Prostho Plus

by Piers Anthony

  "This is understandable," the trachodon said. "It occurs to me that you are not well situated here."

  "That occurred to me three weeks ago! But how do I get away? Every time I try to say something—"

  "I see no problem. To a Gleep, there is no higher privilege than serving Gleepdom. When you express dissatisfaction with your lot, the muck-a-muck must assume that the transcoder has broken down. Indeed, speaking as an objective third party, I must say that your attitude is atypical."

  "You mean there are creatures who would actually enjoy scraping decomposition off twelve foot cusps, ten hours a day? Who don't mind isolation?"

  "Certainly, assuming they were capable of handling the work. Absolute comfort, absolute security, limited responsibility—it can be a very tempting proposition."

  Hope blossomed. "Could—could you arrange to have one of these creatures replace me here?"

  "I could certainly inaugurate the proceedings, if that is what you really desire. But I must warn you: once you leave Gleep, it will be almost impossible for you to return. Few are granted a second chance."

  "The first chance has been quite sufficient. Tell the muck-a-muck there are lots of Enens who are trained for the work, or who can instruct other creatures in the principles. Tell him—well, you're the diplomat. You know what to say."

  "Of course. But where do you wish to go ?"

  "Home!"

  "Your native planet is some distance away. I rather doubt that you possess the frump or the stiggle to finance the journey at this time, particularly since you would first have to purchase your own contract and attain independent status."

  Dillingham thought about it. While he hardly approved of the manner he had become "property", he knew that galactic law recognized the validity of that status. Earth was not considered to be a civilized planet, and therefore had few rights. The theory was that a savage admitted to galactic culture owed a certain amount in return for the education he picked up just by associating with higher species. He had a long way to go before becoming his own man again. "I'll go anywhere, so long as it's above water and in the open."

  "I could arrange transportation quite readily to Electrolus, where I happen to have my next assignment—"

  "Does it have solid land and natural sunshine?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Done!"

  Two hours later Trach showed him aboard a ship anchored on the surface. It hardly seemed possible that he had obtained his release so readily, yet here he was, out of the belly of the whale. Trach was certainly efficient!

  "This isn't an Enen ship," Dillingham observed. "Too small. Where's the crew?"

  "There is no crew," Trach said, closing the hatch.

  Dillingham realized abruptly that he was alone with a dinosaur—really alone. "But you said—"

  Trach walked by, his breath smelling of midsummer hay. "I'm going to Electrolus, and there is room for you aboard my ship, so I simplified the procedure by purchasing your contract myself. Wasn't that what you wanted?"

  Dillingham was hardly sure. The trachadon stood twelve feet tall without stretching and had an alarmingly powerful construction. The ridiculous jacket and bow-tie could not conceal the impervious hide beneath, or the rippling reptilian musculature. When he spoke, the jaws parted to reveal a ferocious array of teeth... but not far enough to enable Dillingham to determine whether they were the implements of a herbivore or a carnivore.

  "Take-off may be a trifle uncomfortable," Trach said. "Would you like me to strap you in?"

  The spare couch had enormous metallic bands for up to six limbs. The fastenings were far too heavy for Dillingham to manipulate himself; they were shackles that would hold him helpless, once clamped. "I—I'll try my luck without the straps," he said.

  "Fine. I never bother with them myself. Sometimes I get hungry in mid-manoeuvre, and they become inconvenient."

  Sometimes he got hungry... Dillingham wondered just what rights a contract granted the owner. Were the duckbills carnivorous? He couldn't remember. He gripped his bag of tools tightly, wishing he had something more sturdy than a slender dental sealer. But of course Trach was friendly. He was a reputable diplomat. He said.

  Trach braced his tail against the floor and manipulated controls. Suddenly there was a jolt that threw Dillingham to the floor. "Just a little finicky when she's warming up," the dinosaur remarked, "One of these missions I'm going to lease a modern ship. This one is apt to spring a leak in space any time now."

  Dillingham sat down abruptly on the couch and gripped a strap. Leak in space! Another jolt, and the ship was moving. Trach activated a screen, and the grey waves of the Gleep ocean appeared, rushing past at an astonishing rate. Then they were airborne, and the waves gave way to dank clouds.

  It became warm. "Do you have any temperature control for this ship?" Dillingham inquired sweating. "I think the speed is heating the—I mean, the atmospheric friction—"

  "Oh, there is some variation. We're reaching for escape velocity, after all. On this planet, in your terms, that's about twenty thousand knots. Nothing to worry about."

  Dillingham winced as the metal flooring became hot. "Well, I'm a fixed-temperature creature," he reminded the dinosaur apologetically.

  "Is this uncomfortable for you? I had forgotten." Trach obligingly turned on a frigid blast of air. "Good thing that device is operative now. Sometimes it gets stuck on HOT."

  Dillingham nodded, shivering, though the metal fastenings were still too hot to touch. He wondered how many other minor inconveniences this ship would produce. This was certainly a contrast to the precision equipment of the Enens.

  The ship shuddered and bucked, catapulting him across the burning floor. "That breaks us out of the atmosphere," Trach said nonchalantly. "Better stay on the couch, though. Sometimes it—"

  The dinosaur turned as he spoke, spied Dillingham far removed from the couch, and leaped for him. The enormous webbed hands caught him before he could scramble to safety. "Got you!" Trach grunted with satisfaction.

  Dillingham opened his mouth to scream, knowing it to be a thoroughly useless and effeminate gesture but unable to think of anything better. There had been foul pla—

  The ship seemed to turn inside out. There was a sickening wrench of... something that threatened to deposit his stomach inside his braincase. Then Dillingham found himself seated on Trach's soft underbelly, both of them jammed into a corner.

  Trach snapped around, snake-like, and set him on his feet. "I meant to warn you, Doctor. The shift into overdrive is sometimes a little sticky. I'm used to it, but you could have been hurt. Are you all right?"

  "Yes," Dillingham replied, unsettled.

  "From here on it will be perfectly smooth," Trach said. "Once this tub makes it through the shift, she's safe—until the shift back. That won't be for a couple of days, your time. We can relax."

  Dillingham decided to take him at his word. "Thank you for all your trouble."

  Trach touched a button on a complicated machine. "You over-rate the service I performed," he said modestly. "Ordinarily I would be offered a fair commission for straightening out the Gleep problem. But I accepted your contract in lieu of that, and it's worth—"

  "A ton of frumpstiggle."

  "Which is several times my normal fee. That is a credit my account sorely needs. If I had failed to give satisfaction—"

  The machine spewed out a mass of green material resembling fresh cabbage leaves.

  "So you weren't just being nice, helping me out?"

  "Doctor, it is my business to be nice, and to get paid for it. Too often I'm never given the opportunity. We'll find some attractive disposition for your contract, maybe a semi-private practice on Electrolus similar to the one you had on Earth, and both of us will gain. May I offer you something to eat?"

  "That's—food?" Dillingham eyed the armful of leaves.

  "Greenchomp, in your idiom. It's the only sustenance my species can tolerate. But the synthesizer can be adjusted for other things—usua
lly. What would you prefer?"

  Dillingham contemplated the machine. "I'm not hungry at the moment," he said. "What did you mean about never being given the opportunity to be nice? If you're a diplomat—"

  "Free-lance. That means I'm my own boss, but if I don't produce, I starve. I go from mission to mission, and I was doing well enough until recently. But now—well, if I don't make good on Electrolus, I'll be awkwardly near insolvency. I'll have to scratch to provision my ship for the next hop, and that means—"

  "Don't tell me. Let me guess. That means you'll have to auction off my contract to the highest bidder."

  "Something like that. And I'm afraid they don't offer as much for compatible locations. There's always a fierce demand for doctors and dentists in the radium mines of Ra, because—"

  "My curiosity just radiated away. Let's agree that your problem is my problem, and see if we can't solve it."

  "If only we could. But it baffles me."

  "You seemed to handle the Gleep affair readily enough. I'm no judge, of course, but if you know your job and work at it, I can't see why you should have any difficulties." It was amazing how quickly they had got on intimate terms. The confirmation of Trach's leafy diet and the image of deadly radium mines might have contributed something, however.

  "I agree. But somehow I haven't made the grade recently, except on Gleep."

  Tell me about it," Dillingham said. "Believe me, I am exceedingly interested."

  Trach flexed his tail restlessly. "Consider my last assignment. The planet of Bolt engaged me to set up formal relations with the world of Gulp and arrange for a cultural exchange. I mastered the difficult language of Gulp—it's a glottal dialect—and trained myself to be adept at every nuance of planetary etiquette before setting one webbed foot there. I rehearsed my ritual compliments industriously. I'm sure everything was correct—yet I never got to meet the representatives with whom I had to deal. Despite my numerous hints, then: monarch did not see fit to provide me with the necessary appointments, and finally my lease expired with nothing accomplished. I had to forfeit the commission." His tail slapped the deck in frustration. "How can I be diplomatic when I'm not permitted to talk with my clients?"

  Dillingham shared his host's confusion. "Weren't advance arrangements made? Didn't they know what you were there for?"

  "They knew. The arrangements were made—and cancelled after my arrival. They never told me why."

  "Maybe they changed their minds about the cultural exchange, and didn't want to admit it."

  "Then why did they hire another diplomat after I left, an amphibian yet(!) and allow him to complete the entire programme?"

  Why, indeed. "That's typical? I mean, the same thing has happened on other planets?"

  Too many others. They just seem to lose interest, while other free-lancers make the reputation and commissions that should have gone to me. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect a conspiracy."

  "Do you know better? A situation like that—"

  "That also is my business. I can spot corrupt politics as quickly as you can spot a rotten tooth."

  "But there must be some reason." Dillingham tried to think of something plausible, but nothing occurred to him. "Let's isolate the, er, area of infection. Exactly when did Gulp's attitude change?"

  Trach considered. "All the signals were positive at first. They sent an honour guard to meet me when I landed, and I was provided with the most elegant accommodation. I interviewed the monarch the very next day. He was quite cordial, and I was sure success was in my grasp."

  "But—?"

  "But nothing. That was the only appointment I had. They left me alone, and put me off when I tried to inquire. I know the brush-off when I get hit over the snout with it."

  "But are you sure there was no—"

  "There was no foul play. No animosity. They simply changed their minds, and wouldn't tell me why. Most frustrating, for a professional."

  Something clicked at last in Dillingham's mind. "May I have a look at your teeth?"

  "My teeth?" Trach was surprised, but did not remark on the apparent change of subject. "I have no trouble with them. When one row wears down, another takes its place. Even decay presents no problem as you mammals know it. Any damaged tooth falls out promptly and a new one grows."

  But he obliged the whim of the Earthman. Dillingham was astonished as he looked. Trach's flat bill contained myriads of proportionately tiny teeth. They extended in rows along the sides of his mouth, and extra teeth decorated the upper and lower palates.

  "About two thousand," Trach said. "I'm not sure of the exact count because several rows have already worn away, and some haven't erupted yet."

  "You use all these just to chew greenchomp?" The stuff looked like cabbage, but he suspected it had the consistency of asbestos.

  "As many as I need. We're herbivorous, like most civilized species."

  Dillingham let that pass. He'd have to try some of that greenchomp, assuming his feeble twenty-eight teeth could dent it. It was probably nutritious, and could hardly be worse than the pseudomeat extruded from modified Gleep sweat glands. Why an ocean creature had ever had to sweat—

  He brought his mind back to the problem. "How do you clean your teeth after a meal?"

  "We employ a chemical mouthwash that dissolves vegetable matter in seconds," Trach said. "Though as I said, it doesn't really matter. Our teeth are—"

  "May I see some of that?"

  Trach was embarrassed. "The synthesizer provides it also—but mine is on the blink in that area. I can't get it fixed until I return to Trachos. But that's merely an inconvenience. I could give you the formula—"

  Dillingham nodded. "More than an inconvenience, I'm afraid. You shouldn't go so long without cleaning your mouth."

  "But I told you it can't hurt my teeth. They—"

  "That isn't precisely what I meant."

  "Oh? What do you mean?"

  Dillingham was acutely embarrassed to sound so much like an Earthly TV commercial. "Trach, you have halitosis."

  The dinosaur looked at him, perplexed. "I don't understand."

  "You have BAD BREATH!"

  "But my breathing is not affected..."

  Dillingham tried again. "If I were a diplomat like you, I'd find some way, some gentle, discreet way, to tell you. As it is, all I can say is that your breath stinks of greenchomp. Particles of the stuff are wedged between your teeth. You have a lot of teeth, and it's pretty strong."

  "But greenchomp smells good. Does it bother you?"

  "No. It's like freshly cut grass or curing hay. But then, I'm not a civilized, sensitive-nosed herbivore."

  "You mean—?"

  "I mean. How does my breath smell to you?"

  Trach sniffed. "Faintly of carrion. But I'm accustomed to foreign stenches."

  "Right. You're a diplomat, so you've schooled yourself to ignore the crudities of the creatures you meet. But suppose you were a protected, royal-born creature, trained to notice the tiniest deviation from etiquette. Suppose your diet while herbivorous, did not happen to be greenchomp. Sup—"

  Trach slammed his tail explosively against the floor, interrupting him. "Suppose I met an alien who breathed sheer miasma into my delicate nostrils—"

  "Yes. What would you say to him?"

  "Nothing, of course. It wouldn't be—"

  "Diplomatic?"

  Trach paced the deck in a frenzy of mortification. "How horrible? No wonder they wouldn't talk to me more than once. And worse—they may have assumed that all Trachodons smell that way. That I was typical. That would foul up every representative from my world." He gnashed his teeth impressively.

  "So maybe you'd better dash home and replace your synthesizer before going on to Electrolus?"

  Trach slapped his webbed hands together. "I can't. I'd have to admit my reason for delaying Electrolus. They'd never let me off-world again, after such a colossal blunder."

  "You're going to have to clean your mouth somehow, then, and thoroughly. The gr
eenchomp must be removed. Unless the Electrolytes can't smell very well?"

  "They can distinguish differing grades of clear glass—by odour. At twenty paces upwind."

  Dillingham sighed. The image of the radium mines loomed larger in his mind. "I don't suppose you could get them to repair your synthesizer before—?"

  "They're not mechanically inclined."

  The two lapsed into interstellar gloom.

  Dillingham racked his brain for some solution to their mutual problem. It was ironic that a dentist couldn't come up with a simple way to clean teeth. The synthesizer, like so many of the ship's utilities, functioned erratically, and they were afraid to risk pushing it into a complete breakdown that would cut off even their greenchomp supply. Other chemicals besides Trach's original mouthwash might have done the job, but they were no easier to produce. Mechanical cleansing was also out of the question. A toothbrush—to clean two thousand teeth packed in like magnified sandpaper? Possibly a thorough scaling accompanied by copious rinsing with water would do the job—but it was obvious that this procedure would consume so much time, particularly as performed by Trach's webbed fingers, that the dinosaur would have to eat again before the job could be finished.

  A blast of water from a pressure nozzle? Too splashy, and it still required time and care to get the wedged particles. Trach's skills were verbal, not manipulative—and what would he do at a public banquet?

  What was needed was a simple but effective method to clean all the teeth in a few seconds. Agreed. But what?

  "Is there any place you could obtain a temporary supply of your usual mouthwash? Enough to tide you over this one assignment?"

  Trach twitched his tail reflectively. "The dental university might have it in stock. But they'd be sure to make a report to Trachos, and—"

  "Dental university?" Dillingham found himself interested for another reason. "On a galactic scale?"