The Fix-It Being's Tale

18 

The Fix-It Being’s Tale

 

 

    An IG week had gone by and Didg hadn’t returned to the third moon of Pkqwrd. Nothing much had happened, apart from ZrMl returning to duty and the Feeny-Argyllians and their Flppu departing on their connection to wherever-it-was. At least, not to their ultimate destination but to a wait in another transit area until their next connection. They wouldn’t be paying IG C&E transit charges, this was true. And they weren’t in a hurry—just as well, wasn’t it?

    No, well, one other thing had happened, which was that Dohra, temporarily escaped from BrTl’s custody, had allowed herself to be picked up by a Fix-It Being.

    “What?” groaned Jhl, as her First Officer reported.

    “Trff was making noises about maybe taking the DorAvenian’s plasmo-blasted ship for a trial run, so I thought I’d better stay aboard and see it plasmo-blasted-well didn’t.”

    “You’re forgiven,” she croaked.

    “Thanks. Um, it got absorbed in the job and forgot where we were, so to speak. Not to say forgot how many super-igs are customarily charged by ISLA when beings casually try to come back to vehicle slots they weren’t authorised to take off from in the first pl—Yeah.”

    “Where is the plasmo-blasted being?” she demanded—through her mammalian teeth, by the sound of it.

    “Only in the Level Pink ISLA bar. According to Forty-Four it would never have happened if it had been there—but as it wasn’t, what’s the poin—Oh! Sorry. You meant Didg. He hasn’t come back, Jhl.”

    Jhl breathed heavily down her one mammalian nose.

    “I could order Trff to leave his Vvlvanian-cursed ship alone and get back to ours,” he offered.

    “Right, and then you could deal with the emanations of glumness for the NEXT IG YEAR!”

    “No,” he admitted.

    “Bad idea,” said Jhl through her mammalian teeth. “Really bad idea, BrTl.”

    “Yeah.”

    “So what’s this Fix-It Being like?” she said with a sigh.

    “Eh? Oh. Like they always are, really. Not as bad as some, I suppose. According to it, it was accredited to some Federation Reppo—or was it an F Senator?”

    “Yeah, right, and it’s hanging round Level Pink ISLA bars?”

    “Yeah. Well, maybe the politico never lost the election."

    After a short, confused silence Jhl offered: “You mean never won.”

    “No. I mean, never made it to Intergalactica and the F Council.”

    “You do mean it never won, then.”

    “At home, we’d say lost. Like when the other being gets all your igs at pkwr. Turn your translator off, Jhl. P+pëfli’y+yoõ.”

    “That’s ‘lost’, all right,” she croaked. “You don’t mean that to xathpyroids going off to join the F Parliament on Intergalactica constitutes—? Silly me,” she ended weakly.

    “Hah, hah!” said BrTl happily. “It’s a xathpyroid joke, see? Everyone says it.”

    “Goddit,” she admitted, blowing her nose.

    “Politicos are odd beings to start with,” he conceded. “No Br-cognate ever became an F Reppo.”

    “I believe you!” said Jhl fervently. “Uh—where were we? Oh: the Fix-It Being. Maybe its politico never got to the Council.”

    “Yeah. Or maybe it only ever worked for some FW politico. It’s pretty mangy.”

    “Uh-huh. What is it?”

    “An o-breather,” replied her First Officer cautiously.

    “An o-breather what?”

    “Um… Forty-Four thinks it’s sort of a cognate.”

    “Another Thwurbullerian?”

    “No! Sort of a humanoid cognate. It couldn’t explain it very well: it said ‘Rather like a distant affine.’”

    “Did Trff look?”

    “No, it was concentrating on the blobs, and then there was the, um, incident of the almost taking off in Didg’s ship. Um, well, I decided not to bother it. I had a look.”

    “And?” said Jhl without hope.

    “Its organs are similar,” he said cautiously. “Almost indistinguishable from humanoid. I mean, I think it’s a male. No eggs.”

    “This isn’t impossible,” she said mildly.

    Glumly he sent her a picture of its outside. A very strange set of emanations came to him courtesy of Trff’s hypered up comm-blob. After a bit he said cautiously: “Are you laughing?”

    “Yes!” she gasped helplessly. “That did me good! My best bet—now don’t take this as the Dinkum Megglybits—my best bet’d be a strong dose of New Rthfrdian lemur, considerably tweaked. With a bit of humanoid here and there, so to speak.”

    “Oh,” he said limply. “I did wonder if it might have a bit of Whtyllian cat in it, because it’s a bit like the being in that boutique—Um, never mind that. Dohra never bought the pants, the pockets were in the wrong places, and anyway she didn’t have the igs. But there are similarities.”

    “Sure!” she said breezily, sending him several pictures.

    BrTl quailed.

    “We are all mammalians,” she said cheerfully. “Hang on, is that a picture of a pocket?”

    “Um, yeah.”

    “BrTl, you intergalactic clown, unless it’s a lorpoid it can’t be male and have a pocket! It’ll be a marsupial—like a ballundroid!”

    “I suppose it does look a bit like a ballundroid… It’s definitely got a tube, very similar to Didg’s, so doesn’t that make it a male? But it has got a pocket, Jhl!”

    Jhl had a helpless spluttering fit, concluding weakly when she was more or less over it: “Poor being.”

    “Yeah. Only it doesn’t think so, it’s like all Fix-It Beings, horribly pleased with itself.”

    “Uh—well, I’m glad to hear it.” She cleared her throat. “Dare I ask what its intentions towards the pink being are?”

    “To bore her to death?” he ventured.

    Jhl had a choking fit. “They’re all like that!”

    “You said it. Well, that apart, it’s—I won’t say well-disposed, that’d be going too far, though the most unlikely beings seem to treat her like a long-lost cognate. But relatively well-disposed.”

    “Well, good, perhaps in that case it won’t kidnap her and sell her, or kidnap her and trade her for a nice accreditation to a Reppo, or a lobbyist’s position on Intergalactica itself, depending on the being it trades her with, or just put a bracelet on her—”

    “All right! It won’t, see, unless it fancies being sat on, because Forty-Four’s on the job.”

    “Gee, BrTl,” said Jhl sweetly, “who’s to say they won’t join forces and take her off to Intergalactica together?”

    “I thought of that, and if you really wanna know,” he said in an annoyed voice, “Lu Rullan’s sitting there with his hand two IG microseconds away from his blaster!”

    “I’m getting a picture,” said Jhl very faintly indeed, “of a solid-looking Meanker Space Patroller.”

    “And?”

    “Oh—nothing!” she said airily. “Nothing at all. He’d be another long-lost cognate, would he?”

    “Right. And now get this!” said her First Officer loudly and crossly.

    Jhl couldn’t even laugh at this one. What his brilliant strategy had been, apparently, was to chain the mutant DorAvenian to Dohra’s wrist—making the pink being believe she was in charge of him, naturally—with orders to stop any being that looked like making a move against her.

    “Forty-Four agreed it couldn’t hurt to put a bracelet on him,” he offered. “I mean, he doesn’t realise what it is.”

    “No,” she agreed faintly. “Is she safe from him, though, BrTl?”

    “Um, well, she’s got his bracelet key, she only has to think ‘stop’ and—Uh, well, at least he hasn’t got much brain in the first place, if she thinks it too loud. And you’re the one that mentioned using the tools to hand!” he finished heatedly.

    “Did I? Take your word for it. No, well, short of locking her in the pod, I don’t see what else you could’ve done, really. Are you on the DorAvenian’s ship at the moment?”

    “Yes. Trff’s down with the drive, mooning over the blobs.”

    “Of course. –I gather the mutant’s bit’s over?”

    “What? Oh, the mind-symb or whatever disgusting thing it was. Seems to be, yeah.”

    “Mm. Look, why not get Dohra on board? Tell her the mutant’s homesick for the ship or some such space garbage.”

    “The Fix-It Being’ll come, too,” he said glumly.

    “That’ll serve you right, then, won’t it?” said his Captain sweetly.

    “Jhl, it’s fifty megazillion to one Forty-Four’ll come with them and get the plasmo-blasted being to tell a plasmo-blasted story! And the being talks non-stop anyway!”

    “Good,” she said hard-heartedly. “Do it. Captain out.”

    She meant it. So he replied sadly: “BrTl out.” And went off to do it. 

    The Fix-It Being’s appellation was Ponicho Mull. By this time certain beings had worked out that the personal name was Mull and that “Ponicho” was a term of address on nuThoomyyPonderavvi, the planet to which the being claimed to be native. As he came up to them BrTl took another look and realised that it was a term of address for males, so whatever Jhl might claim about pockets, Ponicho Mull presumably believed itself—himself—to be a male. The corresponding terms of address being… Goddit. “Ponichow” for females, “Ponichu” for its, and “obb-Ponich’” for all immature beings.

    Unlike all the beings whom Dohra had encountered thus far on the third moon of Pkqwrd, Ponicho Mull insisted on the term of address—or at least he hadn't asked Dohra to call him Mull. For Federation’s sake: it was like ZrMl insisting on being addressed as Commander ZrMl!

    “You miss ZrMl, don’t you, BrTl?” said Dohra kindly.

    “Uh—more or less, yeah. Quite a decent being, for a Space Fleet being.”

    “And for a Zr-cognate!” she said with a giggle.

    BrTl was opening his mouth to agree with her when Ponicho Mull cried: “Oh, a Zr-cognate! Not really? And I missed him! You know, I once met a delightful Zr-cognate who was acting as equerry to F Minister jee’Nambler Cro Formadd of Holra-Vellquamminny-Ghah! Such a charming being! I wonder, would he be a cognate of your friend ZrMl, BrTl?”

    There was no point, no point at all, in trying to explain, because Fix-It Beings, never mind the species, or mixture of species, never listened. “Yeah.”

    “Fancy that! F Minister jee’Nambler Cro Formadd spoke most highly of him: most! A very efficient being—though there was just the suggestion of the mind not being wholly on the job in hand after a night in the qwlot bars of Intergalactica Central! Ck, ck, ck!”

    The company already knew that that noise, halfway between a cluck and a ticking noise, was Ponicho Mull’s version of a titter, so Dohra tried to smile politely and Forty-Four waggled its frontal lobes politely. S-Budg just gave a low growl; good on him. Refraining from uttering a low growl, BrTl said: “Yeah, that’d be ri—”

    “But then, you xathpyroids are so clever! –Such a clever race, Dohra, don’t you find? And most resourceful—most resourceful! So of course only part of the brain is necessary for most of the fiddling little jobs an F Minister requires of its beings! Ck, ck, ck!”

    BrTl began: “Y—”

    “And of course when something more was required, that was when his wonderful xathpyroid resourcefulness came to the fore! Do you know, there was not a Phang-Phangian senso-orchid to be had in the whole of Intergalactica Central, and the F Minister’s bond-partners, as you can imagine, were rabid! Ck, ck, ck! Half an IG day before a most important diplomatic reception and no Phang-Phangian senso-orchids? But that wonderful Zr-cognate—and don’t ask me how he did it, respected assembled beings and mutant—but he produced appendagefuls of them—positive appendagefuls! So the F Minister’s bond-partners were gloriously decked—gloriously! But the funny thing was,”—he made an artful pause, but not long enough for BrTl to actually produce speech—“almost no other bond-partners were wearing Phang-Phangian senso-orchids that night, and yet we’d heard that a certain coterie had bought out all the florists within two hundred IG glps!” 

 

    “Two hundred glps isn’t much to a xathpyroid,” said BrTl very quickly indeed. “Come on over to the ship, Dohra. S-Budg seems to be missing it.”

    “Oh, dear! Poor Budg!” she cried, getting up, and blithely ignoring the small fact that it was IG-illegal not to use the “S-” with beings that were in bracelets. Not that he’d answer to anything but “Budg.” “Would you like to go back to your ship?”

    “Go to the ship!” he growled, brightening. “See my swiller!”

    “Not today,” said Dohra kindly, “but you’ll see Trff: that’ll be nice, won’t it?”

    “See Trff! Trff’s my swiller!”

    “Of course it is!”

    “This sounds most exciting!” cried Ponicho Mull, bounding up. “Shall we all go?”

    “I was just going to ask if you’d like to, Forty-Four,” said BrTl quickly. “It is quite roomy.”

    “Yes, it is,” agreed Dohra.

    “Then I’d like to, very much. Thank you, BrTl.”

    “Ooh, lovely!” cried Ponicho Mull, though no being as yet had actually invited him. He smoothed the greyish whiskers that were one of the features that put BrTl forcibly in mind of that tweaked Whtyllian cat being, and smirked at Dohra. “And perhaps we’ll all be able to see the attraction of the DorAvenian lifestyle!”

    Poor Dohra’s cheeks were very pink and she was emanating agonised embarrassment.

    “Not from anything on the ship, you won’t,” said BrTl grimly.

    “Yeah, and them artefacts you’re broadcasting a picture of,” said Lu Rullan suddenly, his hand now definitely on his blaster, “look like proscribed exports to me!”

    “Oh, never! Ck, ck, ck!” replied Ponicho Mull, throwing up his two little black semi-humanoid hands.

    “Leather shin-sheaths and stuff? They are,” said BrTl with grim satisfaction. “Aren’t they, Dohra?”

    “Um, yes. But you’re not a trader, Ponicho Mull, are you?” she said nicely.

    “Oh, no, my dear little humanoid, that requires maths, and I’m not such a very bright being as some,” he replied coyly, batting his not-so-humanoid round brown eyes at BrTl.

    Could drop the being where he stands? sent the Meanker grimly. Think of an excuse after?

    I’d back you up, only don’t: the water’d be coming out of Dohra’s eyes until Vvlvania froze over! replied BrTl hurriedly.

    Mok shit, you’re right. Why in Federation does she like the being?

    Dunno. Well, the frilly ears are definitely a factor.

    Lu Rullan looked in a puzzled way, his hand going automatically to his own frilled gills, at Ponicho Mull’s round black ears with their fluffy edging of whitish fur. Bit like a BonkoDong?

    Yeah, she admires them, too. –Don’t ask! Aloud he said: “Come on, Lu Rullan.”

    And the whole party set off for Didg’s ship.

    On the way BrTl only had to veto three suggestions from Ponicho Mull that they take a moogletube and one that he, BrTl, “tell” a lift-blob to “pretend” to be free. In front of Lu Rullan? Certainly the being was well-intentioned towards Dohra, but he was a Space Patroller, for Federation’s sake! They took a tran-pod train, not a moogletube—well, work it out, there were four of them that were too frail, not to be anything-ist, for moogletubes, and given that Forty-Four didn’t have the physiology to shelter other beings, and given also that he, BrTl, only had two arms, how many trips would that have made for him? Though he wouldn’t have minded experimenting to see if Ponicho Mull could survive a moogletube wrapped only in a pseudopod. Well, had it not been for the water-out-of-Dohra’s-eyes factor, he wouldn’t.

    “I'll go first: spacers’ etiquette,” he said as they arrived to the usual view of greyish nothing.

 

 

    OY! Trff!

    Don’t let those beings anywhere near the drive chamber, it replied immediately.

    What do you think I am? –Don’t answer that, just open up!

    “Ooh! Thrilling!” cried Ponicho Mull as the ship’s hatch suddenly appeared.

    “My ship!” growled Budg excitedly. “My swiller Trff, he done that!”

    “See, he does understand!” beamed Dohra.

    “Sort of. He did just call Trff a ‘he’,” noted BrTl, stepping in. He turned politely to give Forty-Four a hand but guess who, managing with ease to leap five IG fluh in the air on those lemur-like thin legs, grabbed it? Sourly he hoiked Ponicho Mull aboard. Before he could turn round the plasmo-blasted being was heading off down the entrance-tube to Federation-knew-wh—The drive chamber, BrTl!

    You-it’s undoubtedly right, replied BrTl grimly, shooting out a restraining pseudopod. Ignoring Ponicho Mull’s startled shriek, he helped Forty-Four in. It had to bend its head a bit but otherwise there was plenty of room for it.

    “That’s a xathpyroid pseudopod, Ponicho Mull,” it said on a gracious note. “Quite the usual thing, though not quite so usual to see one shoot out from the tail.”

    “I see,” croaked the Fix-It Being.

    Lu Rullan was helping Dohra up—and the mutant, since he was still chained to her wrist. Couldn’t it be an uncontrollable pseudopod that strangles the plasmo-blasted being, Br-cognate?

    Don’t tempt me! “Welcome aboard,” he said, as the Meanker stepped up.

    “Thanks,” he said, looking about him with interest but not bothering to lower his shades. “Quite a decent craft.”

    “Yeah. Well, even more decent if Trff could get it going—but yeah. It is.” He led the way to the bridge. S-Budg at first resisted, trying to head for the drive instead, but Dohra told him he could show them all his seat and he forgot all about the drive.

    “My seat!” he growled proudly, sitting in it.

    Those who hadn’t been on the DorAvenian ship before were looking round dazedly. After some time Forty-Four sent: Most of it’s shielded from us, is that it?

    Yes, BrTl agreed. I could show you the pilot’s seat and—uh—well, the lot, actually, but, um, not with the Fix-It Being here, if you don’t mind, Forty-Four.

    Of course, the Thwurbullerian agreed with a gracious waggle of its frontal lobes. “Ponicho Mull, I really wouldn’t try to sit th—”

    “Ouch!” shrieked Ponicho Mull, rebounding from the navigator’s seat.

    “Hoo, hoo,” noted Lu Rullan to the featureless xrillion ceiling.

    “Well, really!” he said crossly, giving himself a shake and smoothing the black-and-white head-fur. “I was never on a ship before that did that! And, may I add, when I was working for F Senator Jush Korto, we were graciously invited by the Captain himself to visit the bridge of the Pleasure Ship Golden Sunburst, the flagship of the Golden WF Line”—here Dohra was heard to swallow loudly—“where we saw everything, and sat in all the seats, and even steered the ship for a while!” 

    “Mok shit, lemur-face,” said Lu Rullan stolidly.

    “Yeah, mok shit,” agreed BrTl gratefully. “You might’ve thought you were steering, Fix-It Being, but no way would any captain let a non-Pilot steer its ship.”

    “His!” he said crossly. “He was a Friyrian of the highest class!”

    “What was his name?” asked Dohra politely.

    “Captain Veellgrinnyllea: a most gracious being, and entirely affable to all!”

    “Mm,” she said, trying not to smile.

    That is Friyrian, but not a name of the highest class, sent Forty-Four with great interest.

    Uh—you’re right, agreed BrTl. Dohra’s picked it: something to do with the “grinny” bit in the middle of it, is it?

    Exactly.

    Well, all Fix-It Beings tell lies as a matter of course. Let’s hope she picks up a few more of his, maybe it’ll put her off the being.

    Quite. –Oops, she knows there’s no such line as the Golden WF Line, too!

    At this BrTl collapsed in a choking fit. Just as well this DorAvenian ship was really solid. “Sorry,” he said eventually. “Just a passing thought. Um, well, sorry I can’t show you the drive chamber, but Trff’s working in there.”

    “But we must meet it!” cried the Fix-It Being.

    “You can meet it at dinnertime.”

    “It didn’t join us yesterday,” he pointed out sadly.

    “No, but I can promise you it will today.” AND GET SOME SOLID AGAR-AGAR INTO IT!

    No need to bellow! it replied jauntily.

    Sighing, BrTl said: “Well, um, that’s it, really. I mean, it is a working ship—”

    “But the hold! We must see the hold, my dear Br-cognate!” cried the Fix-It Being.

    “You wouldn’t like it.”

    “But I assure you I’d be fascinated! We saw all of the holds on the Pleasure Ship Golden Sunburst, with positive towers of stores, and a room completely full of ice!”

    “Ice?” croaked Dohra. 

 

    “Of course, Dohra, my dear little humanoid! For the drinks.”

    “Um, I don’t think it could’ve buh-been for the drinks, Ponicho Mull,” she stuttered.

    He wasn’t quite as tall as she was; nevertheless he managed to look down his shiny black nose at her. “But what in Federation else would it have been for, my dear little humanoid?”

    “Um, I don’t know, but, um, the culture-pans usually make the ice.”

    “Oh, on tourist-class ships, of course, my dear! Not on a Premier Class ship—VIPs and First-Class passengers only. This was best Mungo-Pungo blue ice from the famous Marpen Ice Fields of Mungo-Pungo!”

    The being’s got an answer for everything! sent BrTl dazedly to Forty-Four.

    Such beings do, it returned grimly. Circumstantial answers, very often.

    Exactly; Dohra was now replying meekly that she’d never seen Mungo-Pungo blue ice and was it very up-market? To which Ponicho Mull answered loftily that of course it was.

    “I once met an affine who tried the snowfields of Mungo-Pungo,” admitted Forty-Four.

    “Oh, very choice, very choice indeed, respected Forty-Four!” cried the Fix-It Being, clasping his little black hands together in apparent ecstasy.

    “So the affine had heard. But it didn’t suit,” said the large being definitely.

    “Didn’t suit? One can hardly imagine it!” he cried.

    “I know,” said the Thwurbullerian on a very dry note.

    Forty-Four, you won’t like the hold, Didg had a load of plush-moss die in it, sent BrTl, suddenly inspired. It waggled its frontal lobes gratefully. Thank you, BrTl. “Well,” he said cheerfully, “as we’re not gonna look at the hold today—”

    “But we must! Good gracious, a real trader ship’s hold! Or is there something naughty down there that the DorAvenian wouldn’t like us to see?” asked Ponicho Mull coyly.

    “Didg did say it was very smelly,” warned Dohra.

    “Smelly! Ck, ck, ck! Believe it if you like, Dohra, my dear little humanoid! –This does remind me of that time I was stranded on the famous pink beach of Mo Island on Carnuva with Lord Raj Vt Yai’m of Whtyll and Pleasure Girl Ghoshinnia—a delightful being of quite ultimate charm, but then of course Lord Rajji, as all his intimates called him, would never have chosen anything less—and a quite frightful, not to be anything-ist, native Carnuvese warned us not to touch the reetli fruit, because straight from the trees they stink terribly, and have to be processed before they become edible! –Quite a delicacy, to most o-breathers,” he added in a pointed voice to Lu Rullan, “though of course quoted at such an extremely high rate on the IG Commodities Exchange that few beings can afford even a taste!” 

 

    “Never heard of them,” said the Meanker indifferently.

    “Um, I’ve heard of them,” admitted Dohra.

    “Quoted at seventy thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine point five three five igs per IG ton on the Commodities Exchange,” said Forty-Four. “There are many dearer commodities.”

    “Oh, yes, indeed, respected Forty-Four! But few rarer or more delicious! Ck, ck, ck! But dear Lord Rajji was the most resourceful being—well, Whtyllian, you know, and of the highest class, always a guarantee of keen intelligence!—and he said a being couldn’t know until it tried, so we immediately found a tree laden with them, and tried some. And it was all a lie! The native was trying to keep them all to itself! They were unutterably delicious! The taste,” he said impressively, “is a cross, if such a thing can be imagined, between a ripe star pear and the most refined of Dreamy-Creamies!”

    “Dreamy-Creamies!” shouted S-Budg. “Gimme a Dreamy-Creamy, Dohra!”

    “Not today, Budg. No-one’s having Dreamy-Creamies. But think of a nice pudding you’d like after your meat at dinnertime.”

    “I like PUDDING!” he shouted.

    “Mm, sure you do,” she said mildly. “The reetli fruit sound wonderful, Ponicho Mull.”

    “Of course,” he agreed smugly. “But my point was, Dohra, my dear little humanoid, that beings have been known to spread stories of smelliness for their own ends! Ck, ck, ck!”

    Doha was very flushed. “I don’t think Didg would.”

    “My dear little humanoid! A DorAvenian trader captain? Ck, ck, ck!”

    “You can drop that entirely, lemur-face,” noted Lu Rullan grimly. “Unlock the mutant, Dohra: let him take the Fix-It Being down to the hold, if he wants to see it.”

    Ponicho Mull took a step backwards. “Guh-go with him?” he quavered in a little, thin, reedy voice that suddenly reminded BrTl of no being so much as the Lirriot consort.

    BrTl, the being’s doing it deliberately, warned Forty-Four.

    BrTl took a closer look. By the three-tongued blurryankers of Trypthfymia! So he was. The plasmo-blasted being had also picked up stuff about Friyrians and captains and shipping lines and fancy fruits—oh, and Pleasure Girls—from Dohra and used that, and something about vacuum-frozen Whtyllian lordships from him, BrTl, and the Carnuva stuff was from something Dohra had got way back from Didg—and all the Commodities Exchange stuff was because he thought Forty-Four was interested in that sort of intergalactic mok shit!

    Yes, agreed the Thwurbullerian mildly. That is very typical of Fix-It Beings. Most Thwurbullerians do have a few sensible investments, but the matter isn't one of paramount importance to us.

    His mistake, replied BrTl grimly. “Go with S-Budg or don’t go at all, no way am I gonna let unknown quantities wander about Didg’s ship,” he said on a carefully indifferent note.

    “I’ll go, too,” decided Lu Rullan, patting his blaster.

    It really does stink down there, Meanker! sent BrTl frantically.

    Got that, thanks. But I don’t mind: the meankoid tubes’ll take care of it. And I’d like to see the being squirm!

    In that case, enjoy! “Okay, then. –Budg,” he said, as Dohra operated on the chain—or thought she did: he gave its key-blob a nudge—“you show these beings your ship’s hold, eh?”

    “Yeah! The hold’s good! It stinks!” he growled happily.

    “His Captain has got him trained up, hasn’t he?” said Ponicho Mull admiringly. “Ck, ck, ck!”

    And off they went…

    After quite some time Dohra said: “I suppose that was a bit mean, really.”

    “Dohra, my dear little humanoid,” replied BrTl, looking down his noses at her, “the being wouldn’t listen to a syllable I said!”

    She gulped, and collapsed in muffled hysterics.

    “The being did ask for it,” said Forty-Four calmly.

    “Yeah. –Hang on, now I can really show you the bridge!”

    Forty-Four looked around with great interest as the bridge was revealed. So did Dohra—after a moment BrTl realised that, of course, Didg hadn’t let her see most of it before. Oops. Too late now.

    Eventually Dohra said tightly: “He was shielding most of this from me, wasn’t he?”

    “Yeah,” he admitted uncomfortably.

    “But why?” she cried.

    “Habit, I think, Dohra.”

    “Would you let me see everything on your ship’s bridge?” she asked angrily.

    “Sure. Wouldn’t let you touch anything much, but that's another matter. Well, the ship wouldn’t, either.”

    “Right,” she said grimly. “And what about Jhl, would she let me see?”

    BrTl resisted the impulse to scratch that itch behind his left shoulder-blade with a hind foot. He didn’t think Forty-Four would mind, but small, not to be anything-ist, bipedal beings didn’t much fancy the gesture, even in surroundings of solid xrillion. “Uh—well, I think she would, Dohra. Think she’d say she couldn’t see anything against it.”

    “No, exactly!” she cried, very red in the face.

    “I doubt if Didg thought you would understand very much of what you saw, Dohra,” said the Thwurbullerian on a kindly note.

    “No, but Forty-Four, a being can’t learn if they’re never allowed to experience new things!” she cried loudly.

    Forty-Four waggled its frontal lobes approvingly. “That’s very true. But given Didg’s background and upbringing,”—these, noted BrTl, just by the by, would be the background and upbringing that the DorAvenian hadn’t actually mentioned to Forty-Four: the being was getting careless—“I would doubt that he’s a being that thinks like that.”

 

 



    “No,” agreed Dohra grimly, still very flushed. “I was coming to that conclusion myself. And especially he isn’t a being that thinks female humanoids are allowed to learn new things and—and see blobs on bridges and stuff!”

    “No, well, I’m no expert, but I think that’s not an uncommon trait when beings of two genders are involved,” the Thwurbullerian said mildly.

    “Right,” agreed BrTl unguardedly. “Can’t see blndreL letting a male-tended Nblyterian see anything much on her bridge!”

    “If she had one: no, you’re right, actually,” admitted Dohra.

    “Of course she’s got one. Well, will have on her next posting.”

    Dohra stared at him. “What do you mean?”

    “She’s due for a promotion, after being stuck out beyond the last black hole for the last thirty megazillion IG years, in fact it’ll’ve come through by now—and of course she’ll have her own ship again, but something better than a small supply ferry, this time.”

    “Supply ferry?” she said dazedly.

    Technically a Supply Ferry Class XXII. They’re not fast but they’re manoeuvrable and very reliable, Trff supplied helpfully.

    “Trff, do you mean a Space Fleet Supply Ferry?” she cried, aloud.

    Yes. Class XXII, it agreed.

    “Crew of six,” added BrTl.

    “I never realised she was in Space Fleet,” she said numbly.

    “Sure. Well, she wasn’t in uniform, no. Her leave had started. Tends to do that, when you’re trying to get home from somewhere out beyond the last bl—” 

 

    “BrTl, stop going on about black holes!” she cried crossly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

    “Um, you liked her anyway,” he fumbled.

    “I feel the most abject idiot!” said Dohra sharply.

    He could see that. “Yes. Sorry,” he said humbly. “Um, didn’t you notice when Lu Rullan was telling his story that she was completely on his wave-length?”

    “Yes, but I thought that was only because they’d been you-know-what!”

    “Eh? Oh, repro stuff. Um, I suppose that was part of it, yeah.”

    There was a short pause. Forty-Four emanated mildness, BrTl tried not to emanate anything at all except “Very sorry” in Dohra’s direction, and Dohra glared at the DorAvenian ship’s xrillion floor. Finally she said: “What rank is she, then?”

    “Um, when we met her she was a First Lieutenant. She’ll have got her step-up to Lieutenant-Commander, now.”

    “Mm. Good.” More glaring at the floor. Then she said: “Did Didg know?”

    “Uh—well, think so—I mean, one qualified Pilot will always recognise—Sorry.”

    Dohra took a deep breath. “Right. And I don’t count; I get it.”

    “I’d have told you if I’d realised it mattered to you,” he said miserably.

    “I know. I’m not blaming you.”

    “Uh—no need to blame Didg, either.”

    “If you mean he can’t help it, I think he can! He is an educated, intelligent being! And he hasn’t got the excuse of not being a humanoid!”

    “That’s very true;” agreed Forty-Four judiciously. “On the other hand, as we mentioned earlier, he has got the excuse of his background and upbringing.”

    Dohra’s fists clenched. “He can’t rise above them, that’s it, isn’t it?”

    “I would say so,” said the Thwurbullerian mildly.

    “He might,” objected BrTl, as one of those huge blue-white lumo-blobs went on over his head. Why had he ever agreed to let—No, voluntarily invited the plasmo-blasted being on board—Oh, Vvlvanian curses! “Uh, benefit of the doubt, Dohra!”

    “What doubt?” she cried furiously, tears starting to her eyes. “He never let me see anything at all on the bridge, he never once treated me like a—a reasoning being, and all he thinks I’m fit for is staying home and minding the castle’s culture-pans!”

    “And producing the next generation,” agreed Forty-Four, super-mild. “Background and upbringing, as we said. –Social conditioning, some would call it.”

    “Right, well, he can keep his social conditioning!” she said bitterly.

    Forty-Four waggled its frontal lobes uncertainly. “Oh! I see: a figure of speech. No, well, I don’t say that I wouldn’t feel the same in your place, Dohra, but then, that’s my background and upbringing speaking. All affines get the same opportunities on the Thwurbullerian worlds, but of course we don’t have gender to complicate matters.”

    “No, you’re lucky,” said Dohra bitterly.

    “We think so,” it agreed placidly.

    “We’ve got gender. I mean, we don’t have repro stuff, we have culture-pods instead, but the rest of the two galaxies classes us as male and female. What I mean is, we call it #cø’mp+p and #wwÿ’, but I guess it’s the same thing. You have to have both sets of—hang on, I’ll just check that word with Trff. –Chromosomes, yeah, before you can set up a culture-pod.”

    “Yes, like, it’d take you and GrTv together,” agreed Dohra.

    “Yes. Well, if she was a Br-cognate, yeah. Usually it’s several of us #cø’mp+p ones, so it'd be her, if she was a Br-cognate, and me and—uh, all right, let’s say ZrMl if he was a Br-cognate, you have more or less got it, Dohra, yeah, and BrWl, and BrPl—like that. You’re imagining it wrong, though. We just contribute pseudopods to the culture-pod, we haven’t got little tubes like you and Didg.”

    Dohra was getting a picture of a large—well, it was a pod, all right, like nothing so much as a very, very large bean pod! They were all just casually—at least it looked casual—dropping pseudopods into it! “I see,” she said in awe.

    “I’m afraid I do, too,” said Forty-Four apologetically. “Did you mean—Oh! That’s all right, then! Thank you so much, BrTl, that was a real privilege.”

    “You’re welcome. Most beings aren’t interested in the slightest in our culture-pods. Um, but you see what I mean, Dohra? We’ve got #cø’mp+p and #wwÿ’, but the immature cognates all, um, like Forty-Four says, get the same opportunities.”

    “Then I think you must be unique in the universe!” she said on a note of despair.

    BrTl blinked slightly, but emanated gratification.

    “Xathpyroids are known for their fairness, of course,” acknowledged Forty-Four. “But possibly there are some humanoid societies—Well, your Captain’s a humanoid, BrTl, isn’t she?”

    “Yeah. Bluellian.” 

 

    “Ah! Socialism, grqwaries, and grain!” it said with a pleased waggle of the frontal lobes.

    “Yuh—Uh, yeah. Her, um, is a dad like a mother?”

    “I don’t think so,” it admitted.

    “Um, no, BrTl, a dad’s a—Like a father,” said Dohra.

    “The being in the helmet and half-armour: right, right! Um, Jhl’s Dad only wears coveralls, though: would that be right?” Suddenly a burly, rather gnarled male humanoid with short iron-grey hair and a short iron-grey beard was looking at them drily, and Dohra gave a little gasp.

    “Yes, that’d be her Dad, all right! Definitely her father, BrTl!” she said, recovering herself and smiling at him. “What does he do?”

    “He farms grqwaries. But I think the point is—Now, hang on, let me get this right.” He stared hard at Dohra. She tried not to squirm. “Eggs,” he said under his breath. “Little tubes? Hang on… Different from Didg’s—goddit. Actually it’s much easier when I don’t think about it,” he admitted.

    “Your Captain is a female,” prompted Forty-Four kindly.

    “Right, and the thing is, she says that usually females never get off the vacuum-frozen FW dump and become Pilots!” he said on a triumphant note.

    Dohra and Forty-Four looked at him doubtfully. After a moment Dohra asked: “What do they do?”

    “Look after the plasmo-blasted egg sheds and raise the kids,” responded BrTl promptly.

    “Then Bluellia is as unfair as DorAven!” she concluded bitterly.

    “It can’t be, with a political system as near to pure socialism as is possible with sentient beings,” murmured Forty-Four.

    “Not its silly political system, Forty-Four, who cares about that! No, the, um, the social system! Gender-discrimination!” produced Dohra bitterly.

    “That’s it,” agreed BrTl. Don’t you think, Trff?

    It thinks that’s the phrase, yes, it agreed. Make the point that Jhl successfully defied it, BrTl. Then you-it can make the further point that Didg might defy the DorAvenian gender-discrimination. She-it will perceive a logical connection.

    He could’ve worked that out for himself. And Federation alone knew what Forty-Four was working out! Oh, well. “Jhl successfully defied the gender-discrimination on Bluellia, she's a Pilot now. And Didg is a Pilot, too: he might defy the DorAvenian gender-discrimination,” he offered.

    “Pooh!” returned Dohra scornfully.

    She’s made that noise of scornful derision and disbelief, and/or contradiction, he reported sourly.

    It knows, was all it replied, the plasmo-blasted literal-minded engineer that it was. They’re coming back, it warned.

    Eh? Oh! Thanks, Trff! he sent as the door opened and Lu Rullan marched in, emanating meankoid pleasure. No being had to ask why, because S-Budg was two IG microseconds after him, shouting: “It STUNK down in the hold! Lemur-face, he was SICK!”

    “Where is he?” asked BrTl, ignoring as best he could the clapping-the-hand-to-the-mouth behaviour from Dohra, and the complete-cessation-of-all-movement-of-the-frontal-lobes behaviour from Forty-Four.

    “I told the tidy-blobs to tidy it all up!” reported S-Budg triumphantly before any other being could utter.

    “Uh—yeah, well done, S-Buh, uh, Budg, swiller.”

    Lu Rullan propped his burly shoulders against the doorjamb. “Just coming. There was a suggestion that some being might carry him, but none of us never heard it, eh, mutant?”

    S-Budg shook his head and slapped at an ear with a horny hand, so the audience more or less got the point. And then Ponicho Mull tottered in. If a black-and-white faced, considerably tweaked, largely New Rthfrdian lemur could look yellow, yellow was what the being looked. Hah, hah, noted BrTl grimly.

    Hoo, hoo, hoo! agreed Lu Rullan with sour satisfaction.

    “I think you’d better sit down, Ponicho Mull,” said Dohra quickly. “Oh, dear! I did warn you it was smelly.”

    “It STINKS!” shouted Budg happily. “He was SICK! He up-chucked, Dohra!”

    “Yes, poor being. –BrTl,” she ordered: “make a seat safe for him, please.”

    “It’s not my shi—” He met her mammalian eye. Blerrinbrig’s, was it like Jhl’s eye when she was not amused or was it—“Done,” he said quickly. “Sit here.”

    Weakly Ponicho Mull sank onto the navigator’s seat which had so unkindly rejected him earlier. “Thank you,” he croaked. “I have never, ever smelled—What was it?”

    BrTl cleared his throat—only very slightly, Dohra was quite frail enough, to be merely literalist, to be blown across the bridge by a real xathpyroid throat-clearing. “Well, I can’t say for sure, it’s not my ship, but what I’m picking up is plush-moss that died,” he said temperately.

    “Yeah! It died! Didg said the atmo-blob, it died, too! It STINKS!” shouted Budg.

    “I thought it might have been mok droppings,” said Ponicho Mull weakly.

    “No.”—Senso-tissues!—“No, that’d be much worse, and none of us’d be able to get anywhere near the ship, in fact it wouldn’t’ve been allowed to dock.”

    “Seven hunnert mega-glps out, and only after deep space Decontam. times five,” said the Meanker with terrific satisfaction that had very little to do with the facts in his statement.

    “Mm,” said Ponicho Mull through a handful of senso-tissues. “I see.”

    “Shall we go back to the bar?” suggested Dohra kindly.

    No being dissenting, they did that. Ponicho Mull didn’t even suggest a moogletube on the way back, in fact he didn’t even suggest that any being carry any other being.

    Unfortunately the shot of Huyajhangwanian brandy that Forty-Four kindly offered him perked him up no end and he was soon his old self again, telling them all about the time his F Senator’s bond-partner had insisted on ordering some treated mok droppings for her plasmo-blasted rose garden… 

 

    Thoroughly decontaminated as they were, and of course known throughout the two galaxies as the best rose fertilizer there was— Well, exactly! What else had the beings expected? Why go on about it?

    All Fix-It Beings are like that! Trff sent jauntily, bobbing up to them.

    Yeah. It’s not dinnertime yet, replied BrTl groggily.

    No, but it’s finished! “It’s finished,” it said aloud.

    “Congratulations, Trff,” said Forty-Four kindly.

    “Well done, that Ju’ukrterian engineer,” agreed BrTl mildly.

    “Yeah, good on ya, Trff!” agreed Lu Rullan. “Have a fermented laa on me.” He looked hard at the Fix-It Being but he appeared not to get the point that most beings had by now stood a round.

    “Thank you-it, Lu Rullan. –It is Trff,” it said to the goggling Ponicho Mull.

    “Yes! Of course!” he gasped, bounding up.

    “It does look a bit like a Flppu, doesn’t it?” said Dohra sympathetically.

    “No!” he snapped. “What an idea! Greetings, Great It-Being,” he said, bowing until the black nose touched the skinny but very brightly clad knee.

    “Greetings, Ponicho Mull,” it replied calmly. “Call it Trff.”

    “Oh, no! Far too great an honour for this humble Fix-It Being!” he gasped, bowing again and patting his skinny but very brightly clad chest.

    “All right, call it Great It-Being, no cover off anyone’s tube,” drawled the Meanker drily. “Siddown, Trff. So the DorAvenian’s ship’s A.B.G., is it?”

    “All Blobs Go, Dohra,” it explained. “No, some of them still need a rest.”

    “The ship’ll take off, though, will it?” prompted BrTl.

    “Only if—Yes,” it admitted. “It’s fixed.”

    “Congratulations, Great It-Being, if I may be so bold!” smirked Ponicho Mull. “Please, may I humbly offer my business-blob?” He produced one from a fold of his garment.

    Nothing else happened.

    “I don’t think an it-being really needs a Fix-It Being, Ponicho Mull, though of course many beings do,” said Forty-Four politely.

    “But one never knows! Please, Great One, may I beg you to take it?”

    “It sees. A being offers the blob and a being takes the blob. Yes, thank you-it, Fix-It Being,” it said, taking it.

    “You see,” said BrTl with huge enjoyment, “no being’s ever, to my knowledge, offered it a business-blob before.”

    “Ever,” it confirmed tranquilly. “Ah,” it said, holding the blob up in a tentacle.

    “What’s in it, Trff?” asked Dohra with interest.

    “Oh, many business lies, Dohra,” it said happily.

    “No!” cried Ponicho Mull angrily. “Every picture in that blob’s true!”

    There was a fractional pause, during which BrTl just had time to send to Forty-Four and Lu Rullan: Wait for it! Then Trff said: “Not in terms of the commonly perceived space-time continuum.”

    Promptly Lu Rullan collapsed in a terrible fit of meankoid hoos, and Dohra, in spite of the clapping-the-hand-to-the-mouth, followed suit, in a terrible gale of mammalian giggles.

    “It doesn’t mind,” Trff assured the glaring Ponicho Mull when the noise had died down and a servo-mech was distributing drinks.

    “Nuh—What? No, well,” he said, fluffing out the grey and white fur at his neck and making a bridling motion, “all business beings exaggerate a little, let’s admit it!”

    “Figure of speech,” said BrTl quickly to his ship-companion.

    “Several,” it agreed mildly, raising its glass of fermented laa. “To TPQW/TPSW618c!”

    “Eh?” croaked the Meanker.

    “I think it—Yes, it does. It means Didg’s ship,” explained BrTl on a weak note.

    “To Didg’s ship!” chorused Lu Rullan, Forty-Four and Ponicho Mull.

    “Yeah, let’s drink to Didg’s ship,” agreed BrTl tolerantly. “Come on, Budg, swiller!”

    “My SWILLER!” he shouted. “Our SHIP!” He drained his ale. “Hey, Dohra, ya gotta drink!”

    “I’ll drink to the ship, yes,” she said grimly. “To TPQW, slash, what you said, Trff.”

    “Through the hatch!” prompted S-Budg on an anxious note.

    “Yes,” said Dohra, smiling valiantly at him. “Through the hatch, Budg.”

    After that, there was just time before dinner for BrTl to contact Jhl again, so sending Trff an order not to drink any more fermented laa and to KEEP ALERT and not to let Forty-Four make anything that even looked like a move—what it might take it upon itself to do to the Thwurbullerian in consequence of this he was past caring—he hurried off via a moogletube or two to the pod, and some decent privacy. 

    “Flaming Vvlvanian magma-pits,” said Jhl in a hollow voice. “For a Thwurbullerian, that was very nearly showing its hand, wasn’t it?”

    “Yeah. I’m not blaming Didg, but he has left the way real clear for Forty-Four to make its move. And Dohra was right about all the gender-discrimination stuff, and I couldn’t think of anything to say to make her feel better, and I was concentrating on not mentioning Friyrians or their gender-discrimination stuff, and then Forty-Four mentioned Bluellia, and that made it worse!”

    “It would, yeah. –Gee, that’s a real good picture of Dad you’ve got, there!”

    “He’s very clear in your head. I can’t distinguish the cognates so well, though.”

    “Bhl and Bht? They are very alike. The Gervaynian worm isn’t, though.”

    “Oh, the third cognate! I’d forgotten about him!”

    “Yeah. Forget about him again, he’s not worth remembering.”

    “Oh! Of course! He’s the one that’s got a posting on Blrtltonia and never sends the cognates any blrtlberries!”

    “Food. Always an effective memory-trigger,” said Jhl faintly.

    “Hah, hah. Um, can you suggest anything?”

    “Only that you’d feel a lot better if you zapped the Fix-It Being,” she replied drily.

    “Would I ever! He’s really getting up Lu Rullan’s tubes, I can tell ya!”

    “Is that a meankoid saying? Very graphic. Um, try to encourage Dohra about her job and Silver Ash Flyer, I think’d be the way to go.”

    “Yeah. Okay. I suppose it’s only about lunchtime where you are, is it?”

    “Just after. The In crowd’s gone for a picnic but I elected myself out of it.”

    “Ye-es. Just run by me again what those picnic things are, would you?”

    “Sitting round eating in the open air—bit like a dainty afternoon tea but on the grass. Yes, it is a nice shade of green on Btcx,” she agreed to his admiring thought. “Now get this.”

    “UGH!” he cried. The sparf-covered Whtyllian was sitting on the nice green grass—km+mppaf, a very cheering shade—with a smirk on his humanoid face, surrounded by assorted ladyship beings all telling him how marvellous he was, complete with silly hats on their humanoid, Friyrian or, great steaming Vvlvanian magma-pits, meankoid heads! How was she breathing?

    “That particular hat is plenty big enough to allow the gills enough space, and it’s made of some loosely-woven substance that lets the air circulate: clear enough?”

    “Yeah. It’s not clear why he’s wearing his Number Ones, though,” he croaked.

    “No, quite,” Jhl agreed acidly.

    “So what are you doing?”

 

    Jhl replied with a smile in her voice: “I’ve had a nice glass of spring water and a delicious steak and salad sandwich in my room, and I’m booked in for a whllubbly gell bath here at the hotel. Blissfully alone, except for an s-being or two that’ll bring me chilled glasses of refreshment at intervals.”

    “Good. Enjoy it. Um, any news on when you might get away?”

    “Well, the official mok shit’s almost over. Next week, digits crossed?”

    “I’ll cross them all!” said BrTl fervently.

    “Do that. Captain out,” said Jhl with a smile in her voice.

    “BrTl out. –Well, that’s promising,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t have bothered with the vegetable matter in that meat sandwich, though. Right: back to the fray—and when she gets here and sees just how it is, maybe she’ll sort Dohra out once and for all!” And don’t any being DARE to mention the phrase “free will!” There wasn’t an actual reply as such but he was almost sure he caught a Trffish sort of suggestion of “It wasn’t going to.” Much! he sent. To which, he was glad to find, there was not even a suggestion of a reply.

    Dinnertime featured the Fix-It Being ordering something no other being in their party had ever heard of and complaining about its quality when he got it, and the Fix-It Being telling them interminable stories about occasions when he’d dined in the company of some extremely up-market being or another extremely up-market— But BrTl just concentrated on his meat. Forty-Four made polite noises from time to time but he could see it wasn’t really interested, either. However, this did not stop it asking the plasmo-blasted being for a story once they were back in the bar. It was a bit early for small, not to be anything-ist, green, fluffy and spheroid or pink and bipedal beings to be drinking fermented laa and Whtyllian zhr’ee respectively—but who could blame them? 

 

    “And perhaps it could be a story about the planet you’re from, Ponicho Mull?” added Forty-Four politely.

    “About nuThoomyyPonderavvi?” he croaked. “But respected Forty-Four, it’s so dull!”

    “I'm sure it isn’t,” it said politely. “They must have stories that they tell there?” It waggled its frontal lobes expectantly.

    “Um, we watch the Services a lot…” he said lamely.

    “So do we!” agreed Dohra kindly. “We live in slots; what’s it like on your world?”

    “Oh, very urbanised: we have slots, too—much higher towers than those, Dohra! Ck, ck, ck!” He sent them a picture. Several beings blinked or waggled their frontal lobes or otherwise expressed shock: the slot-towers were very, very high and though they were certainly very brightly illuminated, the whole effect was one of darkness and grime.

    It would be dark, BrTl, that’s a picture of night-time he-it’s sending.

    Yeah. Now explain the grime.

    Poverty combined with the amount of xrillion mining that’s done on that world, Trff replied instantly. Also fosh mining, though that’s not done near the conurbations.

    No? It could explain the mutancy, though.

    It explains part of it, it replied temperately, and BrTl gave up.

    “There is a story that I’ve heard the fosh miners tell,” offered Ponicho Mull. “Spurious, of course, respected Forty-Four! But if you’d care to hear it?”

    It would, and received most politely the information that H#Roosh Toh Ferrabarrajarra M., a Crypto-Rwthwarian of the highest class, and a very wealthy being with an extraordinarily refined sense of humour, had greatly appreciated it.

    Was that a dental stop, BrTl? asked Dohra on a dubious note.

    Don’t think so. Not if he pronounced it right and my translator picked it up right.

    A Crypto-Rwthwarian glottal stop, Dohra. To many beings’ auditory perceptions, not unlike the Slaetho-Xathpyrian dental stop, supplied Trff helpfully.

    Trff, this story’s gonna be dead boring, warned BrTl. I’d doze off now, if I was you-it.

    It doesn’t find stories boring.

    Unfortunately this was true. Of course, as was revealed in those rehashings when they were back at the pod, it frequently got hold of the wrong end of the ban-ban-ban entirely.

    Just don’t rehash this one tonight! he sent grimly.

    Dohra might want to, it replied hopefully.

    Good, you can have a joint humanoid and Ju’ukrterian rehashing and leave me out of it! He finished his triple shot of nnru juice, but unfortunately didn't manage to nod off, so he got the lot. And very odd it was, too. Baffling, in fact. 

 

    “It was really strange, not the sort of story you’d expect a fosh miner to tell, at all!” admitted Dohra cheerfully over breakfast.

    She-it means not the sort of story she-it expected a fosh miner to tell. Though she-it doesn’t know exactly what fosh is.

    “Uh—right,” agreed BrTl groggily. He didn’t know that he did, either—well, not all that chemo stuff that Trff was sending.

    “Because, you’d expect a miner to tell a story about its—or his or her, of course—mining; and I do know it’s a mineral!”

    She-it doesn't know exactly what a mineral is, either.

    Er—no. Actually, Trff, most beings don’t care all that much exactly what a mineral is—though if you want to tell me, go right ahead!

    It just did.

    BrTl cleared his throat cautiously. “Er—yeah. Sorry, Trff. It’s me, not you-it. What? Oh—right, Dohra, you would expect that, yeah. So, um, all those mountains and stuff didn’t have anything to do with fosh, then?”

    “Um, no-o…” She looked dubiously at Trff.

    “No. There are no economically viable deposits of fosh in that thermal area,” it stated.

    “Thermal area! That’s the expression I was trying to think of!” cried Dohra.

    “Right, so I wasn’t imagining those pictures of the ground steaming round those mountains. Uh, were those humanoid bits?” groped BrTl.

    “Sort of. Rhummans are a bit different from C’T’reans,” said Dohra kindly.

    “Human var. Rhumman,” said Trff helpfully.

    “Yeah, um, what was that word Forty-Four kept broadcasting?” he groped.

    “Natives,” said Dohra definitely. Simultaneously Trff sent firmly: Autochthones.

    BrTl looked at it limply.

    “Earliest known inhabitants,” it explained.

    “Yes: natives,” said Dohra.

    BrTl looked at Trff again but it just sat there like a ball of pale green fluff. “Um, yeah. Maybe if you could tell it like the being told it—if you can remember it word-for w— ’Course you -it can! And maybe you could both explain as you go.” Um, aloud, Trff: she might get a bit lost if you—Yeah. Thanks.

 

    This is a story of the Old, Old Time, that happened before the Great Earth Mother Pappee and the Great Sky Father Laupaunene lay together and produced Maulauee, the first being, who fished the Land of Hawaikeenuneealaulau out of the ocean. 

    “That’s what I heard the first time, but it doesn’t make sense!” said BrTl exasperatedly.

    “I think it’s a myth,” said Dohra cautiously.

    “I dare say. What sort of being was this first being, so-called?” he demanded crossly.

    “Oh, definitely a Rhumman,” said Dohra confidently.

    “Yes,” agreed Trff.

    “Trff, this is space garbage!” he said hotly.

    “Yes,” it agreed happily. “That is one description, certainly.”

    “And what I picked up from the plasmo-blasted Fix-It Being was that it was the ground and the sky, doing repro stuff! It’s a—a contradiction in terms! Well, for a start, how could they?”

    “Um, well, they’d of done it with, um, little tubes, BrTl,” said Dohra cautiously. “Like humanoids always do—you know!”

    “The sky is the sky—well, I mean, it’s the atmosphere surrounding the plasmo-blasted planet—”

    “Yes, but in native myths it can be a person as well.”

    “It CAN’T!” he shouted.

    After the parties at the five nearest tables to theirs in the ISLA cafeteria had prudently removed themselves to a considerable distance, Trff suggested: “Could you-it take it as a given, perhaps?”

    “No,” he said grumpily.

    “The thing is, it’s a myth; it’s—um, well, Forty-Four says myths are the way beings tried to explain their world, like, um, seasons and that, before they knew about space travel or blobs, or, um, well, before they knew about why things are the way they are!” offered Dohra.

    BrTl glared suspiciously at Trff. “Is she right?”

    “Yes.”

    “Um, Trff,” began Dohra uncomfortably: “he needs—”

    “It sees. She-it is right. You-it’s right, too, BrTl: this Rhumman myth from nuThoomyyPonderavvi isn’t about seasons, it’s about why the mountains in that part of that world are like they are.”

    “Yes, that’s it!” beamed Dohra.

    “Uh—Oh. I suppose I sort of see. They didn’t have volcanology, either—right?—Right. Okay, go on—but I’m warning you, I’m not satisfied about this repro stuff!” he warned.

    They waited but that seemed to be it, so Trff went on in the Fix-It Being’s words: 

    In those times there were four great spirits who dwelled together in the land of seething steam and boiling mud. Their names were Taranalaikenene, Ruapapappee, Ngaruakinene, and Tongaluanene. Today we know them as Mount Tara, Mount Ruapapa, Mount Ngarua, and Mount Tongalua. For a long time Taranalaikenene, Ruapapappee, Ngaruakinene, and Tongaluanene lived side-by-side very happily. But eventually Taranalaikenene became very unhappy because Ruapapappee was the bond-partner of Ngaruakinene, and he wanted her for himself. But Ngaruakinene was a fierce and jealous spirit, who would never have given her up, and so Taranalaikenene went sadly away to live in another part of the country. And that’s why today Mount Tara is in Tara Province, a long way from the place of seething steam and boiling mud that we call Kauwikianene-a-Luaphongariro National Park. 

    “The thermal area, we’d call that seething place,” explained Dohra.

    “Uh—yeah. Mountains cannot up stakes and move,” BrTl noted pointedly.

    “Only in myths and other stories,” said Trff tranquilly, “or with the aid of a Terrain Modeller from Planet Formers Corporation.”

    “Gee, not from World-Shields Incorporated?” retorted BrTl nastily.

    “No, though it’s true that Planet Formers Corporation is wholly owned by Whtyll WS Inc., and World-Shields Incorporated is jointly owned by Whtyll WS Inc. and the Federal Government of the Federated Worlds of the Two Galaxies.”

    “That’s telling me,” he muttered sourly.

    “Think of it this way,” said Dohra quickly. “You’re living in this place and there’s these three mountains close together, they look sort of almost cosy together, and then it’s all quite flat—um, okay, Trff, relatively flat—all the way for IG glps, and then suddenly there’s a lonely-looking mountain all by itself, IG glps away. So you ask yourself how this might of happened, and you make up a story to explain it! See?”

    “No. Wouldn’t the terrain make it obvious why that mountain was there?”

    “Not if you-it was a being that knew nothing about geology,” said Trff.

    BrTl eyed it warily but it didn’t attempt to suggest “even less than you-it does now” or anything of that sort. So he said in a mollified tone: “I geddit. Though mountains can’t look cosy together, Dohra—or lonely. Okay: go on, Trff.” 

    For some time Ruapapappee, Ngaruakinene, and Tongaluanene lived side-by-side peacefully in the land of seething steam and boiling mud. Then came the dreadful day on which Ngaruakinene realised that Tongaluanene had fallen in love with Ruapapappee, his bond-partner! He thundered furiously at him, and Tongaluanene thundered right back. Their molten fury spewed red-hot into the air and twisted into great rivers, blackening as it fell, to form the huge rock mass that we call Luaphongariro Rocks.

    “Had enough?” shouted Ngaruakinene, huffing and puffing furiously.

    Tongaluanene had had enough for the time being, and retired, defeated.

    “Never look at that wicked being again!” Ngaruakinene ordered his bond-partner angrily.

    “I didn't want to go off with him anyway!” cried Ruapapappee indignantly.

    “You did! I saw the way you were looking at him!”

    “I wasn’t!” she shouted. And the two of them roared and thundered at each other, covering the ground with stones and ash for glps around, forming the great arid plateau that we call Kauwikianene Plateau. 

    “I get it: primmo geology and volcanology: why didn’t you say so in the first place?” said BrTl.

    “We did!” cried Dohra indignantly.

    “It was certainly implied in what we said,” agreed Trff.

    “It wasn't, but it’s space garbage anyway. Though Kauwikianene Plateau is arid, yeah. The ground’s dark grey and dead-looking.”

    There was a stunned silence. Eventually Trff admitted: “He-it has been to nuThoomyyPonderavvi, but it could almost swear that name wasn’t in his-its memory store.”

    “It wasn’t,” said BrTl simply. “Never registered the name of the plasmo-blasted place. But that picture you-it got off the Fix-It Being is where I was, all right. –Bit of Lost Cause Guiding,” he explained to Dohra. “Those two mountains were smoking, ’specially the pointy one, they say it erupts every few IG years. The other one’s not so regular, it only erupts every so often. Supposed to be a good show when it does go up. Eh? Oh. I lost two FWs that time, Dohra. Entirely their own fault. You could stop now if you like, Trff— No, hang on. Three mountains? But there’s only two!”

    “Two plus the remains of another one. This story explains why,” it said severely.

    “It doesn’t, but go on,” he sighed. 

    Peace returned to the land of seething steam and boiling mud. Ruapapappee and Ngaruakinene lived happily together as bond-partner and bond-partner, and Tongaluanene made no more attempts to persuade Ruapapappee to run away with him. Every so often, just to keep Ruapapappee in line, Ngaruakinene would emit a warning rumble. 

    Then he realised that Tongaluanene’s courage had returned, and he was once again pursuing the beautiful Ruapapappee! The jealous Ngaruakinene thundered furiously: this time it would be a fight to the death! Great boulders flew from his mouth, forming huge wounds and gashes in Tongaluanene’s sides. But Tongaluanene was undeterred and thundered right back at him, more and more furiously as each boulder struck him. Soon Tongaluanene had worked himself into a mighty fury. He made one last great effort to defeat Ngaruakinene and win the beautiful Ruapapappee: gathering all his forces he proceeded to hurl molten rock, fire, ash and boulders at Ngaruakinene, to smother him forever! And boom! Crash! BOOM! A huge cloud of dust covered the land, with fire flashing from it red-gold.

    “Do you give up?” panted Ngaruakinene.

    But there was no reply. And when the dust cleared they could see why: Tongaluanene had thundered and crashed so hard that he’d blown his top right off!

 

    “Satisfied?” shouted Ruapapappee bitterly. “See what you’ve done?”

    “Serve him right!” shouted Ngaruakinene angrily. “And if I ever catch you hankering after that being again, you’ll get what for!”

    “Huh!” she cried scornfully, sending a great flash of flame skywards. “Then you’ll get what for right back, you jealous thing!”

    And that is why today Mount Tongalua is only a tumbled mass of broken crags instead of the upstanding mountain he once was, and why even to this day, the jealous Mount Ngarua still smokes and rumbles crossly, and every so often Mount Ruapapa blows up at her jealous bond-partner!

   

    “Total mok shit,” concluded BrTl with a certain satisfaction.

    “In those autoch—natives’ terms, it does explain the phenomena satisfactorily,” noted Trff.

    “Pooh! You-it’s not convinced!” he scoffed.

    There was one of those IG-microsecond-long pauses and then it said: “It’s convinced that in the old days those Rhumman natives found it a very convincing story.”

    “Give up, BrTl!” advised Dohra with a loud giggle.

    “I will!” he said with feeling. “And you’re asking me to believe that fosh miners tell this mega-silly story?”

    “We aren’t,” noted Dohra.

    “Lots of those fosh miners are Rhummans,” said Trff.

    “So?” he groaned.

    “The thing is, Ponicho Mull was once a fosh miner himself!” said Dohra with a smothered giggle. “Oh, dear, it’s mean to laugh! Didn’t you notice? The poor being was trying quite desperately to shield it, because he’s ashamed of it, but the more he tried the more it sort of glowed there in his mind!”

    “Yeah. Well, I noticed but I wasn’t that interested. –Oh, right: maybe it’s a story he’s known since his culture-pod. Uh, hang on, is he part Rhumman, though?”

    “Some of his humanoid DNA is Human var. Rhumman,” conceded Trff.

    “Right. There really was no point to the story, though.”

    “Not what you’d call a point, but the story’s its own point!” said Dohra. “Forty-Four says—” She stopped. “I see,” she said on a grim note. “I’m sorry for boring you.”

    Friendship, prompted Trff.

    Yes! How slow does you-it think—Don’t answer that! “I can see no being’s ever pointed this out to you, Dohra, only a being doesn’t really mind if a friend wants to tell it something that it normally wouldn’t be interested in, because, um, it’s different when it’s a friend.” She was frowning. “Almost like a cognate!” he finished desperately.

    Dohra was now very flushed. “Um, thank you, BrTl.”

    “So tell me.”

    “Um, well, Forty-Four thinks that it really is a very, very old traditional story on Ponicho Mull’s world and that it might even be an indication that humanoids are native to that planet!”

    “Oh, right,” he said foggily. “Good show. Wanna try that k’fi stiff that Duh—uh, many humanoids like?”

    “No, I hate it, it’s horribly strong. Um, well, actually, now you come to mention—Only that horrid servo-mech will charge three igs for it, because it’s breakfast-time!”

    “All right, let’s go to the bar,” he said, not bothering to look and see what it was. 

 

    When they got there Dohra revealed it was a raffleberry shake and went off to the hygiene cabinets while he ordered it. And one for himself, while he was at it.

    “You have to be horribly tactful with humanoids,” he said glumly to Trff.

    “Generically speaking? Yes, a being does.”

    “Um, you-it wasn’t all that fascinated by that story, were you?” he said cautiously.

    “No. But it does understand about friends and being tactful with humanoids.”

    BrTl sagged. “Yeah,” he said gratefully. “Good old Trff. ’Course you-it does. What do you think about all this interest she’s taking in Forty-Four’s plasmo-blasted story-telling junk?”

    “It thinks she-it’s exercising her-its mind and enjoying it,” it said cautiously.

    “Yeah, but what if Forty-Four implants the suggestion that if she goes to Intergalactica she could do a Third School degree and exercise it even more?”

    “There are other humanoids at the Intergalactic Univ—All wrong for her-it, you-it’s right! It’ll undo anything Forty-Four does. But what does she-it want?” it asked sadly.

    BrTl gulped. If it couldn’t see—!

    “No, it can’t. It doesn’t think she-it actually knows,” Trff concluded glumly.

    No—quite. Well, thank the Federation he was a xathpyroid and Trff was a Ju’ukrterian, and Jhl—uh, was Jhl.

    “Yes,” Trff agreed. “Though she-it doesn’t like k’fi, either.”

    Charitably he overlooked that. After all, it had managed to communicate in non-Ju’ukrterian terms for—

    Ever since it got here! it sent jauntily.

    Ouch. You could put it like that—yes. “Yeah. Poor old Trff. Have a laa,” he said kindly.