"Now," said Mjipa, "if you'll allow me, I'll explain my part in this sad affair." He summarized the obstacles he faced and the things he had been forced to do in his dealings with the Khaldonian rulers. Isayin asked:
"Be this female whom you've rescued from peril dire, as Abbeq rescued Dangi, the same as she who vouchsafed the Terran round-world doctrine to me? Alesha—Aleesha something."
"Yes; Alicia Dyckman. She and I sail five days hence for Majbur and Novorecife. If I could smuggle you out of this cell, would you wish to come with us?"
The Kalwmian spread his hands. "What can I say? Love I my native land ne'er so much, I'd liefer not stay to enjoy the entertainments of the Heshvavu's executioners. How will you effect this extrication?"
"I'm not certain, but I have ideas. Act doleful and discouraged, as if I had quenched your last spark of hope. I shall be back."
Over the next day's breakfast, Mjipa said: "Lish, I've got another problem. Can you write good Khaldoni?"
"Is this something to do with your crazy idea of springing Isayin?"
"Never mind; can you?"
"No, I can't. I've studied the written language and can read it a little, but I never got very far past the signs. It's very irregular."
"Then I shall have to try Minyev. He reads and writes, which is pretty good for a person of his class."
"Oh, God, Percy! Don't you see, that will put us at his mercy? What makes you think he wouldn't turn us in for a reward?"
"It's taking a bit of a chance, I admit. But it won't affect you, because you'll be safe aboard ship. Minyev is a good risk, because he wants to come with us to Novo. He can't do that if I'm in pokey here."
"Percy, you 're the most bullheaded idiot I've ever known. There's no reasoning with you. You make me mad!"
"No, my dear; your madness was well established long before I met you. Now excuse me, please."
Mjipa hunted up the taverner, saying: "Master Irants, have you a rule or scale for measuring, that I could borrow?"
Irants produced a length of wood marked off in Khaldoni units. Mjipa took it and found Minyev, saying:
"See you this?" He showed the factotum the blank back of the pass to Isayin's cell. "Look closely, noting the quality of the paper. It is four and a half by six yestit. I want you to buy me twenty sheets of paper of exactly the same size and quality. Take Master Irants's rule along to make sure. This is strictly confidential. If you give me away, you'll never get to Novorecife."
"Wherefore not, sir? I understand not."
"Because in that case I shan't be alive to take you. Now get along."
Hours later, Minyev returned with the package, saying: "The quality is not exactly that of the original, my lord. It was the closest I could find."
Mjipa unwrapped the package and compared the sheets with that of his pass. The paper differed slightly, but Mjipa hoped that the difference was too slight to be noticed by lamplight.
"You did well," said Mjipa. "Now sit down. Here are pen and ink. Write me out, in your best Khaldoni, the following:
YOU ARE HEREBY DIRECTED TO RELEASE THE PRISONER ISAYIN IN THE CUSTODY OF THE SAID TERRAN MJIPA. FOR REASONS OF STATE, THIS ENLARGEMENT SHALL BE KEPT IN STRICTEST SECRECY.
CHANAPAR, PHATHVUM
After dinner, Mjipa retired to his room and spent the rest of the day laboriously forging a new pass. Although he had no experience in forgery, after several attempts he produced a plausible imitation of the opening sentences of the original pass. Instead of the final sentence, authorizing him to visit Isayin in his cell, he copied the passage that he had caused Minyev to write, following the style of lettering of the original pass.
The following day, Mjipa killed time by taking Alicia to a revival of Harian's The Ancestors, given in Khaldoni. He offered her a choice of a poetry reading by Shetsin, a local bard; a concert by the Royal Band; and the play. All of these were advertised on the bulletin board in the main square. She chose the play.
The plot concerned an aristocratic young couple whose first egg, when hatched, produced a baby Krishnan with a tail. The question was: which line, his or hers, bore the taint of the ancestry of a tailed Krishnan? The presence of the tailed species in one's family tree was deemed a deep disgrace.
Mjipa whispered: "I thought the tailed and tailless species weren't interfertile?"
"Not quite true," Alicia whispered back. "They can produce offspring, but most are sterile. Not all, though."
In the end, it transpired that the couple were remote cousins, their common ancestor being the same tailed forebear. They were about to commit suicide to atone for their disgrace, when an envoy from distant Günesh invited them to his country. There, he assured them, their "drop of tailed blood" would not be held against them.
"At least," murmured Alicia, "it's sound genetics, assuming the tail is a Mendelian recessive."
Later, near the end of visiting hours, Mjipa paid another call at the Old Prison, to warn Isayin of his plans.
"Oh!" said Isayin. "You purport to liberate me three days hence? Alas, 'twill be too late."
"How?"
"The day after tomorrow, 'tis said, I shall be taken to the Examining Room in the palace. You wite, methinks, what that means. They'll seek to wring from me, by means no whit gentler than those of the giant Damghan in the legend, news of other heretics. They fancy to crush what they misprize to be a vast conspiracy of round-worlders against the god-ordained rule of His Sacred Awesomeness. Whether the late Khostavorn headed such a cabal, I know not, never having met the rogue."
Mjipa sat in thought. At last he said: "Then I must deliver you tomorrow. I've been wondering where to keep you between then and sailing time; but I think I know a safe place. Can you play the part of a—let me think—a Zhamanacian, say?"
"I could shave off my hair, adopt their style of body paint, and speak a fair simulacrum of their dialect."
"Then be prepared to do so. Phaighost willing, I shall return after the dinner hour tomorrow."
For supper, Mjipa took Alicia to a Kalwmian night spot. They listened to a trio playing strange music on instruments resembling a set of bagpipes, a balalaika, and a xylophone. A female Krishnan sang wailing songs.
Struggling with a dish of live spaghetti—actually an edible worm that continued to wriggle after being boiled—Mjipa looked across at his companion. She was scribbling notes on a pad. "Lish!" he said. "Don't you ever stop gathering data and just enjoy life?"
"You don't understand. You know how it is in Majbur and other cities nearer Novorecife. You try to sample native entertainment, and you get Krishnan attempts at Guadalajara and The Star Spangled Banner and Die Lorelei. Terran arts and fashions are becoming the rage; so if you want the authentic Krishnan flavor, you have to go out in the boonies, like here. That's why I want to record it, before it disappears the way distinctive local cultures have on Earth."
A dancer, wearing a hugely voluminous dress, with a wide skirt over many petticoats and puffed sleeves, pirouetted. Mjipa remarked:"Where people are used to wearing clothes, they get their jollies out of seeing some bird dance naked. Here, where they go more or less naked, they get them from seeing her practically smothered in clothes."
When the dancer retired, the trio struck up a lively tune.
Some Kalwmian couples got up to dance. Alicia said:"Let's dance, Percy!"
"Christ, woman, how could I possibly do one of these native minuets and gavottes and things, whatever they call 'em here, which I've never learned? I should need instruction and practice. All I could do would be the Ngwato war dance, which I learned in school."