'Would they do that to me?' Marduk asked himself. 'Just because I re-zoned their dirty old residential neighbourhood for heavy industry, and entered into an agreement with the Landlords' Guild to raise their rents 320 per cent in return for a promise of new plumbing within fifty years? I mean to say, good Lord, I've never pretended to be omniscient; I may have made mistakes here and there, I freely admit it. But is that sufficient cause to commit what anyone must view as a deeply antisocial act?'
The ring ticked merrily away, tickling his snout and alarming his senses. Marduk thought of other officials whose heads had been blown off by dimwitted hotheads. Yes, it might very possibly be a black gift.
'Those stupid molters!' Marduk snarled, relieving his feelings with an insult he would never have dared voice in public. He was feeling sorely aggrieved. You worked your hearts out for those slack-skinned, wart-nosed idiots, and what was your reward? A bomb to wear in your nose!
For one hectic moment he contemplated throwing the ring into the nearest chlorine tank. That would show them! And there was precedent for it. Had not the saintly Voreeg spurned the Total Offering of the Three Ghosts?
Yes … but the Ghosts' Offering, according to accepted exegesis, had been a subtle attack upon the spirit of Gift-Giving, and therefore at the very core of society; for by making a Total Offering, they had precluded the possibility of any future gifts.
Besides – what was admirable for a Saint of the Second Kingdom would be execrable for a petty official of the Tenth Democracy. Saints can do anything; ordinary men must do what is expected of them.
Marduk's shoulders slumped. He plastered warm mud on his feet, but it brought no relief. There was no way out. One Celsian could not stand alone against organized society. He would have to wear the ring, and wait for the mind-splitting moment when the tick stopped …
But wait! There was a way! Yes, yes, he could see it now! It would take clever arrangement; but if he brought it off, he could have safety and social approval. If only that damned ring gave him time …
Marduk Kras made several urgent calls, and arranged for himself to be ordered to the planet Taami II (the Tahiti of the Ten-Star Region) on urgent business. Not corporeally, of course; no responsible official would spend local funds to ship his body across a hundred light years when all that was required was his mind. Frugal, trustworthy Marduk would travel by Mindswap. He would satisfy the form, if not the spirit, of Celsian custom by leaving his body behind with the gift ring ticking merrily in its nose.
He had to find a mind to inhabit his body during his absence. But that was not difficult. There are too many minds in the galaxy, and not enough bodies to go around. (Why this should be, no one really knows. After all, everyone was given one of each to begin with. But some people always seem to end up with more than they need, be it wealth, power, or bodies; and some with less.)
Marduk got in touch with Hermit Enterprises (Bodies for Any Purpose). The Hermit had just the thing for him: a clean-cut young Terran male who was in imminent danger of losing his life, and was willing to take his chances with a ticking nose ring.
Thus Marvin Flynn came to Celsus V.
For once there was no need to hurry. Upon arrival, Marvin was able to follow prescribed Swapping procedure. He lay perfectly still, growing slowly accustomed to his new corpus. He tested his limbs, checked out his senses, and scanned the primary culture-configuration load as radiated from the forebrain for analogue and similitude factors. Then he sized up the hindbrain emotional end structure factor for crux, nadir and saddlepoint. Nearly all of this was automatic.
He found the Celsian body a good fit, with a high aspect of jointure and an excellent main-sequence random-dispersion pattern. There were problems, of course: the delta curve was absurdly elliptic, and the UYPs (universal Y points) were falciform rather than trapezoidal. But you had to expect that on a Type 3B planet; under normal circumstances, it would never cause him any trouble.
Taken all in all, it was a body-enviromnent-culture-role cluster with which he could empathize and identify.
'Feels pretty good,' Marvin summed up for himself. 'If only that damned nose ring doesn't blow up.'
He got up and took stock of his surroundings. The first thing he saw was a note that Marduk Kras had left for him, tied to his wrist so he wouldn't overlook it.
Dear Swapper, [it read]
Welcome to Celsus! I realize that you may not feel very welcome, under the circumstances, and I regret it nearly as much as you do. But I would advise you sincerely to put all thought of sudden demise out of your mind, and concentrate instead on having a pleasant vacation. It may console you to know that the statistical incidence of death by black gift is no greater than that of being killed in a plutonium-mine accident, if you happened to be a plutonium miner. So relax and enjoy yourself.
My apartment and all that is in it are yours to enjoy. My body also, though I trust you will not overstrain it or keep it out too late or feed it an excess of intoxicating beverages. It has a weak left wrist, so be careful if you should have to lift any heavy weights. Good luck, and try not to worry, since anxiety never yet solved a problem.
PS. I know you are a gentleman and would not try to remove the nose ring. But I thought I should tell you that you can't anyhow because it is locked in place with a microscopic Jayverg Bonded Molecular Padlock. Goodbye again, and do try to put all this unpleasantness out of mind and enjoy your two weeks on our lovely planet.
Your Sincere Friend,
Marduk Kras
At first Marvin was irritated by the note. But then he laughed and crumpled it up. Marduk was undoubtedly a scoundrel, but he was a likeable one, and not ungenerous. Marvin decided to make the best of his dubious bargain, forget about the putative bomb nestling just above his lip, and enjoy his time on Celsus.
He went on an exploration of his new home, and was well satisfied with what he found. It was a bachelor burrow, designed for residence rather than for reproduction. Its main construction feature – pentabrachation – reflected Kras' status as a public official. Less fortunate sorts had to get by with three or four gallery systems; and in the slums of North Bogger, whole families were crowded into wretched mono– and duo-brachate systems. Housing reform had been promised in the near future, however.
The kitchen was neat and modem, and well stocked with gourmet items. There were jars of candied annelids, and a bowl of exotic Alcyonium Salad mixture, and delicious titbits of Tubipora, Pennatula, Gorgonia, and Renilla. There was a can of Goose Barnacle in rotifer and orchid sauce, and a quick-frozen package of sweet and sour Uca. But – how like a bachelor – there were no staples, not even a gastropod loaf or a bottle of carbonated Ginger Honey.
Wandering down the long, curving galleries, Marvin found the music room. Marduk had not stinted here. A gigantic Imperial amplifier dominated the room, flanked by two Tyrant-model speakers. Marduk used a Whirlpool semi-mix microphone, with a forty-bbc channel rejection, an 'expanding' type sense-discrimination selector, with a floating throat-slot 'passive' director. Pick-up was by image regeneration, but there was provision for changing over to decay modulation. Although not professional in quality, it was a very good amateur rig.
The heart of the system, of course, was the Insectarium. This particular one was an Ingenuator, the Super-Max model, with both automatic and manual selection and mixture controls, regulated feed and disposal, and various maximizing and minimizing features.
Marvin selected a grasshopper gavotte (Korestal, 431B) and listened to the thrilling tracheal obbligato and the subtle bass accompaniment of the paired Malphigian tubules. Although Marvin's appreciation was casual, he was well aware of the virtuoso ability of this particular performer: a Blue-Striped Grasshopper, his second thoracic segment pulsating slightly, visible in his own compartment of the Insectarium.