. “Come on, BrTl, shall we get our things?”
    “Uh—yeah. Sorry, DorAvenian cognate,” he said awkwardly to the young humanoid. “We thought it would be all right to use the ship, after Trff fixed it: it had to take the pod, you see.”
    “Of course,” said Lidgeonfyllewend stiffly. “How much does the family owe you for the job, Br-cognate?”
    BrTl was about to say “Nothing,” but to Blerrinbrig’s with the plasmo-blasted DorAvenian and all his culture-pod! Trff had spent hours on the plasmo-blasted being’s blobs, and Dohra had figuratively sweated blood looking after his hunk of a mutant that was six times her size and as close to a walking nuisance as anything in the Known Universe; and if chiefs of DorAven could afford that gold-encrusted armour—he looked sourly at the extremely elegant gold-chased xrillion half-armour the black-haired young man was wearing—they could Vvlvanian-cursed-well cough up a few igs for Trff’s trouble! Not to say, for their ship’s very sick account. So he told him what the job was worth and watched grimly as the DorAvenian outed with a credit-blob and transferred the igs to their ship’s account.
    Then they went back to the ship and rescued their stuff. At the last moment it dawned on S-Budg that Dohra wasn’t coming with them and he started to make a terrific fuss—but Dohra had had more than enough for one day, and so BrTl simply erased the lot from what passed for the mutant’s memory-store. And that was that. Lidg-whatever-his-name-was took off, and good riddance.
    “Rather a superior young man; though of course, if the father was a chief—” ventured Ponicho Mull, who hadn’t spared them his presence throughout.
    Shut—UP! replied BrTl angrily.
    “Ouch!” he gasped, clutching his head in shock.
    “It’s all right, BrTl. –I’m sorry if that hurt,” said Dohra grimly to the Fix-It Being. “BrTl was only trying to protect me. But I quite agree: I thought he was a horrid young man, he wasn’t kind to Budg, at all!”
    “No,” agreed Ponicho Mull weakly. “After all, the being is more or less a pet.”
    “Yes, exactly.”
    “So, um, back to the bar? Let me buy you a nice shot of Huyajhangwanian brandy, Dohra,” the Fix-It Being offered, rubbing his head cautiously.
    Dohra stuck her chin out.  “I’d love that, Ponicho Mull. Thank you very much.”
    BrTl could see the being actually meant it. “Yeah, okay, we’ll do that. Um, and I suppose, if you really wanna try a moogletube—”
    Of course he did. Resignedly BrTl wrapped them both up in pseudopods and put his arms round them and told his neck-hair to do its best for them and—WHOOSH!
    Dohra was all right, she was used to moogletubes by now, but the Fix-It Being was very, very shaken indeed.
    “It’s always like that,” she said, squeezing his little black paw kindly. “Do you feel a bit squashed?”
    “Yes!” he wheezed.
    “Just breathe deeply and slowly,” she advised.
    So they breathed deeply and slowly and then Dohra took BrTl’s pseudopod in her other hand, and they went up in a public lift-blob and back to the Level Pink bar, paw-in-hand and hand-in-pseudopod. On the way two Gr-cognates and a Tr-cognate were encountered, all of whom found the spectacle exquisitely funny, but BrTl was way past caring. And if Didg had materialised in front of him at this instant he’d’ve snapped the Vvlvanian-cursed being’s neck for him. Happily. 

 

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