‘I need a drink, an alcoholic beverage,’ Fobo said. ‘You see, as a professional empathist, I encounter many nerve-racking cases. I give therapy to so many neurotics and psychotics. I must put myself in their shoes, feel their emotions as they feel them. Then I wrench myself out of their shoes and take an objective look at their problems. Through the use of this’—he tapped his head—’and this’—he tapped his nose—‘I become them, then become myself, and so, sometimes, enable them to cure themselves.’
Hal knew that when Fobo indicated his nose, he meant that the two extremely sensitive antennae inside the projectilelike proboscis could detect the type and flux of his patients’ emotions. The odor from a wog’s sweat told even more than the expression of his face.
Fobo led Hal down the hall to the big room. He told Abasa where he was going and affectionately rubbed noses with her.
Then, Fobo handed Hal a mask shaped like a wog’s Face, and he put his own on. Hal did not ask what it was For. He knew that it was the custom for all Siddo to wear nightmasks. They did serve a utilitarian purpose, for they kept the many biting insects off. Fobo explained their social function.
‘We upper-class Siddo keep them on inside when we go—what’s the American word?’
‘Slumming?’ said Hal. ‘When an upper-class person goes to a lower-class place for amusement?’
‘Slumming,’ said Fobo. ‘Ordinarily, I do not keep the mask on when I go into a low-class resort, for I go there to have fun with people, not to laugh at them. But, tonight, inasmuch as you are a—I blush to say it, a No-nose—I think it would be more relaxing if you kept the mask on.’
When they had walked out of the building, Hal said, ‘Why the gun and sword?’
‘Oh, there isn’t too much danger in this—neck of the woods?—but it’s best to be careful. Remember what I told you at the ruins? The insects of my planet heve deveoped and specialized far beyond those of your world, according to what you have told me. You know of the parasites and mimics that infest ant colonies? The beetles that look like ants and freeload off the ants because of that resemblance? The pygmy ants and other creatures that live in the walls of the colonies and prey on the eggs and young?
‘We have things analogous to those, but they prey off us. Things that hide in sewers or basements or hollow trees or holes in the ground and creep around the city at night. That is why we do not allow our children out after lark. Our streets are well lighted and patrolled, but they are often separated by wooded stretches.’
They walked through a park over a path lit with tall lamps that burned gas. Siddo was still in the transition between electricity and the older forms of energy; it was not unusual to find one area illuminated by light bulbs, the next by gaslights. Coming out of the park and onto a broad street, Hal saw other evidences of Ozagen’s culture, the old and the brand new side by side. Buggies drawn by hoofed animals belonging to the same sub-phylum as Fobo and steam-driven wheeled vehicles. The animals and cars passed over a thoroughfare covered with tough short-bladed grass that resisted all efforts to wear it out.
And the buildings were so widely separated that it was difficult to think of oneself as being in a metropolis. Too bad, thought Hal. The wogs had more than enough Lebensraum now. But their expanding population made it inevitable that the wide spaces would be filled with houses and buildings; someday, Ozagen would be as crowded as Earth.
Then, he corrected himself. Crowded, yes, but not with wogglebugs. If the Gabriel carried out her planned function, human beings from the Haijac Union would replace the natives.
He felt a pang at this and also had the thought—unrealistic, of course—that such an event would be hideously wrong. What right did beings from another planet have to come here and callously murder all the inhabitants?
It was right, because the Forerunner had said so. Or was it?
Fobo said, ‘Ah, there it is.’
He pointed to a building ahead of them. It was three stories high, shaped something like a ziggurat, and had arches running from the upper stories to the ground. These arches had steps on them on which the residents of the upper stories walked. Like many of the older Siddo buildings, it had no internal stairways; the residents went directly from the outside into their apartments.
However, though old, the tavern on the first story had a big electric sign blazing above the front door.
‘Duroku’s Happy Vale,’ said Fobo, translating the ideograms.
The bar was in the basement. Hal, after stopping to shudder at the blast of liquor fumes that came up the steps, followed the wog. He paused in the entrance.
Strong odors of alcohol mingled with loud bars of a strange music and even louder talk. Wogs crowded the hexagonal-topped tables and leaned acrosss big pewter steins to shout in each other’s face. Somebody waved his hands uncoordinatedly and sent a stein crashing. A waitress hurried up with a towel to mop up the mess. When she bent over, she was slapped resoundingly on the rump by a jovial, green-faced, and very fat wogglebug; His tablemates howled with laughter, their broad V-in-V lips wide open. The waitress laughed, too, and said something to the fat one that must have been witty, for those at the neighboring tables guffawed.
On a platform at one end of the room a five-piece band slammed out fast and weird notes. Hal saw three instruments that looked Terranlike: a harp, a trumpet, and a drum. A fourth musician, however, was not producing any music himself, but he was now and then prodding with a long stick a rat-sized locustoid creature in a cage. When so urged, the insect rubbed its hind wings over its back legs and gave four loud chirps followed by a long, nerve-scratching screech.
The fifth player was pumping away at a bellows connected to a bag and three short and narrow pipes. A thin squealing came out.
Fobo shouted, ‘Don’t think that noise is typical of our music. It’s cheap, popular stuff. I’ll take you to a symphony concert one of these days, and you’ll hear what great music is like.’
The wog led the man to one of the curtained-off booths scattered along the walls. They sat down. A waitress came to them. Sweat ran off her forehead and down her tubular nose.
‘Keep your mask on until we’ve gotten our drinks,’ said Fobo. ‘Then we can close the curtains.’
The waitress said something in Wog.
Fobo repeated in American for Hal’s benefit. ‘Beer, wine, or beetlejuice. Myself, I wouldn’t touch the first two. They’re for women and children.’
Hal didn’t want to lose face. He said, with a bravado he didn’t feel, ‘The latter, of course.’
Fobo held up two fingers. The waitress returned quickly with two big steins. The wog leaned his nose into fumes and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, lifted the stein, and drank a long time. When he put the container down, he belched loudly and then smacked his lips.
‘Tastes as good coming up as going down!’ he bellowed.
Hal felt queasy. He had been whipped too many times as a child for his uninhibited eructations.
‘But Hal,’ said Fobo, ‘you are not drinking!’
Yarrow said weakly, ‘Damifino,’ Siddo for, ‘I hope this doesn’t hurt,’ and he drank.
Fire ran down his throat like lava down a volcano’s slope. And, like a volcano, Hal erupted. He coughed and wheezed; liquor spurted out of his mouth; his eyes shut and squeezed out big tears.
‘Very good, isn’t it?’ said Fobo calmly.
‘Yes, very good,’ croaked Yarrow from a throat that seemed to be permanently scarred. Though he had spat most of the stuff out, some of it must have dropped straight through his intestines and into his legs, for he felt a hot tide down there swinging back and forth as if pulled by some invisible moon circling around and around in his head, a big moon that bulged and brushed against the inside of his skull.
‘Have another.’
The second drink he managed better—outwardly, at least, for he did not cough or sputter. But inwardly he was not so unconcerned. His belly writhed, and he was sure he would disgrace himself. Aft
er a few deep breaths, he thought he would keep the liquor down. Then, he belched. The lava got as far as his throat before he manage to stop it.
‘Pardon me,’ he said, blushing.
‘Why?’ said Fobo.
Hal thought that was one of the funniest retorts he had ever heard. He laughed loudly and sipped at the stein. If he could empty it swiftly and then buy a quart for Jeannette, he could get back before the night was completely wasted.
When the liquor had receded halfway down the stein, Hal heard Fobo, dimly and far-off as if he were at the end of a long tunnel, ask him if he cared to see where the alcohol was made.
‘Shib,’ Hal said.
He rose but had to put a hand on the table to steady himself. The wog told him to put his mask back on.
‘Earthmen are still objects of curiosity. We don’t want to waste all evening answering questions. Or drinking drinks that’ll be forced on us.’
They threaded through the noisy crowd to a back room. There Fobo gestured and said, ‘Behold! The kesarubu!’
Hal looked. If he had not had some of his inhibitions washed away in the liquorish flood, he might have been overwhelmingly repulsed. As it was, he was curious.
The thing sitting on a chair by the table might, at first glance, have been taken for a wogglebug. It had the blond fuzz, the bald pate, the nose, and the V-shaped mouth. It also had the round body and enormous paunch of some of the Ozagens.
But a second look in the bright light from the unshaded bulb overhead showed a creature whose body was sheathed in a hard and light green tinted chitin. And, though it wore a long cloak, the legs and arms were naked. They were not smooth-skinned but were ringed, segmented with the edges of armor-sections, like stovepipes.
Fobo spoke to it. Yarrow understood some of the words; the others, he was able to fill in.
‘Ducko, this is Mr. Yarrow. Say hello to Mr. Yarrow, Ducko.’
The big blue eyes looked at Hal. There was nothing about them to distinguish them from a wog’s, yet they seemed inhuman, thoroughly arthropodal.
‘Hello, Mr. Yarrow,’ Ducko said in a parrot’s voice.
‘Tell Mr. Yarrow what a fine night it is.’
‘It’s a fine night, Mr. Yarrow.’
‘Tell him Ducko is happy to see him.’
‘Ducko is happy to see you.’
‘And serve him.’
‘And serve you.’
‘Show Mr. Yarrow how you make beetlejuice.’
A wog standing by the table glanced at his wristwatch. He spoke in rapid Ozagen. Fobo translated.
‘He says Ducko ate a half hour ago. He should be ready to serve. These creatures eat a big meal every half hour and then they—watch!’
Duroku set on the table a huge earthenware bowl. Ducko leaned over it until a half-inch-long tube projecting from his chest was poised above the edge of the bowl. The projection, thought Hal, was probably a modified tracheal opening. From the tube a clear liquid shot into the bowl until it was filled to the brim. Duroku grabbed the bowl and carried it off. An Ozagen came from the kitchen with a plate of what Hal later found out was highly sugared spaghetti. He set it down, and Ducko began eating from it with a big spoon.
Hal’s brain was by then not working very fast, but he began to see what was going on. Frantically, he looked around for a place to vomit. Fobo shoved a drink under his nose. For lack of anything better to do, he swallowed some. Whole hog or none. Surprisingly, the fiery stuff settled his stomach. Or else burned away the rising tide.
‘Exactly,’ replied Fobo to Hal’s strangled question. ‘These creatures are a superb example of parasitical mimicry. Though quasi-insectal, they look much like us. They live among us and earn their room and board by furnishing us with a cheap and smooth alcoholic drink. You noticed its enormous belly, shib? It is there that they so rapidly manufacture the alcohol and so easily upchuck it. Simple and natural, yes? Duroku has two others working for him, but it is their night off, and doubtless they are in some neighborhood tavern, getting drunk. A sailor’s holiday—’
Hal burst out, ‘Can’t we buy a quart and get out? I feel sick. It must be the closeness of the air. Or something.’
‘Something, probably.’ Fobo murmured.
He sent a waitress after two quarts. While they were waiting for her, they saw a short wog in a mask and blue cloak enter. The newcomer stood in the door way, black boots widespread and the long tubular projection of the mask pointing this way and that like a sub’s periscope peering for prey.
Hal gasped and said, ‘Pornsen! I can see his uniform under the cloak!’
‘Shib,’ replied Fobo. ‘That drooping shoulder and the black boots also give him away. Who does he think he’s fooling?’
Hal looked wildly around. ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’
The waitress returned with the bottles. Fobo paid her and gave one to Hal, who automatically put it in the inside pocket of his cloak.
The gapt saw them through the doorway, but he must not have recognized them. Yarrow wore his mask, while the empathist probably looked to Pornsen like any other wog. Methodical as always, Pornsen evidently was determined to make a thorough search. He brought up his sloping shoulder in a sudden gesture and began parting the curtains of the booths along the walls. Whenever he saw a wog with his or her mask still on, he lifted the grostesque covering and looked behind.
Fobo chuckled, and he said, in American, ‘He won’t keep that up long. What does he think we Siddo are? A bunch of mouses?’
What he had been waiting for happened. A burly wog suddenly stood up as Pornsen reached for his mask and instead lifted the gapt’s. Surprised at seeing the non-Ozagenian features, the wog stared for a second. Then, he gave a screech, yelled something, and punched the Earthman in the nose.
At once, there was bedlam. Pornsen staggered back into a table, knocking it and its steins over, and fell to the floor. Two wogs jumped him. Another hit a fourth. The fourth struck back. Duroku, carrying a short club, ran up and began thumping his fighting customers on the backs and legs. Somebody threw beetlejuice in his face.
And, at that moment, Fobo threw the switch that plunged the tavern into darkness.
Hal stood bewildered. A hand seized his. ‘Follow me!’ The hand tugged. Hal turned and allowed himself to be led, stumbling, toward what he thought was the back door.
Any number of others must have had the same idea. Hal was knocked down and trampled upon. Fobo’s hand was torn from his. Yarrow cried out for the wog, but any possible answer was drowned out in a chorus of Beat it! Get off my back; you dumb son-of-a-bug! Great Larva, we’re piled up in the doorway!
Sharp reports added to the noise. A foul stench choked Hal as the wogs, under nervous stress, released the gas in their madbags. Gasping, Hal fought his way through the door. A few seconds later, his mad scrambling over twisting bodies earned him his freedom. He lurched down an alleyway. Once on the street, he ran as fast as he could. He didn’t know where he was going. His one thought was to put as much distance as possible between himself and Pornsen.
Arc lights on top of tall, slender iron poles flashed by. He ran with his shoulder almost scraping the buildings. He wanted to stay in the shadows thrown by the many balconies jutting out from above. After a minute, he slowed down at a narrow passageway. A glance showed him it wasn’t a blind alley. He darted down it until he came to a large square can, one that by its odor must have been used for garbage. Squatting behind it, he tried to lessen his gaspings. Presently, his lungs regained their balance; he no longer had to sob for air. He could listen without having his heart thudding in his ears.
He heard no pursuer. After a while, he decided it was safe to rise. He felt the bottle in his cloak pocket. Miraculously, it had not been broken. Jeanette would get her liquor. What a story he would have to tell her! After all he had gone through for her, he would surely get just a reward …
He shivered with goose pimples at the thought and began to walk briskly down the alley. He had no idea where he
was, but he carried a map of the city in his pocket. It had been printed in the ship and bore street names in Ozagen with American and Icelandic translations beneath. All he had to do was read the street signs under one of the many lamps, orient himself with the map, and return home. As for Pornsen, the fellow had no real evidence against him and would not be able to accuse him until he got some. Hal’s golden lamedh made him above suspicion. Pornsen …
12
Pornsen! No sooner had he muttered the name than the flesh appeared. There was a click of hard boot heels behind him. He turned. A short, cloaked figure was coming down the alley. A lamp’s glow out-lined the droop of a shoulder and shone on black leather boots. His mask was off.
, ‘Yarrow!’ shrilled the gapt, truimphantly. ‘No use running! I saw you in that tavern. You won’t be able to save yourself now!’
He click-clacked up to his ward’s tall rigid form. ‘Drinking! I know you were drinking!’
‘Yeah?’ Hal croaked. ‘What else?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ screamed the gapt. ‘Or are you hiding something in your apartment? Maybe you are! Maybe you’ve got the place filled with bottles. Come on! Let’s get back to your apartment. We’ll go over it and see what we see. I wouldn’t be surprised to find all sorts of evidence of your unreal thinking.’
Hal hunched his shoulders and clenched his fists, but he said nothing. When he was told by the gapt to precede him back to Fobo’s building, he walked without a sign of resistance. Like conqueror and conquered, they marched from the alley into the street. Yarrow, however, spoiled the picture by reeling a little and having to put his hand to the wall to steady himself.
Pornsen sneered. ‘You drunken joat! You make me sick to my stomach!’
Hal pointed ahead. Tm not the only one who’s sick. Look at that fellow.’
The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage Page 11