“Delicious,” he said. Miss Whitenose nodded graciously.
“I tell you this already,” she said, and clicked her talons again. Whereupon the hovering males dashed away to a row of cooking pots, returning to their task of helping other males boil up additional segments. Miss. Whitenose didn’t look after them but made a soft, snickering noise. “They new husbands just purchased for me,” she explained proudly. “Work asses off, hope to be picked for great honor of to be first to do me. Now come meet other guests.”
She led the way to where Mrs. Brownbenttalon was holding court, reclining on an elevated cushion and chatting with five or six other beings at once—a pair of other Centaurian matriarchs, plus two half-grown females younger than Miss Whitenose, and several members of other races. Giyt recognized the Principal Slug, the Delt General Manager, and the Petty-Prime Responsible One and his wife—well, one of his wives, anyway; Giyt was not very dear on Petty-Prime mating customs.
To his surprise, the tiny Responsible One climbed up on one of the seats and thrust his paw toward him for a handshake. “Excellent see you. Earth Mayor,” he piped. “Interesting combat this day at meeting.”
Giyt swallowed a spoonful of the pudding. “I can explain—” he began.
“What explain? You bitch damn Kalkaboo up, about time. Make too goddamn much noise every dawning, get sick and tired of it.”
“Have awful bad breath, too,” the Principal Slug said—or slurped; Giyt could hear the slushy, wheezy sound of his voice even above the translation in his ear. And Mrs. Brownbenttalon said, “Kalkaboos pissed off in major way now, you know. Won’t come Miss Whitenose First Fuck party because you here. Who care? Of course,” she added casually, “now they tell everyperson you trying steal everyperson private secrets, take good stuff, send home to Earth-human planet.”
That made Giyt blink. “Are you talking about the proposals I made at the commission meeting? But that’s not what I was suggesting at all. I simply proposed that everybody get together, all six races, and make a systematic survey of what this planet has to offer. I’m sure we’d find resources that could be exploited for everybody’s benefit.”
“Yes, idea is quite preposterous, have understood completely,” Mrs. Brownbenttalon agreed, and the Petty-Prime said, “Preposterous, naturally, but also very sweet. Obviously you are being quite kindly person Earth Mayor Giyt. Too bad so ignorant.”
It was Rina who rescued Giyt from that conversation; they had to circulate, she said, and they circulated. A couple of subadult Centaurian males were beating softly on sacks of something or other that gave off a muffled sound—not a very pleasing sound to Giyt’s ears, but at least Centaurian music wasn’t loud. The Giyts paused by the refreshment tables, studying the contents. Rina ventured to try what appeared to be a canapé—a sort of pale lavender rosebud capped with a dab of what looked like brown sugar—but grimaced at the first bite and looked for a place to put it down. Giyt accepted a bamboo tube of something to drink from an eager male servant; it was more like prune juice than anything else, but mildly alcoholic and not too awful to drink. He was still brooding over the conversation with the others. “But I was only suggesting mutual cooperation,” he muttered in Rina’s ear, and she shook her head.
“We’ll talk about it later. Shammy, okay? This is a party. And, look, I think the bride is about to make a choice.”
At the center of the atrium Mrs. Brownbenttalon had moved over on her dais and her daughter had joined her. The two females whispered to each other, glancing and pointing at one or another of the prospective bridegrooms, all of them belly-down on the ground before the dais, their eyes closed and their whole bodies quivering.
There was a ritual to the selection process. Miss Whitenose was juggling a mittful of objects, some ordinary pebbles along with one of those lavender rosebuds. After a considerable amount of whispering with her mother she abruptly tossed one of the pebbles at a male, who turned and crept mournfully away. Another pebble; another disappointed suitor. Then when only one was left, she threw the rosebud hard and clean at the remaining one, who yelped in joy, leaped up onto the dais and burrowed into the curls of her fur.
Giyt glanced wonderingly at Rina, who returned his look; but after a moment of applause from the audience Miss Whitenose gracefully came down from the dais and headed for one of the smaller buildings. Mrs. Brownbenttalon turned to Giyt, cackling. “I know what you think,” she said. “You think she going do it right in front of us, correct? But no, not at all, young couple don’t need bunch people hanging around staring at them when they do all-important first fuck. Take mind off serious business they busy at, you see? But we naturally got cameras in private doing-it room, keep-record in family database so children can someday see actual impregnation which produced selves. You Earth humans do similar ritual, wedding album thing, right? So everybody come along, we observe performing on the TV!”
When the party seemed to be ending the guests lined up to take their leave of Miss Whitenose—no, Giyt realized, she was Mrs. Whitenose now, a full matriarch in the Centaurian community. Giyt absently joined the end of the line, Rina’s hand in his. At least one question had been settled. He had wondered how somebody the size of Mr. Brownbenttalon was able to stick it to somebody the size of Mrs. Brownbenttalon, but the TV screen had given him the answer. It turned out that the biggest part of a Centaurian male was his sexual organ. Like a whale’s, it was invisible in normal life, because he kept it rolled up inside him until needed, but then—
He stole a glance at Rina, and was not surprised to see that she was wearing a faint, contemplative smile. “Jealous?” he murmured.
She blinked and looked up at him, but before she could respond, Giyt became aware that something was tugging at his trouser leg. It was Mr. Brownbenttalon. “You don’t go yet,” he whispered. “Honored wife say please you stick around, we talk on assorted subjects, get to know each other better, okay? Just have patience few ten minutes while junior males and kids clean up.”
So the Giyts dropped out of the line and sat quietly, watching the cleaning-up procedure. One of Mrs. Whitenose’s lesser husbands brought them stalks of the pruney beverage and offered more of the foods. Rina declined hers. “Shammy, hon? Mr. Brownbenttalon invited me to look at their kitchens,” she said. “All right if I snoop around a bit?”
“Snoop away.” Giyt comfortably sipped from his bamboo tube—yes, the liquid definitely was alcoholic—as he watched her chatting with the males and subadult females as they bustled around cleaning up. The whole household was busy. One group of males was burning the debris, another thriftily carrying away the uneaten food, a third sawing sections from the stacked bamboo stalks. Giyt wondered absently if their own child would be as helpful around the house. Then he wondered what it was going to be like to have a child in the house in the first place. He hoped the de Mirs would stay on as neighbors. That way their own child would have playmates right next door, and teenage babysitters handy when they reached that point…
A voice piped in his ear: “Are you being done okay, Large Male Giyt? Plenty food, plenty beverage? You want more, easily got.” Giyt turned to see Mr. Brownbenttalon gazing up at him, his little claws poised to click for service. Giyt forestalled him.
“No, I’m fine.” He thought for a moment, then decided it was a good time to apologize. “Listen, I’m sorry if my being here kept the Kalkaboos away.”
Mr. Brownbenttalon reared back on his hind legs, snout elevated toward Giyt. He was hissing faintly in embarrassment. “Please!” he begged. “Extreme discourtesy to revered wife if have substantive talking in absence of her beloved presence, okay?”