by Brian Daley
Behind these came the pros.
It was the biggest funeral bash in memory, so Caut'Karr claimed, and the only unfortunate aspect was that virtually the entire town was involved, leaving very few spectators.
The professional mourners were receiving a pittance compared to the humans, but they put on a show that was beyond reproach.
They ululated like banshees and swayed like willows in the wind. They flayed themselves and one another with their various extremities, and whipped the ground. They twirled and flung debris in the air. Many appeared to have damaged themselves; as the humans watched, one Croi broke off a whiplike limb against a stone.
"Going a bit far, isn't it, Rok?" Floyt said.
"He or she or it will regenerate in no time," Amarok answered. "The Croi are good at that. And if they're really short of something, other appendages change specialties to fill in."
"This could be a tough act to follow," Floyt said dubiously.
"Are you kidding, Ho? Just do what I do; we'll have 'em fainting in the back rows." For the excursion, Alacrity had strapped on a chest-pack and stuffed into it three cold bottles of champagne from Haj. As the strange procession drew near, on its way up the mountain, he popped the cork on one and took a deep chug, foam squirting out of his mouth around the bottle.
Caut'Karr swung in Alacrity's direction an optical organ like a sundial. "And what is the identifying name of this act, will you please?" the Croi inquired.
"Ancient time-honored human customary habit," Alacrity responded, champagne running down his chin. "We'd offer you some, Caut'Karr, but—biochemistry, y'know … "
"Tradition?" The Croi marveled. "A traditional habitude? Oh, well; that's more than all right, then! But, ah, would your repertoire include anything perhaps by any chance a maybe-bit trifling smidgeon more demonstrative?"
"Like what? Name it."
"Well … we of the Croi-type sort of person are most preoccupied with your customary practice of the elegy. This poetry stuff is quite beautifully attractive, though for some obscurely hidden reason it seems to be apparently difficult for us to formulate things like rhyme and scansion."
"Yeah?" Alacrity took another sip. "You bet; we'll do what we can!"
"How very excellently fine! Now, if you'll just accompany me into coming along … "
He led the way toward the front of the procession. The other Croi were paying them a lot of attention by then.
Amarok warned Alacrity and Floyt sotto voce, "Now, this may be a lark to you, but these creatures are good customers and Someone doesn't want to see them offended or shortchanged. Fair is fair."
"Hey!" Alacrity protested as Floyt took a cautious sip of the champagne. "We never stiffed anybody yet, Rok! But if you don't trust us, just say the word and we'll stay behind."
For the first time since they'd met him, Amarok laughed. "That's what This One thought, but He just wanted to be sure." He pulled forth an engraved Perkup inhaler, taking a deep breath from it.
They fell in with Caut'Karr at the very head of the procession. The carryings-on of the mourners, especially the career types, redoubled. Amarok took a pull on the champagne while passing the Perkup to Floyt.
"Everybody ready?" Alacrity sang.
Caut'Karr gave a long sonority then and, in a polite translation for the humans, wailed, "Ah! For the love of goodness! The High Meddler leaves into his good-bye! The delight of our organs of visions was he! The song-tune of our auditory senses!"
"This'll be a cinch," Alacrity muttered to Floyt.
Caut'Karr angled expectant receptive organs in the humans' direction.
"The High Meddler has left us!" Amarok roared up at the sky, out of nowhere, causing Caut'Karr to withdraw his extremities to a safer distance, and making even Alacrity and Floyt jump a little in startlement.
"He's gone!" Amarok shrilled, taking another long pull on the bottle. He flung his arms wide. "Gone! Gone! Ahhhh—" He pressed the back of his free hand against his forehead, desolate.
"Jeepers! How engagingly marvelous!" Caut'Karr brightened, ruffling his extremities in display behavior like a shiver, and all four of them felt a lot better.
"Why did he have to leave us? Oh, why?" Floyt keened, having taken some champagne and a wheeze or two on the Perkup. "Our beloved, irreplaceable High Meddler; our dear, dear, de-ee-ee, hee, he, he, he … " And he broke down into shuddering sobs.
That of course left nothing for Alacrity but to stagger around tearing at his hair, frightening a few Croi and screeching, as the cortege wended its way up the hill. The locals were awed and not a little unnerved by the humans' performance.
The High Meddler's glorious coat of shellac and his noble pose threw back the rays of the late-afternoon sun bravely. Morale was very high.
As they ascended a series of sharp switchbacks toward the heights, Amarok, Alacrity, and Floyt, taking turns sipping and inhaling, entered into an unspoken contest to see who could give the most dramatic demonstration of his grief. They worked their way through the first bottle and got deep into the second, improvising.
Amarok rubbed dirt on his face. Alacrity and Floyt fell, bawling, into each other's arms. Floyt rolled in the dust of the road and was nearly trampled by a ponderous Croi female lost in her own grief. Alacrity beat his chest and ripped open his shirt. The three had been cooped up in Pihoquiaq for a long time, and it was beginning to tell.
At a bend in the road Amarok, declaring that he simply couldn't bear it one moment more, made ready to hurl himself off the precipice. The other two had to wrestle and drag the giant back from the edge, an impressive struggle if there'd ever been one. The locals were delighted beyond words. Their own mourning showed it as they spiritedly kept up their end of things, swaying and whooping, flaying the air and the ground and themselves and one another.
Alacrity suspected that he and his companions were writing a new page in Croi history. He ripped off the shreds of his shirt and, well aware of how many new ones he could buy with an amber Perfect and four azure Primes, cast the rags off one end of a switchback.
Floyt, not to be outdone, shrugged off his blouse and tore off the legs of his pants and discarded them in like wise. Amarok opened his groundsuit and, stepping forth unsteadily, flipped it into space.
At the top of their form now, Croi were mourning with wild enthusiasm, worked into a frenzy by the dedicated antics of the humans, not understanding but ecstatically appreciative. Floyt and Alacrity threw the last of their garments away, emulating Amarok. With nothing on but their shoes—and Alacrity's empty chest-pack—they marched on, howling and sporting and imbibing.
"You are being most Croi!" Caut'Karr proclaimed in a palsy of delight. "You've made our sadness so giddy!"
The entire strange caravan drew to a halt on the open flatland near the edge of the cliff. Reddish water surged against the gray and green rocks far below, whipping up a pink froth.
It was plainly a ceremonial place; all around were huge sculptured boulders that looked like they'd been carved by the wind, each covered with symbols and insignia.
The High Meddler was set down and the Croi gathered around. They made a space there near the edge of the cliff, so the humans could be in the center of things.
The three were tired, dirty, and sweaty, but altogether pleased with what they'd done and how happy they'd helped make the Croi.
Caut'Karr signaled for silence and, when he had it, made a brief speech in his own language that seemed to meet with the unanimous approval of the Croi.
He translated politely for the offworlders.
"I have said that this is a day to go down into the anus of history!"
"Annals?" Floyt suggested delicately.
"Affirmatively just-so! The High Meddler has received the most glorious funeral procession column ever held! All of those of us who are here share in the exalting honor!
"Now, as a last tribute to our beloved leader, we will all render the ritualistic sacrifice!"
So saying, Caut'Karr took the end of
one reedy extremity in a manipulative tendril and, giving it a mighty yank, pulled it loose. It seemed to cause him no pain or distress.
Of course! Alacrity realized. He'll just regenerate a new one. It's all right, then.
Caut'Karr held the sacrifice aloft, waving it at the bold figure of the High Meddler. He said something in Croi, then reiterated it in Terranglish.
"This tribute I send before thee, as proof of my reverance and devotion!"
With that, he tossed the appendage far out off the cliff. The other Croi set up a wierd caterwauling and, as the three humans watched, dumbfounded, began plucking extremities of their own in an outlandish harvest of devotional tokens, showering them into the pink surf.
The three humans expected to see the departed follow his offerings over the side, but instead an expectant quiet settled over the Croi. All attention seemed to center on Amarok, Floyt, and Alacrity.
"Well?" prompted Caut'Karr after a few moments' silence.
"Well what?" Alacrity shot back.
"We are tarryingly waiting. The ceremony is nearly terminated to completion, and we're all famished for the post-obsequies ingestion competition races. If you three would be so goodly compliant as to finish and have done with your tributes, we'll just give the noble dead cadaver, here, a jolly old tilt into the briny oceanic sea and be off on our path of route."
"Tributes?" Floyt repeated, with an abrupt feeling of apprehension.
"Well of course naturally, tributes," Caut'Karr rapped with a trace of impatience. He mimed the ripping off of another of his extremities. "Tributes."
"Scheisse-mensch!" Alacrity proclaimed softly. "Y-you mean to say you expect us to—"
"Ah, look here now," Amarok interrupted smoothly. "That's just not the sort of thing our species does, don't you see, Caut'Karr. We're different from you Croi."
The rest of the Croi were pressing around, cluttering and tweeting agitatedly at Caut'Karr and the humans. Some few who understood a little Terranglish were trying to translate.
"You mean to intend to say," Caut'Karr said balefully, "that you three negatively refuse to render this basic respect? A minor act like plucking off one lousy limb? You do commit upon ourselfs this intolerable provocational insult?"
The other Croi, hearing that in translation, set up a sound like untuned guitars being rubbed together.
"It's not that exactly," Alacrity was quick to protest. "For you, it's nothing to do something like that. But it's a lot more drastic for—"
He broke off as several Croi in the crowd lost their tempers over the humans' pettiness in welching on fundamental good manners like self-mutilation. Outraged, two of them charged at Alacrity, while Floyt yelled, "Wait! You don't understand!"
Which was pretty much the phrase Alacrity had once submitted in a contest for the slogan of the Organization for Interspecies Understanding. It did no more good than it had during the contest.
The trio of humans was standing near one of the giant stones, at the very edge of the cliff, with Croi dozens deep to every side and the precipice at their backs. Alacrity ducked one of the creatures, but the second began looping and angling various appendages about him. Scared for his life, he somehow got in close to the small hassock torso.
The Croi were tall and fairly strong, but not as heavy or as stable as they looked. Alacrity got a grip, pivoted, and hauled; the thing came over his shoulder, though he went down with it. Two more of the creatures rushed in, and he was entangled among them.
Amarok had dropped into an unarmed combat stance that was fearsome to behold, the tight ropes and long hawsers of his muscles standing forth. The Croi eluded by Alacrity turned toward him but, astoundingly, Amarok drove it back in a blur of leaps and flat-handed chops.
Floyt, eyes bulging, could see no way out as the incensed Croi closed in. His back to the huge rock, he felt one of the apertures in it, like a hole wind-carved in stone.
In an instant he'd turned and wriggled into it. It was a tight fit, leading downward, the stone abrading his skin, but he shinnied through like a squirrel through stacked cordwood, as Croi began reaching and snatching after him. Floyt went through so fast that he nearly plunged straight out the back of the monument and fell to his death on the wave-pounded rocks below.
But he managed to dig in, scraping knees and elbows bloody, halting himself. As he did, he felt the long limbs of the aroused mourners reaching for his feet.
Amarok, meanwhile, had somehow extricated Alacrity. Their protestations did no good. Determined to make a final stand, Amarok began swarming up the great stone; Alacrity tried to swarm up Amarok.
They were plucked from the stone and, struggling wildly, borne away.
Floyt, angled head-down toward the sea in the cramped hole, kicked out at the grasping Croi. His fumbling hand found a weathered crack above the hole, on the crumbling sea face of the stone. Driven by Terran loathing of nonhumans and a wild fear for his life, he got his fingertips into the crack for a risky hold and hauled himself out of the hole, scrabbling and kicking for purchase. He looked around hopelessly; there was the sound of the crashing water and of Croi on the other side of the stone groping around like cats at a mouse hole.
Something touched his calf, and he screamed.
Alacrity and Amarok were being restrained by an angry mob. Caut'Karr, with threshing blows and enjoining cries, managed to bring back a little order. The two captives were spread-eagled on one of the smaller stones, bent backward, heads hanging over the booming surf. Alacrity's skull ached and a knot was beginning to swell where he'd clipped his forehead against the boulder.
Except for a few frustrated individuals still fumbling around at the hole trying to catch Floyt, the Croi thronged around the two captives.
"Despite of your rude truculence and intemperate discourtesies," Caut'Karr announced, "we will be lenient with you, foreign aliens. You will make your tribute, then be allowed permission to depart."
"Don't you understand?" Amarok bellowed. "We have a different physiology from you!"
"That is scarcely our fault, is it?" Caut'Karr riposted reasonably.
A lost arm or leg could be regenerated or replaced by graft if necessary, but if the humans were to lose it up on the cliff, they'd have no hope of making it to Pihoquiaq, much less advanced medical help. Alacrity and Amarok struggled.
"If you tear off our arms or legs we'll die!" Amarok roared.
"Umm, ha," meditated Caut'Karr. "I suppose we could settle for a minor appendage." He pointed to their midsections. "Those rather modest protuberances down there would suffice."
The Croi were somewhat surprised at how vehemently the two Homo sapiens began to fight and object.
"STOP!" a human voice thundered.
Floyt stood atop the great stone, panting and bleeding from the climb that had nearly cost him his life a dozen times in less than a minute.
Before the Croi could recover from their surprise, the Earther placed one hand over his heart and swept the other at the figure of the High Meddler. In stentorian grandeur, he declaimed:
The Croi stood on the burning deck,
(uh,) his honor now I garnish,
drape laurels round his nonesuch neck,
and on his coat of varnish!
Adrenaline had helped him condense a lot of thinking into the endless seconds of his climb; verse was the only thing he'd been able to come up with.
The Croi watched and listened, motionless. They could tell Floyt was doing something profoundly out of the ordinary, even for a human. There were rapid-fire questions to and answers from the few Terranglish speakers among them, including Caut'Karr. Poetry? Poetry!
Alacrity and Amarok, straining to raise their heads a bit, saw Hoyt posed on the carved boulder, the sinking sun outlining him. He pointed to the High Meddler, trying to recall what he could of Casablanca, the only thing he'd been able to bring to mind (and that rather dimly). Thrusting a forefinger toward the heavens, he extemporized:
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
<
br /> as born to rule the storm,
Of limbs he had more, many,
than the common human norm.
Caut'Karr gasped. The other Terranglish-speaking Croi understood, too, that this was an elegy to their own High Meddler. Even the nonlinguists had caught the reference to their species. It was little short of miraculous to them that Floyt was composing on the spot.
They listened to his rolling recitation and the alien precision of rhythm and rhyme. The pressure restraining Alacrity and Amarok let up a bit. There were thrilled shivers among the creatures.
Floyt, having come to the end of what he could force to mind from Casablanca, took the gamble that the Croi couldn't tell poetic meter from a camel auction or, for that matter, really catch much of what he was saying. He spread his arms to the awestruck crowd:
He led and inspired the nation,
this praiseworthy Son of Creation,
but although we'll all miss him,
it's time to off-kiss him,
in the int'rests of good sanitation!
The Croi were rustling and making noises like a flock of pigeons now, straining to hear, belaboring the Terranglish speakers for a running translation. They were missing almost all of it, but they were rapt.
Amarok and Alacrity were released, lying on their backs on the smaller rock, all but ignored. Alacrity felt sick from the knock on the head, the champagne, and the dizziness of being held head-down over the ocean. His stomach tossed in time with the waves.
Floyt had gone down on one knee, palms out to the High Meddler in a beatific gesture.
The High Meddler stands nigh the cliff,
that splendid, beloved old stiff,
and so, out of love,
let us give 'im a shove,
and end this ridiculous tiff!
The Croi were rhapsodic, returning Floyt's gesture.—Some had caught just enough of the last part to get the general idea. Willing limbs raised up the High Meddler and heaved his statuesque carcass out into the air.