Interlude: A Morning On The Third Moon

9 

Interlude: A Morning On The Third Moon 

 

    BrTl and Dohra were having breakfast together: Trff had got up very early and gone over to Didg’s ship, since yesterday’s preliminary look at the blobs had revealed there was a lot of work to do there.

    “Shuha hu-ectuh uh,” noted BrTl through his meaty and substantial breakfast.

    “Pardon?” replied Dohra weakly.

    He swallowed. “You should have expected it.” She looked blank. “What you were thinking about just then: that story of S-Fl’Chuyilleea’s that embarrassed you. The average Flppu mind’s rather like...” He sought for a simile, and failed. Then he caught sight of Dohra’s steaming mug. “Steaming-spaceport-muck. Why in Federation did you order that? Ya do know what it’s like!”

    “I was cold,” she said timidly. BrTl of course had loped down the tubes and tunnels from the pod, and her FW pack hadn't coped too well with the combination of the gale of his passing and the minimal o-breather mixture on Level Green, which was almost entirely devoted to tran-blob trains transporting luggage or freight, and much larger bubble-trains—cosy bubble-trains—transporting o-breather beings between ships or levels or both.

    “Oh—sorry. But those bubble-trains aren’t as cosy as all that.”

    “Um, no. Um, it’s a pretty green, though,” she offered.

    BrTl brightened. “Yes, isn’t it pretty! Not a green, though: all different shades of green! What’s the word… No, not splodgy, Dohra. Um… variegated!” he produced proudly. “I know you wouldn’t call it that, but that’s because you can only see four shades of green in it,” he added complacently.

    “Well, how many are there?”

    BrTl began to count. Finally he said: “At least thirty-five. I can’t name them in Intergalactic but I could tell you the words for them in my Slaetho-Xathpyrian dialect.—Ignore that,” he said cheerfully as she glanced dubiously at her translator. “Special Offer.—Shall I?”

    “Yes, please.”

    BrTl began listing shades of green. They came over as Slaetho-Xathpyrian, all right. Eventually a frilled Maudur got up from the next table and came over and said politely: “I say, xathpyroid cognate, would you mind awfully not making that noise at breakfast? We’ve got an Old One with us and it’s disturbing it.”

    “Oh—sorry, Young Maudur. No offence meant—got carried away, listing the shades of green on Level Green.”

    “None taken. We feel the same about Level Red, in fact the Old One’s been kicking up a fuss about being on Level Pink, even though most of us can see a fair number of shades here, too. But its eyesight’s failing a bit, y’see?” And with a friendly shake of its elbow frills, it returned to its table.

    “Which would be the Old One?” said Dohra in a very low voice.

    “Huh? Oh, haven’t you seen a Maudur before? They are more impressive in real life than on the Services, yeah. Well, to me the Old Ones look like younger ones: they’re smaller and sort of, uh, not so wrinkled in the area of the head and neck. Look sort of peeled. Well, they are peeled, I suppose you’d say: they shed layers of their skin when they age.”

    “That smooth one?”

    “In the red and white clingo-jamas, yeah.”

    “More a clingo-suit,” she said firmly.

    “Whatever blobs you up. Oh, you have to call the adults ‘Young’ if you’re being polite.”

    “I noticed that.” Dohra looked cautiously at the Old One again. “How thick is their skin?”

    “Uh…” His glance fell on her plate. “About twice the thickness of that grapefruit’s skin.”

    “That’s a lot to lose.”

    “Mm? Oh—yeah.” He finished his basin of spring water and reported aggrievedly: “I think that Meanker spiked my qwlot with nnru juice yesterday afternoon.”

    “Yeah? What did he spike your nnru juice with, BrTl?” retorted Dohra.

    He gave a bark of laughter and hurriedly stopped: the Old One at the next table had fallen off its chair. Very sorry! he sent.

    That’s all right! replied the members of its extended yoggr valiantly. It’s brightened it up!

    “Is a yoggr like an affinity group?” he asked thoughtfully.

    “What? Oh, is that a Maudur group? Um, I think it would be. I know they’re not mammals, and I don’t think they’re marsupials…They’re very pretty,” she said in a lowered voice.

    “You like frills, do you?” he said tolerantly. “Like on that Meanker’s head, if I remember rightly,” he added, less tolerantly.

    “Yes, um, I just like the look of them! –I wonder why they like red so much when they’re those lovely shades of tan themselves?”

    “I like green, and I’m not green,” he noted. “Oh, yeah: they’ve got red seas and a red sky on ZembZ, that’s their home planet—that’ll explain it. It is more or less o-breather, must be why they’re here, though the mixture on Level Red’d suit them better: much more nitrogen in it. But it’s all tourist halls.”

    “Isn’t that discrimination against non-tourist beings that want a nitrogen-rich atmosphere?” said Dohra, frowning over it.

    “Yes,” replied BrTl simply. “Well, wanna see how Trff’s getting on with the swiller’s blobs?”

    Dohra reddened. “They won’t let me look!”

    “Down the hyperdrive? I should hope not! Trff only lets me look when—” He broke off.

    “What?” said Dohra innocently.

    “Whatever that Meanker spiked those drinks with, it’s gone straight to the zortifac hgayllep’w+w,” he noted crossly. “Oh, sorry, didn’t that come over?” He blinked casually at her translator. “To the cerebral cortex,” he said kindly.

    “Um, I see,” said Dohra, wondering if that sort of burp between the two sort of “w” sounds had been meant to be there.

    “Yes,” he said calmly. “It’s a Slaetho-Xathpyrian post-dental stop.” He looked down at her hopefully. “You’d probably find it quite easy, with a bit of practice.”

    “I’m afraid I’m not much good at languages,” Dohra admitted. “What were you going to say about the hyperdrive?”

    “I wasn’t,” said BrTl firmly. “Trff doesn’t even let me look down it.”

    “What about when it’s off?”

    “You mean inactive. It’s never off, that’s IG-illegal,” he explained smoothly. She was now trying not to laugh. “Come on,” he said, carefully closing one eye at her.

    Dohra didn’t actually want to see Didg again so soon, especially after the Flppu’s extremely embarrassing depiction of her in its story. But on the whole it seemed easier not to try to explain this to BrTl; so she took the pseudopod he extended and accompanied him meekly to a very convenient lift-blob which descended at the speed of a Seeker going into hyperdrive to a view of splodgy green lubolyon.

    “Variegated,” he said firmly. “It’ll be easier if we go most of the way on this level.”

    “Yes,” agreed Dohra, looking wistfully up as a bubble-train whooshed across the immense concourse of Level Green about two hundred IG fluh above them.

    “Come on, hop up, the place is full of tourists busy wondering if they’re gonna miss their connections and beings in transit like us that don’t give a cptt-rvvr’s fart what you do.” He held out a hand invitingly.

    Oh, well, if he didn’t mind, what did it matter? She let him help her onto his back. Her feet stuck out in the most ridiculous way—his back was much too broad for her to be able to grip his sides with her legs—so she used the shoulder-flaps of his coveralls as stirrups.

    “That’s right,” said BrTl mildly. “Doesn’t matter: not in Space Fleet any more.”

    “No. Aren’t these Service Issue, though?”

    “No, those lieutenant’s bars on the flaps are Merchant Service. Oh: the Durocloth? It’s not Service greige, it’s grey-green: we happened across a load of it, uh, halfway between somewhere else,” he said airily.

    “I get it!”

    “Good. Set?”

    “Yes, thanks, BrTl. Um, don’t gallop in the concourse, will you?”

    “Gallop? You haven’t seen me gallop! But I won’t lope, either,” he conceded. “Off we go!” And he set off at a brisk—er, not so brisk as all that, walk.

    “NO!” she said sharply as they reached the tunnels and tubes.

    “But all the xathpyroids use moogletubes to slide—All right, I’ll lope,” he groaned. 

 

    As he spoke, another xathpyroid came up, sent airily: Having a lovely ride, Br-cognate? And disappeared down the indicated tube with a terrifying whoosh!

    “See? –All right, all right, don’t get off, we’ll take a nice wide tunnel. –That’ll mean we’ll have to take another lift-blob to get down to Level Yellow,” he warned.

    “I know that! Just go, BrTl, for Federation’s sake!”

    Sometimes she did put you forcibly in mind of his Captain, after all. Glumly he turned for the tunnel…

    “Are we here? Where’s the ship?” she gasped as he lifted her off his back.

    “I think it’s still there. I think there’s some sort of a vacuum-frozen Ju’ukrterian something around it.” TRFF!

    Come aboard, it replied happily.

    COME ABOARD WHAT?

    Oops! it replied happily. Suddenly the ship’s hatch appeared.

    BrTl was just going to send OPEN! very crossly indeed when it opened.

    “Come on,” he groaned. “This is either Didg’s ship, or a T,R,A,P set by the IG You-Know-What or the other IG-You-Know-What or even the Full College of You-Know-Whats, and in short, do we have an option?”

    “Stop it!” said Dohra with a loud laugh, scrambling aboard. “It’s a bit high, you have to—Oh,” she said, realising he didn’t, as he stepped aboard. “It’s plain, isn’t it?” she said in a lowered voice. “Workmanlike, of course.”

    “Eh? It’s not a plasmo-blasted pleasure cruiser, you know. They’re down with the drive—come on.” He set off. After a moment he stopped, let her catch up with him, detached the paw from the—ouch!—Durocloth coveralls and a piece of his leg, and grasped it with a pseudopod. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said mildly. “Trff might be a plasmo-blasted engineer, but it won’t let anything happen to you.”

    “No,” said Dohra in a small voice. “I’m not scared.”

    “Uh—so what’s Didg done?” he asked foggily as visions of castles and lady-beings in strange headgear and three-legged Slgrs and bracelets—was that a Nblyterian captain, and if so what in Federation was she doing in that lot?—swirled before his dazed mind’s eye.

    “Nothing. I thought he was just ordinary,” said Dohra grimly.

    “I’d call him pretty ordinary.”

    “He isn’t!” she hissed crossly. “His father’s one of those chiefs from DorAven!”

    “Ye-es… Um, father? Something to do with his yoggr?” he groped.

    “What? Oh: you’re thinking of Maudur groups. His family. It is like a Maudur yoggr, yes.”

    “Oh, right: like the being with the gold helmet in his story! I thought that castle looked draughty, actually,” he said mildly.

    Suddenly Dohra squeezed his pseudopod hard. “Yes, it did. What a nice being you are, BrTl!”

    “Thanks,” he said foggily. “Isn’t it good to have a father that’s a chief?”

    “Not to ordinary beings.”

    “Oh.” Her thoughts were so scrambled and there were so many strange concepts in there, not to say stories, that he gave up, and merely answered what seemed like—well, could have been—the essential point. “I think Didg likes you.”

    “I dare say he even likes me well enough for a fling,” said Dohra tightly.

    BrTl knew what those were: Jhl was always having them. Sometimes in twos, sometimes in threes, or fours or fives.

    “Fives?” said Dohra dazedly to his broadcast.

    “Yes. When there are more than five she calls it something else, not a number. Something that she thinks is funny, but I think you have to be a mammalian to appreciate the joke.”

    Orgy, sent Trff mildly. You-it does know that word, BrTl, it’s a thing that rich play-beings have when they all roll round on wtmyrian carpets or in whllubbly-gell baths or fluorogas baths or that sort of stuff, usually doing things with little tubes. Not to make other beings, just for fun.

    “Did you catch that?” he said: Dohra had given a startled laugh and clapped her free hand to her mammalian mouth.

    “Yes!” she gasped.

    “Is it right?”

    “Of course!” she said in astonishment.

    “It isn’t always, you know,” he said happily, carefully closing one eye at her. “It just believes it is. –Here we are,” he said as they came up to a large hatch. “Open!”

    Nothing.

    “In two IG microseconds,” threatened BrTl through the crunchers, “I am going to send—”

    You-it already has, it replied, allowing the hatch to open.

    Dohra shrank.

    “It’s all right: this isn’t the drive proper, this is just the place where they go when they want to brood over it. I’ll go first: spacers’ etiquette,” said BrTl kindly. 

 

    Cautiously Dohra stepped in after him. It was a plain chamber, not very big but more than big enough to hold several beings the size of BrTl, and like the ships’ companionways gave the strong impression that it was made from a tube of xrillion. Not polished xrillion.

    “It is,” said Trff, suddenly popping out of a smaller tube. “This is the drive. You-it can look down it if you-it likes, Dohra: it’s put a little shield round your-its head.”—Cautiously Dohra felt her head but she couldn’t feel anything there.—“You-it can’t feel it, no. And in any case the blobs are—you-it’d think of it as asleep. So would you-it, BrTl.”

    “Have you had any breakfast?’ replied BrTl on a grim note.

    “What? Oh, is it morning?” it replied as Dohra peered cautiously into the hyperdrive.

    Helpfully BrTl’s chrono-blob told it the time, IG-time.

    “So it is,” it said placidly. “What? Oh, yes: it ingested some fluid before it left the pod.”

    “Would this be Jhl-approved, nourishment-like fluid—”

    “Plain laa,” it said hurriedly.

    “Yeah, well, you-it can plasmo-blasted well come to lunch with us today, all the same.”

    “It has to—”

    “Trff,” said BrTl clearly, bending down to it: “it doesn’t have to anything, because it is not that DorAvenian’s ship’s engineer, it is our ship’s engineer and in case it’s forgotten, in Jhl’s absence the BrTl is ACTING CAPTAIN! –Vvlvanian curses,” he muttered as it shot across to the other side of the drive-chamber. “Sorry Trff, didn’t mean to, um, puff.”

    “And huff!” it replied jauntily, picking itself up and dusting off its fluff a bit—unnecessarily, the drive-chamber was spotless, so that mutant couldn't be as hopeless as he looked, well, knew enough to keep the ship’s tidy-blobs at it, anyway. “It sees: that ‘the BrTl’ rankled.”

    “Actually it rankled in quintupled 5-D triangles, if we’re gonna be strictly accurate.”

    “Yes. Sorry. When Jhl shot the ship into hyper-hop it was very… called upon,” it ended lamely.

    Very called upon. BrTl swallowed a sigh. “Yeah, all right, Trff. But just remember, you-it doesn’t skip meals. Goddit?”

    “Yes, sir,” it agreed, not the suggestion of an emanation about it. “Goddit.”

    Meanwhile Dohra was goggling down the hyperdrive. It looked…

    “Cosy,” said BrTl from behind her.

    “Yes!” she gasped. “Ooh!” she gulped as he suddenly stuck his head into the tube.

    “See all these?” he said, looking around at the blobs nestled cosily in—not boxes, or nests, exactly, but kind of, um, dimples, thought Dohra dazedly—dimples in the drive walls, which were not made of xrillion or anything like it.

    “Yes,” she agreed.

    “In that case it’s letting you see them. Can you see that some of them look sort of, um, different?”

    “Yes. More… blobby?” 

 

    “Puts it well,” approved BrTl. “More blobby and almost more important, though that’s an exaggeration. They’re the hyperblobs.”

    “Great splintered shards of quog,” said Dohra in awe. There were megazillions of them!

    “It is quite a big ship. I wouldn’t ask what that mutant’s doing down there, if I were you.”

    “No,” she agreed. Quite some way down the drive tube, Budg was lying comfortably on his back, emitting a kind of buzzing noise.

    “It is a happy noise, though a being could be excused for not perceiving that,” conceded BrTl.

    “I think it’s his version of a hum.”

    “It’s nothing like a Slaetho-Xathpyrian hum, but I’ll take your word for it. Well, that’s the drive!” he said cheerily. “Sometimes—oy, Trff! If I mention something to Dohra, is she gonna broadcast it to the whole of the IG You-Know-What and their swillers in the IG ditto and the plasmo-blasted Full You-Know-Whats and get us all sent to the magma pits on Vvlvania for life?”

    “No, she-it isn’t even going to remember it.”

    “What?” cried Dohra indignantly.

    “Good,” said BrTl simply. “Sometimes when it’s doing something highly IG-illegal like selecting choice blobbed-out blobs for recycling it lets me help pick them out of the drive: I can do it quite delicately with my teeth, see, and pouch them in my cheeks. You need to have a long neck to do it. Our drive isn’t quite as roomy as this one, mind you.”

    “Help! Don’t they do something to you?”

    “I’m not on Vvlvania yet! Oh, you didn’t mean Them. Sorry, that was my xathpyroid paranoia speaking. The blobs? No, Trff knows when it’s safe to pick them out. You can carry them in your pockets quite safely.”

    Yes. That's a good story, BrTl, but come out now.

    “Come on,” he said, withdrawing his neck.

    Regretfully Dohra followed suit. “If you carry them in your pocket don’t you run the risk of—” She stopped.

    “The risk of what?” said BrTl mildly.

    “What?” she replied blankly.

    That was quick. Well done, that Ju’ukrterian engineer! “So, can you do something with them in the time-frame available, that is, before Jhl’s due back?” he asked it genially.

    “It can ginger them up a bit. But that mutant hasn’t got the mind-power to keep them gingered up, so Didg is gonna have to get a refit job quite soon.”

    “Quite soon?” replied BrTl smoothly.

    “Within the next IG year.”

    “You do surprise me.”

    “The thing is,” said Trff glumly. “that DorAvenian doesn’t respect his-its blobs. They’re very fond of the mutant”—here BrTl eyed Dohra’s stunned expression with some amusement—“but it’s all he-it can do to nurse them along. They were tired when those two beings bought the ship.”

    “Uh-huh. –It’s all figures of speech when it goes on about blobs,” he said genially to Dohra, “but believe you me, that’s as clear as it’s gonna get. And at that, that’s only because Trff’s a Ju’ukrterian it-being that’s used to travelling round the galaxies with us. You wouldn’t get nearly that much sense out of any other engineer. Come on, I’d like to take a look at the bridge.”

    “Um, yes. Is Didg there, Trff?”

    “What? Oh—yes, he-it is. He-it and Budg have had breakfast,” it added to BrTl.

    “Not a need-to-know. We’ll see you-it when it’s time for lunch, and whatever you’re doing, be prepared to drop it.”

    “Not drop—Oh, figure of speech, very funny, hah, hah,” it said severely, pointing an antenna at him.

    At this point Dohra collapsed in agonised giggles, so BrTl propelled her shaking but apologising form bodily out of the drive-chamber.

    “It’s when it points its antenna!” she gasped apologetically.

    “I know. Lots of beings find it funny. Especially when it’s me it’s pointing it at. But you don’t need to apologise, it doesn’t mind if you laugh,” he said mildly. “Eh?” he said as she was waving an appendage at him. “Oh!” He shot out a pseudopod and let her hold it. Why she was emanating strong approval of him he wasn’t quite sure, but so long as she was happy—

    On the bridge Didg was discovered with his head in the Encyclopaedia. The entry under “Ju’ukrterian it-being.”

    “Oh, hullo,” he said foolishly, sending Off.

    “We’ve all been there, done that, in our time,” said BrTl mildly. “Enlightening, isn’t it?”

    “It doesn’t say anything about their ability with blobs!” he said dazedly. “Not a thing!”

    “No. Me and Jhl think that may be because it’s only the individual Trff that’s got that.”

    “But if one has, surely they all have? I mean, according to—” He waved feebly at the receiver.

    “Who knows? Another theory,” said BrTl cautiously, though with a Ju’ukrterian shield round the ship there was no need for caution, “is that the it-being has prevented the minds that own the Encyclopaedia, whoever They might be—don’t all speak at once—from perceiving that it’s got the slightest interest in blobs.”

    After a moment’s reflection Didg replied: “Good one.”

    “And so say all of us. May I?” He gestured at the co-pilot’s seat.

    Dohra gasped: “That seat’s too small—” And then saw it wasn’t.

    “This is a bridge you’re on,” BrTl reproved her mildly. “Ah; very sensible, Didg.”

    “Eh? Oh.”—BrTl had immediately read the restrictions, and the one course allowed.—“Uh, yeah. Well, better safe than sorry.”

    “Yeah. Could ask Trff to do some tinkering?” he suggested delicately.

    Didg blenched. “Can it, with humanoids?”

    “Mutants, isn’t it? Well, dunno. It’s done this and that with various beings, but that was because me or it or Jhl or all of us were in mortal danger from the beings in question. But afterwards they didn’t remember a thing!” he said happily.

    Didg swallowed and glanced at Dohra. “I see. Um, well, I’ll speak to Trff about Budg. So did you have a nice look at the drive, Dohra?”

    “Well, I saw the room, but of course I wasn’t allowed to look down the drive!” she said happily. “It’s all very neat and clean, isn’t it?”

    Didg rolled an enquiring eye at BrTl.

    Expunged, sent the xathpyroid happily.

    Uh-huh. He took a look. It was expunged, all right. And—was it his imagination, or did everything seem a little brighter and clearer and—

    “Stop that!” said Dohra indignantly.

    Yeah, brighter was the word. What’s it done to her? he asked BrTl frantically. 

 

    Expu—Oh. Don’t know that I'd say she had a mind like a boo-bird, exactly, Didg, swiller. I’d say it’s tinkered—um, cleaned her up a bit—brought out some potential. It likes her because she relates to her culture-pans, you see. Eh? Not ethical? Well, no, Didg, me and Jhl realised light-years back that it hasn't really got an ethical sense. Usually it pretends to, though. “That’s better, isn't it, Dohra?” he said kindly.

    “I seem to be picking you both up a lot more than before,” she said dazedly.

    “Yeah. If you practise that a bit you’ll be much safer in spaceport bars and sim-lounges and so forth,” he said kindly.

    “It isn’t a matter of reading beings’ thoughts!” she retorted scornfully. “I can tell if someone’s horrid!”

    “Mostly, yeah. Not if they’re real good at hiding it though, Sweet Cheese. And spaceport bars are usually full of beings who specialise in just that,” said Didg. “Take that Friyrian sitting with that blue-crested Nblyterian merchant service C.P.O. in the bar last night, that you were admiring.”

    She reddened. “I merely thought they looked very striking! And you don't often see a blue-crested Nblyterian. And our C.P.O.’s a Nblyterian, too, that’s why I was interested.”

    “Yeah. Anyway, the Friyrian’s a slave-trader, and in between wondering what the Feeny-Argyllians’d let their Flppu go for and if he could manage to get it off them—and slitting paired throats in lift-blobs did come into it, yeah—he was wondering what he’d get for you, Sweet Cheese. And before you start, the Nblyterian was reading him, and far from being horrified or wanting to do anything to protect you, she was merely amused. I know you thought they looked respectable: that’s my point.”

    “All right, you know everything!” said Dohra in a very annoyed voice.

    “No, but I know a fair bit about the sort of beings that hang round spaceport bars. —Did they seem to be making progress with the drive, BrTl?”

    “Dunno. Budg was in there, buzzing—asleep. The blobs were asleep, too.”

    “Um, yeah, Trff did that a while back. Think you’d call it a mind-symb, though I never thought the swiller had anything you could call a mind in the first place. Trff assured me the blobs like him, and he was helping. Anything else?”

    “Not really. The blobs looked sort of placid,” he offered.

    “That sounds better! First time it looked down there it sort of tut-tutted, well, more hooting—oh, ya know that noise,” he recognised in some relief. “Yeah. And it said the blobs were very tired and I oughta have more consideration for them.”

    “Don’t worry, it tells Jhl that all the time!” said BrTl breezily. “Engineers are all like that: if they had their druthers we’d sit round admiring our tails while they communed with the blobs in a state of total no-go!” 

 

    “Uh—right.”

    “Sorry. Forgot you haven’t got a tail, swiller!”

    Didg grinned at him. “That’s a compliment! ‘Lie round twiddling our toes,’ we say on DorAven.”

    “Really? We say ‘sit round playing on our nose-flutes’ on C’T’rea,” said Dohra. “Um, it’s an old C’T’rean instrument. These days only the kids make them; out of, um, reeds. That’s like a plant with kind of tubes for leaves,” she added, as they were both emanating total blankness. “Green,” she added for BrTl’s benefit, though without hope.

    “Oh! Tube-grass, why didn’t you say so in the first place! I see, it’s smaller on your world,” he added, getting the picture. “Have you got it on DorAven, Didg?”

    “Ye-ah. Sort of. Turquoise. Ours must be tougher, we use it for arrows. Yuell rushes, not reeds or tube-grass,” he said, grinning at them. “Nothing new in the Known Universe, right?”

    “Right!” they agreed.

    Then a sort of silence fell. BrTl looked happily round the bridge, apparently not picking up the fact that his humanoid companions were feeling uncomfortable. Didg got out a shin-knife and inspected its blade very carefully. Dohra fidgetted a bit.

    Eventually, since no-one else seemed to be to about to utter, Didg said weakly: “So, um, whatcha got planned for this morning?”

    BrTl twitched slightly and came out of the daze in which he’d been planning exactly how to improve it if it was his ship. “Eh? Oh! Well, uh, this.”

    “Um, yes,” agreed Dohra in a small voice. “I suppose we couldn’t look at the hold?”

    Didg smiled weakly. “I’ve had it decontaminated but it still stinks. I don’t think you’d like it.”

    “Dead plush-moss? I should think not!” said BrTl forcefully, shuddering. “Oops!” he gasped as the seat’s straps snapped closed round him like a dendrion nut.

    “Sorry, swiller,” said Didg on a weak note. “Set for Budg.” Straps off!

    “Thanks. –I’d say the hold’s out, Dohra. For about half an IG year, if the smell’s even a fraction as bad as the time a load of plush-moss died on me. Well, um, nice wander round the boutiques?”

    Dohra waited but Didg didn't say anything about it’d be nicer if she stayed here, or anything. “Yes,” she said grimly. “That’d be nice, BrTl; that’s really thoughtful of you.”

    Didg cleared his throat.  “Look, I can’t come. I know Trff could do it all by itself with all appendages tied behind it—that isn’t the point; it’s my ship.”

    “Yeah, the captain can’t desert his ship when a strange engineer’s tinkering with its blobs,” said BrTl mildly, getting up. “Or his swiller, when it’s flat out down the drive. See you at lunchtime, then, swiller. Or put it like this: if you haven’t hoiked Trff out of the drive and hauled it along for lunch by ten IG minutes past IG midday, I’ll be right back here. I’ve told it that it’s not to skip meals just because it’s out from under Jhl’s eye. –Come on, Dohra.”

    And the two departed, hand-in-pseudopod, before Didg could gather his wits and say he’d escort them to the hatch.

    “Mok shit,” he muttered sourly.

    Dohra was very silent during the journey back to the concourse and didn't even remark on BrTl’s taking a short detour via a moogletube. Eventually it penetrated that something was up. He looked cautiously. Was that all? Why make such a fuss about a bit of repro stuff? Jhl usually just told the other being that she wanted to do it—if it hadn’t already told her.

    “All right, I’m dim,” she said grimly.

    “Sorry: didn’t mean to send. But it’s always seemed pretty simple to me.”

    “It is if that’s all you want,” said Dohra grimly.

    “Oh, I see: bond-partnership?” he said on a horrified note.

    “Not necessarily. Well, not necessarily with him,” said Dohra, scowling horribly. BrTl didn’t react and she added defiantly: “And what’s so awful about bond-partnership?”

    “Uh—well, xathpyroids don't go in for it. But in Jhl’s mind the concept’s down there just above Vvlvanian magma pits and rr’trrs tied to the tail, and such-like. Sort of next to confinement on Mullgon’ya for life.” 

 

    “Yes, well, she’s a captain!” said Dohra angrily. “I’m not!”

    “Um, well, you could learn to do a bit more with your mind-powers, you know. And to be a bit more adventurous with blobs.”

    “I like being a cook,” she warned.

    “Aim at being a First Cook?” he offered.

    “Um, you have to do the Advanced Training Course,” said Dohra in a small voice.

    “Well, you could aim at that. I mean, you did the Basic Cuh—Oh, no, of course not. Galloping grqwary gizzards! This Shohn-being’s a bit of a blob-wizard, isn’t he?” he said admiringly. “Never seen a prettier job outside Turgilor’s Bar & Grill in Thrbsh City on Sfthnyxer.”

    “Is that a joke?” demanded Dohra dangerously.

    “No! Old Turgilor’s a Slgr—well, crookedness of any kind comes naturally to ’em, maybe it goes with the three legs, not to be anything-ist—and it sells the best fake IG ID in the Known Universe.”

    “Oh. Sorry. I would quite like to be a First Cook, but would my credentials be good enough to get me in?”

    BrTl repressed an urge to tug at his collar while simultaneously scratching that itch behind his right shoulder-blade with a hind leg. The spaceport tunnels of the third moon of Pkqwrd were spacious enough, but it wouldn’t be advisable with her sitting up there. “They might not look at them that closely.”

    “And Mklontia might not stink!” retorted Dohra smartly.

    “Hah, hah,” he said limply. “No, but look at it logically. What’s the betting that a being would want to fake cook’s credentials, and then, having secured itself a nice job on a pleasure-cruiser, risk the lot by—Ya see?”

    “Um, yes. I suppose it’s worth a try. I mean, what can they do to me, after all?”

    Well, it wouldn’t be suspended by the tail head-first over a Vvlvanian magma pit, because she didn’t have a tail. Apart from that, almost anything went. “Er, well, a fair few things, if you read up on the relevant Act,” he admitted.

    “Maybe if I save up my pay I could afford to do a commercial advanced cook’s course. From a really good college,” she said on a wistful note.

    Really good colleges were apt to look at one’s dokko, but at least the beings that got told off to look weren’t IG Militia or Space Patrol. “Yeah. Good one,” he agreed in relief.

    “Look, there’s a lift-blob: shall we take that one?” said Dohra eagerly.

    BrTl helped her down, eyeing its sign cautiously.

Public Lift-Blob. FREE Inter-Level Transport. (IG. Reg. Approved. ISLA Standard.) Choose Your Level Before Entering. Entry Onto This Blob Constitutes a Waiver of Your Personal/Group Rights under the Intergalactic Personal/Group Being Physical Safety Rights Act. Available Levels: PURPLE (CHARGES APPLY), INDIGO (CHARGES APPLY), Red, SILVER (VIP PASS OR TOURIST PASS MANDATORY), BLUE, TURQUOISE, PINK, APRICOT, GREEN

    “It’ll be slow,” he said temperately. “Wanna go back to Level Pink and look at the Tourist Halls again?”

    “Not really. Could we go up to Level Blue?”

    “It isn’t an o-breather level,” he warned.

    “I know. But won’t my FW pack cope with it?”

    ”Uh—just come behind this nice green pillar for a moment.”

    The pillar appeared to be holding up Level Green’s ceiling, so it was quite substantial. Meekly Dohra followed him. BrTl stood her between his bulk and the pillar and had a really good look at her FW pack.

    “Ooh!” she gasped. “That tickles!”

    “Just stand still. –Vacuum-frozen piece of space junk,” he muttered. “Hang on.” He felt in a pocket of his coveralls.

    Suddenly Dohra gave a desperate cough.

    “Oh, morning, Sar’t-Major,” he said easily to the large being in the distinctive red-trimmed white IG Militia uniform with its visor down.

    “Morning to you, xathpyroid cognate,” it replied drily. “I’ll see your dokko. Huh. Lieutenant-Pilot, eh? Where’s your captain?”

    “On a Wavey-Spacey secondment to a pluh—to a diplo thing on, um, a world that’s coming into Fed. B-something. Um… Btcx?”

    “Oh, yeah? And where’s your ship?”

    “Like that says, Sar’t-Major,” said BrTl, trying to sound both firm and respectful. “In tow. Headed for the refit shops on Sfthnyxer.”

    “Yeah. Well, try to stay out of the cells.” It turned to Dohra. “Third Cook, eh? What are you doing on Level Green?”

    “I’m with him,” said Dohra in a small voice. “Um, he’s very kindly been letting me sleep on his pod, and, um, we’re just going upstairs.”

    “See ya do, this mixture isn’t suitable for humanoids,” it said severely. “Get up to Level Pink, that’s safe.”

    “Yes, sir,” said Dohra meekly.

    “Don’t ‘sir’ me, humanoid, I’m a sergeant-major,” it said very drily indeed. “Go on, here’s the lift-blob.”

    Meekly Dohra and BrTl got onto the lift-blob.

    “Whuh-what was it?” she quavered.

    “Sar’t-Major, like it said. IG Militia. Red trim on the uniform.”

    “Yes, um, not that!” she gasped.

    “Not sure,” he admitted. “Well, it was bigger than me, it was IG Militia, it had its visor down and a blaster on what was possibly its hip, and that thing on its other side wasn’t a jolly-lolly on a stick: that was more than enough for me!”

    “Was it a probe?” she croaked.

    “What else?”

    Dohra gulped.

    “Think it might have been a Mullannakwai. They’re about as big as Thwurbullerians without the superior mind-powers, and thank the Federation for it!”

    Dohra nodded fervently.

    Level Pink, announced the lift-blob. O-breather. Sim-lounges, bar, ISLA Kiddy-Kinder—charges apply—fine selection of boutiques. Access to Tourist Halls by Tourist Pass only.

    “We’ll get off here, shall we?” he said politely.

    “Yeah,” she agreed glumly, following him off.

    You’re welcome. Have a nice day.

    “Thank you, Lift-blob,” said Dohra glumly.

    You’re welcome. Have a nice day.

    BrTl waited until it had risen s-l-o-w-l-y to the level of his ear before explaining kindly: “That was a ruse, just in case that Sar’t-Major checks up. Come on, we’ll just duck into that humanoid boutique: you can try stuff on and I’ll come into the changing room with you!”

    “I think its ceiling might be a bit low, BrTl.”

    “I'll stoop.” Happily he led the way.

    The boutique was called With-Its Of Whtyll, though as BrTl pointed out there was very little that was Whtyllian about it: the being in charge was a humanoid, true, but if he was a Whtyllian then he, BrTl, was a Kr-cognate with his crunchers fallen out. There was nothing feminine about it, either, it stocked only male humanoid wear, but when the whiskered sales-being tried to point this out Dohra said firmly: “There’s an IG law against that, isn’t it called discrimination?” And the being shut up like a dendrion nut. 

 

    “That one wasn’t even humanoid,” noted BrTl as they retired to the changing rooms. He bared his teeth politely at a small humanoid that came out of one as he spoke. Water immediately poured from its eyes, and it rushed out of the boutique, wailing.

    “You scared that boy,” noted Dohra dispassionately.

    “Yeah, I tend to have that effect on immature beings. Never mind, it’s already deciding to boast about it to its yoggr members.” He squeezed into the changing room. It was just about big enough to hold him, provided he bent his neck excruciatingly—ow! However, he couldn’t turn round, and there was no room for Dohra. But this didn’t really matter, as the sales-being was now lying on the floor with its four appendages in the air, and the being in charge was sobbing into a large bunch of senso-tissues. Green—quite a nice shade. “I'll back out—look out.” He backed out. “You go in.”

    “I get it!” Happily Dohra went in and BrTl, still with his neck bent excruciatingly, and effectively blocking the view of the changing room, should the weeping owner or its supine assistant have wished to look, produced a hyperblob from a pocket of his coveralls and applied it to her FW pack. Immediately she gave a shriek and went into a terrific giggling fit. –The boutique owner was still sobbing but also broadcasting: “Ugh, they’re doing it.” “It” not defined verbally but the concept was clearly repro stuff.

    “That tickled like anything!” she gasped.

    “Yeah. That’ll do you.”

    “Thank you very much!” said Dohra, beaming.

    “Any time.” He backed off with due caution. “Thanks, sobbing being,” he said, unlocking his weeny change purse. “Have a—Oh. Well, thanks anyway.”

    “Thank you so much. I won’t take these pants after all: I think the pockets might be uncomfortable to sit on, but they are lovely: they’re the most pockety pants I ever saw!” said Dohra kindly, holding them out.

    Still sobbing, the owner took them numbly.

    “It’s all right, we’re going. Oh: did any being ever tell you that Whtyllians don’t actually wear pants like— Never mind,” he said as Dohra’s mind-message reached him. “They’re rather nice. Pity you haven’t got them in my size: those pockets’d be useful. Thanks anyway.”

    “You’re welcome. Have a nice day,” the being croaked automatically.

    “He was humanoid, wasn’t he?” said Dohra in a low voice as they retreated to the lift-blobs.

    “Maybe a bit of something else, but pretty much. Not Whtyllian, though.”

    “I see. What about the one that fell down?”

    “It was a tweaked being. I think, though I could be wrong, that it was a tweaked Whtyllian cat—talking of Whtyllian beings.”

    “Like, a mutant?” she fumbled. 

 

    “Not like Budg: that happened to him before he left the culture-pod. Um, whatever it is you use. No, that being had been tweaked by some being that fancied itself as a Full Surgeon, if you ask me. It’d be a black-market one, but tweaking is IG-legal if you’ve got the right permit. They do a lot of it on Little Fester. You won’t have heard of it, it’s out beyond Blerrinbrig’s System. Completely owned and operated by Custom Critters Incorporated, a guess what? Friyrian-Mklontian consortium.”

    “Fester,” said Dohra grimly, “is a good name for it.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed mildly, taking her paw in a pseudopod.

    After a few moments she admitted: “That’d explain the whiskers.”

    “Eh? Oh, the Whtyllian cat-being! Yeah.”

    “It didn’t have a bracelet, though.”

    “You’re right. Well, that boutique owner can’t be all bad, then.”

    “No. What a pity I couldn’t afford a pair of those pants, J'nno’d really like them.”

    “Yeah, the pockets were good,” he agreed comfortably.

    And they got onto a free public lift-blob and rode s-l-o-w-l-y up to Level Blue in a state of perfect harmony.

    “Isn’t it exotic?” said Dohra pleasedly.

    “Um—yeah. Well, blue.”

    “Yes, it’s very blue! I didn’t expect it to be this bright blue: I thought it’d be paler—more like a Wynonian Bugler.” Dohra tilted her head back and looked up into the wide blue spaces of Level Blue’s concourse. “The bubble-trains up there seem to sort of glow,” she said admiringly. “It almost looks like sunlight coming through over there—see?”

    BrTl looked in some alarm, fearing a Spaceport Emergency was about to happen. “Oh—yeah, it is,” he said weakly. “That’s a kind of port, um, window, and that’d be KG2976A. Pkqwrd’s sun, geddit?”

    “Yes,” said Dohra, looking at him in awe.

    “It is my subject,” he said mildly. “That sort of ledge up there under the window, that’s a kind of mezzanine, with a bar on it, but since this is an ISLA spaceport, it’s a mega-expensive bar for A-Class tourists, I’m afraid, Dohra.”

    “Oh, well! Let’s go up there and have a Thwurbullerian-size basin of nnru juice each!”

    “Yeah,” he agreed, squeezing her paw gently with his pseudopod. “Never mind, there’s a nice plain blue ISLA bar, too.”

    “Of course. But let’s look at the boutiques first!” Eagerly she headed off into the blue h-breather atmosphere of Level Blue. It wasn’t very busy: BrTl followed slowly in her wake. His neck-hair was really enjoying filtering h-breather atmosphere for a change. What with Jhl being an o-breather, he’d almost forgotten he was o/h. He didn’t bother to point out that the boutiques wouldn’t be essentially different from those on Level Pink; she was gonna find that out for herself soon enough.

    “Ooh, what’s this?” she gasped.

    What its sign said, in a flowing yellow script that was just on the far side of nauseating, was “Teetl Tae Toppers, Your Freindly Franchise, Iicensed Prop. Anje’pp-Fdawqi’ G,” but BrTl's guess would have been that if rendered into something more nearly approaching Standard Intergalactic it would have read “Teetl Toe Toppers” and “Friendly Franchise.” And quite possibly “Licensed,” though on second thoughts that one could well be a deliberate misspelling.

    “That's ‘Toe Toppers’,” he explained tolerantly. “It’s a toe-cropping joint.”

    “That’s really weak!” said Dohra indignantly.

    “No, honest! It’s for Honnoyers—see?” he said as a couple of thin, deep indigo beings went in.

    Dohra was transfixed. “Aren’t they knobby?” she hissed.

    “Yeah, good word for them. See, their toes are like that, too: very knobby, and they keep growing, and when they get too long they trip over them. So they have to have them cropped.”

    “Asteroids of Hhum! Does it hurt?”

    “Uh—dunno. They have it done quite often, so maybe it doesn’t. Well, it hurt like Federation when I had a toe-cropper have a go at my bunions once—well, the being made me a really good offer, and the credit account was looking really sick, so—Anyway, Jhl was furious,” he ended glumly.

    “When she found you couldn’t walk? I'm not surprised!”

    “I could walk. The bunions were only on two of my feet. But they wouldn’t heal and—Well, we ended up going to Oononia—you’d like it, actually, it’s very smelly—I don’t mean that, I mean, uh—scented! Yes, a very scented world.” 

 

    “Ooh, from all the flowers they grow for their perfumes and chemo-blobs and stuff! Of course!”

    “Yeah, that’s it.”

    “So did you buy a chemo-blob to fix them?”

    “Yuh—uh, think it was a chemo-blob; anyway, an Oononian blob, and it cost an Oononian fortune. It fixed them, all right, only then it blobbed out and even Trff couldn’t re-blob it: Jhl wasn’t too pleased. So she said that if one of the plasmo-blobs that we use for emergencies in space wouldn’t do the job next time they started playing me up, I could plasmo-blasted-well suffer.”

    “I’m sure she didn't mean it,” said Dohra kindly.

    “Of course she meant it! Another toe started playing up not two IG days before she got her Wavey-Spacey call-up and I got no sympathy at all!”

    “Was that something about soaking your bunions when you were supposed to be on duty?”

    “You are getting better at reading me,” he said gloomily. “Yeah. Tore a strip off me.”

    “It served you right.”

    “Yeah, yeah. Wanna look at another boutique?”

    Dohra looked hopefully at the toe-cropping boutique but its window remained veiled in a misty yellow glow. “Well, um, how long does it take?”

    “Depends on what sort of jelly snake the Iicensed Prop’s offering today, really. Not a real snake, Dohra, it’s a thing Honnoyers like to chew. It’s not bad: savoury. You wouldn’t like it, it’s an h-breather thing. But chewing it’s a social activity, you see. They may be quite a while.”

    “Come on, then!” she said cheerfully.

    And they moved on…

    “Worms?” said Dohra dazedly, peering into the window of a small food boutique. “Need A Noodle Now, ISLA Licence 742Z 169,723,894,571,” so it was probably—well, possibly—a safe place for a being to eat, provided the food was suited to the metabolism. The window was entirely filled with smallish metal containers of—well, worms. They were certainly wriggling. They ranged in colour from pale yellow through to a deep tan, apart from a row of inky black ones that were wider and fatter than the others.

    “Joddum noodles. Quite a delicacy. I don’t like them, but Jhl says they’re good. Lots of different sizes, see? They serve them with little bowls of sauce and, um, something bluish, some sort of vegetable. No, not cooked, Dohra: as they are. From W’nntrania Two, it’s in Athlor Kadry’s System. This IG year’s a bad year to go, though, Wo-J’n Dymman’s Comet’s due, and the place’ll be crammed with tourists.”

    “I see,” said Dohra, watching with interest as a masked and gloved being reached into the window and delicately spooned a helping of thin bright orange Joddum noodles into the small bowl it was carrying, topping them up with a few medium-sized black ones.

    “The trick there,” said BrTl, flattening his noses to the window, “is to eat them before the black ones can eat the others.”

    “Ugh!”

    “Yeah, well, not to every being’s taste, but whatever blobs you up.”

    “Ye-es… Jhl eats them?”

    “Mm? Yes. –Bother, I once saw a sales-being accidentally drop a black one into a bowl of yellow ones without noticing what it’d done. It was really exciting.” He stood back, sighing. “Never mind. Come on, let’s see what’s next.”

    They strolled on. Garment boutiques. Slightly different physiologies were involved but all the claims were lies, just like back on Level Pink, and even though this wasn’t the Tourist Hall all the prices were outrageous. Beverage bars. Dead ringers for Bevvi’s Bevvies. Fortunately Dohra’s blobbed-up FW pack told her that fluorogas shakes were not suited to her metabolism, so BrTl didn't have to. She watched with breathless interest as, having ascertained it was real fluorogas, he raised a madly bubbling and smoking glassful of pale green…

    “Aah!” he sighed. “Haven’t had a good fluorogas shake since Athlor Kadry was a pup!”

    “No… Um, does Jhl let you have them?”

    “Let!” he said indignantly. “She’s not my keeper, you know!”—BURP!—“Pardon,” he said lamely. “They do tend to have that effect. Er, well I admit they're not awfully popular on the ship, no.” BURP!

    “I see.”

    BURP!

    Dohra began to shake helplessly.

    BURP!

    “Stop!” she gasped. Tears oozed out of her eyes.

    BURP! “I can’t stop,” he admitted. BURP!

    “Thank—you!” gasped Dohra as the sales-being rushed up with a bunch of senso-tissues.

    “Xathpyroids always do that!” it assured her in a very high-pitched voice.

    BURP! BURP!

    “I see! Sorry!” she gasped, blowing her nose.

    “We once had a xathpyroid customer that made that noise forty-four times after a fluorogas shake,” it said proudly.

    “Don’t!” howled Dohra.

    BURP! BrTl got up. “Don’t mind her: she’s a humanoid, she can’t help it. That was a great shake: set me up for the next IG-month! Thanks, shake-seller!” 

 

    “Thank you, xathpyroid cognate!” it squeaked.

     BURP! BURP! BrTl grabbed Dohra’s elbow with a pseudopod. “Come on.” BURP!

    “Thank you! Sorry!” she gasped, allowing him to lead her out.

    “It’s not that”—BURP!—“funny,” he said crossly.

    “I can see—why Jhl—doesn’t encourage them—on the ship!” she gasped.

    “Yeah, hah, hah.” BURP! “Come on, there’s a clutch of guessing-games down here—and need I warn you,”—BURP!—“pardon me—need I warn you, don’t play any of them?”

    “No!” gasped Dohra helplessly.

    The first little guessing-game booth was attended by a plump being in a striped garment which matched its booth’s awning. Red and green, quite a contrast to the bright blue surroundings. It appeared to be asleep.

    “A BonkoDong: strictly nocturnal,” said BrTl tolerantly, perceiving she’d never come across one before.

    That’s a pity, I like its ears, she sent carefully.

    BURP! “Vvlvanian curses, thought they’d worn off. Uh—ears, was that?”

    “Mm,” she said, nodding hard. EARS!

    “Don’t roar, I can pick you up!” He looked dubiously at the BonkoDong’s ears. Round, rather furry, the fur very fringed at the outer edges—oh. Her frills thing again.

    “No! They’re round and—and lovely! But not frilled!” said Dohra indignantly.

    “All right, not frilled. But nothing short of a Spaceport Emergency’ll wake it up, so come on.”

    The next booth-holder was awake, though without customers. She was a Lirriot from McAlpine’s Planet, and Dohra, who had learnt about the mammalian humanoid McAlpine and his legendary space explorations in Final-Year First School, looked at her with great interest. Sure enough, she had the round, binocular, black-nosed, blue-grey furred face and the small greyish antennae shown in the school text-blob, and on her sweeping blue-grey tail there was a clutch of young ones. Unlike the Lirriot in the text-blob, however, she was extremely well dressed and wore an ingratiating smirk on the wide Lirriot mouth.

    That’s a mammalian myth. Xathpyroids were on that world IG millennia before humanoids ever set a mammalian toe there. “Just looking, thanks, Lirriot Queen,” said BrTl quickly.

    “Why not chance your luck, xathpyroid cognate?” she replied ingratiatingly. –Dohra jumped slightly: she had a very harsh, grating voice.

    It’s even worse, not to be anything-ist, without your translator. “Not today, thanks,” he said cheerfully.

    “What sort of game is it?” asked Dohra shyly. In front of the Lirriot was a small counter with a series of bowl-shaped depressions in it. Each of these contained one coloured bead.

    Doesn’t matter, you’re not gonna win! sent BrTl drily.

    “Guess which bead will hit the dooney-lolla first, little humanoid queen!” replied the Lirriot brightly, the smile becoming even more ingratiating.

    Dohra blushed and smiled. “I’m not a queen, though thank you for the compliment, Lirriot Queen.”

    “What? Haven’t reproduced your species?” replied the Lirriot in shocked tones. “But you are a mature being, aren’t you? Well! Tt-tt-tt-tt!”

    That isn’t a tut-tut like you're thinking, that’s a laugh, warned BrTl. Uh—titter?

    Stop sending, BrTl, what if she picks you up? “No, um, not yet,” she said politely to the stall-holder. “Pardon me, but what is a dooney-lolla?”

    “This, of course,” replied the Lirriot, holding up a strange instrument made of silver wire and strung with many little shiny beads.

    It’s got a blob in it that’ll pick up your guess and—

    Shut UP, BrTl! “How much is it for one go, please?”

    “Only half an ig, little sterile female. If your bead wins, you get two igs!”

    Dohra went very red but didn’t try to explain that she wasn’t sterile or that humanoid reproductive customs were a bit different from Lirriot ones. “Oh, well, I can afford that! I’d like one go, please.”

    “Choose your bead on this blob, please—don’t show it to me!” warned the Lirriot in a sprightly manner, handing over a small blob on which the coloured beads in the bowls were marked.

    That there blob’ll be sending your choice to that other blob in that instru—

    I’m not listening! Carefully Dohra, shielding the blob from his sardonic gaze with one hand, prodded the yellow bead choice.

    “Now, watch!” grated the Lirriot. “I raise the dooney-lolla! Come to the dooney-lolla, little beads! Let the little sterile humanoid female’s choice be the first bead!”

    Nothing happened. Dohra stared hard at the beads in the bowls.

    “Concentrate, little sterile female! Send your bead to the dooney-lolla!”

    This is a complete load of mok shit. 

 

    Shut UP, BrTl! Dohra concentrated fiercely.

    “The beads are rising—the beads are rising—Oops! Concentrate, little sterile female! Send your bead to the dooney-lolla!”

     Dohra concentrated fiercely on the beads, ignoring the fact that another being had come up to BrTl’s other side and was also sending This is a complete load of mok shit.

    “The beads are rising—the beads are rising!”

    Dohra watched, mesmerised, as the beads rose a little, fell a little, rose a little more—“My bead’s winning!” she cried. “Come on, bead!”

    The yellow bead approached the dooney-lolla, about two bead-lengths in front of the pink one. The red one was gaining—it had overtaken the pink one—No, the blue one was rising fast—the blue one was overtaking the yellow one—the yellow one was going backwards! Dohra’s face fell as the blue bead touched the dooney-lolla, there was a loud PING! and all the other beads fell back into their bowls.

    “The blob, please,” said the Lirriot briskly. “Yellow,” she ascertained pleasedly, holding it so they could see it. “Sorry, you lose!”

    “Just fancy,” said BrTl.

    “Don’t be such a grouch, it was fun!” said Dohra with a laugh.

    “It was a crock, you mean,” said the newcomer.

    “Yeah. A crock of mok shit,” agreed BrTl.

    “Pooh! For half an ig, it was worth it!” said Dohra forcefully. “Thank you so much, Lirriot Queen,” she added politely.

    “Have another go, little sterile female; your luck could change,” she grated ingratiatingly, removing the blue bead from the dooney-lolla and dropping it back into its bowl.

    “Thank you very much, but I don’t think I will.”

    In that case, sent BrTl drily, she’s gonna try to sell you a pup.

    “Then perhaps I can interest you in a delightful Lirriot lirrilop?”—Yeah: lirrilop, that’s it, agreed BrTl smugly.—“Or half a dozen?” She waved at the six lirrilops snugly ensconced on her beautiful sweeping tail.—“I’ve got plenty.”

    “Nuh—uh—I couldn't deprive you of your children!” gasped Dohra in horror.

    For the appropriate number of igs, you could deprive her of her tail, sent the newcomer sardonically.

    “I’m due to have another lot. Only ten igs each,” grated the Lirriot ingratiatingly.

    Cheap, noted the newcomer.

    While Dohra, now bright red, was gasping desperately: “No, really! I mean, they’re lovely, but I couldn’t!” a second Lirriot appeared through the colourful curtain that veiled the inner recesses of the stall. This one was much smaller and had only a thin, rather mangy-looking tail, and in sharp contrast to the Lirriot Queen, who was dressed in a lovely multicoloured garment, elaborately wound and looped up with beautiful little silver blobs, it was wearing grimy coveralls.

    “That’s too cheap for these beautiful lirrilops, my Queen,” it chirped in a little, high voice.

    “Keep out of this, Consort!” she snapped. “Get back in there and finish that cleaning!”

    Veiling its face with an appendage in what was pretty clearly a gesture of submission, the second Lirriot vanished behind the curtain.

    Dohra had clapped her hand to her mouth: the mangy-looking Lirriot must be the stall-holder’s bond-partner!

    “Useful for one thing only,” she grated harshly. “Like all males.” She directed what Dohra didn’t kid herself wasn’t a baleful look at BrTl and the being on his farther side. “Nothing to stop you putting bracelets on these lirrilops, little sterile female, if you like! And one of them’s a female: she’s useless at the moment, but when she matures she could be your heir!”

    “Um, no, I’m very sorry, but humanoid customs are different,” croaked Dohra. BrTl, do something! she sent desperately.

    Um, what? Ten igs is cheap, are you sure you don’t—Oh. No. Sorry. “Shall we move on?” he suggested.

    “Yes, let’s!” she gasped. “Thank you so much! Good-bye!” she gasped.

    “Nine and a half igs each—a real bargain!” urged the Lirriot.

    Don’t reply, warned BrTl, grabbing her with a pseudopod and dragging her away.

    The other being, a thin, dark, tall bipedal being with what Dohra now saw were wings, not the black cloak she had at first assumed them to be, was strolling along beside them. “Mind if I join you? It’s quite a new experience, seeing the guessing-games through humanoid eyes.”

    “Innocent humanoid eyes, I think you mean, Hawtree,” said BrTl heavily. He’d already had a quick check, and for beings encountered casually in front of guessing-game booths this male Hawtree was all right. Well, had quite a decent shield up, and was a qualified Pilot, having been kicked out of Space Fleet not long after he graduated for trying to—make that for getting caught trying to—wager his IG ID in a game of pkwr in a spaceport dive on Huyajhangwania. Gorbolliwchz’s H/O Bar & Grill: BrTl knew it quite well. “Join us by all means.”

    “Thanks. I’m Fweee-ah, nest name Weee-ah, flight name Zwheee; call me Fweee-ah,” said the Hawtree amiably.

    “Thanks, Fweee-ah. I’m BrTl. Call me BrTl. This humanoid is W’t, Dohra B’Jn.”

    “Hullo, Fweee-ah!” gasped Dohra. “Please call me Dohra!”

    “Glad to meet you, Dohra,” he said, looking at her with what, even though his facial expression didn't change, Dohra felt very strongly was considerable curiosity mixed with amusement. “I’m a Hawtree. Avian. Oviparous, not viviparous like you.”

    Dohra hadn’t known she was. “Am I?” she said lamely.

    BrTl took a look. “Ugh, yeah, so you are: like that Lirriot, how disgus—Forget I said that!”

    “Yes, of course, only what is it?” she asked.

    “Uh—” He looked desperately at Fweee-ah.

    “We lay eggs—not me personally, I’m a male,” he said amiably to Dohra. “But your nestlings are laid without eggshells.”

    “Y—Oh! Of course, how stupid of me. I've just never had to use the word before.”

    “Viviparous,” repeated the Hawtree.

    “Mm.”

    “You are a female, are you, Dohra?”

    “Yes, that’s right,” she agreed, smiling at him.

    “And are you sterile?”

    “No!” she gasped, turning very red. “That was just that Lirriot Queen’s assumption, because I—I’m mature and I haven’t got my children with me! I mean, I haven’t got any children but I could have— I mean, I’m not sterile!” she gulped.

    “No, I can see that now,” agreed Fweee-ah kindly. “That was a typical Lirriot assumption.”

    “Humanoids are all like that inside,” BrTl contributed somewhat glumly. “My Captain’s a humanoid.”

    “Yeah, I know! Jhl Smt Wong, personal name Jhl, nest name Smt, flight name Wong—right? We went through the Academy together.”

    “Yeah. Well, that is her name, though I’m not sure how the bits fit together.”

    “Seconded to a what?” replied the Hawtree with a shrill crow.

    –Dohra had jumped. Now she reddened, realising it was just his version of a laugh.

    “Yeah. Don't worry, I’m never gonna let her live it down!” BrTl assured him happily.

    “I wouldn’t!” agreed Fweee-ah with another crow. “Look, Dohra, shall we try this game?”

    “Not if it’s got a dooney-lolla in it,” advised BrTl drily.

    “I don't think it will have,” replied Fweee-ah with relish, “because actually, I think if you’ll consult the Encyclopaedia you’ll find there’s no such thing as a dooney-lolla: that Lirriot Queen made it up.”

    BrTl collapsed in a terrific shaking fit. Very fortunately Level Blue’s concourse was built to take it, though a trio of Qooners that had been approaching with their appendages held out staggered and then retreated hurriedly.

    “Yeah!” said Fweee-ah with a pleased crow. “Would you like to, Dohra? On me!”

    “I can see perfectly well,” replied Dohra with dignity, “that you’re just waiting for me to make a fool of myself, Fweee-ah—the same as BrTl,” she noted severely. “But actually, I don’t mind, see? ’Cos the point about these games is a being’s not meant to take them seriously! They’re just fun.”

    “I've known innocent young spacers lose an IG month’s pay on them all the same,” replied the Hawtree drily, letting her see a picture of them.

    “I’m sure they did! They may not all be male, and of course they’re not humanoids, but the only difference between them and my little brother J’nno is that he hasn’t left Second School yet!” retorted Dohra swiftly. “And if you really want to pay, I’ll have one go, thanks, so long as it isn’t more than half an ig.”

    “Half an ig to you, gracious Muu,” wheezed the stall-holder ingratiatingly.

    Dohra looked dubiously at the small being—what was visible of it for the face-mask, extra antennae which she didn’t think were part of its physical being, and metal, um, not armour, more like a casing, with tubes and things going in and out of it. The rest of its physiology was veiled by a closely-woven fabric in a bright shade of blue, about two shades lighter than that of Level Blue’s flooring and walls, apart from the flexible, um, not digits, and thinner than tentacles—tendrils, perhaps, which protruded from three blue sleeves at the ends of three of the metal tubes.

    Let it call you a Muu, it can’t tell the difference, sent Fweee-ah.

    It’s a Bgly-Aaimer from Meevaimia and it’s not an h-breather: that’s why the face mask and the protective casing, though their bodies are pretty soft and floppy, supplied BrTl helpfully. “Isn’t this level a bit h-breather for you, Bgly-Aaimer?” he said genially.

    “Oh, yes, gracious xathpyroid cognate, but a most salubrious atmosphere all the same! Wanna find the admiral?” Swiftly the tendrils shuffled a small pile of cards. 

 

    “Absolutely not,” said BrTl firmly.

    “Come on, gracious Muu!” it urged Dohra. “Only half an ig! Guess where the admiral is!”

    “What do I get if I win?” she asked cautiously.

    “One of these delightful prizes, gracious Muu!” It gestured at the shelves behind it. Dohra had thought this might be a game like she and J’nno had often played at the shows at home, where you threw a small blob on a string at the prizes, and whichever one you managed to wind the blob around was yours. She was rather disappointed: she liked that game. And these prizes looked intriguingly odd.

    “Calculated to appeal to very young asteroid-brained h-breather spacers, mostly,” explained Fweee-ah with a muffled crow. He held out his left wing and pointed. 

 

    “Those are chrono-balancers on the top row: that tube is supposed to draw in h-breather atmosphere and send the bead in it up to the right time on the scale. I’ve never seen one that actually worked, though when I served on a Seeker the crew’s quarters were full of them. Let’s see, that’s a row of empty boxes—oh, you think they’re pretty? Well, whatever blobs you up. You’d know chewing-taffy—it’s only the wrapping that’s blue or green, it’s just ordinary chewing-taffy.” 

 

    “H-breather,” BrTl reminded him.

    “Oh, right: h-breather variety: thanks, BrTl—not suited to your metabolism, Dohra. Those toy Seekers and Destroyers are made of recycled lubolyon, as you can see; there’s another booth further along run by this one’s cognate—no, beg your pardon, BrTl, not cognate, but I’m not sure what they call them—as I say, another booth that’ll imprint it with the name of your choice if you win one. Those are fluorogas storm-bubbles, they’re quite amusing when they work, but if you shake them up too hard the cheap ones are apt to explode. And those shapes on the bottom row are all balloons—the skins are just elasticized lubolyon—and the selection of one of those has been known to cause a riot, given the right company!” he ended with a crow.

    “Rude shapes,” elaborated BrTl helpfully. “They will float in o-breather atmosphere, though, so if you want one—” 

 

    Dohra wouldn’t have minded a rude one, actually, but they all looked completely harmless to her! “Um, maybe not,” she said regretfully. “So how do I play, please?”

    It wasn’t easy to tell, with the face mask and the tubes, but her companions had the strong impression that the booth-holder was giving her an incredulous look. But it said smoothly: “First I shuffle the cards, gracious Muu. Then I lay them out face down and you choose the admiral!”

    Ho, ho, ho, and Many Happy Galaxy Days to you, too! sent BrTl.

    In quintupled 5-D-triangles! agreed Fweee-ah.

    “Good,” said Dohra grimly. “That sounds easy. May I have half an ig, please, Fweee-ah?”

    “Certainly,” he replied courteously, handing one over. Dohra gave it to the Bgly-Aaimer.

    “Let me show you how, first. Watch the admiral, gracious Muu!” Dohra watched keenly. The slender tendrils shuffled the cards. “You don’t know where the admiral’s gone, do you, gracious Muu?”

    “Yes, of course I do, it’s that one!” said Dohra with a laugh. There were only seven cards and the Bgly-Aaimer had shuffled them quite slowly.

    “Yes, so it is,” it said sadly, displaying the hand.

    One produced from the culture-pod every IG microsecond, sent BrTl heavily to the Hawtree.

    Yes? Oh! Yeah, one laid every IG microsecond! agreed Fweee-ah happily. Wait for it!

    “Try again for a lovely prize. Now I shuffle again—there!” Dohra blinked. Rapidly the Bgly-Aaimer laid the cards out face down. “Where’s the admiral, gracious Muu?”

    “Help!” said Dohra, smiling. “I think… No, hang on. Um…” She moved her hands back and forth over the cards. “You put it—No, first it was over there, and when you laid them down— No, that’s wrong.”

    Wanna bet? Ten igs says she’s wrong? sent the Hawtree snidely.

    Hah, hah, hah, replied BrTl.

    Dohra’s eyes narrowed. “It’s… that one!”

    “Turn it over, gracious Muu, no deception here!” wheezed the Bgly-Aaimer.

    She turned the card over. It was the two of circles.

    “And Happy Galaxy Day to you, too!” said BrTl cheerfully. “Come on, no more goes, no being in the Known Universe has ever won at Find The Admiral.”

    “It was fun, though,” said Dohra on a wistful note as he grabbed her hand and bore her inexorably away. “Thank you so much!” she called.

    “Any time, gracious Muu!” wheezed the Bgly-Aaimer.

    Dohra then lost half an ig of BrTl’s at Guess The Weight Of The Giant Taffy Ball. She watched eagerly as two youngish Honnoyers in Ordinary Spacers’ uniforms with Gunnery flashes up also failed to guess its weight, and as a Dupproh in Engineer’s Assistant’s uniform equally failed to guess its weight. After that she lost half an ig of her own at Guess The Number of Beads In The Wottlii Jar—hardly surprisingly: the being in charge of that booth was another Lirriot Queen. Hurriedly BrTl dragged her away, it wasn’t gonna take those two young Honnoyer Gunners long to fail to guess the number of beads and they didn't want a repetition of the pup-vending scene. Or he didn’t: he could feel that Fweee-ah did.

    “But they might guess!” she cried.

    “And Vvlvania might freeze over, Dohra, but it won’t be in either of our lifetimes! Uh—what about Guess How High The Huyajhangwanian Oddli Can Bounce?” 

 

    “Um—no, they have that game at the shows on C’T’rea, and I always lose,” she said regretfully.

    “I'll give it a go,” offered Fweee-ah. “How much, Honnoyer?”

    The Honnoyer in charge of the booth raised its speaking tube. It blenched. “Not available to qualified Pilots, Hawtree,” it said quickly.

    “There’s no notice that says that,” noticed Dohra.

    “Closing down!” said the Honnoyer quickly. As it spoke the yellow and white spotted awning over the booth came right down and closed both the booth and its owner off.

    “I can see why you wanted to come with us,” conceded BrTl. “Come on, then, let’s find one that you’d like to play, Dohra.”

    The one that Dohra would like to play was Guess Which Leaping Ll’gyrian Lizard Will Win The Race. She should have had a chance at that: there were only three lizards. …No.

    “There is a sure-fire way to win,” noted BrTl thoughtfully as the booth-holder stowed away Fweee-ah’s half-ig.

    “Yes, we could all bet,” she agreed. “And then we’d lose one and a half igs and win one!”

    “You’re catching on,” he admitted. “Come on: ’nother one? On me.”

    She chose Guess What’s Under The Cup. As no clues were offered, there was no way in the Known Universe of guessing this unless one could read the booth-holder’s mind—but as the booth-holder was a lubo-bot there was no mind to read. BrTl hadn't been going to let her play at all but he noticed in time that she was feeling sorry for the lubo-bot because it wasn’t a being. Oh, well, what was half an ig?

    Dohra had guessed, smiling, a blue bead. The raising of the cup had revealed a small toe-ring with a probably-not-even-semi-precious orange stone in it. She watched with interest as the counter-top sank smoothly out of sight and rose again to reveal another upside-down cup.

    “That won’t be a toe-ring with an orange stone,” noted BrTl idly.

    “Ssh!” she hissed. “Let’s watch!”

    They watched.

    A small, pink-crested Nblyterian in her/s male stage, wearing Ordinary Spacer’s uniform, came up. He was wearing a face-mask which observedly was doing nothing to help his FW pack, but if he was happy with it—he’d bought it at a nearby boutique—BrTl for one wasn’t gonna disabuse him. And Fweee-ah for two—right.

    “One guess for only half an ig, respected Space Fleet being!” grated the lubo-bot.—Does that lubo-bot’s voice remind you of any being? BrTl asked the Hawtree idly.—Five’ll get ya ten that Lirriot Queen owns this booth as well, replied Fweee-ah.—Uh-huh.

    The Spacer paid over his half-ig and made a great show of racking his brains over what could be under the cup. –Reading Dohra, sent Fweee-ah laconically.—Right. And trying to read us, the cheeky young Vvlvanian toad! added BrTl.

    Fweee-ah took a step forward, the wings rising slightly, the beak about to open—

    No, don’t, more fun not to! sent BrTl hurriedly.

    You’re right, he agreed, relaxing.

    “Um, could it possibly be a… No, it couldn’t! Um, we-ell… My guess is a toe-ring with an orange stone in it!” produced the Spacer.

    Silently the lubo-bot pointed at the cup, and it rose, revealing a small blue bead.

    Fweee-ah gave a crow and flapped his wings in glee, and BrTl gave a roar of laughter and went into a shaking fit. The more so because of the young Vvlvanian toad’s cheek, of course. And also because that trio of Qooners had come up yet again with their appendages stretched out, why was there never an IG Militia being in sight when you needed one?

    “What’s the JOKE?” shouted the young spacer angrily, standing his ground.

    “In the first place, the joke’s on you, ’cos you read that it was a toe-ring with an orange stone last time, didn’t you? But I guessed a blue bead: see? And,” said Dohra with relish, “I rather think that in the second place the joke’s on you ’cos these two beings are both qualified Pilots.”—The Nblyterian gasped and took a step backwards.—“Yes, I thought you were trying to read them. The lift-blobs are thataway, if you were feeling like looking for an exit.”

    The Nblyterian scrambled off.

    “Thanks. I enjoyed that: tell your mistress so. Or master, of course,” said Fweee-ah smoothly, tipping the lubo-bot ten igs.

    “It wasn’t that good,” protested BrTl weakly.

    “Yes, it was, BrTl,” he said happily. “Come on: one more game, maybe? Then I’d like to treat you both to a drink, if I may?”

    “Thank you very much, Fweee-ah, that sounds lovely,” said Dohra politely. “Only I should just mention that he's already had, um, hiccups once this morning from a fluorogas shake.”

    “Wind,” admitted BrTl, patting his chest cautiously. “It seems to have gone.”

    “All part of the fun!” said Fweee-ah breezily, flapping the wings a little. “Come on, there’s a tinker-tanker booth down here, you’ll love it, Dohra!” 

 

    “Um, is it anything like pongo-pongo?” asked Dohra, following him obediently.

    “I don’t know: never played that. Tinker-tanker’s really easy!”

    “That’s good, I’m not much good at complicated games,” she admitted cheerfully.

    BrTl began: Never, EVER play—But then realised the Hawtree had picked it up long since.

    The being in charge of the tinker-tanker booth looked very much like the Hawtree. BrTl eyed it askance.

    “No,” said Fweee-ah with a smothered cackle: “Not a cognate, BrTl, or even a fellow-nestling. He’s a Bzzree. We do come from the same world: yes.”—Only just sentient within the Meaning, he explained.—“What’s your name, Bzzree?”

    The Bzzree gave a gratified crow, and croaked: “Personal name Craaa, nest name Crr-Craaa, flight name Bzz-Craaa, Great Hawtree! Fancy a little game of tinker-tanker?”

    “Sure! We’ll all have a go! –On me: I insist! I’ll show you, Dohra,” he said, giving the Bzzree a half-ig. “See all these little balls?”

    “Yes,” she said, bending eagerly over the booth’s counter, which had a covering of transparent lubolyon under which myriads of tiny coloured balls in little channels could be observed. Or in other words, reflected BrTl heavily: “APPLY HERE, SUCKERS” emblazoned on it in lumo-blobs half an IG glp high.

    “You take this blob,” said Fweee-ah, suiting the action to the word, “and give them a jab, and if you manage to get one in each of those little holes—see?”—Dohra nodded eagerly: there were many more balls than little holes—“you win a prize.” Casually he activated the blob. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their channels, to an accompaniment of Dohra’s excited squeaks, then headed straight for the little holes and dropped down them. The booth emitted a series of hoarse CLANG, CLANG, CLANG noises, a bright blue-white lumo-blob lit up on top of it, flashing madly, and the Bzzree cried: “Huzza! You win, Great Hawtree! Choose any prize you like!”

    BrTl felt rather as if a bright blue-white lumo-blob had lit up on top of him. Never mind that Pilot’s qualification, the plasmo-blasted Hawtree must be shilling for the Bzzree! A being could be reduced to worse, if down on its luck. Stealthily his hand approached his blaster—

   “Thought I told you two beings to get onto Level Pink and stay there?” said a horribly familiar voice from just behind his right ear.

    Gasping, BrTl stood up very straight. “’Lo, Sar’t-Major,” he croaked.

    The giant Sergeant-Major of Militia straightened. “Don’t make me stoop again,” it warned.

    “No. Sorry,” he muttered. “Um, well, I’m o/h-breather, Sar’t-Major.”

    “And?”

    “And her FW pack’s working really good and we really aren’t gonna stay much longer!” he blurted.

    “Come here, W’t, Dohra B’Jn, viviparous humanoid,” said the Sergeant-Major heavily.

    Dohra stepped forward and looked up at it shrinkingly.

    “Any being been annoying you? This Hawtree here?”

    “Oh, no, sir—Sar’t-Major!” she gasped. “He’s been very kind: he’s paid for me at lots of the games!”

    “Huh. Breathing all right, are you?”

    “Yes, fine,” said Dohra limply.

    The giant being fumbled at her FW pack with its sufficiently large digit. Dohra suppressed a gasp: the FW pack was rather near the mammary glands. “Jab of hyperblob, or I’m a Friyrian lordship with his gill-collar on,” it finally pronounced. –“I’m not asking,” it noted. “You’ve got until I do my next check, that’ll be at zero six hundred hours IG time, and then if I catch you up here again—either of you, xathpyroid cognate—you’re for it. Goddit? For—it.”

    “Yes, Sar’t-Major! Thank you very much!” gasped Dohra.

    “Goddit, Sar’t-Major,” allowed BrTl, not daring to thank it.

    “Huh.” It turned away but turned back and noted: “That Hawtree isn’t shilling, but you needn’t trust him further than you can see him. And it’s IG-illegal to offer money or nourishment to any plasmo-blasted Qooners that might try to beg: goddit?”

    No-one was sure which being was being addressed, so they all replied smartly: “Goddit, Sar’t-Major!” Even the Bzzree.

    “Huh!” it said, turning away and moving off ponderously.

    There was dead silence at the tinker-tanker booth.

    BrTl began to clear his throat but thought better of it.

    “Did you or did you not,” asked Fweee-ah in a dreamy tone that put BrTl in mind of some of his Captain’s dreamy tones, “send for an IG Militia being, xathpyroid cognate?”

    “N—Uh—I didn’t send! I mean—Oh, mok shit,” he muttered. “It was those plasmo-blasted Qooners. I just thought casually there was never one of those beings around when you need one—” He stopped: Fweee-ah had gone into a great cackling fit, flapping his wings madly. Immediately the Bzzree joined in, flapping his wings much as he could behind his counter.

    “All right,” said BrTl crossly: “I’ll spend the next IG month polishing my shield!”

    “I would,” admitted Dohra faintly.

    “Yes,” agreed Fweee-ah weakly. “I don't know when I've laughed so much! –Well, come on, Craaa, what’ve I won?”

    “Oh! You’ve won any prize you care to choose, Great Hawtree! No being gets all the little balls in!” he said admiringly.

    “I've been playing tinker-tanker since I was just out of the egg," the Hawtree replied mildly, looking at the prizes. “Uh—well, like to choose one for me, Dohra?”

    “Well, I don’t know what you’d like,” she said shyly. “They’re all lovely,” she said kindly to the Bzzree.

    He gave a gratified croak, and preened the chest-feathers displayed under his shabby ex-Service Issue jacket.

    Dohra dithered over the prizes for some time, finally choosing a little lubolyon disc with tiny coloured balls inside because it was a miniature tinker-tanker game that she thought Fweee-ah might like, and was then very disconcerted when he presented it to her.

    She then had a go at tinker-tanker, grasping the blob fiercely. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their tubes, to an accompaniment of her excited squeaks, then trickled down to the corners of the counter top and stayed there. Not a single one had reached a little hole.

    “Oh!” she cried sadly.

    “You lose, Humanoid Friend of Great Hawtree!” croaked the Bzzree happily. “Have a go, Xathpyroid Friend of Great Hawtree?”

    “On me!” said Fweee-ah with a slight cackle.

    BrTl shrugged very slightly. “If you insist—thanks.” He took the blob. Casually he activated it. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their channels, to an accompaniment of Dohra’s excited squeaks, then headed straight for the little holes and—then trickled down to the corners of the counter top and stayed there.

    “What? Mok shit!” he cried. 

 

    “You resigned control of the blob too soon,” said Fweee-ah with a cackle.

    “I did not,” said BrTl through his crunchers. He gave the Bzzree an ig. “I'm gonna have two goes and win two prizes or know the reason why.” Grimly he activated the blob. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their channels, to an accompaniment of Dohra’s excited squeaks, then headed straight for the little holes and— trickled down to the corners of the counter top and stayed there.

    “I don't believe—” Grimly he activated the blob. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their channels, to an accompaniment of Dohra’s excited squeaks, then headed straight for the little holes and—Go in! Go in! One went in! HURRAY! Then the others trickled down to the corners of the counter top and stayed there.

    “Sorry, you lose!” chirped the Bzzree happily, stowing the ig away. “One ball in each little hole, that’s the rule!”

    “Yes, it is,” agreed Dohra sympathetically. “You’re getting better, though, BrTl!”

    “Look, I am a qualified—Oh, forget it,” he said tiredly. “There’s a fix on that blob, and forgive me for mentioning it, but it’s something that’ll only relax its grip for oviparous h-breather beings from a certain planet.”

    “No, there isn’t,” said Fweee-ah drily, while the Bzzree gave an indignant caw of denial. “You made the elementary mistake every young cadet does on his first leave from the Academy.”

    “Really? Do tell,” he said politely.

    “No, honest, BrTl!” he said with a smothered cackle. “Work it out: what were you concentrating on when the little balls were racing around like crazy?”

    BrTl thought about it. Slowly the tip of his tail began to twitch.

    “Yeah,” said the Hawtree sympathetically. “Have this one on me.”

    BrTl took a deep breath. He accepted the half-ig. ”Thank you, that’s very generous,” he said, through the crunchers but at least managing to get it out. Grimly he activated the blob. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their channels, to an accompaniment of Dohra’s excited squeaks. BrTl concentrated his mind on the blob. The little balls headed straight for the little holes and dropped down them. The booth emitted a series of hoarse CLANG, CLANG, CLANG noises, the blue-white lumo-blob lit up on top of it, flashing madly, and the Bzzree cried: “He's done it! Huzza! Well done, Great Xathpyroid Friend! You must have Hawtree blood! Choose any prize you like!”

    “Hurray!” cried Dohra, jumping up and down and clapping her hands madly.

    “Humanoid gesture of great appreciation,” said BrTl quickly to the Hawtree, realising he was backing off and that his swiller was in a state of frozen horror.

    “Oh. It’s a shoo-ing gesture at home,” he said weakly. “It’s all right, Craaa. She’s happy.”

    “It takes all sorts to make a Known Universe, doesn’t it?” croaked the feathered one valiantly, pulling himself together with a visible effort. “Choose any prize, Great Xathpyroid.”

    “Actually I wouldn’t mind one of those miniature games,” he admitted.

    “Not blob-driven,” said Fweee-ah with a smothered cackle, as the Bzzree passed one over.

    Dohra looked from one to the other of them uncertainly. “What is the trick?”

    BrTl cleared his throat carefully. “Just to concentrate on the blob, Dohra, instead of getting carried away by the excitement of seeing the little balls run round and concentrating on them.”

    “Oh.”

    “Wanna try?” asked the Bzzree eagerly, holding out the blob.

    “Yes, please!” she beamed. “Oh, no, please let me pay this time!” she said to the Hawtree, passing over a half-ig. “I’m not very good at blob-control, mind you, but if it’s anything like a culture-pan blob, I might manage it! –Hullo, Blob,” she said to it. “I’m awfully sorry I thought you didn’t matter, before.”

    Cheerfully BrTl advised the stunned avians: Just don’t let it worry you!

    Dohra grasped the blob and concentrated on it. The little coloured balls ran about crazily in their channels, to an accompaniment of her heavy breathing. They began to head for the little holes. BrTl found he was concentrating on the blob with her and hurriedly stopped—not fair, after all the game was the Bzzree’s living. The little balls gave the appearance of having lost their way and rolled about purposelessly. Dohra had her eyes shut. A ball approached a hole: yes, no, yes—It dropped in! The other little balls were losing vigour. They began to trickle towards the sides… No, wait! Another little ball was approaching a hole! Yes—No—Yes!! Hurray! Only two, four—uh, eight more to go, help. The little balls were definitely losing momentum, now. None of them were near the little holes… No. They trickled down to the bottom of the counter and then rolled slowly into the corners. Dohra opened her eyes, panting. “How many did I get?”

    “Two,” admitted BrTl.

    “Was that all? It really takes it out of you, doesn’t it?” she beamed.

    “Never mind: two’s really good for a mammalian that’s never flown a ship, Great Humanoid,” said the Bzzree comfortingly. “Have a prize from the bottom shelf.” Kindly he passed her a wheeper-flooper.

    “Oh, can I really? But it isn’t fair, I didn’t really win!” she protested.

    “No, you deserve it!” he croaked. –Yeah, reflected BrTl, she probably did. All up the being had had—lessee, half an ig out of her, two whole igs out of the Hawtree, and one ig out of him, Br-Sucker-Tl, for which it had shelled out two small lubolyon games, worth at a generous estimate one tenth of an ig each, though he’d seen them for sale on the streets of Plentyville on Playfair One for a tenth of an ig for three. And wheeper-floopers were normally sold wholesale for a hundredth of an ig, that was, one IG hunnert, an amount so insignificant that few beings bothered to carry hunnerts at all. They were said to be made of recycled senso-tissue and brightly coloured dye.

    Dohra had allowed the being to force the thing on her and was now, with super optimism, blowing into it.

    Whee-eee-eee—per-flooo-ooo-per, it moaned. Whee-eee-eee—per-fluh!

    “Oops!” said Dohra with a happy laugh. “Worn out! It was a good one, though! I’ll keep it as a souvenir, Craaa!” she beamed. “I’ll put it on my dressing-table with this dear little tinker-tanker game! –I bet I could really learn tinker-tanker, if I tried.”

    Wincing, BrTl took her hand firmly in a pseudopod. “We can’t stay that long, we’ve got to get going—remember?”

    “Oh, yes. What a pity; I was hoping there might be time for a game of pongo-pongo.”

    Get snaffled by that large IG Militia being for a game of vacuum-frozen pongo-pongo? Great splintered shards of quog! 

 

    “We can play that any old time down on Level Pink,” he said firmly. “It’s no different up here, ya know.”

    “Come and have a drink, anyway!” urged the Hawtree. “Thanks, Craaa,” he added casually, tipping him ten igs, was the being made of igs?”

    “Thank you, Great Hawtree! My pleasure!” croaked the Bzzree, stowing the igs away in the blink of an eye.

    And with an amiable cackle, the Hawtree led his guests off to the Level Blue ISLA bar.

    On due consideration BrTl conceded he wouldn’t have another fluorogas shake at this juncture—no. Oh, well, a shot of qwlot, then, it was always the same. She’d better have something that won’t explode, Fweee-ah.

    Or give her wind? That narrows it down! –It’s all right, I'll get her some spring water. He ordered. The result came in a small sealed bubble with a straw attached whose end dissolved once it was in Dohra's mouth.

    “I’ve lapped up water on h-breather worlds,” said BrTl in some confusion. “It was lying around in pools. It might have had a few different minerals and stuff in it but it was water.”

    “It’s something to do with IG Regs,” explained Fweee-ah. “This atmosphere isn't natural to her, so anything that’s supplied for her to drink has to be in a sealed container—geddit?”

    “I get it, but it’s mad! –How’s it taste?” he asked.

    Dohra made a glugging noise round the straw. They watched her uneasily. Finally she set the bubble down, gasped for breath, and explained: “It wouldn’t let me stop until I’d finished!”

    “Yeah, it might float out of that bubble-thing and contaminate the atmosphere,” agreed BrTl snidely. “Joke, Dohra,” he said. “H-breather mixture’s really light; can't you feel the difference?”

    “Um, no.”

    “Really light,” confirmed the Hawtree placidly. “I can fly in o-breather atmospheres, so long as the grav’s IG normal or less, but slighter h-breather avians like Bzzrees can’t. Have another?”

    BrTl wouldn’t have minded, but time was getting on and—Well, better safe than sorry. “Come down with us. Have one on me.”

    “Yes!” beamed Dohra. “Do come, Fweee-ah! Then I can show you how to play pongo-pongo!”

    The Hawtree agreeing amiably, the trio adjourned to the public lift-blobs. Once they were on one and it was s-l-o-w-l-y descending BrTl noticed the avian was emanating discomfort. “What’s up, Fweee-ah? Look, if the atmosphere’s gonna be too heavy for you, don’t feel you have to come just to be polite—”

    “No,” he said, wriggling his shoulders slightly. “Hate being carried up and down, that’s all.”

    “Of course!” gasped Dohra. “You wouldn’t need lift-blobs at home!”

    “No,” he agreed, sending her a picture of his home-world.

    “Ooh!” she gasped. “Can you see, BrTl? How wonderful!”

    It was pretty average for an avian world. They weren’t primmos, they lived in very civilized nests high up on the pinnacles of their rocky world, or on the tops of very tall trees in the case of suburbanite Hawtrees, or on the tops of crags on rocky islands—there was quite a lot of sea on their world. It was very dark blue and the sky was also a deep blue, and in fact their sun was bluish, too.

    “This is my place,” said Fweee-ah, sending a picture of a positive avian palace: built of shards of some shimmering pink stuff, not something that a xathpyroid would have called a dwelling, but nevertheless recognisable as having large windows—with large maxi-webs over them, just by the by—and large entrances that must be doorways, well, fair enough, they didn't need to have them at floor-level, so why should they, and a big private pool, not deep, but a pretty shade of green, and a very pleasant garden. “This is my bond-partner, Chweee-ah,”—she was very like him, but dark brown, not black—“and these are the nestlings—quite big, now.”

    “Oh, thank you for showing us!” said Dohra, her eyes shining.

    “You’re very welcome, Dohra,” he said as they reached Level Pink and the lift-blob announced: Level Pink. O-breather. Sim-lounges, bar, ISLA Kiddy-Kinder—charges apply—fine selection of boutiques. Access to Tourist Halls by Tourist Pass only.

    Just coincidentally, as they got off the lift-blob the giant IG Militia being was leaning on a nearby pink pillar. It eyed them sardonically, but said nothing. BrTl would have headed blindly for the bar and the qwlot but the pongo-pongo lounge was on their way. So they looked in.

    “It’s free to get in, and if you play, you get a free drink,” explained Dohra. “They charge a whole ig if you want to play, so I’ll just explain it, shall I?”

    However muddled it gets, sent BrTl on a desperate note, just—uh—try to accept it, will you, Fweee-ah?

    Of course. She's rather like my Chweee-ah, he replied happily.

    They sat down in the back row and Dohra began to explain. 

 

    “You see, you have a little, um, like a blob, and you choose your numbers, like, in rows. You can poke your numbers into it, or say them to it, if it’s more convenient.”

    Or send them, added BrTl resignedly, but few beings capable of that bother to play pongo-pongo.

    Ye— “What’s that?” croaked the Hawtree in alarm, as the roomful of beings bounded out of their chairs shouting: “Pongo-pongo-pongo! Pongo-pongo-pongo! Pongo-pongo-pongo!”

    “It’s a Pongo-pongo-pongo!” cried Dohra in delight. “Look! Pongo-pongo-pongo! Pongo-pongo-pongo!” she cried, leaping up.

    BrTl didn’t bother to get up: he could see quite well, though this wasn’t actually a factor in his decision, but the puzzled Hawtree stood up. At the front of the room a large coloured display of numbers was flashing madly, a being in bright garments was leaping up and down on a little stage in front of this display, and above it a large blob-sign was flashing the rune  “Pongo-pongo-pongo.” It was a Pongo-pongo-pongo, all right. He sank back down onto his seat.

    “Yeah,” noted BrTl.

    “Some being got all the numbers!” explained Dohra, sitting down again.

    “But—oh. Its numbers matched those fifteen at the front?” croaked Fweee-ah.

    Got it in fifteen, sent BrTl sardonically.

    It would be very easy to control that, the poor being replied dazedly.

    Wouldn’t it, just.

    The Hawtree watched numbly as another game commenced, beings put new rows of numbers into their blobs—it was incredibly easy to pick them up, you wouldn’t need the blobs to do it, they were all broadcasting like crazy—and the being at the front of the room began manipulating a blob which ostensibly lit up numbers on the display behind it. That isn’t a blob that that being’s got, he sent dazedly to BrTl.

    Ya don’t say.

    Suddenly a being from the crowd broadcast: PONGO-PONGO! Then a being shouted: “Pongo-pongo!”

    “There!” hissed Dohra. “Pongo-pongo! Some being’s got a row of matching numbers!”

    The odds against that—

    You said it, Hawtree, agreed BrTl as several beings in the neighbourhood of the putative winner cried loudly: “Pongo-pongo here!” and the being at the front had an attack of hysterics. But at an ig a game—they last on average as long as that one did—they can afford to let an occasional being win. Encourages the suckers, see?

    Yeah, he admitted.

    A controller-being in a strange uniform was marching down the aisle towards the claimant. Verified, it sent sourly. “Pongo-pongo!” it shouted.

    “Yay!” cried the winner, more simply.

    “Pongo-pongo!” cried the being at the front. “Pay ten igs! Pay ten igs!” 

 

    Sixteen more games went by in rapid succession with no winners. Then there was another claim: “Pongo-pongo! I’ve got a pongo-pongo!” This was duly verified.

    “Pay eight igs!” shouted the being at the front madly. “Pay eight igs!”

    “Why eight?” hissed the Hawtree frantically.

    “I don’t know,” admitted Dohra with her sunny smile. “The regs are in the blobs, but it’s awfully complicated. All these beings know, though.”

    Look, sent BrTl sardonically.

    He looked. Great splintered shards of quog, so they do, he confirmed dazedly.

    Yep, it’s in there amongst the slush somewhere! BrTl agreed. Had enough?

    I think she’d like a game.

    So Dohra had a game of pongo-pongo on Fweee-ah. Gee, her numbers didn’t win.

    After that they definitely needed a drink, so they adjourned to the bar. There the Feeny-Argyllians were discovered drinking feverfew tea. They were thrilled to meet the Hawtree. Their Flppu wasn't: it shot off to the other side of the room and hid behind a large couch. Fweee-ah was pressed to stay for lunch but declined very nicely: the food wouldn’t be quite suited to his metabolism, he thought he’d go back upstairs and have a bowl of noodles for lunch. And he went off rather slowly: pretty clearly the heavier o-breather atmosphere was having its effect.

    “What a charming being!”—“What a charming being!”

    Dohra leant forward eagerly: “Yes, isn't he? He showed me a picture of his home—he calls it a nest, but it’s like a real house, with proper rooms, it’s lovely!” She sent them a confused picture of it and they tootled kindly. “And we had the loveliest morning, didn’t we, BrTl?” She began to tell them about it all in great detail. BrTl just leaned back in his corner and allowed his eyes gently to…

    BrTl! BrTl!

    “Uh— You’re early,” he said, blinking at Trff. “Who hoiked you out of your plasmo-blasted you-know-whats?”

    “Jhl,” it replied simply.

    BrTl began to look round eag—

    “No,” it said regretfully.

    –Eagerly. “Well, bother! Well, how?”

    “Comm-blob message.”

    “You weren’t on the pod, you were on—”

    “Yes, but it was carrying this comm-blob,” it said, holding it out. “She-it’s going to call you-it in… five IG minutes.”

    “Why? What’ve I done?” he whined.

    “Dunno, BrTl. Something plasmo-blasted stupid,” it said cheerfully. “It’s time for lunch. Does it have to go now?”

    Does it have to go now! Vacuum-frozen asteroid-brain! “No, you can stay and listen to her bawl me out,” he said resignedly. “Yeah, okay, see you in a bit,” he said to the others. And they went off to grab their usual table, Dohra telling the Feeny-Argyllians in great detail about the tinker-tanker game.

    “Tinker-tanker?” Trff hooted incredulously.

    “Don’t dare to say it’s—”

    “That female humanoid wouldn’t be able to master the blob!”

    –Easy. “No, you’re right,” he said, cheering up. “It’s a plasmo-blasted cunning game, mind you.”

    It waved an antenna around a bit. “It depends on the quality of the blob.”

    Er—yeah. Something like that. Perhaps fortunately the comm-blob at that precise IG microsecond announced: Incoming.

    “Yes! I’m here!” he said crossly.

    Incoming.

    “Stop that! I’m here! This is BrTl!”

    The comm-blob stopped talking and he could then hear his Captain’s voice shouting: “BrTl! What in FEDERATION have you been up to?”

    Oops. “Nothing,” he croaked. “Nothing to get up to on the third muh—”

    “I’ve just had a sim-call from Fweee-ah Weee-ah Zwheee!” she bellowed.

    Now what was she on about?—This habit of putting the cognate-name last was very confusing to a xathpyroid, though quite a few species did it.—“Uh—yeah, he said he knew you at the Academy,” he groped.

    “Knew me at the Academy?” she shouted. “Knew me at the Academy in quintupled 5-D triangles! BrTl, this is Fweee-ah Weee-ah Zwheee we’re talking about!”

    “Ye-ah… Quite a decent being. Uh—are you mad about the tinker-tanker?” he groped. “I only lost one i—”

    “Tinker-tanker NOTHING!” she bellowed. “BrTl, this is Fweee-ah Weee-ah Zwheee! PIRATE Weee-ah Zwheee!”

    Steaming Vvlvanian magma pits! 

 

    BrTl felt as if all his legs had given way at once, so it was just as plasmo-blasted well he was sitting down.

    Jhl took a deep breath. “Are you telling me you trailed all round Level Blue with him in the company of a dim young female humanoid?”

    “Ye—Uh, he was very decent—”

    “BrTl, he EATS young beings like that!” she shouted.

    He could see that, now: Trff had done a really nice job on this comm-blob, or not nice, depending on your point of view. “Yeah. Stop sending, I get it,” he said glumly. “Ugh, lirrilops as well? No wonder he knew they were chea—Sorry, Jhl. I didn’t know.”

    “You didn’t know,” returned his Captain evilly, “because whatever you once had between those thick ears of yours”—Trff was pointing a puzzled antenna at his near ear—“has turned to MUSH!”

    “I’ve been stuck on the third moon of Pkqwrd for a light-year with no-one to—Yeah, I will spend some time polishing my shield,” he said humbly. “All right, I’ll do the plasmo-blasted Academy First-Year mind exercises if you really think—Yeah. Okay. Sorry. But, um, actually I do think he was on his best behaviour.”

    He heard her sigh heavily, so possibly she was calming down. “Yeah. He can be very charming—he is very charming. But he doesn’t much care what he does or who he hurts so long as his bond-partner and the nestlings are safe, warm and very, very rich. Geddit?”

    “Mm.”

    “You were putting that pink being at risk, BrTl,” she said heavily.

    “Yes. Um, sorry, didn’t mean to think of her as a pink being.”

    “She is,” said Jhl heavily. “In every sense of the word. You’re plasmo-blasted lucky—the both of you are—that he thought the whole thing was funny.”

    “Did he?” said BrTl glumly. “Good.”

    “Yeah. Well, you won’t see him again, he's en route to Playfair Two—which, just by the by, is where that plasmo-blasted pink palace of his, not on the Hawtree home world—so count yourself lucky, and START POLISHING THAT SHIELD!”

    “Yes, I will, Jhl, I prom—”

    “Off!” said Jhl angrily.

    End communi—The comm-blob must have caught BrTl’s emanations, or perhaps it was because he had approached his crunchers very, very closely to it: it shut up like a dendrion nut. Glumly he handed it back to Trff.

    “Thanks,” it said glumly.

    Then they both just sat there glumly for a bit.

    “Well, how was I to know?” he said aggrievedly. “His names are the wrong way round!”

    “She-it tore a strip off it, too,” it admitted sadly.

    Gulp. “Sorry, Trff.”

    “It was monitoring you-it,” it said sadly. “She-it doesn’t mind if it tinkers with the swiller’s you-know-whats, but… Something about priorities,” it explained sadly.

    Priorities? BrTl hadn't known the word was in its vocabulary.

    “It is now,” it reported sadly.

    Yeah.

    “That avian’s ship’s on Level Platinum, it’s a Moodra Dy—” Trff stopped.

    “It’s all right, you-it didn’t grasp the significance of what you-it sensed. Oh, well. Lunch?”

    “That’ll make you-it feel better!” it agreed, cheering up. The slight tinge of mauve that had crept into the tips of its fluff vanished.

    Better. Something like that—yeah.