“An offensive odor—I smell it too,” said the giant, smiling unpleasantly. Ethan noted that conversation in the tavern had dropped to a steady, low susurration. Most eyes were on them.
The wealthy local performed an elaborate gesture through the air in front of his nose, accompanying it with much expressive grimacing. Continuing to shield his muzzle from some imaginary olfactory offense, he made a show of searching the area around the booth, peering beneath chairs, sniffing the table, checking the floor. On all fours he approached Hunnar’s seat, stopped sniffing, and stood. For effect, he sniffed once more, loudly enough for all the onlookers to hear.
“I believe I’ve found the source, Baftem,” he told his companion. “Someone has had the bad manners to bring a castrated bourf into the room.”
The quiet became total. When no one at the table reacted, the giant wrinkled his own muzzle distinctively, squinted at Hunnar and made a disgusted sound.
“You know how the enoglids drain once they’ve been neutered. Awful smell!” He looked around the table, exclaimed in mock surprise, “Yet the source seems to be more than one.”
“Gentle, Baftem. It behooves a citizen to be polite, even to a fixed bourf.” He bent over the table, leaning between Ethan and Hunnar. “Would you get out?”
Ethan admired Hunnar’s control as the knight looked over his right shoulder, shouted. “Innkeeper, whose tavern is this; yours or his?”
With admirable prescience the innkeeper had already retreated to the vicinity of the cookroom doorway. In response to Hunnar’s query he made some incomprehensible gabbling noises and ducked inside before further elucidation could be requested.
“Perhaps you are the innkeeper after all.” Hunnar gazed nonchalantly up at the interloper. “Yet you look more like a rockworm to me.” His gaze dropped to the other’s feet. “But the slime you trail behind you leads from the entrance, not the back rooms.”
Stepping back and pulling his sword in the same motion, the offended citizen slashed down. Hunnar was still balanced on the rear two legs of his chair. As the blade descended he shoved back. The sturdy back of the chair hit the attacker in the midsection, sending him stumbling away.
Ethan had managed to slide from behind the table and draw his own weapon. It weighed more than a cardmeter, but he’d been forced to learn how to use this new persuader in the past months. He didn’t see the Tran who’d slipped up behind all of them, but dal-Jagger did. The would-be assassin threw Hunnar off-balance as he stumbled into him, clawing blindly at the squire’s dirk which protruded between his eyes.
Everyone in the tavern, it seemed, charged them then. Ice swords and axes of bone and metal flailed wildly at the newcomers. Ethan found himself on the floor, trying to avoid the lance a husky customer was thrusting at him. He rolled, and the lance point struck sparks from the stone paving. The lance wielder tried raising his weapon for another strike when a table hit him in the face.
After throwing the table, September found himself wrestling with the giant Tran who’d backed up the wealthy insult-monger. The enormous bone club thrummed through the air. September skipped agilely out of its path. It took a head-sized chunk out of the wooden wall of the booth.
September moved in, hitting his feline opponent hard in the midsection. The giant grunted in surprise but didn’t fall. He raised the club over his head, his expression turning from furious to foolish. September lifted the lightly-boned colossus into the air and threw him halfway across the tavern.
Knowing full well his own limitations where physical combat was concerned, Milliken Williams crouched low in the booth and did his utmost not to draw attention to his presence.
Ethan ducked a sword swing, grabbed the Tran by the neck and wrenched him off his feet. He struck the wall hard, went limp, and collapsed. Between the unexpected strength of the heavy-bodied humans and the professional fighting skill of Sir Hunnar and his squires, the large but undisciplined group of attackers was having a difficult time.
The aroma of blood began to be overpowering.
Ethan blocked a wide saber swing with his arm, felt the impact reverberate up to his shoulder muscles. Trying to bring as much of his weight to bear as possible, he swung his own sword over and down. His opponent parried, but the force of the blow knocked his blade from his hand. He knelt and recovered it before Ethan could strike again. But instead of resuming his assault, he backed away and hunted for help.
The most effective combatant of all proved to be not September, Sir Hunnar, or any of the rampaging citizens, but the innkeeper.
A massive circular band of black wrought iron hung from the rafters. It supported eight large oil-burning lamps. When September pulled it out of the ceiling and began to swing it as a weapon, the proprietor decided the time had come to make a stand for fiscal sanity. Being metal, the chandelier was the most valuable single furnishing in the tavern. It wouldn’t do to have it broken and bent. Risking his life, he charged across the battlefield and emerged on the other side unscathed.
The fight continued only a few minutes more, until, with admirable speed the innkeeper had located a group of constables. One of the combatants near the door announced their impending arrival and the interlocked fighters instantly separated and began searching out unorthodox exits.
“The kitchen!” Hunnar shouted.
“Why?” Ethan wanted to know. “We didn’t start anything.”
A hand shoved him forward. “Police are usually the same everywhere, feller-me-lad. Best to avoid them when you can.”
They raced through the malodorous cookroom, emerging into a back alley lightly carpeted with snow. Following Hunnar’s lead they ran a short distance to the left, then slowed.
“Why are we slowing down?” Ethan looked back expectantly. But there was no sign of pursuit in the narrow passageway. “We’re still fairly close to the tavern.”
“They will not come looking for us this way, friend Ethan.” Hunnar was panting steadily, his breaths much shorter and faster than that of the three humans.
“Why not?”
Hunnar indicated the surface they were traversing. With a clawed foot he kicked away the pale white veneer of snow to reveal stone blocks beneath. “There is no icepath here. No Tran in a hurry to go anywhere would leave a fast icepath. This idea I take from you.” His breath condensed, vanishing with mathematical regularity in front of him.
“We do not think of ‘running,’ as you are naturally wont to do,” he added. “Tran do not walk or run where they can chivan. The local authorities will not think of this, and will pursue those who chose the ice-paths.”
They continued to follow the stone-paving until they came to a wider road. There they blended into the daily traffic. Only their troubled thoughts distinguished them from the Tran moving busily around them, and they kept those as well concealed as their stained weapons.
Back on board the Slanderscree the other sailors and soldiers crowded quickly around dal-Jagger and Budjir, inspecting their slight wounds critically, all the while questioning them about the fight. Hunnar and the three humans moved off to the railing, staring back at the innocent harbor scene.
“They attacked us.”
“That’s pretty obvious, Milliken.” The schoolteacher shook his head impatiently.
“No, no—I’m not restating the obvious. I mean they attacked us… humans.”
“What’s so signif—” Ethan stopped, thoughtful. “I see. Ever since we’ve been here the locals have treated us with courtesy, even deference.” He glanced up at September excitedly. “Skua, remember that incident a few days ago when we first went to visit the portmaster? The crowd that confronted Hunnar outside but backed off when we looked ready to intervene? What happened to that protection today?”
“I can only think of one thing, lad.” September continued to stare at the town, one newly survival-suited hand picking at the ice on the wooden railing. “It was a preplanned attack. We were deliberately provoked. Or rather, Hunnar and his boys were, in the hope tha
t you and I and Milliken would be drawn in—as we were. Somebody wants us dead, as well as Hunnar. I thought some of the customers fought awfully well for a bunch of spontaneously irritated townsfolk.”
“But why?” Ethan’s thoughts were as steady as the wind, which is to say, not at all.
“Have you not learned this truth by now, friend Ethan?” Hunnar glared at the city, his tone sardonic. “This is the kind of reception we will likely encounter everywhere we go with this plan of confederation. All Tran have a natural suspicion of outlanders. Only your presence might mitigate this, and if it does not do so here in Arsudun where your people are known as benefactors, surely it will do us no good elsewhere.”
“Sorry, Hunnar.” September ran his gloved hand up from the rail to grip one of the thick pika-pina shrouds. “You’re right about your people being naturally suspicious of strangers, but I doubt that’s why we were attacked.
“Someone thinks we’re dangerous—Ethan and Milliken and I. They’d like us out of the way. Why? That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Some folks here—maybe Arsudunite, likely both—have a nice little profitable monopoly on offworld trade. We’ve declared our intention of breaking up that monopoly. Some sailors must’ve talked.” His voice dropped. “Wasn’t sure it was important enough for someone to chance killin’ us, though. Not til this afternoon.”
“Then why don’t we report that, Skua?”
“Feller-me-lad,” September said gently, “don’t be naive. What does it matter if a few humans are killed in a local brawl? Oh sure, you and I know it was no accidental encounter, but how do we prove that to a thranx judge?” He shook his head. “Not much we can do except be glad they weren’t better swordsmen and step up our preparations for getting under way.”
“It was a fight to speak well of.” Hunnar’s eyes gleamed. “Five against twenty-five.”
Ethan looked with distaste at the blood-stained sword on his own suit belt. He’d tried wiping it clean in the snow, but the frozen red crystals adhered accusingly to the blade.
“You’re too proud of killing, Hunnar.”
The Tran knight cocked his head to one side, looking for all the world like an inquisitive tabby. “That be true, Ethan. I come not from your advanced civilization, though. You must find it in your heart to be patient with us.” Wind rose and moaned around them as he gestured back down the strait leading out toward the ocean.
“My world is perhaps not so conducive to gentleness and understanding as is yours. Here we fight best with our hands and not our mouths.”
“I didn’t mean to be insulting,” Ethan replied testily.
“That’s enough.” September looked disgustedly from human to Tran. “We’re supposed to be forging a great alliance on this world, not testing the puny one we already have.” He jerked a thumb at the harbor. Smoke rose from a thousand chimneys. “The sooner we leave here, the less we’ll be disturbed, I hope.” He eyed Hunnar.
“Where do we start?”
Hunnar grumbled a reply. “As it is so many satch back to Sofold, and since you are so set on beginning this great undertaking here, and since it is not my idea but yours, but most especially since I am certain we will have no better luck here than near home, I suppose we may as well look for our first allies in this part of the world.
“Besides, were we to return home with this bizarre conception, we would have difficulty keeping our crew. Men will not remain loyal when given a choice between reaching for a glorious madness or retaining their simple homes.” He spun angrily and chivaned away.
“You shouldn’t have made him mad, lad,” September chided his friend.
“I know. I’m just not used to sticking things in people, and have a hard time sympathizing with anyone who does.” He smiled crookedly. Odd, how the unexpected shoved its way into one’s thoughts at the most unlikely moments. “Colette would be better at it than I am.”
“If you feel so strongly about it, feller-me-lad, why are you staying here to help with this when you could be on your way to more civilized climes, where people only stick one another, as Hunnar said, with sharp words?”
Ethan thought just a moment. “So that some day Hunnar’s grandchildren won’t feel the need to pick up a knife to settle an argument.” Behind and above them on the helm-deck, Ta-hoding was conversing with several mates. “Let’s go arrange a course. We’re going to bring maturity and knowledge to this world if it kills us.”
“Which it very well is likely to, lad.” They started aft. “Hunnar’s probably right about the trouble we’ll have tryin’ to sell this confederation to the inhabitants of outlying city-states.”
Ethan walked faster, more assuredly. “That’s my business …”
Jobius Trell opened his mouth slightly inside the survival suit, listened to the candy laugh and smiled as he sucked. At the moment the flavor was persimmon, the laugh invitingly female.
The slim, mature Tran standing on the hillside next to him gave him a questioning look, puzzled by the obviously masculine human’s ability to produce such a lilting chuckle.
Pausing in his study of the work going on in the little vale below them, Trell flipped back the face mask of his suit and turned his face from the stinging breeze. Using his gloved hand he picked the remainder of the candy from his mouth and showed it to his curious alien companion.
“Giggle drop. Sweet food,” he explained.
“Igg-el drup.” The Tran stumbled over the unfamiliar phonetics as the Resident Commissioner popped it back into his mouth and resumed sucking. “But the sound I heard, friend Trell?”
“Candy’s formed in layers,” Trell told him with a sigh. It was so boring, having to constantly explain the most common features of Commonwealth civilization to these barbarians, even one as curious and quick to learn as his companion of today. His attention wandered back to the work going on below.
The earthquake generated by the explosion of the great volcano known as The-Place-Where-The-Earth’s-Blood-Burns had caused some damage, mostly to the native town but also a little in Brass Monkey. As Commissioner, it was his duty to supervise personally the necessary reconstruction work. Doing so also made him look good in the eyes of the locals.
That the collapsed native food storage house in the depression below constituted the only serious damage was a tribute to native engineering skills. But then, he reflected that even within Arsudun’s comparatively sheltered harbor, a normal Tran structure had to be built well to stand up against the daily weather.
“How can food talk?”
“What? Oh. As each layer of the hard candy-stuff dissolves in your mouth, it releases a different flavor and a different laugh.” He turned to, face the Tran standing next to him.
He was slimmer than most of his brethren. In places—long streaky patches and spots—his steel-gray fur turned to coal-black. Other dark smudges colored his left ear, muzzle, and left cheek, running like a splotch of soft tar down his side to disappear beneath his brightly dyed blue cape and vest. His comparatively slender build was very similar to the Commissioner’s.
These two had more in common than external construction, however.
Trell finished his explanation. “The laughs are recorded from real people—you’ve seen our recording devices throughout the port?” The Tran made a gesture of acknowledgment. “A computerized—a thought-smart machine—then sonically embeds the sounds in tiny bubbles of air which are not quite just air bubbles, as the candy food is being solidified. As each layer of encoded laugh bubbles is exposed to the air in your mouth, the sound is released.” He grinned behind his mask at the obvious discomfort this explanation produced.
“Tell me, why shouldn’t food sound as good as it tastes?”
“I do not know,” the Tran responded gruffly, “but it is a strange thought to me, and not altogether agreeable.”
“Perhaps, but we’ve brought many strange things to you and even the strangest have proven themselves profitable. We have an archaic expression—like my candy-food, money also ta
lks.”
The Tran brightened. “Something both our peoples agree upon, friend Trell. ‘Money talking’—good, but I still think I like my own food to lie decently quiet.”
Any onlooker could have told from the Tran’s lavish attire—richly inlaid with valuable metal thread and thin, foil ornamentation in the vests, metal strips set in his dan that flashed when he raised an arm—that he was exceptionally well off even by Arsudun’s standards. What they might not have recognized as important was the band of metal encircling his neck.
From time to time a human aiding the locals below in the rebuilding of the storehouse would climb the slight slope in search of Trell’s instructions or advice. Occasionally the questioner would be a Tran. And the inquiries were not racially exclusive. Sometimes a human would ask the Tran for advice, while a native would address the Commissioner.
The storehouse had been constructed partway down the strait and close to the ice’s edge, where it had received more of the shock than comparable structures in the town. Several other buildings close by had been knocked slightly askew or had had windows cracked out. Only the storehouse had suffered complete destruction.
Trell knew that was because the Tran buildings were made mostly of stone and they had not yet mastered the art of constructing the dome. So any structure with a large open interior, such as the storehouse, was far less stable than those cut into smaller rooms and chambers whose inner walls served to support the roof. The Tran did not have the material for enclosing large areas.
Structural metals and plastics were required. The Tran knew nothing of plastics, and would never have considered wasting precious metal on construction, save for an occasional bolt or nail.
In fact, the only metal of consequence in any Arsudun building and possibly on all of Tran-ky-ky—except within the humanx station—was the double, solid brass door which now formed the entrance to the Landgrave’s castle built back of the town. When the sun was right, one could see reflection down in the harbor.