“Was the winners heighed for Old ’Saken,” the thin man said.
“Didn’t one stay behind?” the woman asked.
“One of its officers, I heard,” said the Gladiolan. “A Gat. He asked for asylum or something.”
“If it please, missy,” said the waiter, who had returned. He looked at a sheet of scratch paper on which some figures had been scrawled. “Is four metric weeks one-punkt-six case doozydays. Which be thirty-eight days straight up.” He bobbed several times and scuttled off.
“Doozydays,” said the Gladiola man. “Why can’t the Old Planets use metric days like everyone else?”
The Megranomer grinned at him. “Why cain’t the rest of the Periphery use doozydays? Twelve makes more sense than ten. More divisible, d’ye see.”
The woman for Obisham Interstellar frowned. “What did he mean—‘thirty-eight days straight up’?”
Hugh hid a grin. The waiter had meant Terran days, but he saw no reason to enlighten his chance companions.
The Fudir had not been to the Corner of Èlfiuji in many years and found that he did not know it as well as he once had. The patois was a little different; and the smells and foods and noises, a trifle exotic. Much depended on the mix of ethnicities that had been settled here during the Great Cleansing. There was more wealth here than on Jehovah and the people moved with less of the edginess that marked the Jehovan Corner. Yet one hand knows the other and a few grips were enough to gain him access to the Brotherhood’s clubhouse where he met with Fendy Jackson.
“Had I known thou wert coming, Br’er Fudir,” the man said, “I had prepared a finer welcome.” He was tall, with a vulpine face and a wiry beard that covered all and fell to his chest. “How fareth our sister, the Memsahb of far Jehovah?”
“She doth well, Fendy.” The Fudir and his host sat on soft hassocks in a richly carpeted room draped in gossamer curtains of red, gold, and black. To the side, a servant prepared tea and a bowl of chickpea paste. “And happy she was to see the back of me.”
Fendy Jackson struck his breast with his fist. “May her loss be my gain. What service dost thou ask of our fellowship, Br’er Fudir? What hath brought thee to my miserable porch?”
“A complex story, I fear me. But at the end of it lieth the Earth, free once more.”
The Fendy paused with his teacup half raised to his lips, and the servant, too, in the act of handing a second cup to the Fudir. “Is’t so?” the Fendy asked. “A tale long told, but with no such ending yet. But there stood once a city there that it is in me to visit. It is an obligation that my grandfather’s grandfather longed to meet. How might we see such an end?”
“It is a matter of utmost delicacy that must be plucked from any number of grasping fingers. Thou knowest the story of the Twisting Stone? There may float a bean of truth in the pot of legend.”
“‘The man one day older is a man one day wiser.’ The prehumans left much behind them, though more in fancy than in fact.”
“Thou hazardest nought. I risk the search. If nought lieth at the end of it, how art thou diminished?”
The Fendy considered these words while he tore off a piece of bread, dipped it in the hummus, and handed it to the Fudir. “How might our brothers and sisters aid thee?”
“There is a man,” the Fudir said around the mouthful. “In himself, he is nothing. But some few weeks ago a fleet passed through Die Bold. Seven ships, we believe. Perhaps eight. They fought. Who they were and where they went are matters of interest. But it is said that one ship remained behind, or perhaps only this man; and him, we seek.”
The Fendy ate for a time in silence while behind him a monkey screeched in a brass cage. Then he inclined his head and the servant hastened to him and they bent their heads together in whispers. A wave of the Fendy’s fingers sent the man from the room.
“I have put the question out,” he said. “An answer may return on the echo. Meanwhile, be thou my guest and I shall call in women who know a little of the rock sharky and we shall dine on sweetmeats and dates.” He clapped his hands. “I am miserable that I cannot offer thee better than these poor inept dancers; but they do not oft stumble, and should one catch thy fancy…” He made a fig with his fist.
The Fudir bowed where he sat. “Thou art too generous, Fendy. I deserve not such largesse, but will for thy honor accept it; though from the dancing women’s comfort, I beg exemption.”
The Fendy’s thick red lips split his beard in laughter. “Oh, ho! Oh, ho! That madness cometh betimes to all men. May thou regainest soon thy sanity!”
While they dined, they spoke of matters affecting Terrans. Those of the Kingdom fared moderately well compared to some worlds. “But in the Pashlik, Fortune turned her face from us. The last Pash but one—Pablo IV Alqazar, that was—seized all the wealth of the Corner of Chewdad Day Pashlik to pay off his debts—and he was a man of costly habits. Then he expelled all our people, lest they demand it back. The son discovered that money was not a thing to have, but a slave that one sends forth to labor. Hah-hah. Now, the grandson seeketh to woo us back, and some hath chanced it for the sake of the dime; but for the most part their children have found a home with us here.”
“We live on the sufferance of others,” the Fudir said. “Never will we be safe entire ‘until the lions ride back on the wave,’ and we have our own world once again.”
The dancing girls, as promised, did not stumble much, although considering in how many directions they shook their bodies, it was a marvel that they did not. The Fudir wondered in which cultures of ancient Earth their dance had originated.
Most likely, he knew, it was an amalgam of several. During the Dark Age, the songs and legends of the Vraddy, of the Zhõgwó, of the Murkans and others had been blended by folk themselves deliberately commingled. Only the most painstaking scholars could tease the threads apart, and even then not to their certain knowledge.
Yet, the dancing was sensuous and rousing, and the sweetmeats and caesodias pleasing to the palate. The dancers wore petal skirts and halter tops, midriffs ill-concealed by sheer taffeta veils—except for the boys, of course, who wore only white cotton sirwals. The Fudir found his pulse quickening to the rock beat, the tinkling zills, and the undulating bodies of the dancers, so different from the syncopated and coordinated vradanadyam on Jehovah. One dancer in particular swayed around his hassock, plucking a date from the salver and placing it between his lips, only to whirl away laughing.
The Fendy’s servant returned several times during the dance to kneel and whisper in the Fendy’s ear. That worthy would stroke his beard listening and nod and the man would scurry off once more. The Fudir did not grudge patience. The phantom fleet had a long head start and dashing off at random with incomplete information would not close the distance.
When the dance was ended and the pipes had stilled and the panting dancers had departed, the Fendy, with a gracious wave of his hand, turned over to the Fudir a flimsy bearing the notes his man had collected from the whispers of the Corner. “This one,” he said, gesturing with a nail, “may be he whom thou seeketh. But there be further news, O Seeker, to interest thee.” A smile emerged from the forest of his beard. “Know that thou art also sought. One hears the Fudir of Jehovah asked for in low places about the city, in brothels and in bars.”
The Fudir grunted. “They know where to look for me, then.” He thought Hugh or Greystroke might be trying to get in touch.
“Ah, thou art the soul of wit,” said his host. “She soundeth quite anxious to find you.” Again, he allowed the smile to show.