“—for the food form? Yes.” Which surprised me. But that is the Web. The part of their job they do, they do well. Rat swiveled around, lay back, and wedged himself half under my bed; I heard metal and wood clack and clank. He came out with it: lots of pith and metal dowels bound together with bark cord (and two replacement bonds of ragrope). “I will get the base dish too.”
“Yes …” of course, I started to say. “Please.”
Rat swung himself back under the bed; and swung out again, gazing not quite quizzically at a dish made more or less of the carved and polished pelvis of a beast who—happily—does not live in this latitude. I watched while he got the central pole into the metal socket in the dish’s center, saying instructions to myself, but not out loud, because his actions were simply, for me, too fascinating to break the silence.
He looked up.
The sky had gone a blue deep enough to strike his eyes glass.
From some remembered diagram, from some Web outprint on “culinary customs of the Fayne-Vyalou, southern Velm,” Rat arranged the racks, then set the dish carefully on the rug. He ran his crystal eyes up the meter high struts.
I started the slicer.
Hunters’ Beacon: a paper-thin ribbon of raw meat, five inches wide and cut so that it folds out to several meters, draped, folded, and looped about the rods of the foodform, sprinkled with powders, pieces of root, spices, minerals, acids, and oils, each of which flavors or ferments different portions of it differently, some of which chemically cooks portions of it to various degrees, many of which color its parts to different hues.
I stood up.
Rat stood up beside me.
“How does it look?” I put the oil and acid decanters back on the desk, which hummed, beeped, and swallowed them.
“Like the picture they showed me.”
“Let’s hope it fits through the door.”
“Does it usually?”
“Always.” Formal dishes by tradition should take no more than twenty minutes to prepare, though some of my older parents have been known to lavish an extra three or four. Nobody begrudges them.
Rat asked: “Can I carry it?”
When someone has taken the time to learn your customs, you tend to be both surprised and pleased in a proportion that, itself, both surprises and pleases.
“Sure.” Rat’s and mine: an exchange thousands of years old between humans, contoured by Velmian life to its particular slant, pitch, meaning. That most formal of exchanges, informed by what we felt for each other, lost all formality. “Thanks.”
6.
HUNTERS’ BEACON? CACTUS CURLS, hot and cold pulps and piths, rainbow foam, of course calla berries (plunged in boiling broth to split their pale skins for evening), lichen chokes marinated in Beetlesblood (the name of a wine imported from the north), racks of worm—pickled, poached, or pounded flat and fluted—vine strips shaved with the curlings dipped in sundry flavored oils …
“The Thants are here!” Bucephalus lolloped between Rat and me toward where her own offering for the evening—tall sparoria leaves, rolled and shredded at the tenderer ends, surrounded by crocks of spiced yogurts—stood on the spidery previewing table.
Large Maxa and Sel’v came in through the small doors. Max unfurled her wings and beat them. The waters stilled around the crystal clutch.
Large Maxa announced: “Who comes to visit this run with a history of monotony in saltiness, bitterness, sweetness, sourness, …?” Humans have five basic flavors that become smell without perceptual hitch. Evelmi have twelve basic tastes and no nasal-based olfactory sense—though they can detect, with some tongues, even a molecule or two lingering on the air. Rat, beside me, moved his lips to ghost the nineteen words covering the basic twelve Large Maxa intoned.
Sel’v announced: “Come from a federation rich as our own, yet whose flavors present themselves in different order, noon to noon: Alsrod, Nea, Fibermich, George, Eulalia, Clearwater, and Thadeus, touching tongues and feet to the stream of Thant, flowing toward the stream of Dyeth, contouring the currents like shell whorls.”
Then, around the central mirrors, the two-story-high wall mural began to bubble. Floor fans blew away fumes as one mural, then the mural beneath it, cleared. Pictorial layer after pictorial layer melted off.
Ahead, first Small Maxa, then V’vish, then Shoshana’s friend (with Shoshana beside her, a hand on her haunch) picked up their offerings from the previewer and began to walk about the hall, while Sel’v and Maxa repeated the invocation.
The last mural bubbled, reticulated, ran, and dripped away from darkness.
Through swinging doors by the dim crystal column, not waiting for the ragged meltings to be sucked into the floor grate, the colorful privacy cloud that hid Thadeus Thant came up, stopping now and starting.
“… a history of monotony in saltiness, bitterness …”
Behind was one of gray metal. It paused at the diminishing threshold. Then whoever was inside the cloud stepped over. And I remembered the aluminum circles that had hung about Alsrod, now in (light about (certainly) her. Beside them, jewels. Jewels swarmed and glittered about someone as certainly Eulalia—since she was the only Thant who wore them.
“… present themselves in different order …”
Bat picked up the Hunters’ Beacon from the preview table. The dish against his stomach, his great hands either side on the bone handles, we walked out into the room. With the meter-high rack before him, on and about which the food hung, I wondered at his view through, and walked beside him among others holding their racks and skewers and dangling hooks of food.
“… who comes to visit this run with a history …”
From the dark patio a glittering cloud came forward. I assumed the swarm of green foil was Nea—and the black glitter just behind her to the right was Fibermich, because the other cloud off to the left, a storm cloud (billowing mists, rushing droplets flickering within, pearling the humid gray or looping through three-quarters of a rainbow) must have been Clearwater.
“Odd,” I said to Rat. “Thadeus usually wears some sort of privacy apparatus, but this is the first time the others have.” Among Vizakar, Clent, Vol’d, walking in from the terrace to follow the guests of honor, I saw, coming over the cleared limen, George Thant, her veined arms brazen and folded, her temples veined and scowling. As our circuit brought us near, I started to speak, but saw, at the same time, just beside her, Santine.
Anticipating ominous Jo, I flinched. But the tall woman who came up with Santine was not the one we’d left her with in the g’gia. “Marq Dyeth.” She extended both hands.
“Japril,” I said. “Honestly, you are not whom I expected to see here.” I took them, squeezed them.
“But I am here.” She wore some seven formal body jewels of a somber gray and stunning quality that is the way the Web does things. “Actually.” Her sunburst of office hung above her right shoulder, its rays rotating slowly, like another body jewel, too bright and too gaudy—which is also the Web.
“You know Rat of course.” I turned to George, who had stopped, still glowering, two steps off. “And this is Thant—”
As I spoke, George’s metallic skin began to shiver, to shatter, and brass flecks swirled out and about, obscuring her like fire gnats at Iirianiset by the Hyte. In a rising chitter of flake clicking flake, she strode away.
“What was that?” Japril asked with the amiability of the interworld traveler used to the vagaries of interworld manners, where neither insult nor compliment should be assumed unless you have it in writing.
“George Thant,” I explained, “one of the evening’s guests of honor.”
“Ah,” said Santine, who had just turned on three legs from talk with someone else (which she finished up with another tongue while she said to us): “So I have brought you an old friend after all. Universes are small, no matter how big worlds are. Marq, how are your aging parents? But I shall see in a moment.”
“Santine,” I said, “you’ve met my friend, Rat Korg
a.”
At which Santine reared up on two legs. “Rat Korga!” she cried, just as if this were a first meeting—which is the way of formal affairs. “What wonderful flavors must be deployed about that Hunters’ Beacon. You look ancient! May I take a turn with you around the hall as you display your friend’s offering and we leave these two to talk?”
“Yes,” Rat said.
At which Santine went back down on all sixes, frowned a moment, then raised her forelegs. “You are exceptional! Direct, clear, a unique flavor around which all complexities clarify! I marvel. Come.” Santine put a foreclaw under the dish’s bottom, to relieve him of a kilogram or two of its seven or eight kilograms’ weight, and began to walk away, perfectly in step so as not to upset the food—a skill it takes a good six weeks’ practice to achieve, sometime back at age thirteen or fourteen, or twenty-three or twenty-four, depending on whether you’re a six-limbed or four-limbed creature. For a moment I watched them and loved my world. “Japril,” I said, turning back, “why are you here?”
“Didn’t Rat tell you I was coming? He knew, you know. Ynn and Marta are waiting outside. But we thought it would be better if only one of us showed up in vivo. Though Ynn is just wild about your place here. I practically had to restrain her. We didn’t know anything about the party, other than that it was for some offworlders. We don’t know anything about their allegiances and we don’t care. But if they’re from one of those worlds with select unlimited space travel, such folk can get awfully paranoid if too many high-ranking Web officials just happen to be on the welcoming committee. I’ve seen it happen before, and we aren’t here to make problems.”
I laughed. “I’m afraid you’ve got it. They do have unlimited space-fare on their own world. Actually, we’re wondering why they’re here. Two of them showed up … yesterday, I guess it was. And now the entire stream has come torrenting down on us.”
“Ah,” said Japril and touched my arm with a complicitous sigh that, from past years, I knew meant little.
“Was Rat supposed to tell me you were coming?” I paused. “But then, I didn’t ask him.”
Japril sighed. “I see you’ve learned a lot about our tall friend in twenty-nine hours—I dare say Rat’s learned a lot about you too. Shall we take a turn around the hall?”
“Yes,” I said.
She looked at me a moment, then laughed. “Well, it’s good to see you both, again and together. Come.”
We moved through the hall, passing relatives, friends, Thants conspicuous in their clouds.
“All those people outside. Your guests of honor this evening must be quite something.”
“The Thants? Oh, they come to visit perhaps twice a year. Usually only a dozen or so people come to watch—mostly those intending to take a vaurine tour of some other world who want to see what an offworlder looks like—in vivo.”
“There’re certainly more than a dozen or so people out there now. When we came up, Ynn said there were seven hundred eighty-four, with another hundred-seven coming.”
Only the Web. “They’re here for Rat.”
Japril raised an eyebrow. “All eight hundred ninety-one?” The question had a falling inflection.
“As far as I can tell.”
Japril looked down at her hands. We passed between modest and ornate fare. “You know we advised him to discourage any public announcement of his arrival.”
“There wasn’t any announcement,” I said. “As far as I can tell, it’s all through word of mouth.”
“Rumor?” Japril’s long, efficient face fixed itself between dislike and worry. “Not good. But then, we’ve come here for a party—you’re sure it’s word of mouth?”
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Well, then,” Japril took my arm again. “‘These flavors have been arranged for your guests of honor and we must sample.’ A line from the most famous opera composed in our hemisphere during the past fifty years, which Japril quoted courtesy GI. I was charmed. “Come,” she said. “Introduce me.”
I looked up to do it. “… All the Thants are still in privacy apparatuses.” Thadeus will sometimes drift in in a cloud; but though I’ve always realized Eulalia’s trailing jewels could gather round her and close out vision, I wondered now that I’d never seen her use it. “This is formal. So we just have to wait.”
As we walked, I looked about and realized others wondered too. Perhaps half our guests had met the Thants on other occasions. Now Abrak’d or Mammam’m would glance toward the hovering metallic green or parti-colored swirls; they and the other guests were intrigued as well. Perhaps the Thants were indulging some obscure holiday custom. Perhaps it was simply a random gesture they themselves never envisioned might cause concern. Or perhaps it was an aesthetic decision calculated to elicit respect and pleasure. And yet I could not avoid thinking that it had something to do with yesterday’s encounter on our green porches.
Egri came up beside us, carrying a candelabrum (called a krutchk’t) stuck about with seared and pickled kharba leaves. “Ah, an officer of the Web, and no doubt a friend of my child’s.”
“Egri, this is Japril,” I said. “I’ve mentioned you both to one another, I’m sure. Egri used to be an ID before she retired1.”
“How pleasant to have you join us,” said Egri. “Tell me, are you familiar enough with our customs to feel comfortable taking my food offering about for a bit while I confer with the youngster?”
“I only know what GI has been able to teach me,” Japril answered. But I could tell she was pleased to be asked.
“Then honor us.” Smiling, Egri presented the three-handled foodform to Japril, who silently debated which two handles to hold it by—while GI gave her no help.
“Those two …” I whispered. “If you would honor our stream …?”
Japril took the form, beaming, and walked off with the adorned krutchk’t among the guests.
“Watch a moment,” Egri whispered to me.
Japril walked four steps forward and, with a circular movement of her head, turned sharply left and started again.
I smiled. Apparently GI had given her some old, formal display pattern-paths to walk, of a kind I’d last seen at a formal dinner up in Farkit when I was twenty. In Morgre, they more or less went out by the time I was ten. But like the body-jewels, they would impress our guests who recognized the old custom—which would not be Thants; or Rat.
“Let’s get Lars and Alyx,” Egri said. “I’m not exactly sure what’s going on.”
When I looked where Egri was looking, I saw three of the privacy clouds: Clearwater’s little storm, Eulalia’s jeweled nebula, and Nea’s flickering green foil. As I watched, Alsrod’s aluminum refulgence and Thadeus’s multi-metal moved toward them: George’s bronze flitter moved away.
“You said to join you,” Alyxander said.
“And here,” Black Lars said with one tongue; and with another, “we are. What is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Egri said, while I realized she had called together all of us in the stream who were ID’s.
“Why the diplomatic conference?” Alyxander said.
“Shoshana and V’vish are worrying about how to start serving while the Thants are still sequestered.”
“Are the Thants saying something to us?” Black Lars asked.
“Well, they’re certainly not saying it very clearly.”
“That’s why I thought we’d better take over as interpreters,” Egri said. “It’s considered highly impolite on Zetzor to communicate with someone who’s sequestered herself in a cloud at the beginning of an evening. And on Velm, you don’t start a formal dinner without telling people personally that you’re going to. I’m taking Thadeus and George. Lars, you take Eulalia and Fibermich. Marq, you take Clearwater and Alsrod. And Alyx, you take Nea and keep an eye open to see if any of us needs back-up.”
“Now just what are we supposed to tell them?” I asked.
“Apologize for intruding, and say that dinner is served.”
??
?Gotcha,” Alyxander said.
And we all turned, dispersing.
Thunder on the left. I looked to see, through guests and stream members still treading their display measures (an old-fashioned phrase that doesn’t really mean anything, left over from when Japril’s display steps were the rage), some with food and some without, the storm flickering and abroil.
I approached it as the gray and light-shot privacy cloud halted its movement; someone within had stopped to watch me.
I wondered whether I should use the praiseful form of address (“Thant Clearwater”) or merely the formal—opted for that: “Clearwater Thant: I am presuming both on your presence and your patience, I know. Still, I would ask that you forgive me and accept our announcement that dinner will be momentarily served and to prepare to receive your placement.”
Thunder rumbled.
A brief flicker.
The cloud darkened.
“There are some rudenesses that are simply unavoidable, am I right?” Accompanying Clearwater’s voice was the sound, from within, of rain.
“I’m afraid so.”
Rain is not a natural phenomenon at this latitude on Velm.
“I have heard what you have to say.” The thunder was very different from an evelm whisper. “Still, that does not make it any the less rude.”
I paused, then lowered my head—an evelm making the polite gesture before tasting a great sculpture; and because a similar gesture was a remark of respect among humans on Zetzor—turned, and walked away to look for Alsrod.
Looking, I saw Black Lars had already reached her second goal, Fibermich’s cloud, shiny, black. The cloud’s glitter reflected on the scales about her flat, black eyes. “Thant! Fibermich! Thant!” one tongue began and went on chanting, “Thant! Fibermich! Thant! Thant! Fibermich! Thant! Thant! Fibermich! …” The first continued, and another took up: “No doubt you wonder why I address you in such an insulting form. But since I know that to violate the signs of privacy is in itself an insult, I feel that anything else would be an equivocation. It saddens me that I do not understand your motivations. Nevertheless, dinner is served.”