- Chapter 22

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Pompadour.
"Quite true, Captain. It's as you say, we could leave here today. But there's no one in his right mind as would leave here today."
Claudius was sitting at his ease in the aft control cabin. His body was coiled down on a wide chair and he held a small bowl in his upper two arms. From time to time he raised the smoking bowl to his face, and sniffed deep. When he did so his single slate-gray eye rolled in its socket.
"You see," he went on, "you're not dealing with something simple and predictable here, like the Great Galactic Trade Wind. Oh, no. Otherwise we'd have been out of here days ago. But I know the route from Pompadour to Marglot like the tip of my own tail, and I'm telling you, there's real dangers if you try to make the jump at the wrong time."
"Dangers of what?" Louis was feeling mightily frustrated. It didn't take pheromones to guess that the Chism Polypheme was not telling the truth, but Atvar H'sial's silent, "He's lying, you know," was an added irritant.
"Oh, things I doubt that you beings from the Orion Arm have ever seen. Space reefs and sounders, stuff that can swallow a ship up quick as a wink."
"He's lying, Louis." Atvar H'sial was crouched beyond the open door, out of sight.
"Hell, I realize that. You don't need to keep sticking me with it every ten seconds. But what am I supposed to do? Explain that a Cecropian is secretly listening, and she always knows if a Polypheme is telling the truth or not? I'd rather keep that sort of knowledge for use in emergencies." To Claudius he said, "What's your plan, then? Stay here in orbit forever, 'til we run out of supplies an' starve to death?"
"No, no. I'll know when it's the right time to go."
"How?"
"Experience, and what I pick up from other Chism navigators. It's hard to explain to anyone who isn't a Polypheme. But I was thinking maybe I ought to be taking another trip down to the surface."
"You've done that every day for the past four days. What is it this time?"
"Why, as I told you. I collect information. I need to know the latest word on the condition of all the trade routes out of here."
"And I suppose the hot radiation bars have nothing to do with it."
"Why, Captain."
Louis didn't bother to answer. He turned, and left the cabin.
"He has us over a barrel, At," he said, as soon as the door was closed. "If we were anywhere close to home territory, I'd say we chuck him out of the airlock and make the jump ourselves. But we can't take the risk. Reefs are real enough, and so are space sounders. I've never seen 'em myself, but I know people who ran across 'em in the Messina Dust Cloud, and they're not something you want to mess with. What do we do? He goes down to Pompadour every day, and he comes back pale green. You just know he's been cooking himself."
"I have a simple suggestion, Louis. When Claudius goes down to Pompadour next time, make sure that he is accompanied."
"By who? I went down there once, and it's a total dump that looks like it collects all the rabble in the Sag Arm. I'm not picky, At, but I won't go there again—an' I can't see you doin' it. As for J'merlia and Kallik, we could make 'em go, but I don't think we should. They're too good for that."
"I was not proposing any of the parties that you have mentioned. I was thinking of your female, Sinara Bellstock."
"She's not my female! Anyway, what reason could I give her for goin' along with old Claudius?"
"Suggest to her that a survival specialist should experience as many different planetary environments and meet as many alien species as possible. Naturally, you will also ask her to keep an eye on Claudius, just to make sure that he does not get himself into trouble. Two ends will be accomplished simultaneously. Claudius knows his way around the surface of Pompadour, which should assure the safety of Sinara Bellstock. And her presence will undoubtedly curb the usual excesses in his behavior."
Louis reached up and patted the Cecropian's chest plates. "At, if I've never said it before, I'll say it now. You're a raving genius. I'll go give Sinara the news. You know what? I bet she'll be delighted. An' so will I. She's been hangin' round me the past few days tight as a tick on a dog's backside. I can use a break."
* * *
That had been a day and a half ago. Sinara had jumped at the chance, and Claudius appeared curiously unworried by the prospect of a companion on his trip. The two had taken the pinnace of the Have-It-All and left almost at once.
Louis Nenda glanced at the clock in his master suite. He wasn't about to say so to his partner, but maybe Atvar H'sial wasn't such a genius after all. The day on Pompadour was a long one. Where Claudius and Sinara arrived on the planetary surface it would have been early morning. Now it would be past midnight. Somewhere, somehow, the odd couple had spent a long day and a long evening.
What the devil were they doing?
Louis sat restless at the round table, with its finely patterned surface. In the kitchen, Kallik had been unobtrusively busy. As always, she was sensitive to Nenda's moods.
The Hymenopt entered carrying a covered bowl. "They will surely return, Master Nenda. There is no need to fear for their safety. I hope that this meets with your approval."
Louis knew that it would. With her refined senses, Kallik was a superb cook. He removed the cover and nodded his appreciation. There was no point in telling Kallik that she had it all wrong. If Claudius did something stupid and got himself snuffed down on Pompadour, Louis wouldn't grieve for a second. But then they would be back to the search for a navigator. Anything you found down on Pompadour was likely to be the dregs.
Louis ate slowly and steadily. No matter where you were, no matter what was happening, it was a rule of life: Eat, or be eaten. He suspected that Kallik had included in the dish before him a hundred delicate flavors of which he was unaware. And one flavor of which he became steadily more aware as he continued to eat. Kallik worried about her master's tense condition. She had added a few drops of one of the many secretions that a Hymenopt's poison sac could produce. They ranged at her will from a lethal neurotoxic poison, to anesthetic, to tranquillizer. What Louis tasted now was close to the last of those, with some new and subtle variation.
Louis could still worry—Where the hell were they?—but he was becoming drowsy and relaxed. He finished the bowl and drank with some suspicion the contents of the tall glass that accompanied the food. He was no connoisseur of fine wines. When you had been raised to regard muddy water as a treat, you tended not to be picky. But the concoction that Kallik had prepared tasted unusually pleasant.
Louis ran his hand over the fine-carved table top. Carved was the wrong word. It was actually chewed into those distinctive patterns by the worker-termites of Llandiver. He could never go back there, of course, not after what had happened. If he lost this table, he would never find another like it. As Kallik crept in to clear the dishes, Louis wandered through to his bedroom.
When you lived your whole life aboard a ship—or would, if only people would leave you in peace—you indulged your personal preferences. The Have-It-All possessed weapons that would make most military captains drool, but there was no sign of any of that here. Louis slept on a bed three meters long and three meters wide. No one would ever call it soft, but most of the time he slept in low gravity or no gravity, where that wasn't an issue.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and removed his boots. He yawned, slowly stripped down to his shorts, and lay back with his head on the pillow. He scratched his hairy belly. Where the hell were they? And if they didn't show, where in this godawful place would he find another navigator? Although you had to hate anything as slimy and supercilious as Claudius, there was no doubt that the Polypheme knew what he was doing. To everyone else on the Have-It-All, travel in the Sag Arm was a mystery.
He closed his eyes.
* * *
On the water-world of Pluvial, where a day without rain came once in a thousand years, Louis had encountered several of the native Cetomorphs. He rather admired those marine intelligences, and certainly he envied one of their abilities. They slept with half of their brain at a time; the other half remained awake and available for discussion and action. After a while the halves were ready to swap roles and the sleeping side awoke.
Louis had asked them to teach him the trick. It turned out to be impossible. The best that he could manage was a light trance, in which he was neither asleep nor awake, but sensitive to all external stimuli.
He had been in that state for the past several hours, until finally he heard with drowsy satisfaction the far-off but distinctive sound of the pinnace docking with the Have-It-All. He had no doubt that Sinara and Claudius were the people aboard, because the ship's security system would not allow anyone lacking correct identification within a thousand kilometers.
He would give Sinara a good chewing-out for failing to call in and tell Louis what they had been up to, but that could wait until morning.
The other noise began five minutes after the docking ended. It was much less familiar. Not at all familiar, in fact. It sounded like two people, singing raucously and off-key.
Louis rolled off the bed and padded toward the door. He felt naked without his boots, but the condition of the ship came first. As he left the master suite and stepped into the dark hallway that led aft, something fell against his chest. It giggled and said, "Oops!"
He called for lights. Sinara Bellstock stood in front of him, although stood was hardly the right word. Her arms were around his neck, and her face pushed close against his chest. She made a strange questioning sound and pulled one hand back to run her fingers over the pits and nodules of his pheromonal augment.
"Mmm," she said. "Nice and fuzzy. Never saw one of these before." She leaned close and sniffed his chest. "Interesting smell. I like that."
He pushed her away, trying to avoid contact with bare flesh. That wasn't easy, because she was wearing about half as much clothing as when she left the Have-It-All.
"What happened to you?" But he knew the answer. Sinara was drunk, and on something far stronger than alcohol.
"Happened? Happened? Nothing happened. Went down to Pompadour, keep an eye on Claudius. Thaswhat I did, Mr. Fuzzy. He showed me all over—all over the place. Had a real good time. Haven't had a time like that since . . . since . . . I don't know. Never had a good time like that. Real good time. Real, real good time."
Her face was against his chest again, and he was supporting half her weight.
"He took you to some dive, didn't he? Got you stoned. Did you know what was going on?"
He wasn't sure she knew what was going on now, until she raised her head, frowned up at him, and said, "Course I knew. Met aliens—lots and lots of aliens. Treated me real nice. Wanted to have sex with me, some of 'em—Claudius too. He said, 'til you have sex with a Chism Polypheme you don't know what sex is."
"I bet. You—er—you didn't, did you?"
"With Mr. Wriggly? Of course not. Be like having sex with a live corkscrew. Didn't have sex with any of 'em. Told 'em the truth." Sinara was weaving patterns with her right index finger around Louis's navel. "Told 'em they didn't have a chance. I was saving myself for my heart's desire, Mr. Fuzzy, back on the Have-It-All."
The notion of being anyone's heart's desire was utterly alien to Louis. It took him a few seconds to realize that this was an open invitation, and one that he badly needed. He had been without a woman for an awful long time. The fact that Sinara was smashed out of her mind and might regret this tomorrow was no concern of his. The fact that Atvar H'sial would claim that her worst suspicions had been realized did not matter. What stopped Louis was no concept of morality or post-coital criticisms, but an awful thought. "Claudius got you this way, but what about him? He didn't go to any radiation hot spots, did he?"
"Dunno." Sinara frowned and went cross-eyed with the effort to think. "Lessee. I remember some names of the places we went. The Solar Plexus, Roentgen's Rendezvous, the Gamma Grille, Sunbathers' Bar, the X-rayted . . . I'm missing some of 'em, there were at least five more. What you doing? Don't go without me!"
Louis was trying to move past her and head for the aft part of the ship. She had her arms around him and held on, so she was towed along complaining at waist-level behind him.
"Claudius," he said over his shoulder. "Where did you leave him on the ship?"
"Don't know. Said he had work to do. I wasn't interested in wriggly old Claudius. Did you know, he's totally hairless? I like hair. Like yours. Did anyone ever tell you that you have a cute ass? Oof!"
Her face had banged hard into Nenda's muscular rear, because he had frozen at the door of the aft control cabin. Claudius sat in the control chair. Every inch of visible skin bore the luminous apple-green that showed the Chism Polypheme to be baked to a turn.
"Claudius!"
"Yes?" The Polypheme turned. His five hands were flying over the controls so fast that Louis could not make out the individual movements. "Ah, it's you, Captain. We're toasty-warm and ready to go. On our way. Shipshape and Bristol fashion. Up anchor, splice the mainbrace, souse the herring and split the difference. Space reefs and space sounders, I spit on 'em. Marglot, here we come."
"Claudius, don't do it! Not 'til you're off the boil."
But Louis was too late. Inside him he could feel the multidimensional twists and turns that went with a Bose entry. Outside him, Sinara was busy with the personal explorations of his anatomy that normally preceded entry of a different kind.
The combination was certainly a first. Louis resigned himself to whatever came next. The Have-It-All was making a Bose transition, while at the same time Sinara continued to satisfy her prurient curiosity. Where either of them would finish up was anyone's guess.
 
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