Settling In

19

Settling In

   It was their second full day on-planet. Brtelli knocked cautiously at the humanoid-style wooden door of his parents’ bedroom in the Vt R’aam house, and went in in response to his father’s message of Come in, my dearest offspring.

    “Yes?” said Ccrainchzzyllia mildly.

    “Um, Father, where’s Mother got to?” he asked anxiously. “I’ve looked, but I just keep getting a mind-picture of flocks of plasmo-blasted po-geese!”

    The Friyrian gave a slight tinkle through his neck gills, politely accompanying it for his friymanoid offspring’s benefit with a little humanoid smile. “She’s down in the poultry-yard with Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam’s poultryman, I think is the expression here. –Poultry-keeper,” he explained.

    “Oh! Not a bio-engineered being— Uh, no!” said Brtelli with a feeble laugh.

    “Come over to the window, you can see it quite well from this room.”

    Brtelli duly went over to the window with him. He gulped. The view was nothing like the mind-picture he’d been picking up from Dohra, but it was a poultry-yard, all right. No bigger than their own one back home had been. His mother was conferring earnestly with a burly, shortish, elderly male humanoid in a worn leather apron over faded Service greige coveralls. Dohra was in a pair of her usual coveralls: these ones were faded pink. At their feet pottered a selection of poultry—not all birds which Brtelli recognised, by any means, though he certainly recognised the plasmo-blasted po-geese.

    “The entire Vt R’aam family wears Service greige coveralls,” his father murmured.

    Brtelli jumped slightly. “Um, yes; I wasn’t really thinking— Well, for Federation’s sake! Didn’t she bring any of her pretty dresses?”

    “No,” he said with a little tinkle. “Your mother’s a very practical being.”

    “But sir, she knows you like to see her in a pretty—“

    “Hush,” he said, patting his shoulder. “Pretty dresses are not necessary to sustain life. And certainly not practical on a working farm.”

    Brtelli swallowed.

    “There’s Goosey: see?” murmured his father.

    He jumped. “If you say so, sir,” he said weakly.

    Ccrainchzzyllia put a hand gently on his shoulder again. “She’s happy, thank the Federation,” he murmured.

    The young friymanoid had to blink hard, “Yes, but Father,” he gulped, “do you want us to become poultry farmers?”

    His father refrained from tinkling or even from emanating amusement. “I don't mind, my dearest offspring. It’s certainly a useful occupation. We shall all—not just the family, but the entire population of the planet—have to contribute, in the new society, you know.”

    “Mm,” he agreed, swallowing. “Um, Lord Athlor and I went into the city this morning and he introduced me to some of his friends.”

    “Yes?” said his father mildly.

    “Um—I suppose I shouldn’t say ‘Lord’ Athlor, should I?” he said lamely.

    Kindly Ccrainchzzyllia replied: “I think half the planet still does: it will take a while for everyone to accustom themselves to the new order.”

    “Yes,” he said gratefully. “Anyway, what I was going to say was, his friends accepted me completely! –None of them were friymanoids,” he added quickly. “I did look—I mean, I know it’s rude, sir, but I—I had to!”

    At this his father put his arm round his shoulders and kissed his forehead gently. “Yes.”

    Brtelli blinked hard, but managed to refrain from bawling—though he did know Father wouldn't have minded. “Most of them were Whtyllian, about his age. Three of them work for the Agriculture Ministry, like him. I didn’t quite grasp what they do, it’s something to do with statistics, but they’ve all got quite responsible positions—and only guess, Father! One of them was a female, and she was the boss of the other two!”

    Reflecting that he should have seen that one coming and had a talk with him about it, Ccrainchzzyllia replied calmly: “That's normal in many humanoid societies, my dearest offspring. –‘My dearest son’, I suppose I should say,” he added wryly in Intergalactic.

    “Yes, I suppose we’ll all have to get used to using Intergalactic if we want to communicate with them: translators are only blobs, aren’t they? Most of them don’t speak any other languages at all,” he added in horrified tones.”

    “Not the younger generations—no. No, well, there’s no need to, here. –Did you like the female, Brtelli?”

    Brtelli jumped. “The Agriculture official? Well, yes, she seemed very sensible. And... I don’t know how to put it, sir. Very—very much part of the group? I mean, she joined in the talk on—on the same level, if that’s the word, as the males!”

    “Yes, well, doesn’t Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam? And dear little Su, come to that!” he added with a soft tinkle.

    To his amusement his offspring didn’t emanate anything about Father’s partiality for pink-skinned little female humanoids, he just said: “Yes, but Su’s much more feminine! K’mla, that’s her name, is more like a male—but without being in the least male-tended or—or even wanting to be, I could tell!” he ended on a desperate note.

    “Mm. Well, that does sound very like Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam—and her cognate, S’zzie, as well—though I’d be the last to claim the captain isn't very feminine with it!” he ended with a tinkle.

    “Um, yes!” said Brtelli, rather startled. “I suppose she is, really... I thought it'd be more like Mother’s stories of C’T’rea, I suppose. I mean, female beings there seem to manage the household and—and look after the culture-pans and care for the children in the same way as female-tended Friyrians, don’t you get that impression?”

    “Yes,” he said mildly. “I have always had that impression, from the very first moment of meeting my dearest Dohra—though it didn’t stop her getting off the place and taking a job as Third Cook with the Silver WF Line, did it?”

    “No-o,” agreed Brtelli dubiously, wondering if Father was losing it, a bit. After a few moments it dawned. “Oh,” he said weakly. “I think I see what you mean, sir. So—so humanoid gender rôles don’t have to be fixed?”

    “No. I think in many humanoid societies there are preferred occupations for the two sexes, but they’re not necessarily prescriptive. It does seem fair, in a society where one does not have the option of changing one’s gender, as we Friyrians do.”

    Brtelli swallowed. “Yes, definitely.” He took a deep breath. “I’m glad we came!”

    It was a lie, of course, but a gallant one. Ccrainchzzyllia patted his shoulder gently. “So am I. Now, it's nearly time for afternoon tea: I think we’d better haul Dohra back before she and Vt R’aam Seventeen—the being’s a C’T’rean, by the way, did I say?—before they’ve planned the complete takeover of the New Whtyllian po-geese market!”

    To his son’s horror he then leaned out of the window and shouted, not even bothering to send it: “DOHRA! Time for AFTERNOON TEA!”

    Dohra looked round, beamed at them, waved and cried: “COMING!” And headed for the house. She was still accompanied by a vivid mind-picture of vast flocks of po-geese, though.

    The being on duty at the reception desk of the New Whtyll Agriculture Ministry had said: “Yes, sure. Go on up—Athlor’s on the top floor. You’ll have to take the stairs, I’m afraid, but it’s only three storeys,” when Jhlelli had asked if she could see Lord Athlor Vt R’aam. She hadn’t been too sure what the being was: it did look humanoid, but she’d never seen one with a mauve skin before. So, as she could feel it was incapable of penetrating her own shield, she’d looked. The being was a male, mostly humanoid, with a Norton grandparent. Surprisingly enough, he’d had no pejorative thoughts at all about her being a friymanoid—in fact, at first he’d thought she was a Friyrian, until he’d registered the absence of neck-gills, and he hadn’t even had any negative feelings about that! Which, after the spaceport on Intergalactica, not to mention the journey with BrTl on the PBTT, she was now more than aware most other beings did.

    Jhlelli went slowly up the stairs, a horrible scowl marring her handsome turquoise face. She’d already had a couple of minor run-ins with Athlor Vt R’aam, although they’d only been on the planet for four days—this was the fifth—and left to herself she wouldn’t have come at all. But Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam had suggested it, and she frankly hadn't dared to disobey her, quite apart from the “good manners towards your kind hostess” thing that both her parents had been broadcasting loud and clear.

    She wasn’t really used to offices, but since Athlor was apparently a top official in the Ministry she had an idea that his might be quite maxi-galaxy. But the top floor, surprisingly, didn’t look any more up-market than the ones she’d passed on the way up. There was a sort of small reception area, with a being at a desk and some couches—not flop couches, they must be some local thing—and beyond that, past some low partitions, a fairly large open-plan office with lots of beings working at wooden desks. Wooden, not lubolyon? New Whtyll must have even more trees than Friyria!

    The being at the reception desk was a young black-skinned humanoid girl. Jhlelli had never seen the black-skinned variety before and she tried not to stare. Help, she wasn’t wearing a translator!

    “Its stupid blob died,” said the girl cheerfully in Intergalactic.

    “I’m so sorry: I didn’t mean to broadcast!” gasped Jhlelli.

    “Heck, that’s okay, no cover off my tube!”

    Jhlelli gulped: wasn’t that a Meanker expression? “Um, could I see Lord Athlor Vt R’aam, please?” she croaked.  “I—I did ask at the reception desk and the being just said to come on up.”

    “Yeah, sure. He’s over there, at the back,” she replied in amiable tones. To Jhlelli’s complete horror she then stood up and shouted: “HEY! ATHLOR! Ya got a VISITOR! –Go on. Go on over,” she added, though no-one had responded to her cry.

    The cringing Jhlelli made her way past the low partition and through the ranks of desks. All the beings at them seemed fairly young, Athlor’s age or younger, she would have said. Not all of them were humanoids, though most were—mostly Whtyllians, at that. She didn't pick up any unfriendly emanations, though—although they did all look up with interest as she passed them.

    “Go on, that’s his office,” said a plump, fair-skinned, golden-haired young woman who looked incredibly like Mother, as she reached the last row of desks.

    Jhlelli blinked. Beside her desk was a sort of wooden pen, with a small fair-haired child in it! Playing with some wooden blocks which were very like the lubolyon blocks she and her siblings had played with as children.

    The young woman smiled at her. “Hadda bring her in, her Dad’s work’s really dirty, they’re trialling a new sewage system that doesn’t use blobs, and both our mums have been called up for transcribing duties! You gotta laugh, poor Mum’s writing out stuff about primmo methods of transport on non-humanoid worlds, half the words don’t make sense even in Intergalactic, makes ya wonder just how blobbed-out the Encyclopaedia is, and Mum-in-IG-law, she’s writing out stuff about making energy out of plants, she doesn’t understand a blind word of it!”

    Smiling and nodding weakly—on Friyria it would have been inconceivable for a young nubile female to have an office job, let alone bring the offspring to the office with her—Jhlelli went over to one of the small polretrolux-sided offices at the end of the room. She could see Athlor in there, sitting at a wooden desk. Those clear polretrolux walls gave these little offices no privacy at all, so what in Federation was the point of them?

    Athlor looked up as she reached the open door. “Hullo, so it is you,” he said mildly.

    Jhlelli stuck out her pointed chin. “Yes. Your mother told me to come.” Help! She hadn't meant to put it like that! How rude! She stared at him defiantly.

    He didn’t seem to notice the rudeness. “I see: maths, was it?”

    Jhlelli nodded mutely.

    “Good, the more the merrier—unless you need to use blobs?”

    “What? No!” she snapped crossly.

    “That’s good, because with the plasmo-blasted things dying, it’s not safe to rely on their results.”

    “Um, no, it wouldn’t be,” she said weakly.

    “Siddown, Jhlelli. –The offices do allow us some privacy if we shut the doors,” he added without emphasis as she sank onto the visitor’s chair in front of his desk.

    Jhlelli was pretty indigo-flushed already, what with the young receptionist’s shouting and the trip across the big, crowded room, but at this she went darker than ever and said numbly: “Oh.”

    Athlor swallowed a smile: pretty evidently, like all young offspring of bright families, she was so used to being the reader that she’d never stopped to consider that there might be some beings just as bright as she was, or even brighter, that might be reading her! He didn’t point out that this last category included every being in the room, including the little receptionist: it’d dawn soon enough, if she stuck it out with them.

    He made a comical face at her and said kindly: “We could shade them, originally, if we really needed full privacy, but that took blobs. Not that anyone bothered, really.”

    “Um, what if a being, um, needed a reprimand?” she ventured.

    He had to smile a little at the Service terminology—of course, her father had once been in Space Fleet, before he’d captained a ship for the Silver WF line. “Everyone makes mistakes. We’re not into tearing Service strips off beings, much, on New Whtyll—not my generation, anyway! Besides, everyone understands that we’re all here to pull our weight. –Sorry,” he said as her high turquoise brow wrinkled, “I think that's a Bluellian expression, but everyone here uses it. It means to—uh—make a fair contribution. You have to, on a pioneer world.”

    “Yes, of course!” she gasped.

    Athlor looked at her thoughtfully. “Mm. We’re all immigrants here,” he said without emphasis.

    Jhlelli’s hands shook, just a little. “Yes. None of your office beings seem to—to care that I’m a friymanoid.”

    “No, exactly. We’re all equals. We do have ranks of a sort in the office, of course, it wouldn’t be sensible not to; but that’s about as far as it goes. I’m sure you’ll get used to it, Jhlelli—in fact I think you’ll find life easier here, from all I’ve heard of Friyria. Now, let’s see... At the moment we’re compiling and analysing—about to analyse, I should say—planet-wide statistics, in preparation for calculating exactly what farm produce returns—crop returns, meat, and so forth—we can expect in the future without the benefit of blobs. The beings in this room are mainly working on crops; they’re doing the meat-bearing animals in the next office; and the beings next to them are doing the milk and eggs. –They’re big industries here: milk, butter and eggs are very much a staple of the diet,” he said to her surprised blink. “We have far more grqwaries than we do grpplybeasts, and though of course we do use the meat as well, they’re mainly raised for their eggs and milk. Now, about the crops. Most of the grain farmers have got into the habit of using blob-driven ploughs and seeding the fields with blobs, you see. Not quite so much for harvesting—right, that's how you do it on Friyria,” he allowed, picking up her involuntary mind-picture. “It’s very expensive in terms of blob-power, so we haven’t, so much—but enough. We’ve compiled most of the stats for hu, it's our major grain crop, and we're currently working on wheat and dirt-bolos. –Don't know those?” He sent her a picture.

    “Um—oh, yes! Mother cooked them once for us.” Jhlelli looked at him doubtfully, not liking to say that they'd been very stodgy and not very exciting. The whole family had voted them not nearly as tasty as yams.

   Athlor’s slanted blue Whtyllian eyes twinkled. “They're from New Rthfrdia, so, not to be anything-ist, it’s hardly surprising that they’re stodgy and unexciting, is it?”

    Jhlelli gave a startled giggle and clapped her hand over her mouth,

    Never mind her turquoise skin: the gesture had made her look incredibly like her mother! Athlor grinned at her. “They’re a staple here—a good source of starch. Originally planted by hand, and most families still plant them that way in their veggie gardens. They’re quite popular as chips, or mashed, with grqwaries’ butter, but the very nicest recipe is First Cook’s Whtyllian dish, called ‘all’-bondhoo’. She mashes them into little cakes, dips them in a spicy batter, and fries them.”

    He looked at her dubious expression, and laughed. “Incredibly yummy! There’s a little stall not far from here that does them quite well—though I wouldn’t dare to claim they’re as good as First Cook’s! We could go there for lunch today, if you like.”

    “Um, yuh-yes, please, Lord Athlor!” she stuttered.

    “Just Athlor,” he said mildly.

    “Yes, Athlor, of course,” muttered Jhlelli.

    “Ever used a slide-rule?” he suddenly asked.

    “Nuh-no! I’m sorry: what?”

    “An instrument for aiding mathematical calculations. Hang on.” He got up and went over to the door. “Hey, Gl’nndy!” he bellowed. “Fetch us a slide-rule, wouldja?”

     “Righty-ho!” cried the black-skinned girl on the reception desk, waving.

    “Pretty, isn’t she?” said Athlor dispassionately, returning to his desk. “Bit young for the job, really, but her mother’s long since lost interest in her, poor little creature, and to cut a long story short Mum gave me a swift kick up the bum, and told me I owed her something!”

    Suddenly Jhlelli got the picture. “She’s your daughter?” she gasped.

    “Yeah. She doesn’t live with us, she lives in town with her boyfriend, in his—well, you’d call it a slot, but ’tisn’t, really, it’s just a room in a lodging house.”

    “But how old is she?” she croaked.

    “I can’t tell you in Friyrian years—don’t know anything about them. She’s sixteen and a half in our years, and since you’re so politely refraining from asking, Jhlelli,” he said with a laugh, “I'm thirty-three! Um, that’s about thirty-two and a bit in Bluellian years, if that helps. Um, hang on.” After a little thought he translated the numbers into IG years.

    Jhlelli had to gulp. That would have been considered indecent on Friyria!

    “Pioneer conditions,” said Athlor with a shrug. “I wasn’t bond-partnered to her mother—not that she ever wanted it.”

    “I see,” she croaked. He was, in fact, only about an IG year older than her. She eyed him doubtfully.

    “I think Friyrians have longer lifespans than humanoids,” he said mildly.

    “Um, yes, that’s true. Though we’d probably all be bond-partnered by now if we weren’t friymanoids,” she admitted.

    “I get it. –Oy, were you culturing that up?” he said as his daughter hurried in, waving a strange-looking stick.

    “Nah, we’re running out: Stores tried to tell me we couldn’t have it!” she panted.

    He eyed her drily. “Yeah? Who’d ya slap the mind-lock on, Gl’nndy?”

    She glared. “That dim Tm-Raj, and so what?”

    “Nothing. Just so long as he's not permanently disabled.”

    “Nah! Whaddaya think I am?” she snarled.

    “About as ruthless as I was at that age, and about as bright, and even more unscrupulous. Well, that's good, I wasn't looking forward to having to ask your grandmother to fix another paralysed mind. –This is Jhlelli, she’s one of Su’s friends from the two galaxies, she’s gonna be joining the team.”

    “Welcome aboard, Jhlelli. Mindja don’t let him boss ya!” said his little daughter.

    “No!” she gasped. “I mean, it’s nice to meet you, Gl’nndy!”

    The pretty little black-skinned girl’s dark eyes narrowed. “I see: friymanoid, eh? Pretty!” she approved. “Don’t worry, you’ll have loads of boyfriends here!”

    “That’ll do,” said Athlor in a bored voice as Jhlelli’s cheeks darkened. “Beings from the two galaxies don’t appreciate bad IG manners, thanks. –Oy, hang on,” he said as she made a face at him and turned to go, “you wanna come to lunch with us today?”

    She eyed him suspiciously. “Can Bennu come?”

    “If he must,” he groaned.

    “Righto, then,” she conceded, going out.

    “Sorry, Jhlelli,” groaned Athlor.

    “No! That's all right! She’s lived on a pioneer world all her life—I see!” she gasped.

    “Something like that—mm. Come on, I’ll show you how to use a slide-rule and then you can give Frggy a hand with his dirt-bolo stats from Sector 14. Er—Frggy, not Frr’gg: that's a short form of a Friyrian name, isn’t it? –Yes, Mum used to know a being called that. Frggy’s humanoid: father half New Rthfrdian, half C’T’rean, mother from Little Beishyungkwo. Pull that chair round here.”

    Rather weakly Jhlelli pulled her chair round beside his and let him initiate her into the mysteries of the primmo implement called a slide-rule—which he freely admitted was primmo. It was Frggy who’d thought of using the things: they were from Little Beishyungkwo, where even the locals, who tended to be very traditionalist, had almost given up using them.

    She then met Frggy. He was an amiable-looking being of about her own height, not very old, like all the office workers. He was wearing Service greige coveralls and it was hard not to stare, because that made the being pretty much Service greige all over! The hair, quite long, to his shoulders, was on the fawnish side of greige and the skin was on the yellowish side. She’d thought he might have round blue C’T’rean eyes, like Mother, but his were dark brown and slanted. He wasn’t a bad-looking being, just, well, compared to any humanoid she’d ever seen, or seen sim-pictures of, odd. By lunchtime, however, she’d entirely stopped thinking about his appearance and was feeling only a cowed appreciation of his very, very sharp mind. Most of the calculations he showed her on the slide-rule he could also do, it was soon very evident, in his head. In a few IG microseconds. Help!

    Frggy decided to come to lunch with them, so they all four adjourned to the little wayside stall. It was very down-market indeed, in a dusty little street which Jhlelli would have called a back street but for the fact that it seemed very busy, with lots of beings hurrying to and fro from the office buildings which lined it. This stall did have a few seats and tables, unlike many of the street’s little food stalls, and so they were able to sit down. Jhlelli stared: all the food was cooked on a small open fire!

    The being in charge of the stall, a ruddy-faced, older male humanoid with a squint, had a sort of metal basin in which his little fire was burning, and every so often he added something to it which made it burn more brightly. Jhlelli was very glad that Athlor told her to sit down while he ordered—though the seats were just primmo wooden stools, the most uncomfortable things she’d ever sat on—it meant she didn’t have to get close to the fire.

    Gl’nndy’s boyfriend Bennu hurried up, panting, while the food was being cooked. By this time Jhlelli had given up being surprised that nobody cared she was a friymanoid and was expecting anything—which was probably just as well. Bennu was a “tweaked” being—bio-engineered, Jhlelli corrected silently, wincing, as Gl’nndy cheerfully used the term. His DNA was basically humanoid, with some Azabanese. Like most Azabanese he was hairless and four-fingered, but unlike them, he had external ears. Jhlelli had met some beings who were Azabanese var. Official, so she knew that a dull orange skin colour was standard, but on Bennu the orange had come out in large splotches on a pale background. He seemed very young, and once he’d made sure that the lunch was on Athlor, ate voraciously.

    As well as the little fried all’-bondhoo cakes, which were delicious, Jhlelli had to admit, there was a variety of spicy meats on skewers, which the stall-keeper cooked right on the naked flame, and some very hot and spicy vegetable dishes, some grilled but some cooked in pans—not culture-pans, smallish metal things. Jhlelli couldn’t manage the vegetable dishes, and in fact had to gulp down a very large glass of a strange cold drink. It wasn’t nasty, just strange. Not sweet, but—well, a bit like cold veenikk tea might have been, if one could imagine such a thing! Helpfully Gl’nndy supplied the information that it was chilled zi, from Bluellia, but they didn’t drink it cold there, they drank it hot. Jhlelli tried not to look bewildered.

    “M’shi,” said Athlor, smiling at the squinting being, “is Whtyllian, you see, and this is as close as we can get here to gl’g, eh, M’shi?”

    “That’s right, Lord Athlor,” he agreed. “Gl’g bushes won’t grow here, dunno why, little Miss.”

    Jumping, Jhlelli realised he meant her. She smiled timidly. “I see.”

    “A cause,” said Athlor smoothly, “of great disappointment to Dad and great relief to Mum!”

    Gl’nndy at this gave a loud giggle, but the stall-keeper said repressively: “Give over, Lord Athlor: show some respect. No, well, little Miss,” he added, expertly manipulating a set of skewers over the flames, “I grow me own zi bushes, so the tea’s nice and fresh, you see!”

    “Yes, very nice, M’shi,” she said weakly.

    “They make good hedges, shelter the veggie garden nicely,” added Athlor.

    Jhlelli was past responding to this: she just looked at him limply. Office life with Lord Athlor—Athlor, she silently corrected herself—wasn’t in the least like what she’d imagined it might be!

    BrTl turned up to collect them at going-home time and she was so tired she didn’t argue when he told them to hop up, and in fact went to sleep on his broad back.

    Don’t let her fall off, BrTl ordered Athlor.

    No, I'm hanging onto her.

    Good. Bit like an immature cognate, isn’t she?

    Athlor bit his lip. Mm. I hadn’t realised. I mean, I did know, um, intellectually, that Friyrians have a longer lifespan than humanoids, and so she’s quite young in their terms, but, uh, yeah.

    Yes. –Look out, Jhl’s ordered First Cook Kadry to do Friyrian stuff for dinner.

    Ouch! he replied with a grin. Can she?

    Dunno. Dohra and Wessy Kally seemed to be giving her a hand when I left.

    In that case we may survive, BrTl!

    Could always nip down to Ch’dry’s Char Grill after? he suggested.

    Only if we want Dad to have our guts for sparf!

    You’re right. –I tell you what, I could offer to take everyone to Ch’dry’s Char Grill tomorrow! he suggested brilliantly.

    Athlor went into a shaking fit, trying his best not to laugh out loud and disturb Jhlelli. You’re on! Er, what have the senior cognates been up to today, BrTl?

    BrTl replied literally: Sitting on the verandah talking and puffing on that bubble thing your senior cognate sent over from the two galaxies.

    Athlor rolled his eyes madly. Whatever blobs you up!

    Jhl went cautiously along the front verandah and peered round the corner. At the far end of the side verandah BrTl was asleep in his xathpyroid corner. –Her bond-partner hadn’t failed to point out that the erection of this corner meant that one could no longer walk right round the house on the verandahs, but Jhl had snapped back: “So what? Anyone who wants to get round can plasmo-blasted well jump off and walk on the grass!”

    She’d expected that Shank’yar and Ccrainchzzyllia might be sitting out there chatting and smoking the water-pipe, as they had quite frequently done over the ten days the Friyrian’s family had been here, but no, Shan was sitting there by himself in a white cane basket chair, apparently dozing. She bit her lip a little, and went over to him quietly.

    “Not dozing, just relaxing,” he said, opening his eyes and smiling.

    Jhl looked at him a trifle limply. “Mm.” It was a warm day, though not hot by local standards, and his Lordship was wearing the traditional white Whtyllian dress he used to insist his male house clones wear: baggy white pants in a soft, light fabric and a matching short, close-fitting white jacket.

    “Comfortable,” he murmured.

    “Uh—yeah.” She looked round for a chair but he smiled and said, patting his knee, “Come here, darling.” Jhl hesitated. “Come on, I’m not that decrepit!” he said with a little laugh.

    “I'm heavier than I used to be,” she warned, sitting cautiously on his knee.

    Shank’yar smiled and hugged her. “Not all that much! I confess I’m relieved you’ve never got as plump as your mum!”

    “Yeah, well, not eating six huge meals a day helps.”

    “Six?” he said involuntarily.

    “Yeah—not to mention all that tasting she used to do while she was urging the culture-pans into action. Well, work it out: breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, whether or not Dad and Bht and their helpers came in off the farm for it, though they usually did, dinner, supper!”

    “So they do normally have afternoon tea on Bluellia?” he said limply.

    Jhl turned her head and goggled at him. “Eh? Yeah! On a working farm? Too right!”

    “Well, thank the Federation for that! I was afraid S’zaan was just laying it on because BrTl had told her about Mother’s plasmo-blasted dainty afternoon teas! Didn’t look, lost my nerve,” he admitted, making a face.

    Jhl smiled weakly. “BrTl didn’t have all that long at your plasmo-blasted ancestral palace, that time, but—yeah. Once experienced, forced into your Number Twos an’ all, never forgotten.”

    Shank’yar shook all over for some time. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, at all. Jhl leaned back into his embrace, smiling.

    “Where are they all?” she murmured at last.

    “Mm? Oh—Ccrainchzzyllia, Dohra, Wessy Kally and Brtelli have gone over to Eastern Meadow to look at the area they might like to use for their poultry farm. I think Hallikalli’s in the kitchen with Su-Su and First Cook.”

    “What’s Su doing in the kitchen?” she croaked.

    “Experimenting with cooking methods that don’t require blobs, in the first instance; showing them all how to chop up foodstuffs into small cubes, lorpoid-style, in the second instance; and rapidly driving First Cook to Mullgon’ya in the third,” he replied placidly.

    “Uh—well, the lorpoid stuff’ll please the lorpoid ex-clones,” said Jhl feebly. “They're not planning to inflict a lorpoid dinner on our guests, are they?” she added, sitting up in alarm.

    “Calm down. No, only on the young ones, Su-Su’s planning a lorpoid lunch for them.”

    It was Jhl’s turn to shake silently for some time. Finally she said weakly: “Fish?”

    “Undoubtedly.”

    “Shan, Friyrians can digest it but it’s not an accustomed part of their diet!” she said urgently.

    “I know. But it’s quite an important food here, isn’t it? We have so many lakes and rivers, and many of our settlements are on the coast. I think they’ll have to get used to it. –Mm, bit soon to start, I agree, poor beings!” he said to her thought.

    “Ye-ah... So Su’s interested in cooking?” she said slowly.

    “Yes, but I hope you’re not suggesting that we let First Cook retire and appoint her in her place!”

    “No, she doesn’t want to retire, in fact the no-blobs thing has really blobbed her up.”

    Shank’yar had seen that for himself. “Mm. So what’s the idea?”

    “Um—writing down recipes, sort of,” said Jhl on a lame note.

    “That would be something useful for her to do,” he agreed mildly. “If she can get First Cook Kadry to impart them, of course!”

     “Yes, but I don’t mean just transcribing! Um... there isn’t a word in Intergalactic,” said Jhl lamely.

    “Whtyllian?” suggested her bond-partner with a wry little smile.

    “Dunno. They are a tradition on some humanoid worlds, but I don’t remember seeing any at your plasmo-blasted palace.”

    “Tell me in Bluellian, then,” he suggested mildly.

    “But we don’t have them on Bluellia!”

    The temptation to probe her mind was about to overcome him. “Then where did you see them, sweetheart?” he said quickly.

    “On Old Rthfrdia.”

    Shank’yar jumped, as he suddenly got a mind-picture of his eldest son, thirty-odd IG years back, the hair still a dark auburn, asleep on a primmo wooden chair on a verandah—much smaller than this one, but nevertheless definitely a verandah—with a little oblong artefact dangling from his hand.

    “They call it a büich,” said Jhl lamely.

    He winced. “Darling, I don’t think our Intergalactic speakers will ever manage that tight Old Rthfrdian U sound. Or the guttural ‘ch’, either. Though they are similar to the Whtyllian ‘ÿ’ and hard ‘ch’, in a way... No,” he decided. “Anyway, what is it?”

    “Oh! Sorry! It’s lots of small sheets of paper, they make that from the trees, the same as we do, with writing on both sides, um, kind of stuck together. Um, and the outside sheets were leather, I think. They’re very portable, you see, not like our great long strips of paper—and better than newspapers, even. The good thing about them was that they could reproduce them in quantities: the text was done automatically, with some sort of primmo machine, but I’m afraid I don’t know what or how. Well, some sort of printing, bit like our newspapers, only without blobs.”

    He looked with interest at the mind-picture of the small leather-covered artefact. “Great splintered shards of quog! I’ve seen similar, uh, volumes, I think the curator called them, in the Intergalactic Art Museum! Well, the same in kind, but these contained beautiful drawings and paintings as well as the text.”

    Jhl wasn’t into art. “They would. Yeah, well, the same in kind,” she conceded, receiving the mind-picture. “If we call them volumes beings are going to get confused, aren’t they? They’ll think it’s something to do with measures.”

     “Yes. ‘Büich’...” he said slowly. Vt-R’aam Forty-Nine! he sent.

    Vt R’aam Forty-Nine shot out onto the verandah, bowing. His master winced at the butlerly emanations but didn’t bother to reprove hm.

    “Vt R’aam Forty-Nine, repeat after me, ‘büich is a new word,’” he said carefully.

    The clone replied immediately, with another bow: “Book is a new word.”

    Shank’yar looked at Jhl and shrugged slightly. “There you are, darling. Book.”

    “Uh—well, why not? Books, plural?”

    “Undoubtedly. –Thank you, Vt R’aam Forty-Nine, you may— No, just a moment. I think you could serve afternoon tea, if it’s ready.”

    “Of course, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord.” Bowing yet again, the ex-clone exited.

    “Why did you ever let him do butler?” groaned his master.

    “No-one else wanted to. Most of them don’t want responsibility,” said Jhl simply.

    “No, very well, it's all my fault,” he groaned.

    “Not all, but largely. –What I was thinking was, maybe Su could, um, compile a book—to take the place of a text-blob, I mean. I mean, she could write the text, with lots of recipes in it, but not only that, instructions on how to cook without blobs, and then if we could manage to print lots of them, we could circulate them to all the households! Well, especially the younger beings’ households, Shan: you won’t have realized—no reason you should—but almost none of the beings who’ve grown up here know how to cook on an open fire!”

    He gaped at her. “Surely the peasants—?”

    “Eh?”

    “Oh—sorry. It’s a Whtyllian concept. The small farmers, darling.”

    Jhl shook her head. “Nope. Culture-pans. It’s much quicker, you see, and it means the female bond-partners can get out in the fields and help with the work more. Or work in the egg sheds—whatever.”

    “But—”

    “I’ve done a sample survey. –Well, got one of Athlor’s beings to help, he did see the urgency of it, once I’d explained.”

    “Er—yes. I gather that Athlor is doing Agriculture Minister?” he said lightly.

    Jhl stuck her chin out. “Look, your Lordshipness high-handedly appointed me Deputy Leader in your absence, and with the plasmo-blasted blobs dying I couldn’t do everything!”

    “No, of course not. I’m not reproving you, darling—in fact I’m very glad to see him taking on the responsibility of a task like that. But, er, weren’t there any older beings who might have wanted the position? G’gg, for example?”

    “No. One or two were interested at first, but once it sank in they all opted for staying home on their farms and making sure their families and workers could produce enough food so as not to starve. G’gg as well. Mind you, he’s got a couple of other projects going, but there’s no way he would have deserted his family.”

    “I see. Er, would Su-Su be capable of it, though, Jhl? I don’t mean the transcribing, but—well, think of how the text in a text-blob is constructed—or a report, sweetheart. She’d have to marshal her facts in logical order and present them in a way that the readers would understand.”

    “It'd do her good,” replied Jhl simply.

    “Yes, but darling, she was terrible at Intergalactic composition at Second School!”

    “I know, but that was because she couldn’t see the point of it. Well—writing stuff about your last holiday with the family or whatever, it was pointless, wasn't it? As she said, if any being was interested they could just read her. She’s very pragmatic: I think she’ll see the point of this. I'm not sure about the printing, though.”

    “The same process at the newspapers use, I suppose.”

    “Blobs,” said Jhl flatly.

    “But surely you’ve ordered them to investigate other ways of printing?” he said in horror. “Just think, darling! They’ll be our main means of communication, apart from word of mouth! I know we’ve got a relatively high proportion of senders here, but not over any sort of distance!”

    “You’re right,” said Jhl lamely. “Sorry. Couldn't think of everything.”

    “No, well, you’re only humanoid, like the rest of us,” said her bond-partner on a weak note. “Uh—what’s Vt R’aam Thirty-Two doing today?”

    “Whatever you told him to, I presume.”

    “Complete survey of all our farm personnel, implements, livestock and stores,” he admitted. “Thought we’d better make sure the estate can support us efficiently before I give a chunk of it to Ccrainchzzyllia and his family. –I agree the task is beneath him, but the other ex-clones are hopeless.”

    “Mm. Well, um, get him to investigate the printing stuff as well?”

    “I think so. ASAP,” he admitted with a grimace.

    “He’s over on the western pastures, counting grpplybeasts,” said BrTl groggily.

    They jumped.

    “So you’re awake, BrTl,” said Shank’yar weakly.

    “Yes; think it might be time for afternoon tea,” he said on a hopeful note.

    “It is,” Shank’yar agreed, “and in fact it should be here right now, but we gather Su-Su’s disrupting the kitchen. The western pastures, eh? Could you possibly get on over there after afternoon tea and hoik him back, BrTl?”

    “Roger, wilco, sir,” agreed BrTl amiably. “I don’t like fish, either,” he offered.

    “Don’t worry, I’m quite sure First Cook won’t serve up fish for afternoon tea!” replied Shank’yar with a laugh.

    “No!” said Su’s voice crossly. “Don’t be silly!” She emerged onto the verandah carrying a tray. “These are caramel cubes,” she said defiantly.

    “Sweet?” asked BrTl hopefully.

    “Yes!”

    “Is there any zi?” asked Jhl weakly. The things were caramel cubes, all right. The tray was just about covered with them, though there was a pile of small plates there as well.

    “Of course! It’s coming!”

    First Cook Kadry appeared behind her. “Now, now, don’t you take that tone with your mother. Here’s the zi, madam, nice and hot, and a pot of the special quaenong soo-lip tea My Lord likes. –Just for a treat, my Lord, since it’s just us this afternoon, and we thought we were never going to see you again!” she beamed.

    Everyone in the household but him loathed it, and he hadn't been aware there was even any left: it had been imported from Little Beishyungkwo. “Thank you so much, First Cook, that would just hit the spot,” he said nicely.

    “Lady Su was telling me there’s a being in the town that reckons he can grow it, my Lord, if you were interested,” she added on a hopeful note.

    “Er, well, yes, First Cook; thank you,” he said feebly. “Now, what other treats have you got for us today? –Oh, thanks, BrTl,” he said feebly as BrTl helpfully fetched a chair for Jhl.

    Immediately First Cook, not without a strong message to the effect that no-one need do anything more than taste them square things of little Su’s, told him. Giant cream buns were the least of it—the least. The being had done a very special cake which used mwopplell, possibly the highest sucrose rating of any substance in the Known Universe, which she was sure Commander BrTl would like!—beaming smile. And “just a few” sweet tarts. Not to mention a large batch of her fried puffs soaked in honey that Shank’yar had been under the impression his bond-partner had ordered her never to make again, quite some time back: it was a simple flour dough, but the things were fried in butter. As well, there was the usual tray of small assorted coloured sweetmeats that on Whtyll were called b’rfiis: they were congealed thick pastes, rather like, according to Jhl, Bluellian fudge, and just as instantly fattening, their main ingredients ranging from boiled down grqwaries' milk through finely ground hu flour to cooked mashed yams or finely minced nuts, all incorporating massive—massive—amounts of sugar.

    “And of course some nice fresh little sandwiches with hotter-and-hotter leaves, madam!” beamed the cook. “What the Whtyllian cress is over, my Lord,” she added quickly.

    “Jolly good, First Cook,” said Jhl weakly. “It all sounds lovely.”

    “Thank you, madam! And just in case you might fancy something hot, I did whip up a batch of little meat savouries like what Madam Dohra showed me, with those new seeds on them!” She beamed hopefully.

    Jhl winced. Loober seeds were a great delicacy back in the two galaxies and she’d been under the impression that the ones Dohra had brought were intended for planting out.

    “These were left over, madam!” added First Cook quickly. “Vt R’aam Twenty-Four, he’s got most of them planted up all nice, don’t you worry!”

    “Meat savouries, eh?” put in BrTl on a hopeful note.

    “That’s right, Commander BrTl, sir, and I did just venture to fry up a couple of grqwary breasts the way you like them, if you’d fancy them!” the being beamed.

    Jhl at this point got a vivid mind-picture of her bond-partner tearing his hair out by the roots. “Yes, well done, First Cook,” she said quickly. “Just trot it all out, eh?”

    Forthwith streams of former clones began trotting it all out... There were Shank’yar and herself, BrTl, Su and the slender Hallikalli at home! Great splintered shards of quog! Fortunately Jhl didn’t have to say anything: her bond-partner said very kindly to the friymanoid girl: “Don’t even try to eat your way through this lot, Hallikalli, my dear. First Cook is just trying to show us how glad she is we’re all home safely, you see. It’s the being’s only way of expressing herself. It won’t be wasted: the remains will be eaten by the servants and their families.”

    “I see, sir,” she said in relief, blushing.

    Shank’yar was sending loud and clear: Sweet, isn’t she? Jhl could only hope the girl wasn’t picking it up. Well, at least he seemed to like her, bluish though she was! Not to say, as they'd all now realised, the least bright of Ccrainchzzyllia’s and Dohra’s children.

    After the afternoon tea Su thought—weakly—that she might ride over to the western pastures with BrTl, so long as he wasn’t going to lope. Her parents sincerely doubted that the being could manage anything much faster than a crawl: he’d eaten all but four of the little meaty savouries, plus of course the two plump grqwary breasts, plus of course his mwopplell cake. Oh—and most of the caramel cubes.

    Mildly BrTl agreed: “Okay, I’ll just walk. Would you like to come, Hallikalli?”

    Shyly Hallikalli agreed, since Su was looking at her hopefully.

    “If he only walks—” began Jhl as the trio vanished.

    “Mm. Never mind. Jhl, have you picked up any indication of what little Hallikalli would like to do?”

    Jhl yawned. “’Scuse me. Uh—do? Oh, with her life, darling? Well, no. She does seem very interested in First Cook’s recipes but I don’t know whether that's just because her mother is. There’s no hurry, is there? She might be quite content to just help out round their farm.”

    “Ye-es... She’s so sweet,” he murmured.

    “Shan,” said Jhl in alarm, picking up his thought, “Athlor’s already had one disaster with a sweet-tempered friymanoid—or part-friymanoid, same difference—it would never work!”

    “No,” he said on a regretful note.

    “And I rather think,” said Jhl with a laugh in her voice, “he looks on Jhlelli as a daughter!”

    “Mm, I picked that up, too. Well, she is far too young for him emotionally, of course... And far too contumacious, as yet! Still, who knows, some years down the track?”

    “It could happen, but for Federation’s sake don’t trying pushing her at him!”

    “No, I won’t.” He yawned. “I might have a nap.”

    Jhl gave in completely. “Me, too. Wanna come upstairs?”

    “Mm.” He got up slowly. “Just do me one favour, darling.”

    “Yeah?” she said uneasily.

    His slanted sky-blue Whtyllian eyes twinkled. “Send a very strong mind-prod that’ll boot those Vvlvanian-cursed jooghers off the bed, if you would.”

    Gulping, Jhl sent the jooghers packing. Packing and yowling, to be exact.

    About an hour and a half later—BrTl had been graciously allowed by Su to lope back—Vt R’aam Thirty-Two looked at the deserted verandah in surprise. He went over to the study door and looked in. “No,” he reported. Vt R’aam Forty-Nine!

    The being hurried out, blenching when he saw who it was and hurriedly ceasing the butlerly emanations.

    “You’re looking very smart today,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two without emphasis.

    “Thank you, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two!” he gasped, bowing.

    “Where is My Lord, do you know?”

    “He and the Mistress have retired for a nap, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.” He bowed again.

    “Thank you.”

    “Um, they did have a large afternoon tea,” said the new butler in an agonised voice.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two smiled at him. “I see! First Cook’s best foot forward, mm? In that case I think we’d better put dinner back an hour. Please make sure all the members of the household and our guests know, will you?”

    “Yes of course, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two. Will that be all, sir?”

    “Yes, thank you, Vt R’aam Forty-Nine.”

    Bowing profoundly and emanating huge gusts of relief, the new butler shot out.

    “Think he's more scared of you than he is of the senior cognate,” noted BrTl with interest.

    “Mm, he’s afraid I’ll criticise his buttling and report him to Madam,” said the former Vt R’aam butler with a smile.

    “You wouldn't, would you?”

    “Between us, BrTl, no!” he said with a grin. “Though he is awful.”

    “Yeah, I thought so, “ he agreed gratefully. “Don’t know anything about the job, of course, but it kind of struck me he wasn’t performing anything like you used to. Um, listen.” He hesitated.

    “Yes?” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two in surprise.

    BrTl coughed slightly, thoughtfully directing it away from the ex-clone and towards the lawn. A grazing looghoid or two fell over, but he managed to pretend he hadn't noticed. “Um, does it strike you that the senior, um, Y-K-W, I mean, might sort of, to a certain degree, um, be losing it?” he ended miserably.

    “It’s not exactly that,” replied Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, not evincing any surprise. “He’s tired. Um, emotionally drained, would be the humanoid expression. Well, uh, how can I put it? The strain of thinking we’d never get back to the Third Galaxy and see Madam again, on top of the earlier strain of thinking Su had been reduced to slime or would have to spend the rest of her existence in outer space, has been a little too much for him. His mind functions are relatively unimpaired, just a little slower than they used to be, but he—uh—has no inclination to plunge himself back into his old job.”

    “That's pretty much what I picked up,” agreed the xathpyroid. “But Jhl doesn’t want to do it, either, I’ve read that loud and clear!”

    “I know.”

    “Some being has to be Leader, don’t they?” he fumbled. “I mean, in a humanoid society?”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two didn’t attempt to explain the many and varied forms of government of the humanoid societies of the two galaxies; he just said mildly: “In the present circumstances, yes. If there was no crisis we might leave it up to the parliament, but—”

    “Those beings argue all the time and can never decide on anything!” he gasped.

    The ex-clone’s eyes twinkled, just a little. “Quite.”

    “Ugh,” said BrTl. “It’s like leaving a battle fleet without an admiral!”

    “Yes.”

    “Um... A long time ago,” he said slowly, “I was a sub-lieutenant on a destroyer under Admiral Ga Rshky-Kersarv.” The humanoid said nothing but BrTl could see he’d picked up the reference and was waiting to see if he’d have the guts to go on. “What happened was, the being had lost it, something to do with its cognate group, I think, but it was still nominally in charge, and we could all see nothing was gonna make it officially resign command. So Captain BrJv took over—she was on the flagship, you see—and directed ops. Never got any recognition for it, but it was her that won the Battle of Torquad’s System.”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two rubbed his humanoid chin. “I see.” BrTl was looking at him hopefully. “Commander,” he said weakly, “I haven’t got the seniority.”

    “Nor did she; think that’s my point. Dare say he’d get all the credit—the plasmo-blasted admiral got the Federation Medal. Not that Captain BrJv gave a cptt-rvvr’s fart, mind you.”

    The humanoid gnawed on his lower lip. “I’d have to be very tactful... Well, Madam will support me, I’m quite sure.”

    “Yes.”

    “I, uh—”

    “Don’t think there is anybody else. Athlor’s too busy with his Agriculture stuff, and in any case he hasn’t got the sort of mind you have—can’t see every side to a question. And not always that good at cutting to the chase, either. That being that’s been doing Finance Minister’s a lorpoid, very good at money stuff but the mere thought of having to lead the planet scares him stiff—I've looked, we saw him downtown when Su and I went for a shake the other day. And the Service officers are all pretty limited beings, too used to obeying orders. Added to which Jhl thinks we won’t need them, she’s turned most of them into planetary police or, uh... Oh, yes, Emergency Service personnel!” he produced proudly.

    “Mm.” Agriculture and Finance were the main ministries: there was an Education Ministry but the being at the head of it was only a former schoolteacher, who’d been taking her orders from Jhl ever since the Expedition Fleet landed. And the Health Service’s Chief was ex-Space Fleet, a former Medical Officer, pretty much ditto.

    “R’jt might have volunteered, once,” BrTl admitted, “but he’s really shaken up by it all, that huge farm of his relies almost entirely on blobs: they’re all gonna starve unless he really gets down to it. –Well, wandered over that way a few days back, why not?”

    “You seem to have sorted it all out,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two feebly.

    BrTl produced a faint hooting noise down both his noses. “Don’t pretend you haven’t thought of it, too.”

    “Mm,” he admitted wryly.

    “Nothing for it, eh? Tell you what, S’zzie’s pretty sound, you could use her as your aide! I mean, the being’s wasted writing out stuff for Trff, you gotta admit!”

    Trff was now leading the Chemo Team within Alternative Energy Development (New Whtyll) Limited. It appeared to be enjoying every IG microsecond of it. True, it had done Chemo as its second subject at Third School. Last time the ex-clone had looked in on them S’zzie had been transcribing something to its dictation—its memory being a lot more reliable, all beings were agreed, after certain explosions had occurred, than anything from the Encyclopaedia they’d blobbed onto—while at the same time it had been writing out two other sets of notes with two of its tentacles.

    “Yes, I could definitely use S’zzie,” he agreed.

    “Jolly good,” said BrTl mildly. “—Think the senior cognate wants you to do this printing stuff.”

    “Mm. I think we’d better set up a Communications Development Division—do the thing properly. Investigate some sort of better ink than plasmo-blasted kinkerberry juice while we're at it!” he added with a faint laugh.

    “Good idea, the plasmo-blasted stuff even gets into your neck hair!”

    “Know any beings that might be interested, BrTl?”

    “All of the beings at the newspaper office, I think. The ones that are still left. Some of them went home to their cognate groups. Wanna go down there?”

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two squinted at the sky. It was late afternoon.

    “I’ll gallop,” said BrTl mildly.

    “Very well, Commander. Please do.”

    And with that BrTl hoiked him up—doing him the honour of lifting him in his hand instead of a pseudopod—and off they galloped.

    “Oh—there you are, dear boy,” said Shank’yar the following morning, as Vt R’aam Thirty-Two came into his study with the morning’s correspondence on a silver tray. “Now, what was I going to— Oh, yes: Jhl and I were discussing this yesterday. Communications are going to be important, and we’ll have to manage something to take the place of blobs. Get the newspaper printed without them, for a start, and then investigate— Well, Jhl will tell you all about it later, but the newspaper’s a priority.”

    “Yes, sir, Commander BrTl mentioned it yesterday. I've been down to the newspaper office and set things in train, and with your permission I’ll get down there today. Perhaps a Communications Development Division? Make them part of New Whtyll CivS? Then they’d be under our control.”

    Shank’yar’s jaw had sagged. “Uh—by all means, dear boy. Certainly. Yes, get on down there, sort them out, eh? Er—we’ll have to think of a delivery system, too.”

    “Yes. I’ve had a very brief preliminary discussion with the New Z’therabad Transport Bureau chief. He thinks we can co-ordinate our efforts.”

    “Uh—jolly good. Well, leave it to you, then, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two. Carry on!” he said with an elegant wave of his hand.

    Bowing politely, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two exited.

    “He doesn’t muck about,” said Shank’yar in stunned tones. “Well, all the better!”

    Gl’nndy had kindly invited Jhlelli and her siblings to dinner with her and Bennu. Since Su was going, there didn’t seem to be any way of getting out of it: Hallikalli gave her sister a plaintive look but didn’t dare to say anything in front of Su. However, when Jhlelli came into her room when she was getting dressed for it, she said nervously: “I don’t think I can.”

    “I know they’re off-worlders, but everyone here is,” said Jhlelli, trying to be firm but kind. “You won’t have to say much, don’t worry: Gl’nndy talks even more than Su!”

    Hallikalli smiled palely. “Good. Um, what shall I wear?”

    Today at the office Gl’nndy had been wearing a very abbreviated skirt which seemed to be made of bright pink lubolyon, it certainly had that stiff, shiny appearance of lubolyon sheeting, plus a sort of knitted tubular top, dark green, which reached from the armpits to just above the waist, leaving a strip of bare black skin which she’d ornamented with a narrow scarlet belt. The other accessories were elbow-length, fingerless gold gloves—originally gold, it was flaking off—striped knitted leggings in purple, blue and yellow, reaching from knee to ankle, and very high-heeled open-toed orange sandals that she could hardly walk in. Plus a small toe-ring with a purple stone in it, but you hardly noticed that.

    Jhlelli laughed suddenly. “Anything at all! –Come on, I’ll help you.” Hallikalli had only packed three of the dresses from her extensive wardrobe. Jhlelli chose the long, plain navy-blue one. At home it would have been a day dress, but too bad. Competently she got her into it and brushed out the long, silvery-gold curls for her. “There! You look very nice!”

    “Thank you, Jhlelli, dear. Um, what are you going to wear?”

    “It’ll have to be the thing Gl’nndy made me buy at R’ry’s Recycling Boutique!” she said with a laugh. “Otherwise her feelings will be hurt. –Not with a recycler, it means garments that other beings have worn. They sell them to R’ry and Gr’trd who run it, you see, and they clean them and—what was the phrase? Oh, yes! Sell them on, to other beings!”

    “Discarded garments?” she gasped.

    “Why not? It seems sensible to me. You need to use everything on a pioneer world, not throw stuff away.”

    “I see, dearest,” she said weakly.

    She gasped at the sight of Jhlelli in it. Possibly it was meant to be a dress but on Friyria it wouldn’t have been considered much more than a blouse, it was so very, very short. It was a floral-patterned fabric in virulently bright shades of red and apricot on a bright purple ground. Under it Jhlelli was wearing a pair of clingo-tights—bright yellow. As her sister was goggling at her Brtelli came into the room and recoiled.

    After a moment he managed to say: “I can see you had to wear it to be polite, Jhlelli, but why in Federation’s name the yellow clingo-tights?”

    “They’re the only pair I brought,” she replied calmly. “And if you’re taken aback by this, I’d better warn you, the food’ll be even odder.”

    “Can Gl’nndy cook?” he asked faintly.

    “No.”

    Brtelli choked.

    “She buys things from the little stalls—you’ll see! Come on! Su and BrTl are waiting for us!”

    Limply they followed her out.

    … “This is it,” said BrTl kindly, helping them down in front of a dingy-looking, three-storeyed wooden house in a back street. “Typical humanoid-type lodging house. Lot of younger beings use them,” he elaborated. “Have fun! –If you’re ready to go before I get back, I’ll be at Ch’dry’s Char Grill,” he reminded them, going.

    “They’re on the top floor, I’m afraid: ’tis a bit of a climb,” said Su. She knocked at the front door. It was opened by a short, broad-shouldered, burly older being. The three friymanoids gave startled blinks. After moment Brtelli sent: He is humanoid. His sisters were too stunned to shush him. They just stared numbly.

    The humanoid’s legs were clad in the Service greige Durocloth coveralls which they had all now realised were endemic to the Third Galaxy. It wasn’t just that the Expedition Fleet’s recyclers had been cultured up to produce the things when a being asked for a new garment: Su had now shown Jhlelli and Brtelli the huge warehouse containing the rolls and rolls of Durocloth that had been brought out from the two galaxies. Well, it was certainly hard-wearing and very comfortable, and without it the settlers would have had to make their own cloth, but Service greige was possibly the most boring colour in the Known Universe! Of course as soon as the engineers had managed to pwld cargo over here the settlers had started using other fabrics, but the Durocloth was still the cheapest thing available. So it wasn't surprising to see the lodging-house keeper—which Su was now explaining he was—wearing it. Though his coveralls were very wrinkled.

    But on top of them he was wearing a dress! There was no other word for it, it was exactly the same style as Jhlelli’s and just as lurid. More of the apricot flowers, this time with bright blue flowers, on an acid-yellow background. Unlike Jhlelli, however, he had another garment over his dress. Sort of an abbreviated jacket? It was by no means a Service jacket, in fact it appeared to be made of some primmo loosely knitted substance, but on its shoulders it had—gulp—shoulder-bars with the four stripes of a full captain! It wasn’t dark navy like a Space Service dress uniform jacket, but a dingy grey. It was loosely fastened across his broad chest by a bright green ribbon bow.

    Su was now introducing the being as Bh’shee. He nodded his bristly head—bristly just about all over: the chin was unshaven and the grey hair was worn very short—what time the friymanoids registered limply that he had an apricot flower, a real one, behind one ear, and a gold ring in the lobe of the other, and beamed at them. Help! His teeth were dyed red!

    It’s from a Whtyllian nut called p’n, Su was explaining. Lots of beings chew it. Dad says it’s a lower-class thing. It’s supposed to have a calming effect.

    “That’s right, Su: p’n!” Bh’shee agreed cheerfully. “Pleased to meet you, young sir and misses. From the two galaxies, is it? You’ll like it here, we got lots of young people on New Whtyll. Go on up, Gl’nndy’s expecting you. –And talking of p’n, tell that Bennu my cousin can give him some cuttings to plant in pots, but they gotta have plenty of sun and water, mind!”

    “Roger, wilco!” agreed Su sunnily. “Thanks, Bh’shee! –Come on!” And with that she led them inside.

    They were on the second landing before Brtelli got his second wind—metaphorically as wall as physically—and asked: “If the being grows these things in pots, will they bear the nuts?”

    “I was wondering that,” admitted Jhlelli.

    “Eh? Oh—nah!” said Su with a laugh. “Don’t think so! They eat the leaves, too, ya see!”

    The friymanoids stared confusedly at her picture of a small green packet, undoubtedly leaves.

    “You can buy the nuts in packets, see. You put a bit of the p’n nut in the leaf and some spices and stuff, whatever you like, desert lemonberry essence is good, and roll it all up and chew it!” Su explained.

    “And—and it’s a calmative? Some sort of narcotic?” ventured Jhlelli.

    “Um, well, dunno about that! It does make you feel sorta peaceful. Dad tried to get it banned, at one stage, but the parliament argued about it so much he decided it wasn’t worth bothering about: he just made a reg that no New Whtyll Service or CivS beings could chew it at work. He reckoned it made them too dreamy, and they weren’t concentrating.”

    “I see. Is it widely available, then?” asked Brtelli weakly.

    “Yeah! Sure! You wanna get into town more! –You musta seen the p’n sellers’ carts, Jhlelli!” she  urged.

    “I have seen little wooden carts that beings push... I thought they were selling sweets or drinks.”

    “Some of them, yeah, but some are selling p’n.”

    The friymanoids just nodded dazedly. A calmative freely available on the streets? It was a different world, all right!

    Finally Hallikalli, who had taken Jhlelli’s hand tightly, squeaked: “Is it very dear?”

    “Eh? Nah! Quarter of an ig, max’!”

    They nodded numbly.

    “Come on, only one more flight to go!” Su urged them; and up they went.

    Bennu opened his door to a gust of smoke and a strong smell of burning. “Come in, quick!” he gasped, disappearing.

    They went in. It was a small, very cramped humanoid bedroom. A little fire was burning in some sort of metal pot on a small table and over by the open window Gl’nndy was holding a smoking metal cooking-pan.

    “Is it on fire?” gasped Hallikalli, shrinking.

    “Nah! Well, scorched them a bit, yeah!” replied the little black-skinned girl cheerfully.

    “Just as well she only put two in,” noted Bennu. “I told you ya shoulda got the cooked ones,” he added.

    “I got cooked m’rghzz, ya dozy being, but fresh k’nckwzz are better!” she retorted without animus.

    Bennu winked at their guests. “They are if ya don’t burn them, yeah!”

    Suddenly Hallikalli collapsed in giggles. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but more giggles escaped.

    “Yeah!” he agreed, grinning. “You must be Hallikalli, eh? Gidday! –Yeah, gidday, Brtelli,” he added, holding out his hand.

    Carefully Brtelli shook hands, humanoid-fashion. “How do you do, Bennu? It’s very good of you and Gl’nndy to invite us.”

    Bennu grinned again. “Only if she doesn’t poison ya! –Ooh, ta, Su!” he said as she presented him with the bottle she’d been clutching.

    So it was a gift! Was it because she was Gl’nndy’s aunt, or did one normally offer one’s hosts a gift when visiting? wondered the friymanoids.

    Both, Bennu informed them, and they all jumped sharply.

    “I’m sorry, we should have brought you something, too!” gasped Jhlelli.

    “Nah, that’s okay, ’cos, see, Su, she brung it!”

    Gl’nndy had apparently decided her pan wasn’t going to burst into flames after all. She brought it back to the table. “All right, expert, you can do the rest of the k’nckwzz,” she said heavily to her boyfriend. “Hi, Hallikalli; hi, Brtelli, good to meet ya!”

    “How do you do, Gl’nndy?” responded Hallikalli timidly, since Brtelli was just standing there trying to smile at the little girl.

    Brtelli came to. “Yes, how do you do, Gl’nndy? Thanks so much for asking us. I say, do you mind if I ask you something?”

    No! sent his sisters in agony.

    “That’s all right, he can ask me anything,” said Gl’nndy amiably. “—What is it?” she said, not to Brtelli. She picked up Su’s bottle. “Ooh, good! Hey, didja pinch this off Grampa?”

    “Nah, he gimme it,” replied Su. “Go on, ask her whatever it is,” she said kindly to Brtelli. “It’s like BrTl says: if ya don’t ask, ya won't learn.”

    “Mm. Well, it's your style of dress, Gl’nndy.”—His sisters were still broadcasting anguish, but he ignored them.—“Yours and Bennu’s, really. They’re quite different from anything I’ve seen the older New Whtyllians wearing. Are they young beings’ styles?”

    Gl’nndy was wearing a very short black lace dress—a cheap, blob-woven, coarse lace—over a slightly longer dress in a glowing yellow. These garments left a good length of slender black thigh visible. The shins were covered in long, tight, semi-transparent socks of a particularly harsh shade of green, and her feet were in bright purple wedge-heeled shoes adorned with silver bows. The lobes of her pretty little ears had been mutilated in the same way as had Bh’shee’s, and from them depended large scarlet lubolyon bobbles. Round her neck she wore a circlet of the same apricot flowers as the lodging-house keeper had worn behind his ear.

    Bennu was rather similar to Bh’shee, in that above his wrinkled Service greige trousers he had on a brightly-coloured short garment, which on Friyria might just have been acceptable as a male blouse, except that it was in a lurid splashy abstract pattern of mingled reds, oranges, blues and black. His ears had been spared the mutilation, but he was certainly wearing a circlet of apricot flowers round his neck.

    “Yeah, sure, ya wouldn’t wanna wear the gear the Olds get round in, eh, Su?” replied Gl’nndy cheerfully.

    Su herself was in what had clearly once been a pair of Service greige coveralls. Their sleeves and one shoulder had been removed, to display a considerable amount of Su’s pale pinkish skin, and a skimpy silver garment with the thinnest shoulder straps the friymanoids had ever seen. On the one remaining greige Durocloth shoulder was perched a large bunch of very obviously artificial flowers—bright puce. Her waist was tightly belted by a wide blue belt, about the same shade as her eyes. The coverall legs had been rolled up to mid-shin, revealing palest blue sheer clingo-tights above a pair of bright green, high-heeled ankle boots studded with flashing metal stars. Her ears were unadorned but on her curly dark hair was a small hat composed of frowsty artificial petals in about four different shades of pink.

    She agreed happily with her niece, and urged the guests to be seated, indicating the bed. There was nowhere else to sit—that was, there were two chairs at the tiny table, but one held a large bowl of chopped fruits, and one a dozing Loogher with—the friymanoids blinked slightly—an apricot flower hanging out of its mouth. Limply they sank down onto the bed.

    The feast—they were in no doubt that in Gl’nndy’s and Bennu’s terms it was a feast—was served on small lubolyon plates, which Bennu dashed out to wash after what was presumably the main course. He had successfully cooked the pale Whtyllian k’nckwzz sausages, browning them but not burning them, so they had them first while they were hot, with some flat-breads of the sort they were now accustomed to eating at the Vt R’aams’ home, and a yellow sauce which Su warned them quickly not to touch: it was burning hot. Brtelli of course had to try some, discovering that she was right: it was. Fortunately Bennu had provided bottles of water for everyone, so he didn’t have to insult Su’s father’s excellent wine by cooling his mouth with that.

    After that Gl’nndy set a selection of small lubolyon containers on the table together with some paper-wrapped offerings, urging everyone to help themselves. There were more sausages, this time thin, dark red ones which one could evidently eat cold. They were almost as fiery as the yellow sauce! Desperately the friymanoids rinsed their mouths with water. The rest of the dishes were vegetable, more or less. Some were chopped and lightly pickled, some stewed but cold, and one white, crisp thing was fresh. Peeled but fresh. It was a local root vegetable, evidently, with a very mild, slightly sweet taste. The Loogher woke up as Hallikalli tried some and came over to her, making a sort of rumbling noise in its throat, and looking up at her in what seemed to be a hopeful manner.

    “That’ll do, Boo-Boo!” cried Bennu. “You’ve had your ming flowers!”

    At this the Loogher wailed something and the friymanoids restrained gasps.

    “He said ‘[Subjectless particle] [masculine particle] hungry,’ that’s Loogher for ‘I'm hungry’, but ignore him, Hallikalli, he's just greedy,” said Bennu in a bored voice.

    “Yes, um, but I—I’d like to give him something—if—if I may?” she gasped.

    “He’s after your ground-apple, but ya don’t have to give him any,” said Gl’nndy kindly.

    “The lovely white vegetable? Of course he can have some!”

    Gl’nndy quickly ate the rest of hers. “All right, if you wanna waste it on him.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Bennu, quickly eating the rest of his.

    Timidly Hallikalli held out a slice of ground-apple to the Loogher. He took it nicely in his paw and conveyed it to his mouth. “Isn’t he wonderful!” she breathed.

    “Yeah, wonderfully greedy,” agreed Bennu.

    “Is he your pet, Bennu?” she asked shyly.

    “Wouldn’t say that. He’s inflicted himself on me, more like.”

    “They do that,” agreed Su. She got up and inspected the contents of the table. “There's nothing else here that he can digest, so don’t give him anything, will ya?”

    “No, no!” Hallikalli assured her. The young New Whtyllians, though not ceasing to eat hungrily, eyed her dryly as she then proceeded, possibly under the impression that she was doing it unobtrusively, to waste the rest of her share of the ground-apple on the plasmo-blasted Loogher.

    By the time Bh’shee panted up the stairs to tell them that Commander BrTl was here to collect them, everyone was very relaxed and pleased with themselves. The more so since Brtelli had loudly praised the small cold fried cakes of some soft white starchy vegetable, and Jhlelli and Gl’nndy had both beamed, the latter informing him that she’d known he’d like them, ’cos Jhlelli loved them, and his sister informing him that they were all’-bondhoo, the dish made from dirt-bolos, and she’d told him they were delicious!

    “Too big to come in,” explained BrTl, peering in at them from the front door. “This lodging house is humanoid scale. –Oh, hang on, Bh’shee,” he remembered, feeling in a pocket of his Durocloth coveralls. “Trff sent this for you.” He produced a flat bottle.

    The lodging-house keeper opened it cautiously and sniffed. “Ooh! Tell the Chief Engineer thanks very much, Commander!” he gasped.

    “Roger, wilco, Gunner,” agreed BrTl amiably.

    “How did it manage it?” he asked, sniffing the contents of the bottle again.

    “Dunno. It said it was chemo stuff.”

    “Some form of alcoholic drink, is it?” asked Brtelli.

    “Nope, the Gunner doesn’t need to ask Trff to make that, he makes his own in his—what is that, again? Not a lawn, no grass. Got a ming vine, though. And some plants in pots.”

    “In the back yard,” said Bh’shee in a lowered voice.

    Comfortably BrTl agreed: “Yes, that’s it. –No need to worry, Gunner, no Space Patrol in this here quadrant!” he added cheerfully.

    “Nuh—um, NW Police?” he hissed.

    “Meant them, actually. Not a sniff of a one.”

    “Oh, good! –Sorry, young sir: this is mÿgglu sauce. Bit like gloffii sauce, only that's a lorpoid thing. We make it from fermented fish back home, only I couldn’t figure it out.”

    The being’s a Whtyllian, but not a bad being. Served as Gunner aboard our ship for a bit. Back when Jhl kept producing the younger cognates. Just when you'd  thought that was it, out would pop another, supplied BrTl.

    Bh’shee grinned. “That’s right, Commander, the Captain was busy having her babies, wasn’t she?” He shook his bristly head. “Seems a long time ago, now, eh? IG years before little Su came along, that was.”

    “Then it was a long time ago,” said Su kindly. “Never mind, Bh’shee, no-one has to be Space Fleet and do all those regs and stuff now!”

    “No, well, you’re right, there, little Miss, but it wasn’t a bad life, on the whole,” said the ex-gunner. “Now, you won’t forget to thank the Chief Engineer, sir, will you?”

    “No, ’course not, but you could thank it yourself. Just nip down to the hangar, they won’t mind.”

    “Um, there’s an NW You-Know-What posted outside it now,” revealed Bh’shee glumly.

    “Eh? Who in Federation ordered that?”

    “I think it was Vt R’aam Thirty-Two,” said the lodging-house keeper on a cautious note.

    “What?” cried Su indignantly. “What’s the being playing at?”

    BrTl cleared his throat slightly, with due precautions as to lighter beings, not to be anything-ist, that might be standing in the near vicinity. “Might have gone a bit Space Fleet, Su, it does happen sometimes, when a being takes on a new job.”

    “Aye, like that time when Captain Mr’Trii took over on Ship 43,” Bh’shee agreed.

    “That's it, yeah. Nothing to worry about, Su, he’ll get over it.”

    “He better, that’s all!” she said fiercely. “I never heard of such a thing!”

    “Maybe it's all supposed to be secret, what the Chief Engineer and them helpers are doing in there,” offered Bh’shee dubiously.

    “Rubbish! It’s for every being on the planet!” she cried.

    “Yeah, well, like I say, he’ll get over it,” said BrTl quickly. “Wanna hop up? Think it’s past these beings’ bedtime.”

    “Um—yes. Sorry, everyone,” said Su limply. And with that BrTl lifted them all up, and they said goodbye to Bh’shee, and set off for home.

    After quite some time Brtelli murmured: “Those apricot flowers...”

    “They're ming flowers, Brtelli,” said Su. “They’re quite common here. The vines are in flower at the moment: Mum’s got one on the verandah.”

    “Yes, I thought I’d seen... Yes. The Loogher was eating some, was it?”

    “Yeah, he’d stuffed himself on them! They’re in flower, ya see!”

    “Mm. And—and this dress of Jhlelli’s, and Bh’shee’s, um, garment: are the apricot flowers in the pattern the same flowers?”

    “Um, yeah, s’pose so. Like, bigger, but the same shape. See, that’s one of the patterns that Sallu from Sallu Designs makes, it’s real popular.”

    “I see,” he said with interest. “So it’s quite a significant plant, then?”

    “Eh?” replied Su blankly.

    “I mean, wearing it, or of course a garment patterned with it, at this time of year?”

    After an appreciable pause Su said: “The ming vines are in flower now.”

    “Yes, and so the people celebrate it!” he said happily.

    “No,” said BrTl simply.

    Su swallowed. “No, ya got the wrong end of the ban-ban-ban, Brtelli.”

    “Essentially meaningless, I think is the expression,” said BrTl thoughtfully.

    “Um, yeah,” she conceded. ”I mean, it doesn’t mean anything, Brtelli. Um, the Looghers love the flowers but they taste kind of bitter to humanoids. And friymanoids, I’d think. They're not poisonous, just, um, not tasty.”

    “So—so why were the young people wearing them round their necks?” he fumbled.

    “Like, Bh’shee’s ming vine out the back, it’s flowering,” said Su earnestly.

    As good as it's gonna get, friymanoid cognate, warned BrTl.

    He swallowed. “I see: thank you, Su,” he said very lamely indeed.

    It was late when they got back and the household was in bed, but when they went upstairs their father sent: Come in, my dearest offspring, and tell us all about it.

    Ccrainchzzyllia and Dohra were sitting up in bed: he was writing on a block of paper held on a clipboard and she was reading from a long scroll. Visions of delicious exotic dishes immediately surrounded their children.

    “Yes; stop reading, darling,” murmured the Friyrian.

    Dohra laid down her scroll, smiling, and after a moment the images dissipated. “I’ve just been checking some of First Cook Kadry’s recipes that I’ve written down for Su,” she explained. “How was the evening? Did you enjoy yourselves? What did you have to eat?”

    Her children looked at one another lamely, in dead silence. Finally Hallikalli ventured in a small voice: “It was all very tasty, Mother, though some of the dishes were a bit hot for us. And—and Gl’nndy and Bennu were very—very welcoming.”

    “Yes,” said Jhlelli, swallowing hard. “They had some delicious all’-bondhoo, Mother.”

    “Oh, good! I must ask First Cook for the recipe!” she beamed.

    “They’ve got a lovely Loogher!” offered Hallikalli eagerly.

    “Er... It’s got them, was the impression I got,” said Brtelli on a weak note.

    “Yes, well,” said his father quickly, “you can certainly have a Loogher, Hallikalli, my darling, once we’re settled, if that’s what you’d like.”

    “Oh, thank you, Father!” she beamed.

    Then dead silence fell.

    Finally Ccrainchzzyllia said mildly: “My dears, I think we’d better look, if we may?”

    “Yes, do, Father,” said Brtelli in huge relief. “It was all... I really can't describe it!”

    So they looked, what time their children stared at them plaintively.

    “Oh, good gracious!” cried Dohra. “That yellow sauce was hot, you poor darling!”

    “Um, yes,” muttered Brtelli, in agony. “Not wholly germane, Mother.

    “Hush!” said his father with a soft tinkle. “Oh—that’s very interesting. Those two sausages come from different parts of Whtyll: you see the same differentiation in First Cook’s recipes: some of them very bland, and others very hot. It seemed odd to me, so I asked her about it. The northern continent, where the Vt R’aam family comes from, tends towards highly spiced food, often with blasterberries added to make it hot—I think that probably was what was in that hot sauce, dear offspring. The southern continent specialises in much blander, and on the whole heavier foods: those pale sausages are typical. First Cook Kadry has several similar recipes for varieties of—what does she call them, darling?” he asked Dohra.

    “K’nckwzz. She makes little ones as well, she calls them wzz’chns, and great big ones, those are just called bulgies. Like, one bulgy, two bulgies, see? It’s interesting, she uses kog meat in them, with lots of cooked hu, but I didn’t think kog meat was a Whtyllian thing at all. That morning everyone went out early and Ccrain and I had breakfast alone, she gave us a south Whtyllian breakfast.”

    “Mm. It was very interesting,” murmured her bond-partner.

    “That’s right!” beamed Dohra. She was broadcasting a very vivid picture, but she explained anyway: “It was all cold apart from the drinks. Sliced bulgy and sliced salted grpplybeast meat, and two sorts of sliced grqwaries’ cheese, both very bland and very high in fat, and thin slices of a big black sausage that she called a black pudding, but it wasn't, it was a sausage, that had chunks of fat in it, and some pickled cucumbers—I thought she meant sea cucumbers, like the Lorpoids like, but these are land ones, they were sour but nice,”—her children recoiled as they got an echo of the taste—“all served with some very black wholegrain bread, I think Jhl would have approved of that, but not the rest! And of course cups of Whtyllian k’fi, steaming hot, with loads of milk in it!”

    “Federation,” said Brtelli numbly.

    “Mother, that’s too much fat for you!” gasped Hallikalli.

    Jhlelli was looking sick. She nodded hard, gulping.

    “It was all very tasty, actually! And it was just for once, you know!” said Dohra gaily. “Anyway, that’s South Whtyllian food. I’m so glad you had the opportunity to try k’nckwzz!”

    “Um, Mother,” said Jhlelli uncomfortably, “it was all street food, you know.”

    “Of course, darling, but then, on so many world the street food is the tastiest!”

    “That’s right,” agreed her bond-partner. “We must get into town and try the stalls, darling. Perhaps we could meet you for lunch one day, Jhlelli?”

    “Um, yes, if you really want to, Father. But their food does tend to be rather hot.”

    “He’ll be all right, he can air his throat through his gills as well, you know!” said Dohra with a giggle.

    He was nodding placidly, so that seemed to settle the topic of New Whtyllian street food. His children just looked at him limply.

    After a moment Hallikalli said in a small voice: “They were very nice to us. But it all was very... very strange.”

    “Yes. Especially the Intergalactic,” noted Brtelli wryly.

    “Oh! I’ve noticed that, too!” cried Jhlelli in huge relief.

    “Mm. It must be slang, I think.”

    They looked hopefully at their father.

    “The demotic as used by the younger generations would be rather different, I think, from Standard Intergalactic,” he said smoothly. “That happens on many worlds, my dears.”

    “Yes, um, even Su...” said Jhlelli dubiously. “I mean, she—she speaks, I suppose I mean informally—yes, more informally than her parents do in any case, but, um, when she’s with Gl’nndy and Bennu she seems to use even more slang. Um, I’m not sure if I do just mean slang, Father. Well, for example, she says ‘ya” a lot more, instead of ‘you’, would that be slang?”

    “Not exactly, my dear. It’s not quite a dialect; I think the word would be idiolect. The version of her language as used by her peer group: you see?”

    “Ye-es.... Even Lord Athlor does it, at the office, and all the office beings!” she burst out.

    “Yes, of course: they’re all quite young, aren’t they?” replied Ccrainchzzyllia kindly.

    Jhlelli nodded weakly. “Mm. One doesn’t quite dare to use it—I mean, what if one said the wrong thing?”

    “I very much doubt, from your mind-pictures of them, that little Gl’nndy or Bennu would mind, and I’m sure that Su wouldn’t either!” he said with a little cascade of tinkles. “But it would be wiser not to try. After a while you’ll find yourself doing it automatically.”

    “Yes, Good,” she said with a huge sigh.

    “Friyrian’s the same,” said Dohra unexpectedly.

    Her children gaped at her.

    “Yes,” she said calmly. “You wouldn’t notice it, being born there. It’s not the young people so much who speak differently, though you are more informal amongst yourselves, darlings, but the working people.”

    After an appreciable pause Brtelli admitted: “You’re right.”

    “Yes: such speech differentiations on the basis of class are very common throughout the two galaxies,” agreed his father.

     “So—so they’re not rude, Father?” ventured Hallikalli timidly.

    He gave a very faint tinkle. ‘What, little Gl’nndy and her friend? And dear little Su? I think to the older generations they quite often would seem rude, dearest child, that’s the way these generational things work!”

    “I see,” she said limply. “Bh’shee seemed very informal, too.”

    “That would be partly a class thing, I think. –Er, we can discuss the ming flower thing if you wish, my dearest offspring,” he said to his son, “but the girls are tired.”

    “Father, if I don’t, I’ll burst!” he cried.

    “I thought Su explained it,” said Hallikalli in bewilderment.

    “Yes,” her father agreed. “Come and give us a kiss, darling, and then pop off to bed.”

    “I’m staying,” said Jhlelli grimly.

    “Of course, if you wish, my dear.” He waited until Hallikalli had kissed them all goodnight and gone out. Then he said: “Doze off, Dohra, darling, by all means.”

    “No, I’m not sleepy! I want to hear it, Ccrain!” replied Dohra with a giggle.

    “Mm. –Don’t glare at your mother, Brtelli, she has had considerably more experience of other worlds than you have.”

    “When I was on Gr’mmeaya— Never mind!” said Dohra with another giggle.

    “Mm.” The Friyrian rubbed his pointed chin. “Let me see... Yes. This is a picture of a very pleasant tropical area of Whtyll where I once spent a holiday.”

    “‘With whom?” said Dohra sepulchrally, with another giggle.

    “Stop that,” he said mildly, patting her knee. “Er—yes: that’s our party, more or less, relaxing on a beach, and the beings serving us are the local peasants—er, workers, my dears, the same sort of people as our farm workers back home. It’s very warm in those parts, and that is the local dress.”

    His two children looked blankly at a clutch of well-off Friyrians and Whtyllians relaxing on a beautiful beach in long white chairs under fringed white awnings. The beings serving them drinks looked Whtyllian, all right. The males were wearing tight, brightly-coloured skirts that came to just below the knees, and the females similar garments that reached from just above their breasts to just above their ankles. Both sexes wore garlands of flowers round their necks and many of them had a flower or two tucked behind an ear.

    “Colourful,” said Brtelli weakly at last.

    “Mm,” agreed his father neutrally.

    “That lady with the bright pink hair is very colourful!” said Dohra with a loud giggle.

    This time he pinched her knee. “Quiet!”

    Dohra gave a burst of giggles at this, but didn’t say anything more.

    “Oh, great splintered shards of quog!” said Brtelli at last. “You mean it’s normal in their society to wear flowers and—and it doesn’t mean a thing?”

    “That’s right.”

    “But none of the upper-class beings are wearing them,” he said uncertainly.

    Ccrainchzzyllia replied without emphasis: “You’re over-interpreting again, Brtelli.”

    Jhlelli at this bit her lip.

    Brtelli frowned, glaring at his feet. Finally he looked up and said: “Right, got that, sir.”

    “Brtelli, you intergalactic idiot, he was trying to let you down gently!” cried Dohra.

    “Yes. –I can’t help it, it’s so... foreign!” he burst out angrily.

    “I know. Just try to accept it all without trying to make sense of it, darling,” she said serenely. “After a while things will come together and you’ll understand it all.”

    “I haven’t got your sort of mind!” he replied bitterly.

    “I wouldn’t say I have, either,” ventured Jhlelli. “He's right, it is all very foreign, Mother. I think it’s easier for you, you’re a humanoid.”

    “And a po-goose fancier,” murmured Ccrainchzzyllia.

    “Don’t be flippant, Father, it doesn’t help!” cried his daughter bitterly.

    “I think what I was trying to indicate,” he said mildly, “is that if you could find an interest, Brtelli, you might settle in more quickly.”

    “Um, yes. It is easier when I can concentrate on work,” admitted Jhlelli.

    Brtelli looked at them sourly. “Yes. Perhaps all of you stable, psychologically-centred beings would like to suggest what?”

    “We could suggest stuff, but you’d have to like it,” replied Dohra simply.

    “Quite,” agreed Ccrainchzzyllia. “I’m sorry, Brtelli, but at the moment I think perhaps you'd better just lend a hand with the transcribing work.”

    “Recipes?” he said sourly.

    “Not necessarily. Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam’s got a couple of dozen beings in that big room, all transcribing very useful stuff. You might join them.”

    Ignoring the fact that his mother was broadcasting: Recipes are useful! Brtelli replied stiffly. “Very well, sir.”

    “Um, yes, it couldn’t hurt,” said Jhlelli quickly, getting up. “It has helped to talk about it, Father. I think I am starting to get used to it all, really, but it is impossible to second-guess them, of course!” She kissed her parents goodnight and went out quickly.

    “She’s right,” said Brtelli bitterly. “That’s precisely it! You can't second-guess them at all! About anything!”

    “That,” replied his father serenely, “is the essence of the off-world experience, my dear offspring. Come and give us a kiss.”

    Resignedly Brtelli kissed his parents’ cheeks and took himself off to bed.

    “Honestly!” said Dohra with a giggle, snuggling down in the bed. “A po-geese fancier? Pink-haired floozies?”

    Ccrainchzzyllia turned the beside light off. “I thought it might be easier for him that way.”

    “I don’t think anything can make it easier, really, darling, except perhaps to realise the others are going through it, too. But I’m sure he will settle in, eventually.”

    “Mm.” He slid his hand over to the knee he’d earlier pinched and gave it another little nip.

    “Ooh!” said Dohra with a giggle,

    Smiling, her bond-partner slid his hand up her smooth thigh...

    “Ooh!” gasped Dohra, “I’m awfully glad Friyrians do that!”

    “So am I!” he said with a choked tinkle, rolling on top of her and kissing her gently. “And this?’

    “Yes! When I first met you—well, I know you were the captain and I was only a Third Cook,” said Dohra breathlessly, “but I couldn’t helping thinking, if Friyrians don’t like kissing I’ll die!”

    “I noticed,” he murmured, kissing her again, much more thoroughly, and shifting position slightly.

    “Oh, Ccrain!” gasped Dohra. “Yes, do it!”

    “Ready?” he murmured.

    “Yes!” she gasped. “Oh, Ccrain— OH!” she shrieked, clawing his back.

    Okay, she’d been ready. He could have gone on for some time if she hadn’t been, but— He stopped thinking at all and simply poured into her.

    It was quite some time before he managed to say: “Federation, I needed that!”

    “Me—too!” she panted.

    “Mmm...” he sighed, rolling onto his back. “‘Glad you came, darling?”

    “I always am!” squeaked Dohra, collapsing in a gale of giggles.

    “That, too! –No, here, to the Third Galaxy, of course.”

    She took his hand and squeezed it hard. “Yes. I like it. The climate’s warmer than home, don’t you think? And the food’s lovely, so interesting! I like a simple life, too.”

    “Yes. I’m glad, darling.”

    “And,” she added happily, “this is just the same, thank the Federation!”

    “Absolutely! –What Brtelli needs,” he decided with a little frown, “is a girlfriend.”

    “Oh, you’ve noticed at last,” replied his little humanoid bond-partner with the utmost placidity.

    Swallowing, her sophisticated Friyrian bond-partner subsided definitively. Though not without the wry reflection that the move to the Third Galaxy was proving salutary all round!

Next chapter:

https://theadmirableclone-sf.blogspot.com/2023/11/settled.html