Without Benefit Of Blobs

21

Without Benefit Of Blobs

    It was six months since they’d come home from the two galaxies. Winter was closing in, and a lot of the new Civil Service’s efforts were being directed towards making sure that every household on the planet had sufficient fuel and the means of igniting it to see them through the cold months. True, winters weren’t usually severe in most of the settled parts of New Whtyll, but nevertheless it got distinctly chilly. Some igno-blobs were still working, of course, but as Vt R’aam Thirty-Two stressed, they mustn’t rely on them. Several beings from Trff’s Chemo Team had been diverted from whatever it was they’d been working on to match production—strictly speaking, match design and production.

    S’zzie had been deputed to set this process in motion and to check that it got done: a month after getting the work started she reported dazedly to Vt R’aam Thirty-Two: “Trff doesn’t seem to be able to prioritize. Um, worse than that, really. It doesn’t seem to—to be able to grasp what priorities are.”

    Su had come in to collect some stuff for copying: she glared. “No, ’course it can’t! Isn’t that blindingly obvious?”

    S’zzie went very red and didn’t reply, but Vt R’aam Thirty-Two said mildly: “That’ll do, I think, Su. We know that, yes, but then, we know Trff very well, don’t we? Just take that pile of letters, would you?”

    Upon which Su went even redder than S’zzie, grabbed the letters, and marched out.

    Since then she’d done her best to keep out of Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s way, deputing Rollo or Blndry to collect and deliver the stuff for copying—and not quite realising that the full force of her personality had duly cowed her two young co-workers.

    In between the copying she had been working on her recipes, not expressing aloud her scepticism about Mum and Dad’s whole “book” idea. However, although she’d collected a lot of recipes, largely from First Cook Kadry but some from her friends and the stallholders like M’shi, and had carefully written down exactly what First Cook and M’shi had said about making a fire to cook on, how hot to get it, the best sort of thing to have it in and so on, she hadn’t managed to pull the whole thing together into a readable text, at all.

    Now she stood before Vt R’aam Thirty-Two’s desk, scowling.

    He looked up from her untidy pile of manuscript. “Yes. You’ve got some good stuff, here, Su, but you haven’t managed to put it into in a report format, have you?”

    Su could see perfectly well he was avoiding the words “essay” and “composition” that the asteroid-headed teachers at school had used when they’d told her to write space garbage about her last holiday and similar rhoofer shit. She scowled more than ever.

    “It has become a matter of urgency,” he said mildly. “We must make sure all of our people have the means of cooking food before winter.”

    “Lots of beings’ culture-pans are still working,” said Su sulkily.

    “I think you know we can’t rely on them,” he replied lightly.

    Su glared: he sounded just like Dad at his worst!

    “I’ve asked S’zzie to show you how to pull it together,” he said nicely. “And to edit the recipes, to some extent: I think at this juncture we need to concentrate on the simpler ones.”

    “First Cook says these are the easy ones!” she snapped.

    “I’m sure they are, to her, but then, she’s a being with many years’ experience, isn’t she? Now, S’zzie’s got a sample of the book format we think would be best: show it to her, would you, S’zzie?”

    S’zzie held up a thingo that looked rather like Sallu’s portfolios only smaller. “We wanted something that would be easy for beings to handle while they’re working in their kitchens. –Or wherever they do their cooking,” she added mildly, receiving some very scornful emanations together with a picture of Bennu’s and Gl’nndy’s inadequate cooking arrangements. “A lot of the book formats Aunty Jhl’s Book Development Team are working on are suitable for long-term storage, but we need something that’s quick and easy to produce. We thought a folded heavy covering sheet like this. We’ll use lubolyon sheeting, it’s a practical material that’s easy to clean, and this is a much more sensible use of the resource than wall coverings. There’s half a warehouse full of it.”

    “Yes,” agreed Vt R’aam Thirty-Two. “Beings like your two eldest brothers’ bond-partners considered it fashionable, and some enterprising being imported a huge amount. We have compensated her for it, but not at the price she was asking!” His mouth twitched a little.

    “The being tried to blackmail us,” said S’zzie briefly.

    “I wouldn’t go that far. Commercial enterprise?” he murmured. They looked at each other and laughed.

    Su was abruptly swamped by a wave of sick jealousy so strong that she wondered for a moment if she was actually gonna throw up. “Yeah, all right, lubolyon sheeting,” she said sourly. “So how do we get the text in there, or haven’t the engineers cracked that one yet?”

    “Like this,” said S’zzie, smiling. “The folder—I know it’s not the same as the folders we use for filing our copies, Su, but it’s the same in essence, it’s simpler if we use the same word—the folder has this little cord going through it, see?”

     Su glared: she wasn’t blind!

    “Once the sheets are printed we stamp a hole in them, and thread them on the cord inside the folder,” said S’zzie simply. She picked up a sheet of paper that had a little hole in it, right over at the edge. Then she put it inside the folder, threaded the cord neatly through it and through one side of the folder, and tied it on the outside. “See?” She handed the result to Su.

    The reason the cord hadn’t slid right out when the being poked it through that stupid little hole was that it had a knot on the end, on the outside of the so-called folder. Su looked at it sourly. “Yeah. What beings are gonna volunteer to sit there threading megazillions of bits of bendy paper onto stupid little strings for hours on end?”

    “We’ll use heavier-weight paper, it’ll be much easier to thread and will last better under intensive use by the cooks,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two briskly.

    “Yes. And the good thing about this format,” added S’zzie—Su gave her a bitter look: if either of the beings said “format” again she was gonna scream!—“is that if the being has any favourite recipes it wants to write down, it can easily add them, just by untying the cord!”

    Yeah, yeah, real brill’, what genius of an engineer thought that one up?

    “Su, the traditional bound book that your mother saw on Old Rthfrdia entails a number of difficult techniques, utilising several different materials that are not easy to produce,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two kindly. “Even if we used heavy card for the covers instead of leather, thus avoiding the tanning process, there’s a lot of folding and stitching, which involves the production of both needles and fine thread, and then a lot of gluing.”—He was sending her a series of pictures, so Su couldn’t say there wasn’t; she looked sulky.—“And, as I think you know, the engineers are having a lot of trouble developing formulas for glue.”

    S’zzie at this gave a smothered laugh.

    “Yeah, all right, Trff’s fluff was covered with the muck. It was only stuff like chewing-taffy, I got it off with that stuff of First Cook’s,” said Su with an horrific scowl.

    “Yes, well, the consistency of glue is rather like chewing-taffy,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two very mildly. “It has to remain liquid for a sufficiently long period to be useable, but set hard enough to create a permanent seal—”

    “Yes! All right! Don’t send me chemo stuff about flexing stuff, thanks!”

    “Su,” said S’zzie steadily: “no need to take that tone, eh? Even though you’ve known Vt R’aam Thirty-Two all your life, he is Deputy Leader.”

     Su turned scarlet and glared. “Sorry,” she growled.

    “Thank you,” replied Vt R’aam Thirty-Two coolly.

    Su had expected him to say nicely that it was all right: she gulped.

    “Okay, this is the format: got it?” said S’zzie briskly.

    “Yes.”

    “Good,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, looking at the chrono-balancer on his desk. The bead in its tube indicated what Su’s internal chronometer was already telling her loud and clear, that it was nearly time for morning tea. She was aware that he must know this: he’d never needed to use a chrono-blob. She gave him a bitter look.

    “Right, we’ll get on with it, then, sir,” said S’zzie, standing up.

    “Yes: thanks, S’zzie.” He handed her the manuscript. “I’ll take the folder, Su. Could you take S’zzie’s chair along to your office, please?”

    “Our office?” she said numbly.

    “Mm-hm; we’re a bit short of chairs.”

    That wasn’t what she’d meant at all! Avoiding eye contact, Su dumped the folder on his desk and followed S’zzie out with the plasmo-blasted chair.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two didn’t look up. He heard S’zzie say in a very even voice: “Shut the door, I think, Su.” He heard the door shut. He sighed, but got resolutely on with the work in hand.

    Rollo shot to his feet the instant he saw who it was with Su, his green-brown skin flushing darkly. Su knew he was terrifically in awe of S’zzie as well as having a terrific crush on her: she gave him a sour look.

    “Sorry to disturb you both,” said S’zzie cheerfully. “Su and I need to work on her recipe book: want to get it into production by next week.”

    “Next week?” gasped Su in horror.

    “Yes. –I think we can just squeeze my chair in next to yours.”

    Rollo came to. “Let me!” He shot over and took the chair from Su.

    “We’re just copying, you won’t be disturbing us,” said Blndry. “It’ll liven the place up! Hey, I gave ya that recipe for Dadda’s special Eggy Bread with Whtyllian duck eggs, eh, Su?”

    “Yes,” she admitted. “First Cook done it for breakfast one day, it was good. Only it's different from her Eggy Bread, so I dunno that we can call it that.”

    “‘Eggs-In-Bread,’ I thought,” said S’zzie.

    “Heck, have you read it?” gasped Rollo, paralysed.

    “Yep. And your mother’s recipe for peaches in jelly: it sounded good, too!” she replied with her cheerful grin.

    “Really? I’ll tell Mum!” he gasped.

    “First Cook says that we’ll have to make the jelly stuff from scratch and it’s real hard,” noted Su sourly.

    “Gelatine?” said Rollo dubiously. “Mum just used to tell the culture-pan ‘gelatine’. Um, well, agar-agar?” he offered weakly.

    “Trff says it’s all chemo, it comes from seaweed,” replied Su flatly.

    “It’s chemo if you analyse the process, yes, but it’s not hard to make. And making gelatine from scratch is time-consuming but not that hard. It entails boiling bones and hoofs, and the farmers who kill their own grpplybeasts will have plenty of those going spare,” said S’zzie.

    The three young people were gaping at her. Finally Blndry said weakly: “Heck, didja go into all that?”

    “Yes: no sense in giving beings recipes they won’t be able to do a year down the track when the blobs have croaked and we’ve run out of readymade stuff,” she said briskly.

    Possibly none of them had ever truly envisaged the reality of their situation: they looked at her in dead silence.

    Kindly she said: “Good, the chair fits in okay. Thanks, Rollo. –Think we might as well have our morning tea before we get started, eh?”

    Blndry and Rollo were hesitating: she could see this was because Rollo had brought a packet of Rhumman moow, which he’d been intending to mix up with hot water and drink like a soup, sharing it with Su and Blndry, who also preferred it, on a nippy autumn day, to the zi provided by the Vt R’aam kitchen, and Blndry had a container of quoshy tartlets which her Dadda had forced on her and which she’d been intending to share, too.

    She dug in the pocket of her Service greige coveralls. “First Cook Kadry forced this lot on me this morning: you might like to share them, I’ll never get through them.”

    With huge relief the two young people produced their moow and tartlets.

    “Um, yeah,” said Su weakly, looking at S’zzie’s little fried savoury pastries. “Those’ll have the steamed hu and meat left over from last night in them. She gimme some bulgy sandwiches, I said I was sick of meat done hashi’mah’hshi. I mean, I didn’t ask, she made me take them!” she ended somewhat desperately.

    “Ditto,” said S’zzie with a grin.

    “Yeah: ditto for Dadda’s tartlets!” agreed Blndry, laughing.

    This seemed to have broken the ice, and Rollo bravely volunteered to get them all cups of hot water from the tea cart. The more so as he was aware First Cook in person was not in charge of it. S’zzie wasn’t especially fond of moow, it was terribly salty, but she refrained from mentioning the point.

    Su’s recipe book was soon sorted out, with a bit of extra consulting of First Cook Kadry as to just what categories she thought the recipes had better be sorted into, and after Su had been introduced to the idea of a preliminary list of contents so as beings could quickly find their way to the right category.

    Rollo and Blndry continued to take a great interest, and in fact it was Blndry who pointed out that although “Breakfast Dishes,” “Lunch Dishes,” and “Dinner Dishes” were useful categories, they conflicted with “Meat Dishes” and “Fish Dishes,” also useful categories. But it was finally decided that as most beings ate different things for breakfast than they did for lunch or dinner, they’d have a category for those, and then a more general one for “Lunch or Dinner Dishes” which could be subdivided into Meat, Fish, Eggs, Vegetables, and Grain. And the other category could be “Puddings.” Beings then, getting carried away, suggested further refinements, but S’zzie put her foot down. Just the easiest recipes, arranged simply by chief ingredient, so that, for example, all the grpplybeast meat dishes would be together—six would be plenty—and all the hu grain dishes. But if the cooks wanted to rearrange them within the categories, they could, couldn’t they? It was just a matter of undoing the string!

    “It looks good,” BrTl approved, peering at the result. “Um, nymbo cheese pie?” he ventured hopefully.

    Su bit her lip. “Acksherly, BrTl, nymbo cheese comes from the two galaxies.”

    “Oh, yeah. Native to Stryptwontia,” he agreed glumly.

    “Mm. I did ask Trff about it, but it said something about fungus, and we haven’t got the right conditions. Only I thought fungus was, um, like fornish. Not sweet.”

    “Or ooff-puffs,” he reminded her on a hopeful note. “They’re sweet.”

    “Yes, but the way nymbo cheese grows is awfully complicated. Something about the right soil, and it has to grow next to special plants, as well.”

    “Right. That’s nymbo cheese pie down the moogletubes,” he acknowledged gloomily. “So I suppose we won’t be able to make quoshy pie, either?”

    “No, ’course we will!” cried Su in astonishment.

    There was a short silence.

    “Comes from Nblyteria?” he ventured. “Don’t think we’ll have a hope of getting over to New Nblyteria without blobs, Su.”

    “Um, no, BrTl, quoshy grows real well here. We’ve got loads of it on the farm, and some in the kitchen garden, too. First Cook uses it a lot.”

    “And it won’t run out?” he said cautiously.

    “No,” replied Su on a weak note. She had known that xathpyroids didn’t plant stuff, but... “Um, see, every year you plant more seeds and—and the quoshy plants grow from them. And most of them, you pull them up and eat the quoshy—cooked, of course—but some you let, um, they call it go to seed: produce seeds, BrTl, a bit like—” Desperately she sought for a comparison. “Um, like the dooler-grass does after it’s flowered. Only quoshy seeds look a bit different, they’re bigger and kind of wrinkled—but it’s the same idea!”

    “Goddit,” he said pleasedly. “So we can have quoshy in pies every year, eh?”

    Su nodded hard. “That’s it!”

    “So where’s the recipe?”

    Thank goodness they had included one! “Here, it’s under ‘Puddings.’ See?”

    BrTl read it over dubiously. “It’s not like when Dohra tells you a recipe.”

    Oh, rhoofer shit! “Um, no, but she’s a storyteller. You’d get the whole picture from her. This is like, um, instructions.”

    “Galloping grqwary gizzards! I get it, it’s like a lifter manual for recipes! –Only not in a text-blob.”

    “Yes,” said Su very weakly indeed. “You goddit.”

    ... “Then he read the bit about how to make a fire, Mum,” she reported glumly.

    Jhl winced. “Great splintered shards of quog! And? –Given that the house hasn’t burned down yet.”

    “You’re not far wrong. He went outside and tried it.”

    Jhl brightened slightly. “On your father’s sacred Whtyllian lawn?”

    Su stood on one leg, hooking a foot round its fellow’s ankle. “Not quite. On the path down near the veggie garden. Um, well, he is a large being, and, um, he thought he was following the instructions. Well, I suppose he was, really. Only they’d been piling up hay against the wall, and, um, a xathpyroid handful is quite a lot. Anyway,” she added quickly, “it was all right, Vt R’aam Twenty-Four was working in the garden and he threw a bucket of water on it!”

    “Is there any hay left?” asked Jhl faintly.

    “Yes, it didn’t have time to burn much of it.”

    “That’s good, given that the Looghers are predicting a hard winter: the livestock are gonna need fodder.”

    “Mm. Only the thing is, Mum, he’s volunteered to help deliver the recipe books to the outlying settlers!”

    Jhl gulped.

    “S’zzie says we gotta accept help from all the xathpyroids that’ve volunteered, otherwise it’s gonna be a real problem getting them out to everybody.”

    “Yuh— Uh—” Jhl passed a hand over her face. “Darling, I think you’d better arrange some sort of, uh, induction for them, then. Show them the smallest amount of fuel necessary to start a cook-fire, okay? That sort of stuff. Anything risky.”

    Su looked at her limply.

    “I know: impossible to second guess ’em,” she groaned. “Come on, we’ll go through it together, okay? Two heads may be better than one, in this instance.”

    “Ta, Mum,” said Su gratefully, pulling up a chair to her mother’s desk.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had given in to temptation and gone quietly along to listen to Su’s induction session for the recipe-book deliverers. All volunteers had been told off to attend, as it had seemed too anything-ist just to hold it for the xathpyroids.

    BrTl seemed to be helping with the demonstrations—at least, he was certainly up at the front of the crowd on My Lord’s west lawn with her. Vt R’aam Thirty-Two stood quietly at the back, in the lee of a giant Thwurbullerian who, he was quite sure, would not need anything demonstrated: they were highly intelligent beings and this particular Thwurbullerian was a retired Space Fleet First Officer. Added to which, on their home planets Thwurbullerian affines normally had gardens and were accustomed to raising their own food.

    Not cook-fires, however, it sent. Good morning, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.

    Good morning, Seventy-Seven from Untranslatable Shade of Mauve Sector, he replied formally.

    It waggled its frontal lobes politely at him and he smiled politely back.

    They’re just about to demonstrate a cook-fire, it explained. Don’t worry, just behind that bush to Lady Su’s rear she's stationed a gardener with a bucket of water.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two shook slightly. Good! he managed.

    The beings of the Third Galaxy were of course used to the little cook-fires of the street vendors, but nevertheless there was a lot of murmuring and some horrified gasps as Su and BrTl lit their fire.

    “See,” Su explained, “we’ve got it in this, like, metal dish, you can use any sort of metal, or you can just do it on the ground. But if you do that, you have to make sure it’s safe and you’re not gonna set the dry grass on fire. Like if it got into the trees it could burn them all up, too. So it’s a good idea to put some little rocks or stones down, they don’t have to be all that little, like, these ones are about as big as my hand, see?” She held one up. “And BrTl, he can hold a whole lot this size, see?” BrTl duly held up a handful of rocks. They looked strangely familiar... Oh yes! Su was explaining happily: “Some of these are kinda grey, and some of them are kinda white, but any ole type of rock’ll do.”

    “White Porvenian marble?” murmured Seventy-Seven.

    “Mm. Hitherto placed decoratively at the base of the fountain at the front of the house.”

    It rolled an enquiring visual organ his way. Did they get permission—?

    Doubt it. Never mind: initiative!

    The Thwurbullerian choked slightly.

    Su was continuing: “Or if you haven’t got any, just dig up the grass, like, some beings call it turf, it’s just the top bits of the grass, and build the fire on the dirt!”

    The crowd watched intently as she and BrTl then made two more small fires on the ground. And as My Lord’s head gardener emerged from behind his bush with his bucket and doused them.

    “That’s how you put them out,” explained Su sunnily.

    The Thwurbullerian choked again.

    “Now we’re gonna do a little bit of cooking, just to show you how,” Su explained. “See, a fire isn’t like a culture-pan, you have to keep adding, like, fuel to it, that’s the stuff what we showed you before. Like, sticks or bits of wood or charcoal. Just add a little bit at a time to keep the flames going. We’re gonna cook over this fire in our metal thingo, but you can do it with any fire, on the ground as well.”

    “Will it taste the same?” asked a voice from the crowd.

    “Sure! A fire’s a fire!”

    A fire’s a fire, all the xathpyroids present acknowledged happily.

    Everybody watched eagerly as Su and BrTl threaded cubes of grpplybeast meat onto skewers.

    “This recipe’s in the instruction manual,” BrTl explained. “Eh? Oh—right, Su says it's a recipe book, specifically, but in general terms it’s an instruction manual. Look in the category called ‘Lunch or Dinner Dishes’ and then under ‘Meat Dishes’, that’s the first subsection, and it’s the first recipe!”

    “Here,” murmured Seventy-Seven, turning to the indicated recipe.

    “But it says here,” objected a voice from the crowd, “‘First cut your meat into bite-size pieces.’”

    “Depending on how big your bite might be,” replied BrTl kindly. “These bites here, they’re more Su’s size.”

    “Ye-es...”

    “We already cut them up,” said Su, smiling. “We just wanted to save a bit of time. Is that what you were wondering, humanoid? –Sorry, don’t know your name.”

    “Riffan Morthiwell,” said the male humanoid voice meekly.

    “From Willunia,” spotted BrTl. “Um... cognate name second, right?”

    “Yes, Commander BrTl. My personal name is Riffan,” he said politely. “I do understand about the bite-size pieces that you’ve already cut up, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you would have cut up to produce the pieces.”

    “Grpplybeast meat,” replied BrTl blankly.

    Grpplybeast meat! most of the crowd was agreeing.

    Seventy-Seven began: He doesn’t—

    But Su said quickly: “I see, Riffan. The thing is, when the butcher slaughters a grpplybeast—or if you’re on a farm the farmer usually does it—when they slaughter it, then they take the skin off and cut it up, and that makes the meat. And we used, like, a big thick slice, didn’t we, BrTl?”

    “Oh! Right! Yes, a nice slice off its flank, most beings’d call that a steak.”

    “So you cut up a steak in order to produce these pieces?” he said limply.

    “Yes. Turn over to the next recipe and it’ll tell you how to cook it not cut up,” said BrTl kindly.

    A riffling noise rippled through the crowd as everyone turned over.

    “It seems a lot of meat,” murmured Seventy-Seven.

    Oh dear. Thwurbullerians were not carnivores, of course. “Yes, many humanoid diets do tend to include a lot of meat,” said Vt R’aam Thirty-Two. “You know,” he murmured, “if you’d rather do something else, Seventy-Seven, I’d be very glad to find you—”

    “No, no,” it said quickly: “I’m quite happy to be doing this.”

    “Oh, good.” He knew that it had been offered a place on the last shuttle to New Jishowulla, the Third Galaxy’s Thwurbullerian world, but had given it up to two much younger affines, together weighing about as much as it did. Whether New Whtyll was going to be able to feed it was a moot point. They were raising a small amount of mwopplell, the staple Thwurbullerian food: it grew well under the same conditions as desert lemonberries. Currently the crop was being put aside for those Thwurbullerians who for one reason or another had been unable to get off the planet, but if there was a sugar shortage it might have to go into the general planetary supply instead.

    “I’m eating a lot of quoshy,” the Thwurbullerian murmured. “Very nourishing. Quite a good substitute for mwopplell.”

    It’d say that anyway. Vt R’aam Thirty-Two didn’t attempt to probe it, he just nodded and smiled.

    Meanwhile several beings more closely acquainted with the uses of grpplybeast meat were kindly attempting to demonstrate to the Willunian, both verbally and with the benefit of mind pictures, just how you cubed a piece of meat in order to grill it over your little fire... Who in Federation was he, anyway?

    Captain Morthiwell. He captained the last PBTT to land here, Seventy-Seven explained.

    Vt R’aam’s Thirty-Two’s jaw dropped. What?

    Yes. He said he wanted to be useful and this is what they assigned him to. I don’t think the being who interviewed him asked him the right questions, it added tranquilly, but never mind, he’s bought a large rhoofer and trained it to let him ride on it, so he’ll be able to cover quite a lot of ground.

    No, well, presumably the same asteroid-headed being had also interviewed Seventy-Seven! ...And it was all very well to say every being was contributing what they could—he could feel the Thwurbullerian thinking it—but from what little he knew about Willunia, he’d say that the being’s question was a very fair indicator of exactly how much he’d know about the way ordinary beings lived—in the two galaxies, let alone the Third!

    The demonstrations continued, most beings listening respectfully and not voicing any queries they might have—though Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was picking up the fact that many of them were uncertain about quite a lot of things. Fortunately he didn’t have to raise them: BrTl seemed to be picking them up. After a bit it dawned. The Willunian was, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was fairly sure, genuinely blank on some of the many points he raised, but in addition he was also monitoring the crowd and voicing those queries that BrTl missed!

    Yes, Seventy-Seven agreed. I was going to do it myself, to tell you the truth, but he seems quite happy to. Er, would a mansion be a large house, like this one of Leader Vt R’aam’s?

    Yes, replied the ex-clone weakly. Why, Seventy-Seven?

    I had afternoon tea with the being quite recently—we’re staying in the same lodging house—and he referred to his senior cognates’ home on Willunia as “the mansion.” I did get a picture of a large building something like this but without the, er... verandahs?

    This statement raised so many points that Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was barely capable of replying to it. For Federation’s sake! There was only one lodging house left in New Z’therabad with rooms large enough to accommodate a Thwurbullerian—the others, surplus to requirements now that most of the affines had been evacuated, had been turned into warehouses—and it was inconceivable that any humanoid would be comfortable in its echoing, draughty spaces!

    Uh—yes, he managed to reply. A mansion is a large house. And “verandahs” is correct.

    Thank you. –A wealthy, er, cognate group, then. –I do beg your pardon, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two: I’ve forgotten the humanoid word. I do know that “cognate group” isn't correct. But they're not affines, of course.

    No, he replied, doing his best to pull himself together. You mean his family, Seventy-Seven.

    It waggled its frontal lobes politely. Thank you.

    At the conclusion of the demonstrations BrTl said briskly: “Right, that’s it. You’ve got your orders. Everybody clear? –Good. Day after tomorrow those on List 1 set off for your assigned districts. Any being that’s lost their map go and stand over there.”

    The crowd shuffled but no being admitted it had lost its map.

    “Um, hang on,” said Su on a weak note. “All he means is, if you have lost it, we can give you another one. No-one’s gonna be cross, we’re all sentient beings. And, um, I think maybe the humanoid who was asking lots of questions—sorry, I’ve forgotten your name—yes, you—and all you younger xathpyroid cognates, you as well, you better come and talk to me a bit more, okay? And anybody else that’d like to ask me anything.”

    There was quite a bit of shuffling and hesitation but eventually two humanoids, two lorpoids, and three mature xathpyroids, all emanating feelings of foolishness, went over to the spot appointed by BrTl, and Captain Morthiwell and six young xathpyroids joined Su.

    “Would you care to have afternoon tea with me, Seventy-Seven?” asked Vt R’aam Thirty-Two.

    It looked uneasily at the house. “Er, well, thank you, Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, that would be most pleasant. But the mansion isn’t to Thwurbullerian scale.”

    It was right: many of the rooms were large enough to accommodate a mature xathpyroid, but hardly a Thwurbullerian. “We have a pleasant sheltered courtyard outside our offices: I thought, out there? We often have afternoon tea there.”

    “Delightful,” it accepted, emanating pleasure.

    He wasn’t too sure, as it surged off slowly in the indicated direction, that BrTl didn’t spot him in the shelter of its bulk, but Su didn’t—phew!

    “It was amusing, on one level, wasn’t it?” Seventy-Seven agreed, settling itself comfortably in the courtyard.

    “Very!” Vt R’aam Thirty-Two admitted.

    “But on another, most informative and, given its audience, pitched at the right level, I thought.”

    His eyes twinkled but he agreed quite sincerely: “Indeed.”

    Back on the lawn Su had sat down—cross-legged, like a Whtyllian clone, the Willunian saw, swallowing a smile—and was carefully sorting out the young xathpyroids’ misconceptions. With some lapsing, Riffan Morthiwell registered with considerable amusement, into Slaetho-Xathpyrian.

    “So we gotta know about cooking up hu?” concluded one, KrZl, sadly.

    “Not how to do the ackshual recipe, KrZl, just that there’s a recipe in the book, goddit?”

    “Goddit,” he allowed.

    “See, once we’ve taken them through the basic bits, like what BrTl was saying, the fundamentals, they can work out the other recipes for themselves,” another xathpyroid explained helpfully.

    That’s right! they all agreed, Su included. Riffan very nearly lost his cool.

    “Er—yes, that is correct,” he agreed quickly, as Su was looking at him hard.

    “Good. Tell you what,” she decided, “I think you all better have a go at lighting a fire, ’cos see, that’s the most important bit, really.”

    “Most fundamental,” amended the xathpyroid who’d used the word “fundamentals”.

    “Yes, she’s right,” Su informed the rest of them pleasedly. –How in Federation had she picked up the fact that this xathpyroid was female-tended? Or, er, did she perhaps already know her? They all looked exactly the same to Riffan, inside as well as out!

    Culture-pod cognates! five of them broadcast, and he jumped ten IG fluh where he stood.

    “Yeah, they are,” Su agreed aloud. “Not BrPl, of course,” she added, smiling at a rather smaller one who, apart from his size, didn’t seem any different to Riffan.

    BrPl sat down on the lawn, emanating friendliness. “Nah. –Siddown, humanoid. I can do a fire, I’ve helped First Cook a megazillion times.”

    Limply Captain Morthiwell sank down onto the lawn next to him. He had very little baggage with him—on his ship he’d of course been in the Line’s uniform and used the recycler to freshen it up. And although the stuff was quite sturdy, his pale grey uniform pants were starting to show signs of wear, and he didn’t feel they needed grass stains as well.

    The grass isn’t wet! they all sent kindly—help, even Su!

    “I’m sorry, was I broadcasting?” he said weakly. “It’s just that I’ve only got two pairs of pants.”

    “You need Durocloth coveralls,” said BrPl kindly.—They were certainly all in them, yes. Service greige. Even Su, though hers were considerably brightened up by the addition of a large, tight sash in shades of acid yellow and screaming puce.—“Hey, tell ya what, you could take him down the recycling shops after, eh, BrSu?”

    “Good idea,” Su agreed, kneeling up. “Come on, KrVv, you better be first. We’ve got the stuff, but when you go out to your districts you’ll prolly have to tell the settlers to get out and find some, okay?”

    “Yes, got that,” agreed the female-tended xathpyroid who’d grasped the usage of  “fundamentals.” She made a little pile in the approved manner—Riffan knew it must be: they were all emanating approval, especially Su—and struck a m— Oops, no!

    “Rhoofer shit!” she gasped. “Tricky things, eh?”

    Riffan chewed his lip a bit. The “matches” were reasonably large: presumably the makers had taken into account the fact that beings of several sizes would have to manipulate them, but young xathpyroids, it now appeared, were not particularly dextrous.

    It took some time but eventually all five of them had lit a fire.

    “Yeah, I know you can do it,” Su assured BrPl cheerfully. “Come on, humanoid, your turn!”

    “Riffan,” the sophisticated Captain Morthiwell reminded her meekly. Young female humanoids generally didn’t have any trouble at all in remembering his name. Not to say, in throwing themselves at him. Presumably he was losing his touch—getting old.

    “Right, Riffan—sorry!” she said cheerfully. “Do you usually use your right or your left front appendage to do stuff?”

    He swallowed. “Right. I’m right-handed.”

    “Okay, now this is the tricky bit. You gotta remember to hold this little thingo, like it’s the box you keep them in, but the engineers call it the striker as well, in your other appendage.”

    Left! they all broadcast.

    “Yes, left,” said Su seriously. “Go on.” She watched critically as Riffan took the striker and/or container in his left hand, extracted a match therefrom, and struck it on the indicated material on the thing’s surface.

    “Mok shit!” he gasped as the flame died before he could apply it to the little pile of dry grass.

    “That’s all right, ya done good, ya struck it real good,” she said kindly.

    His handsome humanoid face flushed. “Space garbage, Lady Su.”

    “Just Su—or BrSu, if ya like. No, ya did: it’s the bit after the striking ya haven’t quite got.”

    “Steady but quick,” one of the xathpyroids reminded him a-grammatically but accurately.

    Taking a deep breath, Riffan prepared to strike another “match”—where had they got that word from?—and transfer the flame steady but quick to the dry grass...

    Eventually he got it, everybody cheered—by this time the sophisticated Captain Morthiwell was pretty well wishing he could sink through Leader Vt R’aam’s beautiful Whtyllian grass lawn and disappear—and BrPl led the young xathpyroids off to afternoon tea somewhere in the back regions.

    “They’re gonna con cake out of First Cook Kadry,” Su explained. “At least, that’s what they think, but acksherly, she’s expecting them, she’s done some baking special for them!”

    “Yuh—uh—but she couldn’t know how many to expect, surely?”

    “Nah, but see, she knew that them five culture-pod cognates—they’re stuck over here on the northern continent—they’d volunteered to be deliverers!”

    “Right,” he said very weakly indeed.

    “And BrPl’s staying with us. He came over to go to school.”

    “Oh, I see! So you know him very well?”

    “Mm. He’s a bit young to be a deliverer, only Mum said, let him do it, if he’s keen. See, he can do some of the areas round the city about as far out as us, it’ll free up bigger and stronger beings to do the ones further out. And he’ll only do it after school.”

    Riffan nodded weakly.

    “So how you gonna get out to your district, Riffan?”

    She did have a low opinion of his capabilities, didn’t she? He explained about his rhoofer.

    “You sure it’ll obey you?”

    His wide mouth twisted in a wry grimace. “Put it like this, I'm Vvlvanian-cursed sure that I can control its three legs and what passes for its brain better than it can—so, yes.”

    “Oh, right, so you’re the sort of being that can read beings’ insides, and like, make their minds tell their legs and that what to do?”

    “Uh—yes,” he allowed.

    “Mum can do that, too. Can you stick beings back together?”

    The verbal message was unclear but the mind picture wasn’t. “Federation! Uh—I’ve never tried. Well, it’s just a matter of seizing the internal structure of the being’s mind and musculature, really, isn’t it? I dare say I could perform first-aid on my rhoofer at need, without benefit of blobs.”

    “It’d have to be, the blobs have been doing some real weird rhoofer shit lately. Like, Vt R’aam Twenty-Four, he’s our head gardener, he was trying to use a blob to mend a fence the other day and it didn’t do nothing to the fence, but it dug a hole. Well, like made a hole. Like suddenly there was a hole in his bean field, geddit? About yay wide,” she said, holding her arms apart as far as she could—considerably less than two IG spans. Riffan’s eyes twinkled but he said seriously enough: “That’s bad. How deep was it?”

    “Not deep, thank the Federation, but heck! When ya think what it mighta done! So Mum ordered absolutely no blobs and she’s made every being on the estate dump their blobs in a shed. And if they start to stink, well, good, it’ll mean the Vvlvanian-cursed things are dead, eh?”

    “Mm. So—so you’re not using blobs here at all, now?”

    “Not on the estate—nope!”

    “No,” he said on a wistful note. “I do have a comm-blob... It was working last time I tested it but I don’t know anyone here, really. Well, I am acquainted with the two Thwurbullerians at my lodging house. And the lodging-house keeper, of course. She’s a Belraynian.”

    He had expected that her reaction to this intel might the same as he’d picked up from Deputy Leader Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, but no: “Oh, right, you staying at C.P.O. Romnoshed’s place? It’s nice and roomy, it used to be run by a Thwurbullerian but it’s gone home to New Jishowulla.”

    “Mm. Well, they’re all pleasant beings but I see them every day, there’d be no point in using my comm-blob to contact them.”

    “Nah,” the New Whtyllian agreed comfortably. “I’d forget about it, if I was you.”

    It and the last vestiges of his former life—mm.

    “So, ya wanna come and have afternoon tea?” she asked cheerfully, scrambling up before he could gather his wits, get up and offer her his hand.

    Riffan stood up hurriedly. “Er, that’s very kind, Lady Su, but I wouldn’t like to intrude.”

    “You won’t be intruding, this is New Whtyll! And call me Su,” she reminded him. “Then we can go into town and get you a Durocloth coverall,” she added comfortably.

    His afternoon schedule seemed to be set, didn’t it? Not that he minded! She was one of the prettiest girls he’d seen in a long time. Willunians were generally light-skinned, though they took a tan easily, and the more yellowy skin tones of most of the Whtyllian humanoids here didn’t really appeal—though he’d seen some very handsome older women. –Of a much more suitable age for him than Su, who was young enough to be his daughter, Riffan reflected drily, allowing her to lead him off in search of afternoon tea. Su’s skin was quite pale and she had very pink cheeks and lovely ruffled, short black curls. And dimples when she smiled—he’d always been unable to resist that in a female mammalian humanoid, Federation knew why!

    He was expecting—well, he wasn’t quite sure what, but perhaps to meet Captain Lady Smt Wong Vt R’aam at afternoon tea? Or even Lord Vt R’aam himself? But no: Su took him into what at home would have been a stable block—okay, turned into offices—and introduced him to two strange young beings, not to be anything-ist, who were her workmates, and two very good-looking friymanoids. In fact beautiful, in the case of the fair-haired Hallikalli.

    “Father said we’d better make ourselves useful,” the lad, Brtelli explained with a grin, “so we thought we’d combine our ignorance and deliver recipe books together! Hallikalli’s riding’s improved tremendously, you’d swear her and that Vvlvanian-cursed rhoofer are in a mind-symb!”

    “He’s waiting for us to emanate shock and horror at that expression,” Su informed them dispassionately. “See, it hasn’t dawned yet that no-one here gives a cptt-rvvr’s fart what he says. Well, Dad prolly would, only he’s not gonna say it in front of him, you can betcha Space Issue boots!”

    Promptly the greenish-brown Rollo and the pale greenish-yellow, pink-crested Blndry collapsed in delighted splutters, closely followed by the boy’s sister, who clapped her hand to her mouth in what to the Willunian was a delightfully feminine little gesture.

    “I’m not going to emanate anything, either,” said Riffan conversationally to the boy, and Su also collapsed in splutters.

    Brtelli grinned feebly. “No, all right, I give in.” He looked sideways at Riffan. ’Tis colourful here, yeah.

    Ignoring that completely, Riffan said politely: “So, what do you usually drink for afternoon tea, here? At the lodging house we usually just have spring water.”

    The young beings all emanated pity and Rollo said quickly: “I often bring in some moow, only we usually have that for morning tea. But there's always zi, the tea trolley’ll be here in a minute, you could have that.”

    “I’m sorry, I’m not acquainted with zi,” said Riffan simply.

    “So where are you from, again, Riffan?” asked Blndry.

    Captain Morthiwell repressed an urge to lick his lips uneasily. “Willunia. Though I have travelled quite widely in the two galaxies.”

    “Right. Think zi’s from Bluellia, originally—that right, Su?”

    Su nodded hard. “Mm. First Cook usually does it hot, but you can always get it cold downtown.”

    “Yeah,” Blndry agreed. “Dunno where Bluellia is, mind you, but Su’s mum’s from there!”

    Brtelli took pity on the being. “It’s rather like Friyrian veenikk tea, Riffan. Made from the dried leaves of a small bush.”

    “We’ve planted some on our farm,” added Hallikalli, smiling shyly at him. “And veenikk seeds, too, Mother brought a packet because Father’s very fond of the tea, but it’ll be some years before we can harvest the leaves.”

    “I see—thank you. I am familiar with veenikk tea, in fact I’m very fond of it.”

    “Mm,” noted Brtelli drily, lapsing from the pitying stance. “When I said rather like it, I meant generically. Many beings not of Bluellian descent or raised with the stuff loathe zi.”

    “I'd like to try it,” he said firmly—Su was about to offer him grqwaries’ milk.

    “Mother’s sent over some little pastries for you all,” said Hallikalli, producing a packet of something.

    “Friyrian,” warned Brtelli laconically.

    “No, this is a Gr’mmeayan recipe. They’re very tasty,” she assured them.

    In spite of himself, Riffan’s jaw had sagged: Gr’mmeaya was a closed world!

    “Long story,” said Brtelli laconically.

    “I’m sorry,” said his sister quickly. “We’re used to the idea. Mother went there once, you see, and she’s always been very interested in recipes, she used to be a Third Cook.”

    “Yeah, we know,” agreed Rollo. “Only I never heard of this Gr’mmeaya place—’ve you, Blndry?”

    “Nope!” said the part-Nblyterian girl cheerfully. “’Ve you, Su?”

    “Only when Dohra said it—that’s their mum, Riffan,” she added kindly. “She knows quite a few of their recipes but they’re all quite hard, so we didn’t put them in the book.”

    “I see,” he said very limply indeed. What did these Third Galaxy kids learn at Second School, for Federation’s sake?

    “Er—Su, I may have misread you, but didn’t you actually meet one of the grandchildren of the present ruler of Gr’mmeaya when you were on Booj’lly?” murmured Brtelli.

    “Could of, yeah, I met lots of beings,” she replied with complete indifference.

    “So much for the two galaxies and all their works!” said Brtelli with relish to the stranger in their midst.

    “Stop teasing him, you Intergalactic blob-head, he can’t help not knowing stuff here,” Su reproved him. “And you were loads worse at first.”

    “Yes, we were almost completely at a loss,” Hallikalli agreed quickly.

    Sweet, wasn’t she? Riffan smiled at her. “Mm, it takes a while to get used to new places and new customs.”

    “Yes,” she said, nodding that lovely silvery-fair head. “But now I’ve got my darling Shoo-Shoo, and of course Noble Grey, I’m much, much happier!”

    “Shoo-Shoo is her plasmo-blasted pet Loogher, don’t start wondering about the name, that way only leads to Mullgon’ya,” sighed her brother. “Blue, if that’s significant. And guess what Noble Grey is?” he added brightly.

    “Her rhoofer, we all read that, ya blob-head,” said Blndry in a bored voice. “Come on, I can hear the trolley!”

    Hallikalli’s lovely oval cheeks wore a blue flush. “He’s really beautiful!” she said on a cross note to Riffan, as the other young people hurried out.

    Mm, so was she. Pity she wasn’t rather older and a little more sophisticated. “Yes, I can see your picture of him: he’s one of the handsomest rhoofers I’ve ever seen,” he said kindly. “My own one’s rather a dull brown, I'm afraid.”

    “What do you call him, Riffan?” she asked shyly.

    Ouch! “Just ‘Rhoofer,’ I’m afraid.”

    “That’s all right, they all know that word!” she assured him.

    Really? He hadn’t noticed it. But he smiled nicely and nodded, ushering her out politely.

    The tea trolley—why the kids hadn't mentioned the fact, Federation only knew—also offered Whtyllian-style sandwiches and a selection of small buns or cakes.

    “Cress sandwiches?” he asked, smiling at the ex-clone in charge of the trolley.

    “No, the cress was over months back. These are hotter-and-hotter leaves, sir.”

    Oh, mok shit. The horrible things were a staple of the diet at C.P.O. Romnoshed’s lodging house. Riffan ate out as much as possible but he was running out of igs.

    “I don’t like them, either,” said Su kindly. “They’re one of Mum’s mad ideas. And don’t touch them other ones, they’re blue endive, that’s horrible as well. Have a bun: these ones are savoury and those ones are sweet.”

    Gratefully he took a savoury one.

    As it turned out Hallikalli’s fried pastries were also savoury, and the Bluellian zi was quite palatable. It was, in fact, a very pleasant afternoon tea!

    “No, really,” he said weakly, as Hallikalli urged the last fried savoury on him.

    “Go on, we can all feel you’re still hungry. What in the three galaxies you been living off at that lodging house?” asked Su with a frown.

    “Er—well, it’s nourishing, if not terribly tasty... Well, thank you, I will.” Gratefully he bit it into it. He chewed and swallowed. Delicious! “Your mother is a wonderful cook. Please convey my compliments to her,” he said formally to the friymanoid girl.

    She smiled and nodded, but didn’t say anything, as Su was pursuing crossly: “What?”

    “Uh—it’s mostly a soup of hu grain and vegetables, and, er, lots of hotter-and-hotter leaf salads. Plain hu mush for breakfast.”

    Brtelli took a deep breath. “Look, pardon the impertinence, sir, but are you running out of igs?”

    Riffan flushed. “I’m all right, thank you, Brtelli.”

    The young people looked at him limply. Finally Blndry said: “He doesn’t understand. Go on, Su.”

    Cheerfully Su explained about the free soup kitchens set up after the “plasmo-blasted” blobs started dying. Nah, anyone could turn up, of course you didn’t have to prove you were broke!

    “It isn’t all soup, Riffan,” added Hallikalli shyly. “Only it’s popular, and easy to cook, and you can keep it simmering all day, you see.”

    Oh, mok shit, had he been broadcasting? “I see,” said Captain Morthiwell weakly.

    “Come on, we’ll go into town, we can show you the nearest one to your lodging house, and take you to the recycling boutiques as well!” beamed Su.

    “Um, we better not come, eh, Blndry?” admitted Rollo.

    “Nor had I: Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam herself monitors us transcribers,” noted Brtelli ruefully, getting up.

    “I’ll come, Mother doesn’t need me, and the more riding Noble Grey and I do the better,” said Hallikalli.

    “Oh, Federation: so yours forgets what it’s learned, too, does it?” cried Riffan.

    “Well, more or less, yes. You have to, um, reinforce it all the time.”

    And with that they were off.

    That evening Riffan found himself telling the sympathetic Seventy-Seven the lot.

    The affine waggled its frontal lobes slightly. “I see! So, did you eat at the soup kitchen, may I ask, Riffan?”

    “Well, yes: I had such a strong feeling that I’d be checked up on,” he murmured.

    It choked. “Indeed! They are very well-meaning young beings, of course.”

    “Yes,” he agreed, smiling. “In fact the food was very tasty, though rather hot.”

    “Hot and spicy: yes, I know. Not suited to the Thwurbullerian metabolism, but I find the little street stalls here quite fascinating. I think most of the dishes would be those eaten by the poorer classes on Whtyll.”

    Riffan had visited Whtyll several times and the lordships and ladyships who’d entertained him had offered intricately spiced dishes, some very hot, true, but many extraordinarily delicate. There had been one dish, composed of a white grain with some kind of pale poultry meat, served decorated with excruciatingly thin pieces of silver leaf, that had been out of this universe. “Mm. There were two main dishes on offer, both very liquid stews, one for vegetarians and one for carnivores, so I had the latter, as the being serving assured me that they had, er, ‘loads of meat.’”

    “Yes, the New Whtyllians have established large herds of grpplybeasts.”

    He was glad to hear it—he’d been afraid that he was eating one of his rhoofer’s relatives! “Good. I couldn’t tell what meat it was, for the spices, vegetables, and grains or pulses which had been added. It was served with plain boiled hu. And I was also given a vegetable side dish. I’m afraid I don’t know what it was, Seventy-Seven.” He sent it a picture of it.

    “I think that’s the dish called ‘all’gob’hee.’ It combines a curd-head with dirt-bolos.”

    “A Whtyllian name,” he discerned limply.

    “Yes. You will see curd-heads and dirt-bolos on the fresh produce stalls,” it assured him tranquilly.

    No doubt, if he went and looked. Oh, for the Thwurbullerian’s capacity for that combination of intellectual curiosity and psychological tranquillity!

    “And those are the new Durocloth coveralls, are they?” it murmured.

    “Yes. The young people insisted I get into them, and took my other clothes to clean them.”

    It gave a cautious waggle of its frontal lobes. “That was very kind. But I think I should warn you that it will almost undoubtedly be manual washing.”

    Riffan was blank for a moment, and then he got it. “You mean they may not survive it? I see. Thank you, Seventy-Seven,” he said with a weak smile. “Forewarned is forearmed.”

    “It does take time to adjust to a different way of life, I find,” it said kindly.

    “Yes, but— Never mind.” He smothered a yawn. “Excuse me. As a matter of fact I think I might get off to bed— Was there something?” he asked in surprise.

    “I’m afraid this might be an imposition, Riffan,” said the large being with an apologetic waggle of its frontal lobes, “but C.P.O. Romnoshed and I were wondering if you might help us tomorrow with the well.”

    He looked at it blankly.

    “Oh, dear,” said the Thwurbullerian. “It’s the hole in the back yard where the water comes from. Most of the older dwellings here have them, they’re a pioneer-world thing. There’s a bucket in which one pulls it up. It’s attached to a rope, which needs replacing, and—”

    “I see!” he smiled, suddenly getting the full picture. “Of course I’ll help you tie the rope on! Glad to.”

    “Thank you, Riffan,” it replied politely. “Goodnight, then.”

    Riffan bade it goodnight and went to bed, smiling. It was a mere accident of physiology, of course: Thwurbullerians and Belraynians were not very dextrous; but somehow he felt much, much better about the whole bit!

    Over breakfast next morning the quiet, shy Hallikalli astonished her parents’ household by announcing calmly: “I think I’ll pop into town this morning and see Riffan. I’ve washed his clothes: they didn’t come through it very well, but I’ll give them to him and try to persuade him to take them to a recycling shop and swap them for something he can wear straight away.”

    Her siblings just sat there with their mouths agape. Quickly Dohra said: “That’d be nice, darling. He sounds like a pleasant man.”

    “Yes,” agreed Ccrainchzzyllia firmly, sending his son a minatory mind message.

    Hallikalli got up. “Please excuse me, Mother and Father. –Mother, may I take Riffan a few fruits?”

    Dohra jumped. “Yes, of course! And there are some new hu-flour cookies in the big pottery jar,” she added, rallying: “Take those, too, Hallikalli.”

    “Thank you, Mother,” she said calmly. “See you all later.” And with that she walked out.

    “That’s that, then,” said Brtelli at last into the numbed silence. “Think I’d better find someone else to do my recipe-book deliveries with! But I must say, if the fellow was under anybody’s mammalian thumb, I had the impression it was Su’s.”

    “The mammalian mating instinct is stronger than you knew, dearest offspring,” said his father kindly.

    “Yes,” Dohra agreed faintly. “I just hope the man reciprocates.”

    “Will he have the choice?” returned Brtelli drily, getting up. “Excuse me, Mother and Father. I’d better rush on over to the Vt R’aams’ and put Su in the picture.”

    The door closed behind him.

    “I didn’t think Su seemed that keen, from what he told me,” said Jhlelli dubiously.

    “Er—from the mind-pictures, I’d say she’d more or less assumed he was—well, as your brother said, pretty much under her thumb,” replied her father. “It’s akin to the maternal instinct, my dear: also very strong in the mammalian female.”

    “Yes,” agreed Dohra. “Su is the sort that likes to manage people. And he does look very attractive.”

    “Old, though, Mother,” said Jhlelli dubiously.

    “I was thinking that!” burst out Wessy Kally.

    “Too old for Hallikalli, you mean?” Dohra’s eyes began to twinkle. “Well, such combinations aren’t exactly unknown in this family!” She collapsed in giggles.

    Jhlelli’s and Wessy Kally’s eyes met. They smiled weakly at each other. Phew! At least Mother was taking it okay!

    Su was in the office with Blndry and Rollo, so Brtelli perforce broke the bad news in front of them.

    She went very red. “Eh?”

    The other two were gaping, stunned. Not realising this was largely because Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was now standing silently in the doorway behind him, Brtelli admitted glumly: “Well, yeah. We never knew she had it in her, either. But I’d say he’s a decent enough—”

    “I was gonna go over an’ sort him out today, she knew that!” she cried angrily.

    “Father reckons it’s the mammalian mating instinct,” Brtelli explained awkwardly.

    “Rhoofer shit!” shouted Su.

    “Su—” began Blndry very faintly.

    Vt R’aam Thirty-Two was feeling quite as stunned as any of the young people, but he managed more or less to pull himself together. “It’s all right, Blndry. She can see me.”

    Brtelli swung round with a gasp.

    “I’d say your respected father was right, Brtelli,” he said mildly.

    “It’s none of your BUSINESS!” shouted Su.

    “No, apparently not. There’s some more copying ready, if one of you would like to pop in and get it.” And with that he vanished again.

    “Um, Su, you didn’t really fancy Riffan, did you?” ventured Rollo uneasily. “I mean, he’s nice, I guess, but quite old—”

    “Shut UP!” she screamed, bursting into violent tears. She got up and, shoving Brtelli viciously out of the way, rushed out.

    “Rhoofer shit,” muttered poor Rollo.

    Blndry got up, sighing. “Big mouth.” She came over to Brtelli. “You okay?”

    “Yeah. These desks of yours are plasmo-blasted solid,” he admitted, rubbing his thigh.

    “Don’t worry,” the part-Nblyterian girl assured him kindly: “she hadda know. And better to hear it now than go downtown and make a fool of herself, eh?”

    “What I thought,” he admitted, smiling ruefully.

    Blndry of course had read that, no sweat. Why the friymanoid imagined he could shield stuff from her and Rollo, Federation alone knew. “Yep. –Hey, I got a new volunteer for ya. She’s, like, my cousin. She’s never done no office work or nothing, straight out of Second School, but Su’s mum did say they’d need a replacement for you, eh?”

    “Sure. Where is she?” he asked, looking round for something part-Nblyterian.

    “Sent her over to the house.”

    By herself? Poor little being! Smiling a little, Brtelli headed for the mansion.

    “There you are, Brtelli,” said Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam mildly as he came into the big room. “This is Fallon, Blndry’s second cousin.”

    His jaw dropped. Fallon had pale pink hair, but otherwise you’d have said she was fully humanoid! She was like a—a pretty little doll!

    Jhl watched in some amusement as he fell all over himself to be kind and helpful to little Fallon, and to get her started with some simple transcribing. Well—simple. At the moment most of them were working on descriptions, mostly from their Trffified Encyclopaedia, but some from text-blobs the members of the Expedition Fleet had brought with them, of primmo methods of creating cloth. And a luckless few had got primmo methods of creating footwear, subsequently making the discovery that a megazillion and two other techniques were involved, there: tanning being only one. Nail-making (hence, forging), wood-carving, fabrication of implements for hole-punching...

    “Buh-beat the bark?” the poor little being faltered.

    “Might be the blob gone wrong. Let’s see,” said Brtelli helpfully, bending over her very close. “Um.... No, think that’s right, actually. Pity there isn’t a picture to go with it. Well, yes, better write it out, Fallon, there are lots of trees here, it could be useful.”

    Jhl left them to it, smiling to herself. His parents could stop worrying about Brtelli, that was pretty obvious! Well, he hadn’t yet said: “We’ve got lots of trees here,” but give the being time!

    Ten minutes or so later he tapped on the open door of her office and asked if he could speak to her. Something on his mind, clearly. Jhl could just have looked, but on the whole it didn’t do young beings any harm to have to stick their necks out.

    “Something to report?” she said mildly.

    A little to her surprise, he spoke up. Well, good! The being was growing up, at last.

    “I see,” she said at the end of the saga of Su, Hallikalli and the Willunian. “Thanks for letting me know, Brtelli. Forewarned, eh?”

    “Yes, that’s what I thought,” he agreed with a relieved smile. He now knew what it must have felt like to be a very junior being on Captain Smt Wong Vt R’aam’s former ship, having to face her with—well, anything, really!

    Jhl was about to tell him kindly to leave it with her when he burst out: “Captain, may I ask you something?”

    “Sure. Shoot.”

    “Shoo—oh, yes,” he said, essaying a weak smile. “Um, well, I thought—I mean, we all did! Um, all of us younger beings,” he amended weakly, “that, um, that it was Vt R’aam Thirty-Two that Su wanted.”

    “All of us older beings as well,” replied Jhl calmly.

    He sagged. “Right. Um, well, so, um, how could she— I mean, does that mean that she—she’s cooled off, or— I mean, I don’t think we were imagining that she fancied Riffan. Well, um, Father agreed when I said I thought she seemed to feel the man was pretty much under her mammalian th—opposable digit!” he gasped in correct Intergalactic. “But, um...”

    Jhl took pity on him. “It’s not impossible for a female mammalian humanoid to fancy two men at once, is that what you were wondering?”

    “Yes!” he gasped gratefully.

    “Mm. Look, it happens especially, as far as my observation goes, when the male being that the female really wants is ignoring her. Otherwise, I don’t say she wouldn’t feel an attraction, but it wouldn’t go any further than that.” She hesitated. Was this gonna put the being off little Fallon? Well, if it did, it’d show he didn’t have any backbone, and the kid was better off without him! “And Su’s grown up on a pioneer world. Never mind the two galaxies and their plasmo-blasted blobs, all the settlers and their offspring have lived for years with the idea that reproduction, and hence sex, is highly desirable. Uh—not quite the right word,” she recognised on a weak note. “Well, to be encouraged, and the idea of holding back just doesn’t exist here.”

    Brtelli swallowed.  “I see. Thank you, Captain.”

    “She’ll probably sulk for a while,” said Su’s mother cheerfully. “Had her own way too long, too, that’s a factor. Not used to not getting what she wants. But fundamentally she still wants Vt R’aam Thirty-Two, I’m quite sure of it.” He was nodding but emanating doubt. “And I’m plasmo-blasted sure he wants her, but as to why he won’t make a move, don’t ask me,” she said with a sigh. “All right?”

    He nodded hard. “Yes, that makes it very clear.”

    “Mm. Not easy, being dumped on a completely new planet. That it? –Good. Dismissed.”

    Feeling he ought to salute, Brtelli tottered out.

    Jhl didn’t realise she’d just spoken to him as if he was a very young sub-lieutenant: she was revolving ways and means of imparting this latest little gem in the Su and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two saga to Shan so as he wouldn’t explode...

    Three days later Vt R’aam Forty-Nine appeared in the doorway of her office, emanating butlerliness to the Nth degree. “Madam Captain,”—where in the Known Universe had the being got that one from?—“Madam Dohra is here and wishes to see you.”

    Jhl managed not to shout at him, but only just. “Then show her in. And for future reference, Vt R’aam Forty-Nine, always show her straight in. Clear?”

    “Yes, Mistress,” he agreed, bowing.

    Breathing heavily, Jhl waited.

    Vt R’aam Forty-Nine reappeared, bowing. “Madam Dohra, respected Mistress,” he announced.

    Dohra came in, looking nervous. “I’m awfully sorry if I’m interrupting—”

    “You’re not interrupting me, and I’ve just ordered him to show you straight in, in future. –Dismissed!” she snapped, incapable of thanking the plasmo-blasted being.

    Vt R’aam Forty-Nine disappeared, thoughtfully closing the door behind him, unasked.

    “I see,” said Dohra sympathetically. “He’s driving you to Mullgon’ya, is he?”

    “In quintupled 5-D triangles!” groaned Jhl. “Siddown, Dohra, it’s great to see you. How’s it going over at Silver Rhoofer Farm?”

    Dohra sat down, smiling weakly. The name had been a joke of Brtelli’s. Hallikalli had thought that “Noble Grey Farm” would be nice, but had been scoffed at by her siblings. Wessy Kally had then pointed out that a silvery-grey coat characterised most of the rhoofers in their little district, and Jhlelli, collapsing in giggles, had gasped: “Noble Silver Farm!” Brtelli had pointed out drily that this was obscure, and suggested, sniggering, “Noble Silver Rhoofers’ Valley Farm.” Unfortunately Hallikalli had thought this was lovely, and even Jhlelli had visibly been tempted. Poor Ccrainchzzyllia had had to put his foot down: the use of the word “noble” would be quite inappropriate. The brilliant Brtelli had then decided sardonically that “Silver Rhoofer Farm” couldn’t possibly offend any being, except perhaps the rhoofers—was there even a Loogher word for “silver?”—and had been horribly disconcerted when his sisters had all seized on it as just right.

    “It is quite a nice name, and it’s better than ‘Po-Goose Estate’, the other one the girls fancied. That was another of Brtelli’s—” She broke off, as Jhl had collapsed in giggles.

    “He’s not all bad, you know,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Growing up, I think, Dohra.”

    “Yes, we think so, too!” beamed Dohra. “He told us how he faced up to you.”

    “Captain’s Report, eh?” said Jhl, grinning.

    She nodded, but conceded: “Well, not quite, he hadn’t done anything wrong, but for a being that’s had a very easy life, it was pretty good.”

    Jhl looked at her with immense liking. There was a lot more to Dohra than met the first probe through the mind-shield! “Yeah. So how are things at the farm?”

    Dohra beamed. “Pretty good! We’ve had megazillions of eggs—Teddo, the poultryman your Vt R’aam Seventeen recommended, is really great, he’s keeping exact records of everything!”—Jhl repressed a wince. In her time she, too, had had to count eggs. One of the most tedious tasks in the K.U.: right. Well, good on the being!—“And we’ve got lots of hay, and plenty of grain, and the young birds are all growing up really well! And, well, of course our grqwaries give us loads of milk, but that Whtyllian cow you gave us is really lovely, Jhl!”

    Jhl smiled weakly. “Good.” –One of G’gg’s, of course. There was the small point that the creature had to be mated to a male, but G’gg had solved that, no sweat. Vacuum-frozen sperm. Which was all right as long as the blobs keeping it frozen held up, wasn’t it? Otherwise he’d have to—uh—make a male walk all the way from his place down near the southern coast? True, at least the Vvlvanian-cursed creatures weren’t over on his tropical holdings on Pleasant Island, where he did his fruit-breeding experiments, no way could he have got a thing the size of a Whtyllian cow in that little yacht of his!

    “I really came over to, um, well, let you know, um, progress,” Dohra explained. “With the children.”

    As she was broadcasting a vivid picture of the whole family sitting round the big table in the roomy farm kitchen where they normally ate—and Jhl was refraining from wondering how an upper-class Friyrian had taken the news that his bond-partner’s plans for the new house didn’t include a dining-room, whilst simultaneously awarding Dohra a Two Galaxies Star, with cluster—complete with a smiling, handsome man who must be the Willunian, she didn’t really have to say much more, but she elaborated anyway. Hallikalli and the Willunian had now set off on their rhoofers to deliver recipe books. And Brtelli and dear little Fallon would be going tomorrow—um, did Jhl know she wouldn’t be available to take over his transcribing?

    They had both fronted up to her about that, friymanoid-hand-in-part-Nblyterian-hand, so to speak, so Jhl was able to reassure her.

    “Oh good! Well, we thought we’d have a farewell dinner for them tonight. Which one is it, her mother or her father, that’s part Nblyterian, do you know, Jhl?”

    Jhl goggled at her: she’d have thought Dohra was the last being in the Known Universe to care about that sort of thing.

    “Oh!” she realized as visions of delicious dishes of this, that and the other surrounded her and it dawned that there platter with the yummy-looking sauce contained what was probably Whtyllian blue carp.

    “You’re worried about what to feed them on.”

    Dohra nodded hard, looking at her anxiously. “Yes.”

    Jhl scratched her head. “Uh... I’ve a vague idea that Nblyterians don’t eat fish.”

    “Oh, dear,” replied Dohra on a sad note, as to the platter of carp was added a dish of something that looked like pressed fish eggs, surrounded with slices of, uh, that really sour fruit that tasted like sour lemonberries, and another dish of rolled-up somethings that could be slices of fish with a great stretch of the imagination, with, um, strips of sour cucumber sticking out of them? Okay, whatever blobbed you up. “Our carp pond’s doing really well, now; it was so kind of you to ask your D’ffni to come over and help us set it up properly!”

    “Uh—yeah. Well, she was quite keen, actually: seems to have taken on a new lease of life, since we realised we can’t rely on blobs.”

    “Yes,” beamed Dohra, “she told me that all that fashionable stuff she used to do just seems like rubbish, now! But she’s not giving up her amateur theatre stuff, though lots of the beings have pulled out: she’s decided to stop doing all those hard intellectual stories they used to do, and just put on shows that everybody will enjoy, with special ones for the kids!”

    “Glad to hear it.” –Oh, Federation! Jhl’s jaw sagged.

    “What’s the matter?” gasped Dohra.

    “I—we never thought of that! No sim-services: of course beings will need some form of entertainment! I mean, most of them’ll be pretty busy, but—”

    “Yes, most sentient beings do need entertainment, Ccrain says it’s a basic need of sentient life, after food and shelter. But I wouldn’t worry, Jhl: D’ffni seems to have it well in hand!”

    “Yeah,” she conceded, picking up her picture of what D’ffni had said. Bright costumes, lots of jokes, that looked okay. “And I suppose,” she added weakly, thinking of those ghastly socials back home on Bluellia, “that in the country districts they can get up dances.”

    “Yes, of course! Socials: dear little Su told us all about that one she went to on Bluellia!” she smiled. The smile died. “Um—how is she, anyway?”

    Oops, this was another of the things the being had come for, clearly! Uh—guilty because of Hallikalli and the Willunian? Something like that. “Sulking, but throwing herself into her work, I’m glad to say. She’ll be okay. Won’t hurt her to realise that an adult being can’t have its own way all the time.”

    “Oh, good,” said Dohra, sagging. “Brtelli was certainly very impressed with how she’s organised the recipe-book deliverers: she’s got sectors, and everything!”

    “Right. More organisational ability than we gave her credit for,” Jhl conceded drily. “Uh—where were we? Oh! Fish. Shan’ll be sure to know: knowing what beings can eat is diplo stuff. Come on, we’ll have morning tea with him.”

    “Lovely!” she beamed.

    That was all right, then. And Shan would most certainly be pleased to hear Su was showing some organisational ability.

    He was—very. And gave Dohra the Dinkum Megglybits. No fish for Nblyterians, and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two had had all the family records transcribed, he’d send a being to look up Fallon’s people. Jhl reflected that they could just ask Blndry, but never mind, let him. A panting being from the stable duly reported: it was the mother that was part-Nblyterian, sir! And after more cosy chat, Dohra took her leave, beaming and waving from the back of a silver-grey roofer.

    “So you are pleased Su’s knuckling down to it,” said Jhl, hugging his arm.

    Shank’yar smiled. “Yes, very, sweetheart. But—well, she’s off very soon.”

    “Shan, they all have to grow up,” said Jhl with a sigh.

    “Yes, of course. At least she’ll have BrTl to keep an eye on her!”

    “Sure!”

    And with that Su’s deluded parents went back inside, arm-in-arm.

    The blow fell at the end of the week. It was a crisp autumn day, and the elderly Vt R’aam Twenty-Four, up early as usual, was raking leaves on the front lawn. Jhl gave him a wave and went round the corner of the verandah—

    “Great galloping— What are you doing here?” she gasped.

    BrTl roused in his corner, blinking. “Getting a bit of suh—”

    “NOT THAT!” she screamed. “I thought you were with Su!”

    “No.”

    “BrTl, when the last lot of you recipe-book beings set off yesterday, you were with Su!”

    “Um, only went part of the way. I’m supervising the immature ones, just at first—”

    “BrTl, WHERE IS SU?” shouted Jhl terribly.

    Su had gone off to her chosen far-distant western sector, to some totally remote fishing communities, with young KrZl. Not immature, Jhl, his neck-hair had grown.

    “To Blerrinbrig’s with that, the being’s unfledged!” shouted Jhl. “What use’ll he be?”

    BrTl shook his head slightly at the picture of scrawny young grqwaries rushing round in aimless circles. “Uh—yeah, I mean, no. I mean, he’s not experienced, but he’s a good size, Jhl! If any being threatens Su he’s more than capable of settling them!”

    “Yeah,” said Jhl shakily, sitting down on the verandah. “BrTl, how could you let her?”

    “Thought you knew,” he said glumly. “S'pose you didn’t look, eh?”

    “No,” she admitted, biting her lip. “But way over in the western sector?”

    “Um, had dinner at Dohra’s last night. She said it sounded like a long way, too. But then she said it’ll do Su and Vt R’aam Thirty-Two good to be apart for a decent while.” He looked at her hopefully. “Dohra is pretty sound on that sort of stuff, I think.”

    Jhl was about to rubbish this whole speech. “By the three-tongued blurryankers of Trypthfymia,” she discovered slowly. “She’s right! Well, wait and see, eh?”

Next chapter:

https://theadmirableclone-sf.blogspot.com/2023/11/two-bond-partnerings-and-funeral.html