She made a noise that might have been a snicker. “Actually too slow, Mayor Large Male Giyt. Making great demands on patience of new Kalkaboo High Champion, who waiting for meeting end. Look, he entering now for ritual combat.”
It was the first Giyt had heard of the ritual combat. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but as the new High Champion came grimly in, followed by a dozen sullen-looking dignitaries of his community, it was all quickly explained. “Earth Human Mayor Giyt,” the Kalkaboo announced, “you have caused the death of our beloved former High Champion, and as successor of same I must wipe out unendurable stain on Kalkaboo honor. Prepare self for combat!”
And he sprang at Giyt over the audience seats, floppy ears flopping, scrawny arms outstretched to claw at him.
Giyt had never thought of himself as a warrior, didn’t like fighting at all, and had done very little of it in his life. Nevertheless, in high school he and every other student had had to take the compulsory martial-arts courses just to give them a fighting chance of making it home after class.
In any case, the Kalkaboos were not a large race; Giyt was twice the size of the new High Champion-elect. He ducked those grasping arms, bent, caught the eetie around the waist—his scrawny body was much hotter than Giyt’s—and threw him two meters across the room.
The Kalkaboo yelped in astonishment, tried to get up, yelped again, and lay there, clutching one shoulder and glaring up at Giyt. “Are Earth humans insane?” he whimpered. “What you did that for?”
“Jesus, Giyt,” Hagbarth complained, “what did you do that for?”
Giyt protested, “He jumped me. Anyway, it was a fair fight.”
“Asshole! It wasn’t any kind of fight at all. It was just one of those damn Kalkaboo customs, for God’s sake. All you were supposed to do was take a fall and let him claim victory—you know, to avenge what you did to the guy before him, so he could confirm his claim to the job—and then everything would’ve been fine.”
Giyt blinked at him. “Take a fall?”
“Quit. Bare your throat. Tell him he won,” Hagbarth explained. “Are you having-trouble understanding me? That’s what you should have done. But no, you had to make a real fight out of it. Jesus, man! I guess I’m lucky you didn’t just kill him, too, and I don’t think they’ve got a firecracker big enough for that.”
XVI
Funeral services for Dr. Fitzhugh J. Sommermen were held today at Washington National Cathedral after which his ashes were placed in the Great Columbarium in Arlington Cemetery. At the interment the president gave a short commemorative address, calling Dr. Sommermen “a true American hero, modest, dedicated, and strong.” The president added, “What this great man did for his country will live forever in the memories of all Americans, for it was he who opened America’s pathway to the stars.” Interestingly, almost none of the foreign dignitaries who had been invited for the ceremony attended.
A few months of being a public figure had done one thing for Evesham Giyt. It had taught him all the ways in which private was better. A public person had no hidden humiliations. They were all right out in the open and, in a community as small as Tupelo’s, there seemed to be no person of any age, gender, or species who didn’t know all about Giyt’s. Not that most people were hostile—that is, not counting the Kalkaboos, who unanimously froze him with silent glares of loathing at every chance. But most of the rest of the population, human and eetie, seemed to think the whole situation was just a pretty good joke.
It was a joke Giyt tired of pretty quickly. So although Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s party was within reasonable walking distance, Giyt called a cart to take them there. Walking would mean that passersby could say things to him along the way that Giyt didn’t want to hear. He wondered briefly if they were still welcome at the Centaurians’. Rina, thrilled at the idea of a party, did her best to reassure him. “Don’t sweat it, hon,” she coaxed. “You made a mistake, but nobody warned you, did they?”
Nobody had. “Least of all the one person who should have, Hoak Hagbarth; and one of these days, Giyt thought as they got out of the cart, he ought to talk to the man about that.
Mrs. Brownbenttalon’s home was a lot more lavish than anything else Giyt had seen on Tupelo. As the official residence of the Centaurians’ Divinely Elected Savior it was built on the grand scale. It consisted of four or five smallish but brightly colored one-story structures, connected by breezeways. Like an ancient Roman villa, the whole thing surrounded a pretty garden with a reflecting pool and a stand of bamboo-like trees rustling against each other in the breeze. The whole thing looked more California than Tupelo to Evesham Giyt, and he was surprised to see how many guests were present. Ten or twelve of them were Centaurian matriarchs like Mrs. Brownbenttalon herself: another several dozen were their most favored husbands along with a fair number of young ones; but the mayor equivalents of most—though, conspicuously, not quite all—of the other races were also on hand. The only Tupelovian race wholly absent was the Kalkaboos, and Giyt had a good idea of why.
Miss Whitenose came to greet Rina and Giyt as they got out of their cart. It was her party, and she was enjoying being the center of attraction. “Most excellently nice you come,” she said. “You eat something? Good Centaurian edibles here, all checked by Ex-Earth chemists many long times since, quite okay for your species to process and excrete.” She clicked her front talons together without looking over her shoulder. Immediately two or three males leaped forward bearing the sort of bamboo joints, sealed at both ends, that Giyt had seen at the firemen’s fair. Miss Whitenose took the two largest, held them to her ears for a moment, then expertly opened one end of each and offered them to the Giyts. “Dopey Earth-human meal-handling utensils,” she said to the air, and two more males eagerly proffered tapered ceramic spoons. “You eat this excellent provision,” she ordered.
The joint was warm, and when Giyt sniffed at its contents they smelled faintly Italian—some kind of Parmesan-like cheese, he guessed, though as far as he knew Centaurians kept no dairy animals. He glanced at Rina, who smiled at him, dipped her spoon into the open top of the joint, and tried it out. “Oh, nice,” she said appreciatively. “Give it a try, Shammy. You’ll like it.”
As a matter of fact he did. What was inside the bamboo joint was a sort of pudding, the texture of an avocado but with crunchy little sticklike things in it. It tasted, as much as anything, like a well-prepared risotto, with a few spices he could not identify.