"Uh, miss-" the Siren said.
"I'm called Biyght," the brass girl said. "Of Building Four, in the City of Brass. Who are you?"
"I'm called the Siren," the Siren said. "Biythe, we would appreciate it if-"
"Biyght," the girl corrected her brassily.
"Sorry. I misheard. Biyght. If you would-"
"But I think I like Biythe better. This place is so much softer than I'm used to. So you can use that, Sim."
"Siren. Two syllables."
"That's all right. I prefer one syllable, Sim."
"You can change names at will?" John asked incredulously.
"Of course. All brassies can. Can't you?"
"No," the fairy said enviously.
"Biythe, that animal-" the Siren broke in. "It's deadly to us. So if you would-"
Smash had been looking around to see if there were any other dangers. At this point his eye fell on the gourd-and even from a distance his consciousness was drawn into the peephole, and he was back among the brassies. This time he stood within the building, but apart from the crowd, and his string had been interrupted again. He was using his right eye.
The brass folk spied him and charged. This was getting pointless. "Wait!" he bellowed.
They paused, taken aback. "Why?" one inquired.
"Because I accidentally took one of your number out of the gourd, and if anything happens to me, she'll be forever stranded there."
They were appalled, almost galvanized. "That would be a fate worse than death!" one cried. "That would be-" He paused, balking at the awful concept.
"That would be-life," another brass man whispered. There was a sudden hush of dread.
"Yes," Smash agreed cruelly. "So I have to fetch her back. And I will. But you'll have to help me."
"Anything," the man said, his brass face tarnishing.
"Tell me how to get out of here, on my own."
"That's easy. Take the ship."
"The ship? But there's no water here!"
Several brassies smiled metallically. "It's not that kind of ship. It's the Luna-fringe-shuttle. You catch it at the Luna triptych building."
"Show me to it," Smash said.
They showed him to a brass door that opened to the outside. "You can't miss it," they assured him. "It's the biggest block in the city."
Smash thanked them and stepped out. The buildings were still moving, but now he had the experience and confidence to travel by their retreating sides, avoiding collisions. He glanced back at the building he had left and saw the number 4 inscribed on the side, but there was no sign of the door he had exited by.
Apparently it was a one-way door that didn't exist from this side.
Soon he spied a building twice the size of the others. That had to be the one. He ducked into an anchor hole as the building approached, and m a moment was inside.
There was the fringe-shuttle, like a monstrous arrowhead standing on its tail. It had a porthole in the side big enough to admit him, so he climbed in.
He found himself in a tight cockpit that the cock seemed to have vacated. There was only one place to sit comfortably, a kind of padded chair before a panel full of dinguses. So he sat there, knowing he could bash the dinguses out of the way if they bothered him. There was another brass button on the panel, and he punched it with his thumb.
The porthole clanged closed. A wheel spun itself about. Air hissed. Straps rose up from the chair and wrapped themselves around his body. A magic mirror lit up before his face. An alarm klaxon sounded.
The ship shuddered, then launched upward like a shot from a catapult, punching through the roof.
In moments the mirror showed clouds falling away ahead. Then the moon came into view, growing
larger and brighter each moment. It was now a half-circle. Of course-that was why the lunatic fringe no longer shrouded the fireoak tree-not enough moon left to sustain it. But the half that remained seemed solid enough, except for the round holes in it. Of course, cheese did have holes; that was its nature.
Now it occurred to him that the brassies might have misconstrued his request. They had shown him the way out of the City of Brass-but not out of the gourd. Well, nothing to do now but carry this through.
Maybe the ship could get him back to the fireoak tree.
He didn't really want to go to the moon, though the view of all that fresh cheese made him hungry. After all, it had been at least an hour since he had eaten that bushel of fruit. So he checked the panel before him and found a couple of projecting brass sticks. He grabbed them, wiggling them about.
The moon veered out of the mirror-picture, and Smash was flung about in his chair as if tossed by a storm. Fortunately, the straps held him pretty much in place. He let go of the sticks-and after a moment the moon swung back into view. Evidently he had messed up the ship's program. His Eye Queue curse caused him to ponder this, and he concluded that the sticks controlled the ship. When they were not in use, the ship sailed where it wanted, which was evidently a hole in the cheese of the moon. Maybe this Luna shuttle was the mechanism by which the moon's cheese was brought to Xanth, though he wasn't sure what use metal people would have for cheese.
Smash took hold of the sticks again and wiggled more cautiously. Ogres were clumsy only when it suited them to be so; they could perform delicate tasks when no one was watching. The moon danced about but did not leave the screen. He experimented some more, and soon was able to steer the ship where he wanted and to make it go at any speed he wanted.
Fine-now he would take it back to Xanth and land beside the fireoak tree. Then he could turn it over to Biythe Brassie so she could fly back to her city and building.
Then blips appeared on the screen. They were shaped like little curse-burrs and were hurtling toward him. What did they want?
Then flashes of light came near him. The ship shook. The screen flared red for a moment, as if it had been knocked half silly. Smash understood this sort of thing. It was like getting knocked in the snoot by a fist and having stars and planets fly out from one's head. The entire night sky was filled with the stars flung out from people's heads in the course of prior fights, but Smash didn't care to have his own lights punched out. The thing to do was to hit back and destroy the enemy.
He checked the panel again, enjoying the prospect of a new type of violence. There was a big button he hadn't noticed before. Naturally he thumbed it.
A flash of light shot toward the blips, evidently from his own ship. It was throwing its sort of rocks when he told it to. Very well, in this strange gourd world, he could accept the notion of a fist made of light. But it wasn't aimed well, and missed the blips. It lanced on to blast a chunk of cheese out of the moon. Grated cheese puffed out into space in a diffuse cloud, where some of the blips went after it; no doubt they were hungry, too.
Smash pressed the button again, sending out another fist of light. This one missed both blips and moon.
But he was getting the feel of it; he had to have his target in the very center of the mirror, where there was a faint intersection of lines like the center of a spider web. Funny place for a spider to work; maybe it had been trying to catch stray stars or blips or bits of blasted cheese.
To center the target, he had to work the two sticks in a coordinated fashion. He did so, after glancing nervously about to make quite sure no one was near to see him being so well coordinated. Of course, it took more than strength to balance his whole body on a single hamfinger or to smash a rock into a particular grade of gravel with one blow, but that was an ogre secret. It was fashionable to appear clumsy.
When he had a blip centered, he pushed the button with his big left toe so he wouldn't have to stop maneuvering. This time his aim was good; the beam speared out and struck the blip, which exploded with lovely violence and pretty colors.