He was comfy in his fur bundling. He felt bold and frontierish, with only a lingering queasiness by which to remember his nightmare. The street was quiet and the windows in the rock walls and spires glowed white or amber. His breath crackled and crystallized in the cold, moisture-hungry air and the fur (he should have asked what kind) crackled against his ears. His booties with their stainless-steel-weave soles drew sparks out of the lava rock: very cheery.
Ahead was a lamp on a post just beside a doorway. Something hung in the air around it, making dancing shadows. It was not as big as the smallest darter, and this cold would be hard on insect-sized creatures. Perhaps it was not alive at all, but some atmospheric phenomenon. It drew Wanbli closer.
It was a piece of glass in the shape of a pentacle, which was affixed to a stiff wire that protruded from the lamppost. It bounced in the never-ending wind of Icor.
The sign above the door read “Shooting Star” in Hindi and in another script Wanbli did not recognize. On either side of the green steel door was a little window, deep-set into the rock. The foam sealer around these and the door was very messy and the sign was not the best handwork Wanbli had seen, but the light through the windows was a very appealing hearth color. There was a faint ring of music and conversation in the frozen air.
There was something very attractive in the idea of waking up to an evening’s entertainment, especially in such an exotic place as Boom on Icor. It was like something out of a shimmer. Al Kyle, in fact, was always waking up just in time to go out on the town again. Wanbli had never done it at all; it was not Wacaan, and thus it was a completely perfect, open experience.
He put his hand to the steel door and the feeling of it startled him. He pulled away with difficulty. Had he pressed harder, he’d have been frozen to the door. He pulled his arm up his sleeve and tried again, this time using the skin as a protection, but found himself suddenly shy. Somebody laughed inside and this made him shyer. What if no one spoke ’Indi at all in there? His fur parka began to feel big and clumsy around him and he found he was scuttling back down the street toward Digger’s place.
“It will be fun,” he said, or rather grunted, for he was doing push-ups as he spoke. Perhaps it was only for clarity that Digger repeated the word “fun” in that dubious manner. The Dayflower individual had pushed himself back on the bed against the corner of the walls, and his legs were folded under him in a manner that a human would have found very difficult. Very difficult. Wanbli could not have done it, though he could sit flat with his legs pointing north and south.
The room smelled even more strongly of leather.
Having finished his fifty push-ups and one hundred abdominal flutters (he took pride in those; they made his Eagles quiver), Wanbli rose and commenced his basic forms. Many had found these pretty, and one enterprising choreographer in the South Extension had used them as the basis for a ballet. Digger, however, drew more deeply into his corner. The opposite leg of the bed below him unweighted and lifted slightly off the ground. “I keep thinking you’re ready to strike. Like a shweet.”
Wanbli didn’t know what a shweet was, but he could imagine. “Strike? You? I’d sooner throw myself into a sand blaster.” Arcing both arms to the left, he sank one knee almost to the shabby floor foam and stabbed downward:
Darter Spears Fish Underwater. “I think we oughta do it. Two young flyers in a strange port, only for a day, and so on.”
“And so on what? What would be fun about going to a bar when I can’t digest your alcohol and the people aren’t friendly?” Childishly, sullenly, Digger squirmed against the wall, acquiring white paint patches on either large, sloping shoulder. The wall suffered worse. The outside leg of the bed was rising higher now.
“Doesn’t matter if they’re friendly or not,” replied Wanbli, with a swagger he hadn’t felt standing at the green door in the cold. “They aren’t going to make a move against either of us. Believe me. And as for drinking—well, I don’t do that much of it, either. The thing is to watch everyone: how they act with one another. And so you can say you done it.”
Digger had difficulties with Hindi colloquialisms, let alone ’Indi bad grammar. He sat and puzzled that one for a few moments, his ears waving in the nonexistent breeze. “To whom would I say I did—uh, done it?”
Wanbli felt a touch of irritation at his crony’s unshakable naivete, but in Wacaan fashion this passed into amusement. “To the flyers at home, of course. You know—the other fellows.”
The tiny eyes grew even smaller. “I’m a mathematician. None of my flyers have ever been in a bar at all.”
Wanbli finished Warding Off Three Sticks, which was the last of the basic forms. He had been very stiff, of course, but still felt he’d done creditably. Too bad this huge block of sandpaper didn’t know how to appreciate it. “Well there, you see. You’ll be the first one.”
Digger sighed and this slight motion was enough to rock the bed out from under him. The cheap metal frame gave one buck that jarred its occupant back against the wall and began to slide, tearing the floor foam under its spindly leg. Then Wanbli was up in the air in a forward flip and crashing down on the unweighted end of the bed with both feet under him. It was spectacular, but then, he was already warmed up. Digger’s back and the top of his head were liberally dusted with paint and cellulose foam and he was much shaken up. He had nearly hit the floor and, heavy as he was and a mathematician besides, he would surely have hurt himself. His gratitude made it impossible for him to resist Wanbli’s importunities any longer.
Whoever built the Shooting Star had started out with good intentions; the front wall was thin, even, smooth and lightly polished. The rear wall—the wall one saw upon entering—was a hack job. The two side walls seemed to have been carved by different hands, one more enthusiastic than the other, and the ceiling had been finished by large passes with a backhoe. There was a doorway at one side that no rectangular, round or oval door could have fit, but then it had no door, and the casual patron could stare through to what appeared to be someone’s private domicile and even to the kitchen-bath behind the parlor. The bar itself was a section of girder, one and a half meters high.
Of patrons, casual or otherwise, there were seven. Two tables of two and one of three. Some wore fur, though none as nice as Wanbli’s. They were all human. The bartender wore an apron and leaned back with his head resting on the flange of the bar girder. The place smelled burnt and fermented at the same time.
Wanbli padded in, with Digger scraping behind him. All looked up, and not at Wanbli. It was unsettling, though very like a good shimmer, and Wanbli took a chair at one of the nearer tables and tried to look dignified.
“Here,” said Digger. He was sitting at another table, one near the wall which had a bench at one side of it. Digger had placed himself directly over the center support of the bench, and still he sat stiffly, as if he were not putting his whole weight down. Wanbli made a quick change. “You are one big kind of flyer,” he said admiringly.
Digger pulled in his ears and shoulders, making himself considerably smaller. He tweeted something apologetic.
“Naw, that’s something you should be proud of. Be solid. Who’s gonna stir on you, big as you are?”
This brought the ears up. “Nobody has ever… what is it?… stirred on me. I’m a mathematician. And a chess player,” he added with a hint of complacency. He was asking Wanbli if he played chess when the bartender appeared standing at the joint which was most like an elbow to the Dayflower.
“What you gents?” he asked, looking at neither of them. His accent was so bad that it took Wanbli a moment to realize that the man was asking for an order rather than an explanation.
He was a person of midrange brown, somewhat overweight and underhaired, but average withal. Wanbli found him easier to read than he had the bureaucrats. The man’s emotion was primarily consternation, which could dip to either fear or anger or, equally likely, go nowhere and fade away. Digger was the focus, not Wanbli.
The Dayf
lower too was opening and closing his little white lotus hands. Claw tips, excellently manicured, peeped out and went in. His ears were back like those of an unhappy dog.
It was Wanbli’s own fault. He’d pushed the foreigner, who had lent him his floor, his evacuatory and his lavabo. Now he’d better be able to keep things smooth.
“What you got?” he asked, which irritated the bartender further. Wanbli was recited a list of drinks, smokes and candies, ending with the cheese sandwiches that the bartender did not recommend, as they came sealed from off-world and had nothing like the real flavor.
“I’d like rock candy, please,” piped Digger.
The bartender squinted at him, but then, the light in there was very bad. “You mean Pov-lace candy?”
“Ah no, sir. The straight stuff!” Digger’s ears went out in unfeigned enthusiasm.
Wanbli had intended to order some sort of fruit juice or a mild smoke, but a glance at the bartender’s face convinced him that he had the honor of the table to defend. “A Tearjerker,” he said. Paovo had almost killed himself on Tearjerkers after his alien mistress was asphyxiated in The Garden of Grief. That was how he wound up insulting the captain of the ship.
The bartender gave him the same look he had given Digger. Maybe it was just his way of looking. “You want lull size or pony?” “Full, of course.”
“I like sucrose,” confided Digger. His sharkskin face got all puckery, which Wanbli hoped signified pleasant anticipation. “But I’m not supposed to eat it.”
Wanbli admitted he wasn’t supposed to eat sugar, either. But then he wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol, and here he was, about to drink. It was all part of a night out.
“That is fine for you, Red. You are human. It would kill me, though. We possess much more delicate constitutions than you do.”
Wanbli’s glance flickered, but he did not contradict the monster.
It was warmer in here, though not really warm, and he slipped his parka onto the back of the chair. From where he sat he was in plain sight of the table of three and he knew they saw. He knew it and he put back his shoulders.
“How old are you, Digger? Bet I’m older.”
Digger puckered again. “I’m nine years. That’s fifteen of Earth.”
Earth years—what was that in regular Neunacht? Wanbli took his changer out of his pouch and worked the conversion. When it wasn’t plugged in at either end, it worked for things like that. Fifteen made sixteen point oh nine and some. “Protectors! You are young.”
Digger squirmed and his ears floated uncertainly. “Not really. Old enough for postgraduate work anyway.” When Wanbli didn’t pick up on that, he added, “I’d better be old enough by now. I’m only going to make it to Earth—oh—thirty-five or so.”
“Make it?” Wanbli echoed. “To thirty-five? What you…”
“Or forty, if I’m lucky.” He struck the medal that pierced his gray hide with one claw nail. It made a bell sound. “I’m a Dayflower, remember?”
Wanbli did not remember—not for many seconds. Then the information churned up from cosmography class; the Dayflower were called that because they had the shortest normal lifespan of the seven sentients. Shorter by far. It had never seemed important in astrography.
“I am the first of my people to make it into IP,” said Digger with his mouth full. He sucked noisily. He couldn’t help it.
Wanbli’s drink stood, tall and foamy, within the circle of his thumbs and forefingers. It was faintly green. The first sip had frightened him, but after that it was under control. He noticed that his friend’s ears were taut and glowing cheerily. That seemed to be a good sign.
“Can’t pass the tests, or is it a money problem?” he asked the Dayflower. “Money’s a real turd.”
Digger smiled, just like a human. Perhaps it was rehearsed. “Oh no. My district is sending me. They’re all very gratified by my acceptance.” He squirmed in his seat, still smiling. An odor of sanded resins wafted off the table and chair. “The standards are very high. But I’m the youngest to have finished my theorocrate at… at home.” He had stopped interjecting words—or whistles—in his native language into the conversation. It always made Wanbli start.
Wanbli sipped again and decided he didn’t trust this drink. It seemed to be separating the meninges of his skull. At least he wasn’t cold anymore; he was sweating. But that was okay. “I too am the youngest of my clan to pass all the tests. All of them.”
There was a sound of fingers snapping, but Wanbli was staring at the drink he did not trust and so he didn’t see Digger slap his ears against his face. “Marvelous, Red! We were meant to meet each other. To what challenge are you turning now?”
There was no reason he could not tell this naive young mathematician-chess player-foreigner that he was going to be an actor, but he remembered the dry voice of Comptroller Akavit—he of the corporation and the pincushion wall. Comptroller Akavit, who had asked him if he was going to put his pretty face in the shimmers and had laughed.
“To the Unknown,” he replied, and his laugh was as dry as the Comptroller’s.
Digger sat silent for a moment. He stretched his ears to translucency and then he giggled. “We all do that,” he said.
“But most of us have some plans how it’s going to go.” Wanbli found himself getting morose, like Al Kyle. Morose and interesting. He nursed the effect.
Digger sat waving, willing himself to understand. Behind them a man laughed uproariously and the bartender replied in kind. Wanbli was suddenly, grievously lonely. Lonelier than Al Kyle.
“Is it an age ritual?”
Wanbli lifted his face toward Digger’s. The Dayflower looked less human than ever, with his ears and the whites of his eyes flushed and his big cheeks suck-sucking on the candy. “A… what? An age ritual? No, I’m through with all those. Except fatherhood, and that certainly doesn’t require diving off the edge of the planet…”
Wanbli’s brain caught up with his mouth.
“What’s wrong? Did I ask something I shouldn’t have? Please remember I have not been much with humans before, though I have studied Hindi for years, so I could easily…”
It was the bartender again, and his mood had decided itself. “Look what you did to my table, fellow. Dresh! Dresh! The finish is completely gone!”
Wanbli leaned over and looked at the pale brown streaks where Digger’s arms had lain. “Well,” he said placatingly, “it was never much of a finish anyway, what with the glass rings and the knife slices and ‘Ezrad loves Patty-Pov’ colored in with red ink.”
“Who the hell made you a critic? If I had myself daubed up that way I’d watch before I made statements about what looks good and what don’t.”
“You don’t like the way I look?” asked Wanbli in sheer disbelief.
Digger, meanwhile, had squeezed in his shoulders (which was unsettling to human eyes) and tried to furl his ears, which were too full of sugar to be hidden. “I’m sorry,” he said to the bartender. “I know better than to do that. I just forgot.”
“Trouble, Hillary?” The voice and the man behind it might have stepped straight out of the best sort of shimmer. He walked with a list and a roll. He was large and heavy-handed and he looked uncouth. Undoubtedly he had learned the stance, the walk and the word from a shimmer, and Wanbli, whose taste in entertainment was unusual in T’chishett, felt as if he had finally come home.
“He scraped the top right off my table, and God alone knows what his butt has done to the chair.” Hillary, the bartender, reached out and grabbed at Digger.
Very drunkenly, Wanbli got out of his chair. It took very little to get Wanbli drunk. It took more than the two sips he had swallowed, however. “Drunk style” fighting was a cherished branch of Wacaan study. People who think they are fighting a drunk do not fight as carefully or get as angry when hit. Officers of the law tend to be more tolerant with the blinking idiot who seems to have flattened his opponent by accident.
Good technique among strangers.
&nbs
p; Most drunks who scramble out of the left side of a chair do so with their left leg first. Obvious. Wanbli, though seeming ever so unsettled, moved his right leg, crossing over, and when his left leg swung out it came down against the back of Hillary’s knee. It was a light tap.
“Whoa, flyer. I’m the one that’s drunk here. Why’d you fall down?”
The bartender had been meaning to ask that same question. Digger scooted his gritty gray foot under the table, so as not to scratch the fallen man’s cheek.
“Get out of here,” the bartender said, not moving from the floor.
The heavy-handed stranger was right behind Wanbli now and moving. This seemed to distress the poor Wacaan so much that he lost his balance and landed, elbow first, against the man’s middle. He apologized, but now there were two men crumpled on the floor and Digger sat in an almost fetal crouch, making himself small. His back was red with rock dust.
Three of the remaining patrons stood. One held a cigarette in his hand and smoke drifted absently from his nostrils. His eyes too looked absent. Another came toward them throwing chairs out of his way one-handed. He came to the other side of the table and made a grab for Digger’s wrist. He caught it. “All right, pachyderm…” he began, but the young Dayflower pulled convulsively away and the man’s words were lost in screams.
“I’ve hurt him,” peeped Digger.
“Understatement,” replied Wanbli, for the palms of the fellow’s hands were red and ugly, seeping blood.
Then everyone was up: drinker, hopper, Pov-head alike, and they came at Wanbli. Not Digger, but Wanbli. The men might have been drunk, but they were not suicidal.
He didn’t try any more stunts and he didn’t let them grapple him. Childish fighters though they were, they were too many for that.
Here came a man with a chair over his head. It hit the ceiling, jammed, and broke a leg on the way down. Wanbli was not there, of course. He tapped the man on the armpit as he shuffled by him, disabling that arm. As an afterthought he knocked his legs out from under him.
The Third Eagle Page 8