Ford was not surprised to notice that Madame Flaubert was back in the room, cooing to her dog, which had spent the interim curled on her chair.
"Even the Ryxi are fellow beings searching for the light," said Madame Flaubert. "Ridicule damages the scoffer…"
"I'm not scoffing," said Auntie Q tardy. "I'm merely telling Ford where I got these feathers."
She plunged into the tale without looking at Madame Flaubert again; her voice trembled at first, then steadied. Ford listened, amused by the story. He could have predicted it, what a high-spirited rich young wife might do at one of the fancy balls when her 'incorrigibly stuffy' husband tried to insist that she be discreet. Discretion, quite clearly, had never been one of Auntie Q's strong points. He could almost see her younger (no doubt beautiful) self, capering in mock courtship with a Ryxi in diplomatic service… a Ryxi who had let himself get overexcited, who had plucked the jeweled pin from her turban, and crowed (as Ryxi sometimes did, when they forgot themselves).
He could imagine her shock, her desire to do something outrageous in return. When the Ryxi had gone into the final whirling spin of the mating dance, she had yanked hard on his tailfeathers. By the time the whirling Ryxi could stop, screeching with mingled pain and huinitiation, she had run away, safely hidden by her own wild crowd. Ford glanced at Madame Flaubert, whose mouth was pinched into a moue of disgust. He could almost hear her mental comment: vulgar. Ford himself agreed, but not with any intensity.
Most of what he knew about the wealthy and powerful he considered vulgar, but it didn't bother him. He certainly didn't bother about the degrees of vulgarity they might assign to one another's actions. Tenuous as the family connection might be, he would pick Auntie Q over Madame Flaubert anytime. His aunt had finished her story, with a challenging, almost defiant lift of her chin. He could imagine her as a spoiled child, when she would have had dimples beside her mouth. He grinned as much at the memory as at her story.
"Didn't he file a protest?" asked Ford.
His aunt bridled. "Of course he did. But I had filed a protest, too. Because he still had my jewel and he'd made a public nuisance of himself by losing control and going into the mating sequence. It's quite unmistakable even if you've never seen it."
"I have." Ford fought to keep his voice under control. It must have been the spectacle of the year, he thought to himself.
"So there was a lot of buzzing around. My husband's attorneys got involved and eventually everyone withdrew charges. The Ryxi ambassador himself sent a note of apology. Everyone insisted I do the same. But both of us kept our trophies. I had to agree not to display them then - not in public, you know - but that was years back, and this is my own private yacht."
It sounded as if she expected an argument; another fiance at Madame Flaubert suggested with whom. Ford was protective, but realized that Auntie Q expected {and trained) her menfolk to feel protective. "It's a wonderful story," he said, quite honestly. "I wish I'd been there to see it." He meant that, too. Formal diplomatic functions with multiple races were osually painfully dull, kept so by everyone's attempts not to break another culture's rules of etiquette. Fleet officers stuck with attendance expected to spend long hours standing politely listening to civilian complaints while all the good-looking persons of opposite sex enjoyed themselves across a crowded dance floor. He remembered Sassinak telling him about a little excitement once, but that was all.
His aunt leaned over and touched his cheek. "You'd have enjoyed it, I can tell. You might even have helped me."
"Of course I would."
His stomach rumbled, loudly and insistently, and he felt himself flush. His aunt ignored the unmentionable noise, turning instead to Madame Flaubert, who was staring at Ford's midsection as if she could see into it.
"Seraphine, perhaps you could find the cube with the newsstories from that event?" Her tone made it more command than request; Madame Flaubert almost jumped, but nodded quickly and set her lapdog back down.
"Of course."
But even as she rose to comply, Ford's stomach clenched, and he realized he was about to be sick. He felt cold, clammy, and his vision narrowed.
"Excuse me, please," he said, between gritted teeth.
Auntie Q glanced at him politely, then stiffened. "You've gone quite green," she said. "Are you ill?"
Another pang twisted him, and he barely whispered, "Something I ate on the tanker, perhaps."
"Of course. I'll have Sam find you some medicine." She rose, as imperious as she had been after dinner. "Come, Seraphine."
They swept out as Ford groped his way to the door. He was perversely irritated that she had seen him lose control, and at the same time that she had left him to find his own way back to his stateroom. He didn't want to throw up on her elegant silver and rose carpet, but if he had to wander far…
He had hardly taken a few steps down the corridor when a strongly-built man in chefs whites (another uniform unchanged through the centuries) grasped him under the arm and helped him swiftly back to his quarters.
He had been very thoroughly sick in the bathroom, losing with regret that delicious dinner, hardly noticing the silent, efficient help of the cook. When he regained his sense of balance, he was tucked into bed, his dress clothes draped across a chair, and the cold clamminess had passed into a burning fever and aching joints. What a beginning to a social inquiry, he thought, and then lapsed into unrestful sleep.
He woke to a foul taste in his mouth, the sour smell of sickness, and the suspicion that something was very wrong indeed. He had had bad dreams, full of dire symbolism (a black Ryxi dancing around his aunt's casket waving her two stolen plumes in macabre triumph? Commander Sassinak handing him a shining medal that turned into a smoking fuse when he pinned it to his uniform? A scaly, clawed hand tossing a handful of Fleet vessels, including the Zaid-Dayan, like dice onto a playing board whose pieces were planets and suns?).
He was quite sure that Madame Flaubert could 'explain' them all, in ways that would make him responsible if he didn't reform, but he felt too weak to reform. Even to get up. Someone tapped on his door, and he croaked a weak answer.
"Sorry, sir, to be so late with breakfast."
It was the man in white, the cook. Sam, he remembered. He had not expected anyone, but if he'd thought, he'd have expected the servant who served dinner. Sam carried a covered tray; Ford thought it probably smelled delicious, but whatever it was he didn't want it. He shook his head, but Sam brought it nearer anyway, and set it on a folding table he had had in his other hand.
"You're still not well. I can see that." Off came the tray cover, revealing a small plate with crisp slices of toast, small glasses of fruit juice and water, and a tiny cut-glass pillbox. "This may not sit well, but at least it'll give me an idea what to try next…"
"I don't want anything." That came out in a hoarse voice he hardly recognized for his own. "Something on the tanker…"
"Well, I didn't think it came out of my kitchen." That barely missed smugness, the certainty of a master craftsman. "Did you get a look in that tanker's galley?" Sam held out the glass of water, and Ford sipped it, hoping to lose the taste in his mouth. It eased die dryness in his throat, at least.
"They told me, boasted in fact, that they didn't have a galley. Cooked their own food, mostly just heated up whatever came out of the synthesizer."
"And didn't clean the synthesizer coils often enough, I daresay. It's not easy to make great meals from basic synth, but it doesn't have to be sickening, either." As he spoke, Sam offered the toast, but Ford shook his head again.
"Just the water, thanks. Sorry to cause you any inconvenience." Which was a mild way of apologizing for the night before, when he had done more than cause inconvenience. And what was he going to do now? In Auntie Q's circle, he was sure that one did not inflict one's illnesses on hosts. But he had no place to go. The Zaid-Dayan was on her way to FedCentral; the nearest Fleet facility was at least a month's travel away, even if the yacht was headed that direction, which it wasn't.