They called it a night and took the lander out to Utopia, where they were safely alone.
In the morning, as they were getting ready to return to Kulnar, he asked Kellie whether he could have the silver chain she wore as a necklace.
“May I ask why?”
“I want to give it to another woman.”
She canted her head and regarded him with a combination of amusement and suspicion. “The nearest other woman is a long walk, Digger.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “It’s important. And when we get home, I’ll replace it.”
“It has sentimental value.”
“Kellie, it would really help. And maybe we can figure out a way to get it back.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
On the way into the city, he retrieved one of the pickups and attached it to the chain. “How’s it look?”
“Like a pickup on a chain.”
Actually, he thought it looked pretty good. If you didn’t look too closely, the pickup might have been a polished, dark, disk-shaped jewel. It was the way a Goompah would see it.
They found the local equivalent of a stationery store. It carried ink, quill-style pens, parchment of various thicknesses, and document cylinders. Because the weather had gotten cool, a fire had been built in a small metal grate in the middle of the floor. Its smoke drifted out through an opening in the roof. It wasn’t Segal’s, but it was adequate to their needs.
“So where do we get a messenger?” asked Kellie.
“Macao’s an entertainer,” he said. “They should know her at the public halls.” He disliked stealing merchandise, but he put the store in his mental file beside the Brackel Library, for future recompense. He lifted two cylinders, a pen, a pot of ink, and some paper that could be rolled and placed inside. Then they went next door to a shop that sold carpets, and made off with some coins.
The public buildings that hosted sloshen, shows, and other public events, were lightly occupied at that time of day. They picked one and looked in. Except for a couple of workers wiping down the walls, it seemed empty.
They found a room with a table, closed the door, and sat down to write to Macao.
The cylinders, which were made of bronze, were about a third of a meter long. They were painted black with white caps at either end. A tree branch with leaves for decoration on one, birds in flight on the other. What would one of these be worth at home?
“What do we want to say?” asked Digger. “Keep in mind that I can’t write the language very well.”
“I don’t see why we should write anything,” said Kellie. “All we want to do is find out where she lives.”
Sounded reasonable to him. He twisted the caps and opened both cylinders, but stopped to wonder whether the messenger might look inside. “Better put something in there,” he said. He sat down at the table, pulled one of the sheets toward him, and opened his ink pot. Challa, Macao, he wrote. And, continuing in Goompah: We’ve enjoyed your work. He signed it Kellie and Digger.
She smiled and shook her head. “First written interstellar communication turns out to be a piece of fan mail.”
He inserted the message, twisted the cylinder shut, put the caps on, and reached for a second sheet. Please deliver to Macao Carista, he wrote.
They found an inner office occupied by a Goompah who seemed to have some authority. He was installed behind a table, talking earnestly to an aide, describing how he wanted the auditorium set up for that evening’s performance. They were staging a show titled Wamba, which rang no bells for Digger.
Shutters were closed against the cool air. A pile of rugs was pushed against one wall, and a fire burned cheerfully in a stove. A pipe took the smoke out of the building.
While the Goompahs were engaged in their conversation, Digger moved to the side of the table, keeping the cylinder inside his vest, where it remained invisible.
“Up there, Grogan,” said the Goompah behind the desk.
Grogan? Another peculiar name for a native. Kellie snickered. The sound was loud enough to escape the damping effect of the suit and attract the attention of the Goompahs. Puzzled, they looked around while she held one hand over her mouth, trying to suppress a further onset. Grogan. Digger, watching her, felt a convulsion of his own coming on. He fought it down and took advantage of the distraction to slip the tube onto the table, along with three of the coins he’d taken. With luck, it would look like a piece of outgoing mail.
“It must have been the fire,” said Grogan.
The one behind the table scratched his right ear. “Sounded like a chakul,” he said.
That brought a second round of snorts and giggles from the corridor, where Kellie had retreated. Digger barely made it out of the office himself before exploding with laughter. They hurried through the nearest doorway into the street, and let go. A few passersby looked curiously in their direction.
“This being invisible,” said Digger, when he could calm down, “isn’t as easy as it’s supposed to be.”
WITH JACK’S DEATH, they’d shed the policy of not splitting up. Their increasing familiarity with the cities of the Intigo might have caused them to become careless, but Kellie had pointed out that they had commlinks, that if either of them got into trouble, help was always nearby.
So they divided forces. Digger would stay near the office, watching to see what happened to the message they’d left, while Kellie would post another one at a second likely location. Eventually, they hoped, one or the other would get delivered.
But the prospect of hanging around the nearly empty building all day did nothing for his state of mind.
When she’d left, and he’d gone back inside, he saw that the coins had vanished and the message had been moved to the edge of the table. That was encouraging. But the cylinder remained untouched through the balance of the morning, and he began to wonder whether he should have marked it URGENT.
There were several other visitors, including a female who exchanged sexual signals with the office occupant and then, to Digger’s horror, closed the door and proceeded to engage him in a sexual liaison. All this occurred despite the fact there were others immediately outside who could not possibly have misunderstood what was happening.
Digger, unhappily, was forced to watch.
There was much gasping, clutching, and slobbering. Clothes went every which way, and the combatants moaned and laughed and sighed. There were protestations of affection, and when, midway through the proceedings, somebody knocked, the manager politely told him to come back later.
When it was over, and the female gone, the message remained. The occupant of the office, whose name Digger now knew to be Kali—unless Kali was a derivative of lover or darling—threw some wood on the fire and settled back to his paperwork.
Digger opened a channel to Kellie and told her what had happened. “Valor above and beyond,” she said.
She had planted her message, she told him, only to see it get tossed aside. She’d recovered it, and the coins, and had gone to a third location.
Kali left several times to wander through the building. Digger stayed with the cylinder, and was leaning against the wall, bored, when Kellie called to say her message was on the move.
“I’ll let you know what happens,” she reported. “Meantime I think you should stay put.”
Kali came back and went out again. Kellie was by then following the messenger, who’d been given one of the three coins. “I guess we overtipped,” she said.
“Crossing the park. Headed north.
“Messenger’s a female. Really moves along. I’m having all I can do to stay up with her.
“Threatening rain.
“Uh-oh.”