The Mammalian Humanoid's Tale Again

6 

The Mammalian Humanoid’s Tale Again 

 

    Didg came into the huge Level Pink cafeteria, only about a twentieth filled with o-breather beings absorbing breakfast, or in the case of those not on IG-normal time cycles, other meals, and looked round with his usual caution but with more than usual interest. He sensed her before he saw her: half hidden by the huge bulk of brown fur and grey-green Durocloth coveralls. A suggestion that the servo-mech might like to provide him with an S/IG mug of Grade-A Whtyllian k’fi for one tenth of its normal price didn’t work, so he resigned himself to a mug of steaming spaceport muck, tried not to look at what the culture-pan produced in answer to a request for fried salted DorAvenian kog meat with boo-bird eggs and spiced grqwary sausage, resignedly let the servo-mech add a slab of wholegrain bread, grain unidentified, to the side of the plate, and lounged over to join them.

    “Gidday, Sweet Cheese. Gidday, swiller,” he said casually, pulling up a humanoid-size chair beside her.

    “Hullo, Didg,” she said, smiling that smile of hers that went right through you and turned your innards to mush.

    “Hullo,” said BrTl on a glum note. “How did you manage to get fried meat?”

    Didg looked at the giant slab of reconstituted something-or-other in front of him, and grinned. “Just asked. It isn’t what I asked for, mind, but as close as it comes. That’d be mato-meat, would it?”

    “That’s what I said!” she agreed, smiling and nodding.

    “It’s vegetable!” reported the xathpyroid aggrievedly.

    “Yeah. Ya need to specify carnivore-style,” he said, eyeing the plate in front of Dohra. “Oops.”

    Dohra bit her lip. “Mm. I asked for a boo-bird egg omelette with a real New Rthfrdian grapefruit to start with, and it gave me this!”

    He looked at the unidentified cereal grains and the small container of grqwaries’ milk and smiled. “Asked you if you were C’T’rean, did it?”

    “Yes,” she said dazedly. “How did you know?”

    “It’s their built-in fail-safe, see? They’re blobbed up to ask you. Ya gotta tell them you’re from the place where the plasmo-blasted stuff is grown—or raised, in the case of some,” he noted, glancing sideways at BrTl’s mato-meat, “otherwise they’ll give ya something they know’ll agree with your metabolism. –You should know better, swiller.”

    “It slipped my mind. Well, it’s rather early, isn’t it?”

    “Ya could try the recycler. It might give ya back—well, a tenth of an ig,” he allowed fairly, looking at the size of the slab of mato-meat.

    “Great, that’d let me buy an S/IG mug of no-fluid-ever-heard-of-in-the-Known-Universe,” he noted, looking hard at Didg’s mug.

    “Close. This isn’t actually no-fluid-ever-heard-of-in-the-Known-Universe, though I grant you it looks like it. This is genuine steaming-spaceport-muck.”

    BrTl broke down and sniggered slightly.

    “Maybe I should’ve had a mug of grqwaries’ milk,” admitted Dohra, looking sideways at her own steaming mug.

    “Yeah. Well, you’ve got some there: you could pour some of that into the steaming-spaceport-muck instead of putting it on the cereal.”

    “Been there, done that. These ISLA cafeteria plates are smarter than you might think,” said BrTl sourly. “There’s two places the liquid in that small pod or whatever it is can go: on those dead husks or in the recycler.”

    “That right? Well, I never had it myself. Is the plate controlling the spoon too?” he asked.

    Dohra tried to spoon some of the dried cereal onto the table, without success. “Something is,” she admitted sourly.

    “Trff could fix it for you,” offered BrTl, prodding his mato-meat with the implement provided.

    “Where is it?” asked Didg, embarking on his sausage. –Not bad. Probably contained some kind of real meat.

    “Asleep. It’s not just the fermented laa, though no being’s claiming that’s not a factor. It gets tired after a session of tinkering with the blobs.”

    “Right, well, my suggestion would be the recycler, Dohra, and then try telling a servo-mech you’re a grapefruit-eating carnivore from New Rthfrdia. –BrTl, swiller, for Federation’s sake chuck that plasmo-blasted mato-meat down the recycler!”

    “Uh—yeah, I will,” he decided. He got up groggily. Dohra followed suit, less groggily.

    “And watch out: I dunno where xathpyroids’ ID discs are usually kept but I got a fair idea where yours is, Sweet Cheese,” added Didg, eyeing the spot hungrily, “and most plasmo-blasted ISLA recyclers are nicely positioned to read it!”

    “Oh—yes. Forgot,” remembered BrTl. “Meant to warn you, Dohra.”

    “Do you mean it’s got a blob in it that—that sends messages to, um, them?” she squeaked.

    “Think it is a blob, actually,” BrTl admitted, hastily putting a shield round her thought. “Give me your plate, I’ll do it.” They went off to the nearest recycler, where Dohra stood well back. BrTl was now awake enough to put a really nice shield round his ID disc—probably IG-illegal, but then so was reading it without very visible warnings in Intergalactic and the language/s of whatever planet or moon one happened to be on, and these attractive ISLA recyclers which the innocent Dohra had earlier admired certainly didn’t display any of those.

    “Were those plates made of lubolyon?” she ventured as the recycler engulfed them and BrTl waited for it to reimburse him.

    “Uh—something like it,” he said, not bothering to point out that lubolyon didn’t generally grab your spoon and prevent you spooning dried husks all over the table. “Why?”

    “Um, lots of kids’ toys are made of recycled lubolyon on C’T’rea.”

    “Are they? Oh—kids: immature beings, right, goddit. Well, they are throughout the Federation, actually, Dohra. Are they cheap on C’T’rea, is that it?” He poked the recycler with an encouraging toe, as it still wasn’t disgorging any credits.

    “No, they plasmo-blasted well aren’t!” she said with feeling. “But what I meant was, you’re encouraged to recycle it but you don’t get hardly anything for it.”

    “Same like the rest of the Federation, then,” he agreed amiably. “Um, hang on: think it’s recycled something-or-other in the first place, isn’t it? Uh… lumo-blob culturing muck?”

    “Um, dunno. Um, did the price of the meal include the price of the plates?”

    “Dunno, Dohra. Never tried walking out the doorway with one.”

    “No,” she agreed. “It’s taking a long time, isn’t it?”

    “Possibly that mato-meat’s given it indigestion.” He poked it with his toe again, rather harder. “Ow!” he gasped, restraining himself from hopping with some difficulty. However, the manoeuvre seemed to have worked, because the recycler belched, flashed up a very, very, brief sign which said “Take your credits now” and shyly produced a very, very minute tip of a—“Got it!” he gasped.

    “Asteroids of Hhum, you have to be quick, don't you?” she said in some awe. 

 

    “Yeah!” Panting slightly, BrTl displayed the credit disc.

    After a moment Dohra said sadly: “Is that for both?”

    “Uh—gotta be, I put them both in at the same time.”

    “Mm.” She gave the recycler a nasty look. “Mean thing!”

    “Yeah. Well, fancy a—” He couldn’t think of a plasmo-blasted thing that cost a tenth of an ig except the steaming-spaceport-muck. “S/IG mug of steaming-spaceport-muck?” he finished sourly.

    “No. Um, can we put it towards the cost of a fresh breakfast?”

    “We can try,” he conceded, and they went off to join the queue at the service counter.

    “Is that the same servo-mech?” she hissed as it slid up to the next-but-two being in the queue.

    “Dunno, they all look the same.”

    “J’nno reckons there’s an IG Reg that says they have to display their numbers prominently.”

    “I dare say he’s right. So him and whose fleet are gonna make ISLA adhere to it?”

    “Goddit,” she acknowledged sourly.

    “They won’t give double servings, but if I manage to get some meat you can have some of it,” he offered generously.

    “No, BrTl,” she said, reaching up to pat his forearm kindly, “you need your nourishment, thanks all the same. And I really don’t feel like meat at his hour of the morning.”

    Eh? Nothing but meat was what he always felt like at this hour of the morning! Well, whatever blobbed you up. “I'll go first: spacers’ etiquette,” he said firmly as the thing slid up to them. “I’m a carnivorous xathpyroid from Whtyll and I’d like a xathpyroid-size helping of fried grpplybeast meat.”

    Vegetables? Bread? it offered.

    “No,” replied BrTl through the crunchers. “But I will have a basin of fresh Oononian spring water. –If this works,” he said kindly to Dohra, “you could always drink some of it instead of steaming-spaceport-muck.”

    “Yes: thanks.” She watched as he opened the little change-purse that he kept blob-locked to a foreleg and extracted three igs from it. “Um, do they give change?”

    “Only in credits, but Jhl isn’t due yet, so I’ll have to eat more of their Vvlvanian-cursed muh— Great steaming piles of mok droppings!” he gasped as the culture-pan disgorged a steaming slab of almost-certainly-grpplybeast-meat-or-something-very-like-it.

    “It worked!” she gasped. “Quick, give it the credit disc, BrTl!”

    Cautiously he proffered the credit disc and one ig. More igs required, the plasmo-blasted thing announced. He offered another ig. More igs required. He gave it the third ig. Pluhorchoing, it announced, very, very quietly.

    “That was ‘Please wait for your change!’” she gasped.

    “I know,” he agreed grimly, standing his ground. “Many beings take that for a hiccup or belch, did you know that?”

    “I can well believe it,” she conceded. They glared at the servo-mech. It just stood there.

    After a while a timid voice from behind Dohra said: “Um, ’scuse me, xathpyroid, but I think it’s this humanoid’s term to be served.”

    Dohra turned and smiled at a smallish scarlet-crested Nblyterian in Space Fleet midshipman’s uniform. He was about her own height, so there was more than some excuse for the timid tone. “No, actually he’s waiting for his change.”

    “Galaxies, do they give change?” he gulped.

    “Yeah. When they, like, hiccup after you’ve given them the igs, they’re really asking you to wait for your change.”

    “I must’ve lost hundreds of igs that way!” he gasped.

    BrTl gave a very slight nod of his head, with due respect for frailer physiques and ISLA cafeteria ceilings. “You and ninety percent of the sentient beings in the Known— Excuse me.” The servo-mech had just announced, very, very quietly: Pluhakeorchoing. He made a hyperblobbed grab. “Goddit!”

    “What is it?” croaked the midshipman.

    “You may well ask, Nblyterian. This is a genuine, seldom-seen-in-the-two-galaxies, ISLA spaceport cafeteria credit disc.”

    “How much for?” asked Dohra eagerly.

    BrTl took a deep breath. “One tenth of an ig.”

    “What?” she gasped. “Then why did it let you give it three and a tenth igs?”

    “Why, indeed?” He peered at the disc, but they all looked the same.

    “Let me see,” said Dohra grimly. She held it very close to her mammalian eyes. “It’s the same one!” she ascertained angrily.

    “How can you tell? Not some sort of special—” BrTl stopped. Shades? he sent.

    “What? Oh, no, ’course not!” she said cheerfully. “It’s got a tiny scratch on it that looks a bit like a J. I saw it before and thought ‘J for J’nno.’ –See?”

    “You’re right. Quite possibly,” he said thoughtfully, carefully blob-locking it away in his weeny change purse, “this is the only credit disc in the whole of Pkqwrdian space.”

    “Yes!” she choked, laughing so hard she almost fell out of the queue. Water oozed out of her eyes and she had to blow her nose. The young Nblyterian was in a similar state but BrTl fancied that in his case it had rather less to do with getting the joke and rather more with wishing to be seen to be in sympathy with a young female humanoid whom the being perceived as pretty and—whatever the thing was when they wanted to do repro stuff with them.

    “Nubile,” said a sardonic voice somewhere in the region of his wither. “You gonna let her order, swiller, or not?”

    “Oh, there you are, Didg. Yes, go on, Dohra; it’s waiting for your order.”

    Dohra took a deep breath. “I’m a grapefruit-eating carnivorous humanoid from New Rthfrdia and I want a boo-bird egg omelette, humanoid-size, and a New Rthfrdian grapefruit, please.”

    Vegetables? Bread? it offered.

    “No!” she shouted angrily.

    “Blast me out beyond the last black hole,” invited Didg as a culture-pan then disgorged a boo-bird egg omelette and the servo-mech produced a plate which held a round yellow fruit and a strange selection of cutlery. “It worked!” 

 

    “Yes,” she said dazedly. “Ooh, it looks good!”

    “Want to give it the credit disc?” asked BrTl drily.

    “As a scientific experiment, you mean? Not awfully, no! Um, can I have a glass of chilled grqwaries’ milk to go with that, please? Humanoid-size!” she added quickly. “Ooh, great! Um, how much is all that, please?”

    Possibly the only sentient being in the two galaxies, noted Didg in BrTl’s mind, that actually says ‘please’ to the plasmo-blasted hunks of space junk.

    I noticed that! he agreed pleasedly.

    Croak igs, the thing was replying.

    Dohra looked helplessly at BrTl and Didg.

    “Offer it an ig, Sweet Cheese,” suggested the DorAvenian.

    Cautiously she proffered one ig. More igs required, it announced. She offered another ig. More igs required. Crossly Dohra gave it a third ig. They waited but nothing happened.

    “It hasn’t burped,” noted the young Nblyterian helpfully.

    “But it can’t cost three igs! I mean, BrTl’s cost three igs!” she gasped.

    The midshipman looked numbly from her humanoid-style plate to BrTl’s giant platter.

    “Mine cost three igs, too,” noted Didg laconically.

    “But you had more than me!” she cried.

    “Yeah. –Come on, Middy,” he said to the Nblyterian: “Place your order, lessee if it costs three igs.”

    “Three fried boo-bird eggs, two grilled Rorfian plum fish fillets, large helping of yam fries, and a maxi-galaxy shake,” said the midshipman to the servo-mech.

    Vegetables? Bread? it offered.

    “Yeah, all right, a white wheat bun,” agreed the young being.

    Species? it offered.

    “Not the wheat, Middy: you,” drawled Didg as the young being was seen to flounder.

    “Oh!” he gasped. “Oh, yeah, I forgot! –Nblyterian. From New Boele.”

    Two mistakes there, or you can call me a schizoid Friyrian and send me to Mullgon’ya, sent Didg pleasedly.

    Yes, BrTl agreed. Isn’t New Boele a grass world?

    Uh-huh, he replied as the culture-pan produced—

    “This isn’t what I ordered!” gasped the midshipman.

    “Oh, dear! But you said Nblyterian!” cried Dohra with great sympathy.

    “That was his first mistake,” explained BrTl, seeing that Didg wasn’t about to. “He should have said carnivorous Nblyterian.”

    “Oh, of course! That was where I went wrong the first time!” she explained.

    “What is it?” the poor young being asked limply.

    “It’s some sort of cereal, we don’t know what,” explained Dohra. “And can you drink grqwaries’ milk?”

    “Yes, but I hate it,” he said sadly.

    “Then my bet’s that’ll be what’s in that, um, pod or cup thing.”

    “Yeah, that’s what it says,” he recognised sadly.

    “Oh, is that Nblyterian? What a pretty script! Um, you could put it down the recycler, but I rather think,” said Dohra, biting her lip and hoping she wasn’t going to laugh, “that you’ll only get a tenth of an ig for it. Um, well, at most, really.”

    Please pay now, announced the servo-mech clearly.

    “I’m Vvlvanian-cursed if I will!” the young Nblyterian cried angrily. “This isn’t what I ordered!”

    Do you wish to enter into IG litigation? it asked clearly.

    “No!” gasped Dohra, BrTl and Didg in horror.

    “No,” he admitted sulkily, his cheeks very orange.

    Please pay now.

    “All right!” Crossly he proffered five igs.

    “Wait,” suggested Didg as the thing engulfed them.

    “You bet your Space Issue boots I’m waiting, spacer!” replied the young being with feeling.

    They waited…

    Pluhorchoing, the servo-mech announced, very, very quietly.

    The Nblyterian grabbed at nothing.

    “No, that was ‘Please wait for your change,’” explained Dohra. “It’s waiting for you to go away,” she added, giving it a baleful look.

    “Oh, right! That was the first burp!”

    “Yes,” she agreed seriously.

    They waited…

    Pluhakeorchoing. The midshipman made a hyperblobbed grab. “Goddit!”

    “A tenth of an ig?” suggested BrTl.

    “No: two igs.”

    “Just as well you thought better of that super-ig bet, BrTl, swiller,” noted the DorAvenian casually. “Yeah, well, thought so,” he admitted as the Nblyterian, pocketing his two-ig credit disc, looked dubiously from Dohra’s plate to the xathpyroid-style platter and back to his own plate. “Never been charged less—or more—than three igs for an ISLA cafeteria breakfast.”

    “Yuh—Uh—But I haven’t even got a drink,” the young being said weakly.

    “Go on, then: order one.”

    “Gimme a maxi-galaxy-shake!” said the midshipman loudly and crossly to the servo-mech.

    Vegetables? Bread? it offered.

    Didg put a hard hand on the slender young shoulder. “Don’t answer, young swiller-me-lad.”

    Looking confused, the midshipman stared silently at the servo-mech.

    Species?

    “Don’t answer,” he warned.

    Izzatprhushord? it asked very quietly.

    “Say yes!” hissed Didg.

    “Yes!” he said loudly, glaring at the servo-mech. “Ya blobbed-out piece of space junk!”

    Silently the servo-mech produced a frothing maxi-galaxy shake, just the right size for a young male Nblyterian hand to grasp eagerly. 

 

    “Two galaxies!” he gulped, grasping it eagerly.

    “Yeah. –Ignore that,” advised Didg cheerfully as the servo-mech produced a belch which sounded more or less like Uhprhishord. “It’s confirming that was with the previous order, and now the plasmo-blasted hunk of space junk’s waiting for you to make the mistake of offering it more igs. Go on, you can go: there’s no fear of Space Patrol coming down on you like an IG ton of mok shit.”

    “Thanks awfully, sir!” he gasped.

    Didg eyed him drily, not reacting to the sudden promotion from “spacer” to “sir.” “That’s all right: most of us were young once.”

    “Um, perhaps you’d like to join us?” said Dohra kindly.

    Didg took her elbow. “No, he wouldn’t, he’s with his friends. Not to mention a piece of space trash they picked up last night—and if you look again, young swiller, you’ll find she’s not a Pleasure Girl, in fact she’s not a ‘she,’ in fact she’s not a being, she’s a lubo-bot, and any moment now her licensee is gonna be calling on you and your young swillers for a big fat fee. Enjoy.” With that he propelled Dohra off in the direction of their table.

    “What are you looking at?” he said crossly as she craned her neck after the orange-flushed young male being.

    “The girl, I mean lubo-bot, I’ve never seen one before!” she whispered excitedly. “Ooh, look! –Look, BrTl, that must be her! I mean it, I suppose. Ooh, she’s quite lifelike!”

    “If you discount that blue-white glow lubolyon always has, yeah,” allowed Didg.

    “Yeah, I suppose she is. Not inside, though,” said BrTl on a weak note. “How could any beings, even young drunk beings, mistake that for a being?”

    “Dunno, swiller. It’s got something to do with being young, drunk, and, not to be anything-ist,” said Didg on a dry note, sitting down heavily, “male. Siddown and eat your omelette before it goes stone cold, Dohra.”

    “The plate’s keeping it warm,” she explained, smiling. She sat down and tasted it. “It’s delicious! I think maybe I will eat it first, and have the grapefruit for dessert!” She ate hungrily. “Wasn’t it funny?”

    “What was?” said Didg unwillingly, as BrTl was absorbed in eating.

    “Finding out that breakfast always costs three igs!” she beamed.

    “Oh—that. Uh—yeah,” he said with an effort.

    “The tenth of an ig credit was funny, too. You missed that,” she added.

    “Mm? Yeah.” His steaming-spaceport-muck tasted just as revolting cold. He pushed it away, frowning.

    BrTl looked up briefly. “What is that emotion you’re emanating, swiller?”

    “Are you trying to be fuh—” He wasn’t. Didg subsided, scowling. “Dunno, and I didn’t mean to emanate, and isn’t it polite usage in the two galaxies, not that I’d know, not to mention such matters?”

    “Uh—yes,” said BrTl, very taken aback. “Sorry. It’s just that it’s one we don’t have much of on the ship.”

    “No,” he said with a sigh. “Sorry, BrTl. I suppose you don’t. Your Captain must be a rational being.” –It's green jealousy, and do me a favour: don't mention it in front of Dohra.

    All right, the xathpyroid sent foggily, returning to his meat. Didg looked at his progress with it and shook his head slightly. “Here,” he said heavily, passing him a shin-knife.

    “Thanks, swiller,” said BrTl in huge relief, attacking the meat happily with it. “Dunno what these plasmo-blasted cafeteria knives are made of, but they don’t cut too well.”

    Dohra finished her omelette and turned happily to her grapefruit. “Help! No, they don't!” she gasped, as the implement she’d picked up made no impression at all on the fruit.

    “Give it here.” Didg produced another knife and rapidly sliced the grapefruit up for her.

    “Thank you,” said Dohra very weakly indeed, looking at the segments. He’d cut it up rather as one might a Bluellian apple.

    “Is that wrong? I’ve never had one.”

    “No, it’s fine,” she lied, picking up a segment and detaching the grapefruit flesh, pith and all, with her teeth. She chewed and swallowed. “It’s lovely and ripe,” she said, smiling at him.

    “I see,” said Didg ruefully as he got a very vivid picture of a neatly halved New Rthfrdian grapefruit, the yellow flesh exposed, each natural segment neatly loosened within its inner skin. “You usually eat it with a little spoon.”

    “I’ve seen Jhl eat one,” agreed BrTl.

    “Then why in Federation didn’t you stop me?” replied Didg between the fangs.

    “Didn’t realise in time what you were gonna do. Added to which I wasn’t sure it was one: it was a while back. But now I recognise the smell.”

    “It’s not upsetting you, is it, BrTl?” gasped Dohra.

    “No. My FW pack says it’s quite suited to the metabolism,” he reported on a dubious note. 

 

    “Pure vegetable matter,” said Didg with a sigh, sitting back in his chair.

    “Ugh,” said BrTl, chewing meat happily.

    Didg sighed again, and looked blankly over to where the midshipman, his three friends—one male humanoid middy, one green-crested Nblyterian Third Engineer, and one male-tended Friyrian Sub-Lieutenant who doubtless considered himself to be slumming in that company—were now engaged in argument with a shortish, stout three-legged being wearing an elaborate gold garment with a matching turban.

    “The licensee,” noted BrTl, more or less through the meat.

    “Mm.” He watched dully as Dohra followed the confrontation eagerly, finally reporting: “They’re paying up!”

    “They’d need to, that three-legged Slgr’s got a blaster under that gold garment,” he noted idly.

    “Yeff,” agreed BrTl, more or less through the meat.

    Dohra sat back with a sigh. “You do see life in spaceports, don’t you?”

    “Something like that,” agreed Didg with an effort. “Yeah.”

    If that green-jealousy emotion’s what I think it is, she wasn’t interested in that red-crested Nblyterian, BrTl sent kindly.

    Thanks for that, swiller, returned Didg sourly.

    I think, but it’s definitely not my area of expertise, she’s interested in some being on her ship.

    I got that a megazillion light-years ago, thanks, and just STOP!

    Obligingly BrTl stopped, and concentrated happily on finishing his meat and washing it down with his spring water. “This spring water’s reconstituted, has any other being noticed that?” he asked genially.

    “No, but we’re glad to be told,” replied Didg sourly. “Finished with that shin-knife? Thanks.” He produced a rag from about his person, wiped the knife carefully, and restored it to its sheath.

    “Are the shin-sheaths specially cultured for you?” asked BrTl.

    “Eh? Oh! Uh—no, it’s a—um, you don’t have the concept on your world,” he recognised on a weak note. “Um, a cottage industry, on DorAven.”

    “I get it: made by the appendages of poorly paid beings living in small primitive dwellings,” said BrTl cheerfully. “There’s a huge IG market for that sort of stuff, you know. Beings like—uh—Lords of Whtyll and—uh—high-class Friyrians and—uh—rich play-beings that frequent Playfair Two, and um… Federation Reppos!” he produced proudly, “will pay rafts of super-igs for that sort of space juh—uh, artefacts.”

    “Artefacts!” said Dohra pleasedly. “That’s the word! We haven’t got hardly any of those on C’T’rea. They’re only made for the tourists who come to the winter sports resorts. They’re terribly dear. Not shin-sheaths, though,” she explained, noticing BrTl emanating the calculations for a hyper-hop trip from the third moon of Pkqwrd to C’T’rea. “Little bowls and basins, that sort of junk.”

    “And rich play-beings buy them?”

    “Yes,” said Dohra simply.

    “How little are they?”

    “Well, they come in all sizes— Oh!” she said, getting a vivid picture. “Yes, you could fit a lot in the hold of your ship, BrTl, but they are rather heavy. They’re made of the local clay, you see.”

    “Clay… Oh! Goddit! Asteroids of Hhum,” he muttered.

    “Um, painted, BrTl,” said Dohra weakly, sending him a mind-picture.

    “Oh. Do they come in green? Oh, very pretty!” he discovered pleasedly. “Um, well, I’ll talk to my Captain, but I think she’ll say that it’d cost us so much in hyperblobs to haul a cargo of that weight that it wouldn’t be cost-effective. So, what about these shin-sheaths, Didg? Nice and light,” he said hopefully.

    “Uh— Swiller, there’s no way it’d work. They’re just produced in the villages—uh, small sentient-being settlements. Um, we’ve got what they call a feudal system—it’s in the Encyclopaedia under ‘Systems of government,’ but you’d never have needed to—” BrTl and Dohra were both emanating incomprehension under the polite attention. “Uh—yeah. We-ell, it’s divided into areas—I know! Have you ever been to Whtyll?”

    “IG-legally, would this be?” responded the xathpyroid cautiously.

    “Swiller, forget I asked. Are you familiar, even theoretically, with the way society’s organised on Whtyll?”

    “I am!” said Dohra brightly. “We had it as an example at Second School!”

    “Yuh—” Federation! She’d only got as far as Second School? And left it with those marks? Didg blinked. He, of course, was a qualified Pilot, and he could see that BrTl was, too: his position on his ship was First Officer and co-pilot, though judging by the mind-picture, that captain of his could have managed without him with both appendages tied behind her. And what a bossy-boots she must be, just by the by! “Um, yeah, good,” he said lamely. “Well, DorAven’s not such a rich world—well, what is? But it’s a bit like that, without the large cities. We’ve only got one: Silver City.”

    “Ooh!” squeaked Dohra. “‘The Land of Silver’, like in your story!”

    Didg smiled weakly. “Yeah. Silver’s always been an important metal for ornaments and exchange on DorAven. Um, well, the city was originally the site of a huge silver mine, but that vein’s mined out, now. In fact most of our native silver is.”

    “This explains why the IG M.C. hasn’t taken your world over lock, stock and blob,” noted BrTl.

    “Yeah. Um, well, the, uh,”—Didg cleared his throat—“Grand Prince of DorAven and his family have their main palace in the city. The rest of the planet’s mostly divided into areas owned and ruled by, um… warrior lords. Something like the Lords of Whtyll—geddit?”—Dohra was nodding happily. BrTl was emanating horrified recognition, so he certainly knew what a Lord of Whtyll was.—“Yeah. We call them chiefs. They usually have castles.”—Somewhat desperately he sent them a picture reminding them what a castle was: this time they both nodded happily.—“Yeah. Um, there’ll be a garrison of warriors based at the castle, and the land surrounding it’s farmed by, um, farmers. They lease it from the chief. Usually they’re quite well off, and have lots of, um, lesser beings working for them. And there’s usually several villages in each chief’s area. Or sometimes the areas are subdivided and ruled by, um, lesser chiefs.”

    “Right: you’d call them lesser chiefs,” agreed BrTl happily.

    “Uh—no, swiller, we just call them chiefs, too.”

    “Whatever blobs you up,” he conceded. “I get it. The shin-sheath makers live in the dwellings in the villages.”

    “Cottages. Yeah, that’s it.”

    “They walk everywhere, I see!” squeaked Dohra. “It’s a very simple lifestyle!”

    “Great splintered shards of quog, you don’t mean you haven’t got bubbles?” croaked BrTl. 

 

    “No, of course we have, and lifters, but the cottagers can’t afford them.”

    “Well, if you've got bubbles and lifters, no problem! Hire a lifter, zip round these villages buying loads of shin-sheaths and those other small grpplybeast leather things you’re sending the picture of, and drop each load off at the ship! Uh—oh, right: only two spaceports. Well, depending on the capability of your hire-lifters, park the ship in orbit and lift on up to—No?”

    “In principle, yes,” said Didg in an annoyed voice. He could see they were both thinking his world was very primmo, and though Sweet Cheese was nobly trying to shield the thought, the plasmo-blasted xathpyroid wasn’t. “There’s no problem for a qualified Pilot to get a Grade-A lifter permit, for Federation’s sake!”

    “Sorry: I’ve been on worlds—well, never mind that. So what’s the problem?” asked BrTl mildly.

    “Something to do with the chiefs?” said Dohra uncertainly.

    “More or less.”

    “Grease their appendages, swiller; no problem!” said BrTl breezily.

    “Uh—you don't get it, either of you! Anything that’s bought or sold involves, um, layers of beings—”

    “All taking their percentages: goddit, goddit.”

    “No! Swiller, just try to understand! It’s not as simple as percentages or—or cash transactions.”

    “IG credits?” he said foggily.

    “No! Everything affects everything else on DorAven: what a being earns affects the amount they pay to their chief for the lease of their cottage, and that plus the amount of produce they send to the castle in its turn affects the amount the lesser chief sends to his chief—see?”

    “Sure! It is percentages. It’ll work! The Grand Prince of the Land of Ull will get more in the end, too! Didg, it’ll work like hyper-cultured blobs!”

    “No,” said Didg with a sigh. “If the cottagers are busy making plasmo-blasted leather goods, who’s going to grow the food?”

    “I think I see,” offered Dohra shyly. “It’s all tied together.”

    “Very tightly,” agreed Didg with a sigh. “It’s been working like that for hundreds of thousands of years, BrTl, old swiller. In the past traders did try the sort of thing you’re suggesting, and the whole system broke down. In fact the Great Famine of year 320,904 was caused by an attempt just like it.”

    “So—uh—now it’s illegal?” he fumbled. “A World Reg against it?”

    “No, we don’t have World Regs for that sorta thing. But it won’t work, because—”

    “I see,” said BrTl, wincing at the vivid picture of a garrison of ferocious warriors, led by a furious chief with a golden helmet like that of the Grand Prince of Ull, bearing down on him, Didg, Trff, and what was presumably meant to be his Captain, and tearing them all into very small— “Uh, yeah. Bad idea.”

    “Ugh!” shuddered Dohra.

    “That’s how things are,” concluded Didg. “And before you say anything, Sweet Cheese, BrTl’s idea might sound like progress to you and him, because he’s a trader and you’re a C’T’rean. But to us, your sort of progress means destruction of our way of life. Goddit?”

    “Mm!” she squeaked, very flushed. “I’m sorry, Didg! I didn’t mean to criticise!”

    “Me, neither,” agreed BrTl glumly. “But say, um, just a small shipment—not even a holdful—every now and then?”

    “I think that’d work,” Didg admitted. “But DorAven’s a fair distance from the sort of worlds where they’d want to buy that sort of thing. I mean, we’re not even in the same galaxy as Playfair Two or Whtyll.”

    “Not worth the hyperblobs—no,” the xathpyroid conceded regretfully. “But if we’re in the neighbourhood, I’ll bear it in mind!” He got up. “Anyone fancy the bar?”

    “Isn’t it a bit early?” said Dohra faintly.

    “What else is there to do on the third moon of Pkqwrd?”

    “He’s got a point!” said Didg with a laugh. “Come on, Sweet Cheese. You don’t have to drink intoxicants. We could have a quiet game of— 3-D pwm,” he ended feebly. 

 

    “Ooh, I can play that!” she said happily.

    Quite. Nice beings like her don’t play pkwr or whim-wham, not even 3-D whim-wham, BrTl, he sent firmly.

    Jhl does, replied the xathpyroid foggily.

    Swiller, your Captain’s a Pilot and a merchant captain—right? This little being’s a nice little girl from a nice little world. Try imagining her like that Thwurbullerian we met yesterday, only a lot smaller.

    And bipedal, he amended.

    Didg just waited, meanwhile putting a hand gently under Dohra’s elbow—even her elbows were soft, well, the flesh just above them sure was—and guiding her gently in the general direction of the bar.

    Oh! Very percipient! sent BrTl pleasedly.

    Uh—yeah, Didg agreed weakly. Something like that.

    Perhaps she'd like a glass of Refreshing Gorbachian Plum Juice?

    Trying not to shake, Didg managed to reply firmly: I dare say she would, as they headed for the bar.

    Early though it was, the Level Pink ISLA bar was about as busy as it had been last night. Most beings were just slumped, in chairs or not, according to the physiology, sipping small tots of Oononian Pure Vegetable Pick-U-Up, or hot Blrtltonian Feverfew Extract (a product of Oononian Trans-Galaxy Inc.), or Zap-Up-Now-Wow! (Registered Trademark) (IG Patent pending) (a product of Oononian Trans-Galaxy Inc.), or similar magic elixirs. There was no sign of any being they knew, so they reclaimed the corner they’d had last night and after Didg had glanced at a hovering Rorf in Space Fleet second lieutenant’s Number Twos, who’d been emanating a wistful desire to join them, they were ready to play.

    What was wrong with that Rorf? BrTl sent mildly as a servo-mech slid up to them offering a choice of pwm sets.

    He was about as young, boring and pathetic as that red-crested Nblyterian in the cafeteria, that enough for ya?

    I see, that green emotion again, he acknowledged mildly. “How much did you say?” he croaked as the servo-mech urged a very choice set on them. “We don’t want to hire the plasmo-blasted thing for the next IG millennium!”

    “No, and we could nip out to the gift shops and buy one for a fraction of the— That’s better,” said Didg grimly. “Tinted lubolyon’ll do nicely.”

    One tenth of an ig for one IG day or part thereof, it stated.

    “Federation, they'll do anything to get that plasmo-blasted credit disc back, won’t they?” cried BrTl, as Dohra gasped and clapped her hand to her mouth. Resignedly he handed it over, while Dohra collapsed in helpless giggles.

    “I see,” Didg admitted, grinning. “Well, shall we play for the chance to recycle our lunch and see if we can get it back?”

    “Let’s!” cried Dohra, collapsing in further giggles.

    BrTl, as the DorAvenian was well aware, had been about to suggest playing for ten igs a game, a very moderate sum indeed. In fact a ludicrously moderate sum in terms of what spacers were accustomed to play for. “Yeah,” said Didg sardonically as the xathpyroid shut up like a dendrion nut. “Okay, who wants which colours?”

    3-D pwm, not nearly as exciting as its name might suggest, was a popular game for two players but it could be played by three, four, five or six players, more pieces being added to the small tower of boards. The object was to capture your opponents’ pieces in as few moves as possible, though there were several different methods of scoring, largely dependant on the purses and abilities of the players. Rich play-beings and pwm addicts had hugely expensive pieces made of valuable metals and semi-precious stones, or even precious stones in the cases of beings such as the Lords of Whtyll and Federation Reppos, with boards made of solid wkli shell, or similar, but ordinary beings just played with sets made of whatever was cheap on their world—frequently lubolyon. Both luck and skill entered into pwm, but it was largely skill and, as her two opponents rapidly realised, a skill which Wt, Dohra B’Jn did not possess.

    “Hop, hop, hop! Hop! Hop, hop, hop! Hop! Gotcha!” she squeaked happily, illegally hopping her pink leader over two of BrTl’s spacers and one of his wingers on the bottom board, even more illegally hopping up to the second board and over three more of his wingers, and even more illegally, in fact IG-illegally, hopping up to the top board and capturing his leader.

    “That’s illegal,” he croaked.

    “This is a pretty green one! Look, it goes really nicely with my pink one!” she said pleasedly, putting them both aside on the table.

    “What are you doing with your leader?” croaked Didg.

    “They’re both ‘Out’ now,” she explained happily.

    “Dohra, what rules are you playing by?” he croaked.

    “Well, the usual ones! We always play like this at home,” she offered, smiling. This didn't seem to go down too well, so she added: “The Meagraw of Gr'mmeaya always played this way.”

    Was the being MAD? sent BrTl wildly.

    Yeah. Well—besotted, yeah. Mad enough, replied Didg very sourly indeed.

    BrTl looked dubiously at the mind-picture of a being in elaborately wound, brightly coloured garments, even to the head, well, especially the head, happily allowing Dohra to go hop, hop, hop, gotcha! with a pwm piece of— “Drop me down a Vvlvanian magma-pit head-first,” he croaked. “You and this being were playing with pieces made of blue Faindorgean glass?” 

 

    “Ooh, can you see that? Yes, aren’t they pretty?” she smiled. “See, he had the ones in shades of darker blue, and I had the ones in shades of turquoise!”

    Pretty? The stuff was quoted at a megazillion rafts of super-igs for one IG ounce on the Commodities Exchange! It was one of the dearest things in the Known Universe!

    “Was he a pwm addict, Dohra?” asked Didg weakly after the two of them had just sat there in stunned silence for an appreciable period of time and she’d just sat there smiling at them.

    “Oh, no! He said he hardly ever played!” she said happily.

    Not surprising, if she was all he had to play with, noted BrTl.

    Shut up, replied Didg, doing his plasmo-blasted best not to laugh. “Um, me and BrTl are used to playing by different rules,” he croaked.

    “Oh, are you? You’ll have to show me!” she smiled.

    They tried. They really tried. They tried so hard that Didg gave in and sent for an S/IG cup of real Whtyllian k’fi and BrTl gave in and sent for a snack of fried grqwary wings. In fact they tried so hard that, in spite of her glass of Refreshing Gorbachian Plum Juice, water started to ooze out of the corners of Dohra’s eyes and she gulped: “I’m—sorry! I can’t—do—this!”

    “Vvlvanian curses,” muttered Didg under this breath. “We’ll play it your way, Sweet Cheese! For Federation’s sake, don't cry!”

    “No. Sorry,” she said, sniffing.

    “Green,” BrTl pointed out anxiously, as a bunch of senso-tissues drifted into her hand. “Really pretty. Don’t do that water-out-of-the-eyes stuff, Dohra. We don’t mind playing your way, it’s not as if we were playing for—” He stopped, as Didg’s mind-message reached him.

    “What?” she said innocently, sniffing into the tissues and trying to smile.

    “Rafts of super-igs like the play-persons do on Playfair Two,” said Didg, giving BrTl a minatory glare to reinforce the mind-message.

    “No! Of course not!” she agreed, apparently finding this amusing and cheering up. “Shall I set the boards up again?”

    “Yes,” they croaked.

    “We’ll start again,” said Dohra to the pink leader, “so you can take your place! There!”

    Does she think they’re sentient? sent BrTl frantically.

    Uh—don’t think so, swiller. Though I’m not claiming I’d bet my last ig on it. Uh—whatever she says, just—uh, just agree, eh?

    Of course, replied BrTl with dignity.

    And they began to play 3-D pwm Dohra’s way…

    After a very, very long period and another cup of k’fi, Didg sent: This does actually remind me of a game I've seen before.

    “Hop, hop, hop. Hop! Gotcha!” Eh? replied BrTl, happily consigning one of Dohra’s wingers to the table beside the board.

    Tell it it’s ‘Out’, Didg reminded him sardonically. This reminds me of something I've seen before. A board game played in the village taverns—low bars, to you—of DorAven by very old men and simpletons.

    By very old male humanoids and beings with mind-powers below the level of— Oh! Goddit! It doesn't remind me of any board game, but come to think of it, it does remind me of a hopping game the very young cognates play at home.—He watched as Didg went: “Hop, hop, hop,” and Dohra cried ecstatically: “No! You can’t hop over my leader on that level! Gotcha!”—A hopping game the very young cognates play when they’re scarcely out of the culture-pod. They don't play it with boards and pieces, though. They play it in the dust, with stones. And real hops.

    Dohra watched in bewilderment as Didg broke down in helpless hysterics. “What?” she cried. “It wasn’t that funny! What’s the joke?”

    “Nothing. Uh—don’t think me and BrTl are much good at this, actually,” he said, looking at the pile of pieces she'd captured.

    “No, I'm winning!” she agreed gleefully.

    In fact she’d have won, according to her own rules, four moves back, if instead of hopping diagonally over—Never mind. For Federation’s sake let her win and be done with it, BrTl!

    Eh? Oh—sorry, I was quite enjoying it, in a mindless sort of way.

    Right: while you worked out the quickest route to Bluellia from several different points in the two galaxies. Why in Federation do you want to go there?

    My Captain’s a Bluellian. She’s been threatening to take us there for Galaxy Day.

    Didg’s mind contemplated the thought for a split IG microsecond and then the boggling got too much for him. So he sat up very straight and instead concentrated on letting Dohra win. She was so very bad at it, even by her own rules, that it wasn't as easy as a being might think; in fact BrTl was reduced to ordering another plate of grqwary wings.

    But at long, long last she cried gleefully: “I win!”

    Didg and BrTl just sagged where they sat.

    “Shall we have another game?” she said hopefully, having reminded them what her “prize” was. Visions of carefully handwrought artefacts of shlaa-tinted quog, blue Faindorgean glass, finest gold-chased wkli shell and so on danced before their dazed minds as she used the word. 

 

    That being in the strange hat must have been very, very rich, sent BrTl numbly.

    Uh—yeah, think he was, swiller. Think that’s the Meagraw of Gr’mmeaya in person. “Uh—well, later, maybe, Dohra. What say we do something else for a bit?” He searched her mind. “Uh—go and look at the boutiques in the tourist halls?” he suggested feebly.

    WHAT? sent BrTl in horror.

    She likes that sort of stuff.

    “Dohra,” said BrTl uneasily, “everything in those boutiques costs rafts of super-igs.”

    “I don’t want to buy anything, silly!” she smiled.

    “Well, what?” he fumbled. Not suss them out? Platoons of Space Patrol’d descend on y—

    “Not that, BrTl!” she said gaily.

    “Can we even get into the tourist halls with our passes?” he said numbly to Didg.

    “I've done it loads of times!” she assured them.

    She probably has, agreed Didg. Even Space Patrol can’t be paranoid enough to suspect a being as rotten at pwm as she is.

    I’m not betting on it. BrTl blinked, and inspected Dohra’s documentation through his shades. No on-world tourist passes, no tourist-class tickets, right, right… He looked limply at Didg. “Her dokko looks all right. I mean, it looks normal.”

    “We can but try,” he said, getting up.

    “We can but end in the cells!” replied BrTl with feeling.

    “Mok shit. Come on,” he said briskly.

    Resignedly BrTl got to his feet and lumbered after them.

    The Space Patroller on guard at the gate was a tall, well developed Meanker from Gheaudarraine. She looked at BrTl and Didg suspiciously, the appendage less than a split IG microsecond’s move from the blaster, and said: “Why in Federation do you wanna go to the tourist halls, spacers? –As if I need to ask.”

    “To look at the boutiques!” squeaked Dohra, with a beaming mammalian smile. “We don't want to buy anything, of course!”

    The Space Patroller took another look at her, this time with her shades lowered. “Oh.”

    “He’s with her,” explained BrTl brilliantly.

    The Space Patroller blinked at Didg. “Poor deluded piece of humanoid mok shit that he is—yeah. Right. What about you, xathpyroid cognate?”

    It generally augured quite well when they addressed you as “xathpyroid cognate” rather than merely “xathpyroid,” so he replied cheerfully: “I’m just along for the space ride.”

    “I’ll see your dokko, in that case,” she said in a bored voice.

    BrTl was under the impression that she already had, what else were those shades for, but he displayed it. “In transit,” he said meekly. “Not much else to do, Patroller.”

    “Did I ask? All right, go through, and if the gate fries you to a crispy grqwary wing, you and your three breakfasts, you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

    They went through, BrTl with a certain uneasy feeling between his shoulder-blades, but the gate didn’t react.

    “They don’t need a gate, really, that Meanker could do it all on her ownsome,” said Didg on a sour note, once they were well clear.

    “She was a bit… rude,” admitted Dohra in a small voice.

    “Xenophobic, more like—yeah. They are. Ideal for the job: ya get a lot of them in Space Patrol.”

    “They’ve always been very nice to me,” she said humbly. “Um, would the gate, um, fry you?”

    “Not exactly, that was the Space Patroller being xenophobic,” admitted BrTl. “I've got a lot of weight to carry round, I need to keep my energy levels high! Uh—what was I— Oh, yeah: the gate. It depends on the degree of the crime. Or attempted crime,” he said fairly. “And it’s usually worse if the being’s trying to smuggle something out. Saw a Bdeeg once— Well, never mind that!” he said quickly, looking into her innocent, wondering mammalian eyes and her innocent, wondering mammalian mind. “It had some Grade-A Rorfian diamonds up the whistle, or such was the gate’s claim.”

    “Most of them are thieves by profession,” explained Didg. “That’s why you always see a few of them hanging round the spaceports.”

    “So—so maybe that one the other day did steal your Chief Engineer’s steak?” she ventured.

    “Maybe he was drunk enough to think it had!” he retorted. “Well, come on, there’s plenty to choose from.”

    “Yes,” agreed BrTl, looking round edgily for the gangs of sticky-pawed pups that generally accompanied tourists. “That’s funny, almost no pups in sight.”

    “Eh? Oh! Kids, he means, Dohra,” said Didg kindly. “Immature beings. No, well, this here is an A-Class Tourist Hall that we’re in, me old swiller. A-Class beings tend to leave the pups behind for the s-beings to look after.”

    “Yes. They won’t let you into the VIP hall,” admitted Dohra wistfully.

    “That’s good, wouldn’t want to see you snapped up by a VIP with time on his appendages, Dohra,” said BrTl incautiously.

    “They wouldn’t! Not in the spaceport!” she scoffed.

    “They might not if a Space Patroller they hadn’t paid off was watching them at the precise instant,” said Didg heavily, grabbing her elbow. “Come on. That boutique over there full of lumo-blob signs seems to be selling humanoid wear—wanna look?”

    “Ooh, yes!”

    So off they went to look…

    “Have a nice visit?” asked the Space Patroller sardonically as they returned to the gate.

    “Ooh, yes, lovely, thank you!” replied Dohra, beaming. “The humanoid lady-beings are wearing some beautiful garments this IG year: very long and flowing, and all clipped up with lovely little blob-brooches, and guess what! The trains on the evening gowns have got special blobs to make them ripple over the floor like waves! Have you seen the garments for Meanker ladies in Madame Béaulle-Clairreance’s? They’re gorgeous, too! And there’s some lovely Meanker and humanoid sportswear in Fu Ch’s! And guess what? Most of the boutiques have got fake wtmyrian carpets—they’re pretty, mind you—but Madame Béaulle-Clairreance’s has got a real one!”

    Under the Space Patroller’s helmet a sort of mad, desperate gleam was seen in the Meanker’s one emerald eye.

    “Yes, it does make you feel like that, Patroller,” agreed BrTl politely.

    “Yeah. Go through,” she croaked.

    They waited for xenophobic remarks about three breakfasts or deluded humanoid mok shit, but apparently she was feeling too weak for that, so they went through.

    “Ooh!” squeaked Dohra. “It tickled, that time!” 

 

    Just checking. Have a nice day, replied the gate politely.

    Wait for it! warned Didg.

    Sure enough, Dohra was telling the gate: “Thank you so much! It was lovely!”

    BrTl reached down a pseudopod and took her hand, warm and sticky with excitement though it was. “Dohra, it doesn’t care. It’s a gate. Well, a blob, to get technical. They're not sentient within the Meaning.”

    “I always feel they might be, because they’re pretty clever, especially the ones that do that sort of job. And you wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings. And anyway, it can’t hurt to be polite.”

    “Uh—no. Not if you’re not dealing with a Shando-Turrellian, no. They take it as an insult. Means you’re being anything-ist, or something,” he explained clearly. “What are you laughing at, DorAvenian?”

    “Sor-ry!” gasped Didg, falling all over the unpretentious standard o-breather (heavy-duty grade) spaceport flooring on which they were now standing. I've been holding it in for some time, he admitted, wiping his eyes.

    “Yeah, hah, hah.”

    Not you! Her! Well, you and her, to some extent.

    “It’s not that funny,” said Dohra severely.

    “Something like that, Sweet Cheese! Come on, back to the bar, it’s almost—uh, not lunchtime,” he ascertained weakly as his chrono-blob told him the time.

    “Time for a sustaining S/IG mug of Whtyllian k’fi?” suggested BrTl sweetly.

    “Something like that, swiller,” Didg conceded feebly.

    “There they are!” cried Dohra as they came into the bar. Several beings immediately focussed on her, brightened, and then switched off hurriedly as they perceived Didg and BrTl accompanying her. Over in their corner the Thwurbullerian and the Feeny-Argyllians with their Flppu were now comfortably reinstalled. She hurried over to them and greeted them ecstatically, then explaining that they’d missed them at breakfast.

    Didg could feel BrTl checking his earlier impression that he, Didg, hadn't. She means she did, he sent heavily.

    Got that, swiller. In your mammalian footwear, I'd have something a lot stronger than Whtyllian k’fi, replied BrTl jauntily.

    In front of her? Right, responded Didg acidly. He could see BrTl was laboriously working that out but he didn't bother to elaborate, he just sent for a servo-mech, sat down, and ordered an S I/G tankard of Rwthwarian ale. Humanoid? the plasmo-blasted piece of space-junk asked. “What are you, blobbed out? Yes, humanoid!” he shouted, too late realising his mistake: he could’ve asked for a xathpyroid-size. Or even Thwurbullerian. “Uh—on me, swillers,” he said quickly.

    S-Fl’Chuyilleea thought it’d have a sustaining shot of iirouelli’i juice but its owners thought it wouldn’t! And it was very naughty! So it settled for a hot cup of Blrtltonian feverfew tea—not the Oononian Trans-Galaxy Inc. variety, but a much milder version. Happily Dohra agreed that sounded lovely, she’d have a cup, too. Forty-Four thought a nice cup of something hot would just hit the spot, but it didn’t care for feverfew tea— Didg just sat back and let it all wash over him, coming to around the time that Forty-Four was ordering some snu-flavoured cakes. “On me, Didg,” it assured him. He nodded weakly: they’d have to be, the things were plasmo-blasted lady-being fare.

    “Did you have some breakfast?” Dohra asked anxiously as the servo-mech slid off.

    Forty-Four, thanking her politely, assured it her it had, and had then gone for an amble down the tubes to stretch the muscles.

    “Oh, yes!” tootled the Feeny-Argyllians. “I decided, just for a change, to try the Tourist Cafeteria! It was fun!”

    “Fun?” croaked BrTl. “Isn’t it full of sticky-pawed pups?”

    “Oh, no! Not the T-Class Tourist Cafeteria! The A-Class!” they chorused.

    “Ooh, really? What was it like? What did you have?” gasped Dohra.

    BrTl and Didg exchanged dazed mind-messages as the Feeny-Argyllians and the yellow Flppu—they’d taken their s-being? At those prices?—told her.

    It’s their pet! she sent indignantly. And stop being horrid!

    Fortunately the servo-mech slid up with their orders at that point, so BrTl and Didg were able to stop being horrid and just concentrate on soothing Rwthwarian ale.

    Dohra thought the feverfew tea was lovely, and the snu-cakes went well with it—Muck, agreed BrTl and Didg—and, going very pink, yes, actually, she had had the cakes before, at the Meagraw of Gr’mmeaya’s palace. At this Forty-Four remembered that this morning Dohra had been going to go on with her story! So they all urged her to tell it.

    “Oh, well—” she said, very flustered. “If you all want me to—But blndreL isn’t here!”

    “Never mind her,” advised Didg brutally. “Ten to one she’s striking up an undying friendship with that Meanker Space Patroller as we speak.”

    “Actually,” said Forty-Four on a cautious note, “I did see her with a Meanker Space Patroller while I was on my amble. Oh, nothing like that!” it assured the emanations of horror. “He was off-duty: they were just chatting.”

    “They’re often attracted to Nblyterians, and vice versa,” Didg conceded. “Go on, Sweet Cheese.”

    “I—Well, but what about Trff?”

    “It’ll pick it up,” BrTl assured her. “Well, probably picked it all up long since.”

    “Of course! You don’t have to tell a Ju’ukrterian it-being things vocally!” agreed Forty-Four. “Do go on.”

    “Yes, do go on!” chorused the Feeny-Argyllians and the Flppu.

    So, very pink and smiling, Dohra went on. 

 

    The trip to Hinnover City Spaceport on Belraynia was much easier than Dohra had feared: her travel dokko got her through IG C&E with no problems and the ticket was the right one for the right ship. And the beings on the ship were all very kind to her, explaining carefully that she had to trans-ship at Pponorvak City on Pponorvia, but of course she’d only be in transit, so even though it was rather a sulphurous world she wouldn’t be able to smell it. And yes, her ticket allowed for the transfer. She had quite a long time to wait, but she just sat in the sim-lounge with a lot of other beings in transit, all perfectly respectable looking, and watched the Pponorvian Free Service. The Intergalactic was a bit odd, and there were a lot of ads, but the dramas were very exciting, and the quiz shows were just the same as the ones back home on C’T’rea. There weren’t any other humanoids in the sim-lounge, but that made it much more interesting. If it hadn't cost a raft of super-igs she would’ve sent a comm-message to J’nno, telling him all about it.

    Hinnover City Spaceport was huge, but after she’d collected her baggage and been through IG C&E a kind elderly Nblyterian lady directed her to the Information Desk, where a very pretty yellow-crested Nblyterian girl explained where the Pleasure Ship Silver-Ash Flyer was parked, and gave her a pretty little token that’d let her through the gates.

    Dohra walked steadily in the direction the girl had said, looking about her with bright-eyed interest. Ooh, that pale blue being with the long tubes must be a Wynonian Bugler, she’d never seen one in the flesh before! Those tubes were certainly handy when you had a lot of luggage to carry. She jumped, as a servo-mech slid up to her asking: Porter?

    “No, thank you very much, I haven’t got much to carry,” she said weakly. Asteroids of Hhum! It had been reading her! Wasn’t it galaxious? She’d have to tell J’nno!

    In the big lobby with all the gates and tubes and passages opening out of it Dohra paused uncertainly. She hadn't expected so many corridors, which one was hers? She looked doubtfully at her pretty little disc but as far as she could see it didn’t match up with any of the gates: they didn’t seem to have slots for your disc or anything like that. Eventually she plucked up courage and approached a Space Patroller. He wasn’t a humanoid, but he was sort of the same size as her, so she thought he’d probably be more sympathetic than some of the bigger ones.

    “Excuse me, please, can you help me?” she said. “I’m looking for the Pleasure Ship Silver-Ash Flyer.”

    “Dokko?” he said, sounding very board.

    Dohra displayed her documentation.

    “Oh—Third Cook,” he said. “You are on the right level, then.”

    “Yes, the Nblyterian at the Information Desk said that!” replied Dohra, smiling.

    “What in Federation were ya doing at the Nblyterian Information Desk?”

    “I—um—the nice lady told me to go there,” she faltered.

    “What nice lady?”

    “Um, just a lady that—that was in the big, um, hall! The place you come out in after you’ve been through IG C&E.”

    “This lady-being wasn’t a Nblyterian, was she?”

    “Um, yes, as a matter of fact.”

    “Yeah. Well, leaving aside the question of why they sent ya through IG C&E in the first place, did the Nblyterian at the Info Desk give you an intel disc?”

    “I’m not sure… She gave me this pretty little disc,” admitted Dohra.

    The Space Patroller poked at it with the tip of a gloved appendage. “Nblyterian,” he said with a slight sniff. “Hold on.” Dohra watched in awe as he blinked at it. Galaxious! He must be wearing shades!

    “Right,” he said. “Gate ZAA429, over there: see? Can ya read numbers?”

    “Yes, of course,” she said limply. He must meet some very odd beings!

    “Okay—no, hang on.” She hung on respectfully as he spoke into his comm-blob and the Space Patroller on guard at Gate ZAA429 gave him a wave. “Off ya go,” he said.

    “Yes, thank you! Um, will they, like, keep my disc?” she gasped.

    “It’s an intel disc,” he said blankly. “In Nblyterian.”

    “Yuh—Um—Then can I keep it?” she gasped.

    “Keep it? It’s lubolyon, about an IG micro-millimetre thick, it’s not worth anything.”

    “I mean as a souvenir!” she gasped.

    The Space Patroller shrugged. “Sure. Keep it if ya want it.”

    “Thank you! And thank you so much for your help!”

    The Space Patroller on duty at Gate ZAA429 wasn’t any sort of being that she’d ever seen before, but it waved her through, saying kindly: “Go on, Third Cook.”

    “Thank you very much,” said Dohra, going through the gate.

    You’re welcome. Have a nice day, it said.

    “Ooh!” she gasped. “Yes, thank you, too, Gate!”

    You’re welcome. Have a nice day, it repeated.

    And Dohra hurried on down the passage leading to the Silver-Ash Flyer.

    When she got there its door was closed! What was she going to do? But suddenly it said: Report yourself.

    “Ooh!” she gasped. “I’m W’t, Dohra B’Jn. Um, Third Cook!”

    Dokko.

    “Um, yes, here! See?”

    The door opened. Welcome aboard Silver-Ash Flyer, Third Cook W’t, Dohra B’Jn. Report to P.O. Bates, Andi Wm, at the Staff Office, Deck 24, Corridor B.

    Dohra stepped inside cautiously. It was a very high-ceilinged corridor, was she on the right ship?

    Yes, said the door from behind her. Pleasure Ship Silver-Ash Flyer. Go straight down this companionway and take lift-blob C to Deck 24. You’ll see a comm-blob on the bulkhead to your right as you get out. Put your appendage on it and ask it for directions to Corridor B. Clear?

    “Um, not quite! I'm sorry, Door! I don’t understand what a bulkhead is!”

    There was a pause, and Dohra wondered miserably if it had a standard set of messages and couldn’t answer her. Then it said: This door is a ship’s hatch. Call it hatch. Bulkhead means wall. Call it bulkhead. Clear?

    “Yes, very clear! Thank you so much, Hatch!” she gulped.

    You’re welcome, Third Cook W’t, Dohra B’Jn. And it whistled a little tune.

    “Galaxious!” said Dohra, smiling, as she headed for the lift-blobs.

    She found the Staff Office without difficulty, thanks to the hatch’s clear instructions. No beings were encountered on the way, and Dohra, now feeling very nervous, didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. The Staff Office door was closed.

    Report yourself, it said.

    Ooh, help! Was this going to happen every time she encountered a door on the Silver-Ash Flyer? “I’m Third Cook W’t, Dohra B’Jn. Um, reporting,” she ended dubiously.

    It opened, announcing: Third Cook W't, Dohra B’Jn reporting, sir!

    “Come in, Third Cook W’t,” said P.O. Bates, Andi Wm, looking up from his desk with a smile. “Ignore the plasmo-blasted doors, won’t you? We’ve just had them re-blobbed, they’re driving us all to Mullgon’ya.” 

 

    “Yes, um, are they?” she gasped. “Um, the ship’s d—hatch was very helpful, sir!”

    “Glad to hear it,” he said wryly, standing up and holding out his hand. “Welcome aboard. I’m plasmo-blasted glad to see you, I can tell you,” he said as Dohra shook hands over the desk. “Our Chef, Second Cook hoopnD tr poveR, is driving us all to Mullgon’ya: he’s a Nblyterian, due to go home and change sex. Well, I say ‘due’: family pressure,” he said, wrinkling his pleasant humanoid nose and smiling ruefully at her. “His mother wants a descendant in the female line. And believe you me, if you haven’t met a Nblyterian mother, you haven’t met a mother!” he said with a laugh.

    “I know!” agreed Dohra eagerly. “My brother J’nno, he was at First School with a Nblyterian, and his mother was a—a very forceful woman!”

    “Forceful and a half!” agreed P.O. Bates, grinning. “Chef hoopnD’s a decent enough being, but there’s no way he’d ever stand up to her. Not and remain male-tended. As you can imagine, his mind hasn’t been on his culture-pans these past few IG weeks. The passengers have started complaining about the food, and no wonder! The muck he’s produced for the crew’s been so bad most of us have started using space rations from the recyclers instead.”

    “Ugh!” agreed Dohra sympathetically. “Um, did you say he’s a Second Cook?” P.O. Bates nodded and she said: “Um, but haven’t you got a First Cook, sir?”

    “Asteroids of Hhum, no! Not on a tourist-class ship!” He saw she was looking blank, and winked at her and said: “The fares’d never cover the wages those beings demand! You won’t find a First Cook on a tourist-class ship anywhere in the two galaxies, they’re all serving on the VIP pleasure-cruisers or in the nirvana gardens on Playfair Two!”

    “I see, sir,” said Dohra weakly, wondering frantically if, as he seemed to imply, that would mean there’d just be her and the absent-minded Nblyterian to feed all the passengers and crew.

    P.O. Bates came out from behind his desk. “Come on—I need to stretch my legs. I'll take you down to the galley and give hoopnD the good news that he can take his sex-change leave as from the beginning of next week.”

    Trying not to tremble, Dohra accompanied him numbly. It was even worse than she’d thought! Just her to feed all the passengers and crew! How was she ever gonna cope?

    On the way—Dohra could only hope she’d be expected to stay in the galley, because she was never gonna be able to find her way around the ship, it was huge, and all the corridors looked the same—P.O. Bates explained amiably that their captain was a Friyrian—Dohra quailed—and a stickler for regs and “spit and polish,” but so long as she behaved herself and kept her mammalian nose clean, and served up nice salads for him, she need never see him.

    “Yes—um—spit and polish?” she gasped.

    “Oh, haven’t you heard that one before?” he said cheerfully. “Well, you wouldn’t’ve, serving Ballunders, I guess!”

    What? thought Dohra frantically. What in Federation had the Vvlvanian-cursed Shohn put in that Third Cook’s dokko?

    Amiably P.O. Bates explained that spit and polish meant keeping one’s galley clean and orderly and keeping oneself and one’s uniforms neat and tidy.

    “Yes, sir. Um, I haven’t got any uniforms!” she gulped.

    “We provide them,” he said mildly.

    “Oh, yes,” said Dohra weakly. “I have got some aprons, though,” she offered helpfully.

    P.O. Bates, Andi Wm received a vivid picture of a selection of rather used floral-patterned frilly aprons and repressed a wince: Captain Ccrainchzzyllia would throw ten Friyrian fits at the sight of those! “Yes, very nice, but those’d be for private wear, not on duty,” he said kindly. “Don’t worry, we provide aprons as part of your uniform.”

    “Mm, good. Um, it’s bigger than I thought,” said Dohra in a small voice.

    “Silver-Ash Flyer? Yes, it’s not a bad ship. Twenty-six decks.”

    Thank you, P.O. Bates.

    “Help!” gasped Dohra, making a grab at the smart dark blue uniform sleeve.

    “It’s the last refit job,” he said with a sigh, patting her hand kindly. “It keeps doing that. Don’t worry: it’ll wear off once we get going and it has to use all its blob-power.”

    Not all, P.O.

    “Shut up, for Federation’s sake,” said the P.O. with a sigh.

    “Does it do that to the passengers?” asked Dohra in awe.

    “Yeah. They think it’s galaxious,” he admitted heavily. “That encourages it, of course.”

    “Um, yes!” she gulped. “I never knew that about ships!”

    “It partly depends on the captain and the chief engineer,” he admitted. “But Captain Ccrainchzzyllia thinks we ought to be above worrying over that sort of triviality—well, he’s right in principle, of course—and Chief Engineer Chumquck’s a Belraynian, she just ignores it. –Placid temperament,” he explained glumly. “The run between her home planet and Playfair One suits her down to the flat world.”

    “Mm, I see. Um, could I ask, is there a—a Chief P.O.?” ventured Dohra.

    “Oh, Federation, yes!” said P.O. Bates with a cheerful laugh. “Chief Purser ailgardY uw noouweL is our C.P.O. She’s a Nblyterian. Most efficient C.P.O. I ever served under! And no sympathy whatsoever for Chef hoopnD’s whims and fancies, I can tell you! You won’t see her for a bit, the passengers are boarding and she likes to check them in herself.”

    J’nno and Dohra had looked up passenger ships in the Encyclopaedia, so she responded somewhat faintly to this: “All of them? I thought there’d be about a thousand?”

    “Yeah, full capacity twelve hundred, when we’re carrying humanoids, Nblyterians, Friyrians, that size being,” he agreed cheerfully. “She doesn’t stand at the passenger hatch shaking appendages, if that’s what you’re envisaging. All passengers have to check in at the Purser’s Office on Deck 6 before we depart, see? Most of them go to their cabins first and then trot along to the office.”

    “I see. And—and where would the captain be, sir?”

    They had reached the galley. P.O. Bates paused with his hand on the door, smiling. “Captain Ccrainchzzyllia is on his bridge, Third Cook Wt. And do I need to warn you not to go there?” 

 

    “No, sir!” gasped Dohra fervently.

    P.O. Bates looked down at her quizzically and refrained from voicing the thought that, if Captain Ccrainchzzyllia was a pretty typical upper-class Friyrian as far as insistence on spit and polish and obedience to regs went, he was also not atypical as far as a partiality for simple-minded blonde young female mammalian beings went. And that it’d be a Vvlvanian-cursed good thing for young Third Cook W’t if he never got so much as a sniff of her throughout her tour of duty. Not that he wouldn’t give her a cursed good time—sure. But the minute he got bored with her—and he had the usual upper-class Friyrian’s capacity for boredom—he’d drop her without a second thought. This’d be after he’d made her give up her job, of course, because a Friyrian captain wouldn’t consort with a being serving on his own ship: against Regs and bad for morale. All in all, not a fate P.O. Bates would wish on a young being that was about as innocent as his own daughter, Kth Mrri, at present just due to start a Third School degree.

    “This is it,” he said. “I should warn you, Chef may be hysterical.”

    “I see,” she said grimly, sticking out her rounded chin.

    P.O. Bates rather thought she did. Open! he sent.

    The plasmo-blasted door replied: At your order, P.O. Bates, but at least it opened. And they went into the galley.

    “Duck!” he shouted.

    Dohra ducked, as a ladle came flying across the huge shiny galley.

    “Cut that out, will you, Chef?” said P.O. Bates mildly, picking the ladle up.

    “Oh—sorry,” said the orange-flushed being in crumpled chef’s uniform standing by the giant array of culture-pans. “Thought you were Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea again with more space garbage about fresh greens for the Captain. I’ve been serving the Captain fresh greens for five tours solid, what does Whfflgrinnyllea think I am, pray?”

    This last was not an invitation to some form of religious worship, realised Dohra dazedly as the slim Nblyterian threw his chef’s hat to the shining xrillion floor, to reveal the prettiest mauve crest imaginable, but just the chef’s way of speaking. Help, he sounded rather like Great-Aunty K’t!

    “I dare say he thinks you’re the chef on whose culinary efforts his job depends,” replied the P.O. on an acid note. “And as he has to serve ’em up to the Captain, I’d say he's not far wrong. This is Third Cook W’t, Dohra B’Jn, and for Federation’s sake don’t throw anything at her!”

    Ignoring this last, the chef said to Dohra: “Chef hoopnD tr poveR. Welcome aboard, Third Cook W’t. What a relief to see you, dear!”

    Call him Chef, said P.O. Bates clearly in Dohra’s head.

    Jumping slightly, she gasped: “How do you do, sir—Chef!”

    “All right, Chef, I’ll leave her with you,” said the P.O. “You can start your leave on Day 1 of next IG week, okay? And just mind you put her into the way of things before you go! –Best of luck, Third Cook. Any problems, see me.” He nodded kindly, and was gone.

    That left Dohra standing before a flustered-looking mauve-crested Nblyterian in a giant shiny galley with the prospect of twelve hundred passengers and, if the Intergalactic Encyclopaedia was right, which it always was, a crew of sixty-five to feed!

    After a moment Chef hoopnD said huffily: “I dunno where you got the twelve hundred bit, dear, though I dare say it wasn’t five hundred glps from Bates, Andi’s big mouth, but as it happens, we’re only carrying eight hundred and thirty-two this trip, that’s including two hundred and thirty-nine immature meals, and six infants in appendages that the galley isn't responsible for. Crew of fifty-seven, yourself included. And one ship’s Flppu, which personally I would dispense with down the nearest recycler, but Captain, Sir, is a Friyrian and it’s his Flppu: from Friyria, a genuine one, pure-bred, or so it’s generally claimed. And give it iirouelli’i juice without his personal say-so and you’re for it. For—it.”

    “Um, yes,” she croaked. “Um, what does it eat, Chef?”

    “Eat? Eat? I don’t care!” he cried wildly. “My hormones are running amok like a crazed mok with b’x-fever, have you the slightest idea what that’s like?”

    “No,” said Dohra simply.

    “No,” agreed the mauve-crested Nblyterian, sitting down all of a heap on a long-legged lubolyon stool. “You wouldn’t. Nobody has!”

    “Um, what about the Purser?” ventured Dohra. “Isn’t she a Nblyterian in her/s female stage?”

    “Yes, but dear,” he said acidly, “she’s always been female! No idea—no idea at all!”

    “No,” she muttered, repressing an urge to stand on one leg.

    “Can you cook, at least?” he asked heavily.

    “Yes,” said Dohra boldly. “I’ve brought my own culture-pan, too, it’s in this bag.”

    “It’s not doing us any good in there, dear, is it? Get it out, let’s have a look at it!”

    Meekly Dohra produced her culture-pan. “It used to belong to my mother.”

    “Great splintered shards of quog!” screamed the chef. “That word!”

    “Sorry,” she muttered, wincing.

    “No, I am, dear. Dead, is she? Oh—very nasty, terribly sorry, dear,” he said, hurriedly ordering Senso-tissues!

    “Thanks,” said Dohra shakily, as a bunch of assorted pale pink, pale blue and pale mauve ones drifted into her hand. She blew her nose hard. “I didn’t mean to broadcast, Chef. And you’re right: Mum was pretty bossy. And she kept all her recipes to herself, too.”

    “My dear, they do!” he agreed, perking up amazingly.

    “Yeah. Only I showed it who’s the boss of it,” said Dohra, giving her culture-pan a hard look, “and now it’s cooking for me!”

    “Good for you!” he cried. “Got any special recipes?”

    “Um, well, I dunno that they’d be special in your terms, Chef,” said Dohra respectfully, eyeing the array of huge shiny culture-pans. “C’T’rean recipes. –Culture-pan!” she said loudly. “Tell Chef Mum’s recipe for trifle!”

    Obediently the culture pan droned: Mum’s Recipe for Trifle. Separate four boo-bird eggs… 

 

    “Delicious!” cried Chef hoopnD, clapping his hands. “Pans, did you get that?”

    Yes, Chef, they droned obediently.

    “See?” he said happily. “Now you can make trifle for the whole ship!”

    “Yes, um, will they like it?” she faltered.

    “Will they like it? Dear, a shipload of Nblyterians, humanoids and, dare I whisper it, middle-class Friyrians? They’ll lap it up! Well, the Friyrians’ll demand Whtyllian cows’ cream instead of grqwaries’ cream, but they always do—think they’re better than the rest of sentient beinghood! Er, we do keep a little of it, dear, but it’s exclusively for the Captain and his invited guests—goddit?”

    Dohra nodded feelingly.

    “Good! Well, now, what can we set you to? I know: cleaning the greens for the Captain’s salad for lunch! I've got some nice tidy-blobs that you’ll find quite helpful, if dense. That’s the bench, over there: all right?”

    “Yes—um, what about a uniform?” she faltered.

    “Oops: silly me! Pop into the hygiene cabinet—just through that door—OPEN, YOU PLASMO-BLASTED PIECE OF SPACE JUNK!—and have a little wash and brush-up, and you’ll find it’ll produce a lovely uniform.”

    Dubiously Dohra popped. Ooh, so it did! And lots of lovely senso-tissues, these ones were dappled shades of pale blue, pale pink, and pale mauve, and there was the loveliest sim-pic on the wall: fields of Oononian lavender in bloom, and the soaps were self-foaming and smelt of roses and Oononian lavender!

    “What a beautiful hygiene cabinet!” she beamed, emerging in her cook’s uniform.

    “Yes,” smirked Chef hoopnD, “a being has to admit that on the Silver WF Line, never mind what Whtyllian-Friyrian consortium might own it, the facilities are more than adequate. Though I'm afraid beings below the rank of Second Cook won’t be offered the choice of self-foaming soap.”

    “I see: it was yours,” said Dohra humbly. “Thank you so much, Chef, it’s the nicest hygiene cabinet I’ve ever been in!”

    Smirking, the chef replied: “Over there, dear: see, the tidy-blobs are lined up ready to help you. I've told the culture-pans on that bench to take orders from you, so you’ll be right! And by all means, add your little one to the row!”

    Humbly she and her culture-pan settled themselves at the bench: the pan on it and Dohra perched before it on a high stool. And lunch preparations for seven hundred and sixty-three loaded passengers, including two hundred and fifteen loaded immature beings, and the ship’s crew of fifty-seven began…

    “This,” noted the chef with distaste as the galley door opened and a tall, thin, middle-aged mammalian being with a skin of rather faded turquoise hurried in, “is Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea, in unlovely person. This is our new Third Cook W’t, and show her some respect!”

    Dohra looked shyly at the Friyrian. “How do you do, Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea?”

    The yeoman looked her up and down. “Third Cook, is it? Blow me out beyond the last black ’ole.”

    “That’ll do!” screamed the chef. “I said show some respect, or you get no lunch! And I have to say it, Dohra, dear, if you think Ugly Mug here’s attractive, you ought to see Captain, Sir, in all his glory!”

    “Yuh—No—Sorry!” she gasped, turning beetroot.

    Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea smirked, and produced a faint tinkling noise. “It’s the skin,” he said smugly to the greenish-yellow Nblyterian. “Like the shade, do you, dear? Well, I gotta admit it, Captain Ccrainchzzyllia’s a sight to gladden any young maiden’s ’eart. Virgin, are ya? –No,” he recognised. “Oh, well.”

    “That’ll DO!” screamed the chef. “I never heard such a load of indecent space garbage! –Give him the salad, dear, and the bread should be ready—CULTURE-PAN! BREAD ROLL FOR THE CAPTAIN!—and he always has a glass of pure spring water from the Whtyllian Mh’ghal Mountains, it’s that end culture-pan—CULTURE-PAN! MH’GHAL MOUNTAIN WATER FOR THE CAPTAIN!—and get rid of him! Him and his Friyrian smirk!”

    “Thanks,” said the yeoman unemotionally as Dohra added the roll and the water to the Captain’s special tray. “Looks a treat: ’e’ll like the little arrangement of orringe flah petals. ’Ere, they are edible, eh?”

    “Yes. My culture-pan did that,” admitted Dohra, smiling shyly up at him. “They're Bluellian marigolds.”

    “Right. Thanks, Third Cook.” He winked. “I’ll be back for me own lunch in two shakes of a mimic-bird’s tail, so keep it ’ot for me!”

    “You WON’T!” shouted the chef.

    “Blow it out your ear, Chef,” he replied, going.

    A ladle hit the door just as it slid shut after him. “Blast you to Vvlvania, you unfeeling brute!” screamed the chef.

    After a moment Dohra asked uncertainly: “Is he always like that?”

    “Worse,” said Chef hoopnD, mopping his eyes with a handful of mauve senso-tissues that matched his crest. “Totally unfeeling. All Friyrians are the same, Dohra, dear, and I warn you now, have nothing to do with them!”

    “Um, yes. Um, these culture-pans are saying the jolly-berry jelly for the children’s ready. Um, do they have sprinkles on it?”

    “Sprinkles? Sprinkles? What, pray, are sprinkles?” 

 

    Limply Dohra sent him a mind-picture.

    “Great splintered shards of quog! If your little pan’s capable of it, dear, very well! Sprinkles for two hundred and fifteen immature beings!” he said on a mad note, waving his hand.

    “Um, can it tell the others?’ said Dohra in a small voice.

    “On your head be it!” warned the chef.

    Culture-pan, tell the others about sprinkles, sent Dohra.

    “Don’t SEND!” he shouted irritably.

    “Um, sorry, Chef!” she gasped. “I just told it to tell them—”

    “I heard!” He watched, scowling, as the culture-pans produced two hundred and fifteen plates of chilled jolly-berry jelly dotted with coloured sprinkles. “They’ll do it forever more, you know,” he warned in a doomed voice.

    “Um, will they? I see,” said Dohra uncertainly.

    “Dohra, dear, the next thing we know the crew’ll be demanding plasmo-blasted sprinkles, and what’ll that do to the ship’s sugar ration?”

    Incautiously a culture-pan began to tell him, but he threw a ladle at it and it shut up like a dendrion nut.

    “Ye-es. Well, that’s not too bad. Or is the Captain mean with sugar?”

    “The Captain! Captain, Sir, doesn’t give a cptt-rvvr’s fart, pardon my use of language, for the ship’s sugar ration! But Chief Purser ailgardY does! Geddit?”

    “Mm,” said Dohra, biting her lip. She got on silently with preparing fifty-seven servings of steamed New Rthfrdian turnip tops, not daring to say she hated the plasmo-blasted things. Though it was probably just as well that Mum had always made her and the other kids eat them, because the culture-pan was more than on top of the recipe, for fifty-seven or not. –It was fifty-seven helpings, one apparently didn’t count the captain as crew, a fact of which all the ship’s culture-pans were well aware. Ulp.

    After a while she said cautiously: “Chef, did you notice, um, maybe it was my imagination, but when Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea was in here I thought I could hear a sort of faint tinkling noise.”

    “Of course! He was smirking!”

    “Ye-es…”

    The chef turned and stared at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve never met a Friyrian before?”

    “Not met. I've seen one. Um, well, I've seen lots on the Services.”

    “The Services! Dohra, dear, that was his version of a smirk! That’s what they do, see, they tinkle, they don't laugh! I grant you that being’s taught himself a very convincing imitation of a Nblyterian—or humanoid—smirk,” he said with loathing, “but they don’t do it naturally! You should hear Captain Ccrainchzzyllia laugh! Cascades of little silver bells are simply not in it! Musical? To die for! Not that it’s a sound you hear very often,” he noted sourly, descending abruptly from his hyper-flight.

    “Musical bells?” said Dohra dazedly.

    The chef shot her a shrewd look. “Mm. Come on, dear, they’ll need something to take the taste of those greens away, so pop the Bluellian squash on, would you? If you’re very good, I’ll let you do it with grqwaries’ butter!” he added coyly. The culture-pans were broadcasting We always do it with grqwaries’ butter, so Dohra just smiled and nodded and, admiring the fact that they were real fresh, well, vacuum-frozen squashes, got on with inspecting the tidy-blobs’ cleaning job and helping them to pop them in the culture-pans.

    The chef was busy with the passengers’ main courses: they got a choice of three: two meat dishes and one vegetarian, and too bad if any of them ran out, he’d explained hard-heartedly. But as soon as they seemed to be bubbling away satisfactorily Dohra asked: “Um, Chef, are we allowed to have meat or, um, something else with our greens and squash?”

    “What planet is the girl from?” he demanded wildly of the xrillion ceiling.

    C’T’rea, replied the ship helpfully.

    “Don't do that!” he said irritably. “Hypered up, dear,” he explained. “His Captainness, Sir, doesn't give an aforesaid, of course. You can have fried grpplybeast steak—those two pans over there: they’re old but completely reliable—or hggl stew with onions and New Rthfrdian carrots: not recommended if you’ve never tasted hggl before, dear, or mato-meat and fornish with vegetable sauce, and I say it as shouldn't, but it is delicious. Though not if you're pining for meat.”

 

    “I am awfully hungry,” she admitted. “Um, what’s fornish?”

    “Great galloping herds of grpplybeasts, the girl has no idea of cuisine!” he cried.

    Actually she wasn’t even too sure what “cuisine” meant, so she didn't say anything, and sure enough Chef explained with a superior smile: “Fornish is a delightful fungus, cultured on many worlds, not least F,R,I,Y,R,I,A itself, and it adds a hyperlift to any vegetarian dish, more especially with mato-meat in it! And not to be served as a vegetable to any being but the Captain. Or his plasmo-blasted Flppu, but only if he’s ordered it himself. Right?”

    “Right, Chef!” said Dohra smartly.

    This went over very well, for the chef then sighed and admitted that the first lunch of the voyage was always exhausting: one was aware that passengers were still loading and if more came aboard in the morning than were expected and the food ran out the Chief Purser would be furious; and the Captain was always edgy before a trip and it filtered down—Dohra nodded hard: whether it was the Captain’s fault or not she wasn’t sure, but Chef hoopnD was certainly edgy—and would she care for a refreshing glass of Oononian spring water? 

 

    She would, so they both had some.

    “Now, he said, “if you’re a very good girl and don’t hanker after any horrid turquoise beings—”

    “I wouldn’t!” she gasped.

    Chef hoopnD eyed her shrewdly. “No, well, Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea’s more than old enough to be your grandfather, and if I’m reading you right, dear, just as mean. So be a good girl and we’ll have a drink of full-strength grape juice after we’ve done the dinners—all right?”

    Dohra had never tasted grape juice in her life; certainly grapes were grown on many planets of the two galaxies, but nevertheless they were luxuries, not travelling well even when vacuum-frozen.

    “Yes, please! Lovely!” she gasped. 

 

    And they got on with it in perfect harmony. In fact, Chef hoopnD was so pleased with her work that by the end of the week he’d imparted his secret ways with the galley blobs and culture-pans and some—though of course not all—of his recipes. And Dohra felt almost confident about tackling the meals alone. Well, the ship’s culture-pans were wonderful! And her own one had settled in beautifully and they were sharing tips. The only thing she really didn’t feel she could manage was keeping track of the rations, especially if the crew asked for things they weren’t supposed to have and she didn’t realise it and let them. But the terrifyingly competent Chief Purser ailgardY herself had spoken to her briskly but kindly, telling her to ask if she was in doubt, only a fool acted instead of asking. And if the crew ate their sugar ration before the voyage was half over they’d have to exist without sugar, because no way would the ship allow the culture-pans to give them more—geddit? Humbly Dohra had agreed she got it, Chief.

    “So, how’d it go?” said J’nno as she got through to him after the first dinner she’d done on her own.

    “Good! And guess what? The Captain ordered Mum’s trifle and sent down a message congratulating me! Well, I mean, the pan done it all, not me, so I congratulated it, but it’s pretty good, eh?”

    “Yeah. Seen him yet?” asked J’nno tolerantly.

    “No, of course not,” said Dohra, quite shocked at the suggestion.

    J’nno sniffed slightly. “You’re letting this ship’s Regs mok shit get to ya.”

    “You have to,” she said seriously. “How’s it going at Gramps’s?”

    “Same like always, the mean ole cptt-rvvr. Shohn’s Mum, she’s had me over a few times, her food’s okay, she does yam chips a lot.”

    “Good. Well, I gotta go, I’ll call you in two IG days’ time, okay?”

    “Yeah. See ya!” he said cheerfully, breaking the connection.

    Dohra smiled wistfully and passed the comm-blob to the next crew member. J’nno seemed to be bearing up, Gramps or not. She had a room of her own, since she was Acting Chef: a lovely room, passed on from Chef hoopnD. He’d taken his sim-pictures but kindly left the frilly curtains and cushions. She went back to it rather slowly because her feet were aching: the tall stools in the galley were good but you still had to be on your feet a lot. Crew members were allowed to have any Service they wanted on the sim-receivers in their rooms, but you had to pay for the commercial ones, so Dohra had firmly decided to save the igs. So she had the choice of IG News, Ship’s News, or the Encyclopaedia. But Crewman H’nndr’sn, G’gg, a humanoid who wasn’t much older than J’nno, had kindly lent her his audio-blob, so Dohra got into her clingo-jamas, got into the comfortable bunk under the lovely frilled quilt, a going-away present from Chef hoopnD, and settling back happily to listen to it, was soon in the land of dreams, dancing the Jallinian fhoo with a tall, handsome turquoise-faced being that bore no resemblance to Yeoman Whfflgrinnyllea, but rather a lot to the sim-image of Captain Ccrainchzzyllia on the Ship’s News… 

 

    The mammalian humanoid having paused, smiling, the company expressed appreciation and gratitude for her story—all except the DorAvenian.

    BrTl glanced at him cautiously. If that’s that green emotion again, I don't think she realised she was broadcasting the picture of that dance. Or of that Friyrian.

    Thanks, that makes me feel so much better!

    “Um, well, lunch?” suggested BrTl somewhat desperately. The recipes had been really good, why did the swiller have to drag emotional stuff into a perfectly good story?

    Everyone seemed to be ready for lunch, so they headed for the cafeteria.

    “Where’s Didg got to?” asked BrTl as they joined the queue.

    Dohra was rather flushed. “Um, I’m not sure. I don’t think he liked my story.”

    “No,” he agreed incautiously. “Oh—sorry,” he said lamely. “It was that vacuum-frozen Friyrian captain.”

    “What?” she gulped, her cheeks turning a fiery red.

    Oops! “Forget I spoke. Order some mato-meat.” She was emanating blankness, so he reminded her: “For the recycler. To get that one-tenth-ig credit disc back.”

    “What? Oh,” said Dohra wanly. “That. Yes, of course.”