"Very well, sir. I shall return anon. May your liver be light!"
Mjipa spent the morning strolling about Yein, looking in the shops. He had to keep moving, because every time he stopped, the Mutabwcians gathered about him, staring. Although experience had hardened Mjipa to the role of exotic curiosity, he still found it irksome. Besides, all it needed was for some anti-Terran fanatic, a local version of King Khorosh, to stir up an otherwise peaceful crowd ...
Mid-afternoon found Percy Mjipa sitting on a cushion on the floor in a corner of Minister Zharvets's chamber of office, filling the air with pipe smoke. At last the minister, coughing, said:
"Master Mjipa, if you will cease smoking that thing, I will send for a flagon of good falat. Belike you'll find drinking it as pleasurable to you and less asphyxiating to me."
"I beg Your Altitude's pardon," said Mjipa, removing the pipe from his mouth. "You said you would not mind."
"Aye, but little I knew what hellish clouds your instrument would give forth."
The native wine proved good. But Mjipa, what with his impatience to begone from Yein, his shame at having failed to preserve Alicia's residual virtue, and his puzzlement over what could be holding her in the seraglio, was in no condition to appreciate its bouquet.
Roqir was low in the west when Alicia appeared. She wore her usual khaki shirt and shorts, but Mjipa could see that beneath the clothes she had been decorated with Khaldoni body paint, the pattern of which appeared on her bare arms, legs, and neck. In one hand she clutched a long rolled strip of native paper, and a necklace of gems gleamed round her slender neck.
"Percy darling!" she cried. "How nice of you to wait all this time! Farewell, Your Altitude," she said gaily to the minister; then to Mjipa again:"We must get back to the inn. I have work to do tonight."
"Eh? What?" said Mjipa as they walked out of the palace, with Alicia holding the black man's arm. "You seem remarkably cheerful for one who has been through a degrading experience."
"Degradation is all in the mind of the degradee. If I feel I've done the right thing, nobody can degrade me."
"Well, how was it?"
"The Heshvavu? No worse than a gynecological examination. It didn't really hurt, though I can't say I liked it, either. Maybe that's what made Ainkhist quit after the first time. Or maybe he expected some strange, exotic experience and was disappointed to find that one orgasm feels much like another."
"Some day I'll kill that son of a bitch," muttered Mjipa.
"Oh, calm down, Percy. He merely acted according to his lights, and I'm none the worse. After he'd done his thing, he insisted on reading aloud the beginning of his great Khaldoni history. But I fell asleep in the third chapter. I guess he took that as a literary criticism, because when I woke up he'd gone hunting."
"But what the hell are you so cheerful about? And what have you been up to all day?"
"Calm yourself, Percy; you're acting childish."
"God damn it, woman, I ought to know—"
"I'm trying to tell you, if you'll just keep quiet. See this?"
She held up the roll of paper, which he saw was covered with tiny inked symbols. He got out his spectacles to peer at them and asked: "What is it?"
"I've spent the day interviewing the inmates of the harem, and these are my notes. I'll have to spend the night writing them up in my notebooks, while they're still fresh."
"What language is that stuff written in? It looks something like Gozashtandou but isn't."
"English, but in shorthand. It's an almost forgotten art, but I find it handy in my profession. I have material here for a dozen papers and at least one whole book! Nobody has published a study of this milieu! Now do you see why I'm happy?"
"I'm glad it makes up for the other thing. I'll never forgive myself—"
"You mean the Heshvavu again? That was nothing."
"But don't you feel somehow unclean—violated?"
"Not really. I'm sure there's nothing about it in the Bible. If I remember, in the Apocrypha, Judith got high marks for giving her all to some enemy general, so she could murder him in his sleep.
"Understand, Percy, this king and his member mean no more to me emotionally than some mechanical gimmick. For a chance like this, I'd let myself be screwed every hour on the hour, so long as it didn't hurt. Don't look so shocked; I'm just being practical and realistic.
"And speaking of sex, these notes include Ovanel's remarks about you, so you needn't scorn me as a fallen woman. She was telling everyone who'd listen how you rang the bell four times in one night. I suppose there are Krishnans who'd feel about you the way you do towards Ainkhist."
Mjipa hung his head and kicked a pebble. "I've been continent a hell of a long time, you know; and she seemed ready, willing, and eager. But I'm still ashamed of myself."
"Oh, cheer up, Percy dear. You merely proved you 're not wearing an invisible halo."
"I'm just sorry I blotted my copybook, after holding out for so long."
"It's not a record anybody'll give you a medal for in these promiscuous days, no matter how virtuous you've been. In fact, Ovanel praised your virility till some of the haremites wondered if they couldn't persuade the Heshvavu to give or sell them to you. Apparently Ainkhist isn't in the same league with you in that department."
"Good God! We'd better get out of Yein before he tries something like that. Or, more likely, he'll have me liquidated in a fit of jealousy. He thinks himself the kingdom's number one lover, and he wouldn't take kindly to competition."
"He's more talk than action," said Alicia. "But that's usually the case with these self-styled great cocksmen on Earth, and I suppose here, too."
Mjipa sighed. "You 're in a position to know, though I'm still kicking myself for not somehow preventing it. I say, what's that fancy necklace? It looks like the one I saw Ainkhist wearing."
She pulled the necklace off over her head. "It's the same one. He gave it to me; he's basically a kindly soul aside from his sex complex."
"Huh! Kindly by his lights, perhaps; but if you hadn't given in to him, he might just as well have had you flogged to death. I know these blokes."
"You may be right." She held the necklace up to let it glitter in the sunshine. "I think the big green one's a real emerald. But I don't want the damned thing." She drew back her arm, as if to fling the necklace away.
"Oy!" cried Mjipa. "Don't! That's valuable!"
"I know; but it makes me feel like a whore." Alicia held up the roll of paper. "This is my real payment."
"Well, we ought to figure out something more practical to do with that bauble. I know! Sell it to me at a price I can afford, and I'll give it to Vicky as a homecoming present."
"I'll give it to you; here! No, I won't take payment. Either you accept it as a gift, or I'll drop it in a rubbish bin."
"And you're the one always accusing me of impractical sentimentality!"
"Never mind; I mean what I say. But perhaps you'd better not tell Victoria how you came by it."
"Oh, rather! In fact, we'd both better keep quiet about the events of last night. Vicky would be furious; and as for you, you might yet meet a man whom you'd prefer not to have know about these bêtises."
She shrugged. "I doubt that. No use trying to play Cupid for me, Percy. You don't know what it's like to be a highly qualified woman scientist. Most of the men I meet seem hopelessly dull, and those on my educational level run away because they prefer a female they have the psychological bulge over. So I've settled for marriage to my career."
"Haven't you any maternal instincts?"
"You can't tell whether you have them until you have a . child to trigger them. I've seen too many of my women colleagues, with excellent professional prospects, get married. Then the guy wants kids; so they have them. They have to quit work to raise the brats, and by the time they go back, , they've lost fifteen or twenty years of professional advancement and can never catch up."