"I'll try not to goggle. But what—"
"I hope you don't mind my making myself at home. I came in while you were away."
"Of course not! But what's this all about? Have you decided that—that—" Salazar felt himself flushing.
"This is purely a business visit," she said in a voice as crisp as melba toast. "I have an assignment from the Henderson Times for a story on your dig. I hope you won't mind putting me up for a few days."
"Not a bit!" said Salazar heartily. "You're looking splendid."
"Covered with dirt and sweat? But thanks; you're looking well, too."
"No amount of dirt could hide your beauty, Kara. Excuse me; I've got to go through the rigmarole." He turned to the native couple and, in rasping Shongo, repeated the elaborate greetings and responses of Kookish etiquette:
"Is your health good?"
"Thanks to my ancestral spirits, my health is good," replied Kono. As the male Kook opened his mouth, a set of shearing and grinding teeth were momentarily visible behind his turtle beak. "Is the honorable master's health likewise good?"
"Thank the Universal Law, it is. Is all well with your clan?"
"Thank the spirits of our ancestors, it is. Is all well with your clan?"
"Indeed it is. Have you led tranquil lives?"
"We have lived tranquil lives. Has the master lived a tranquil life?"
When the ritual dialogue ended, Salazar went through a similar procedure with Uwangi, Kono's mate, and then with the three helpers as he paid off and dismissed them. He turned back.
"After that hike from Henderson, I could do with a drink. You?"
Kara studied her fingers before she spoke. "Sure."
"Then let's go in." Salazar turned to the two remaining Kooks to give orders for stowing the baggage. Inside the tent he said:
"Will you please wait in the study, Kara?"
In the bath compartment, Salazar looked in the mirror. He saw a youthfully mature man, of medium height and slight but wiry build, with dark hair and beard lightly touched with gray. He had not bothered with razor, dye, or a prescription to restore his hair pigmentation. He had never cared much about appearance, and since the woman for whom he had left Kara had in turn deserted him, he had become even more indifferent to the way he looked.
Feeling, however, that with a female guest, and a special one at that, he ought to present a more sightly façade, he washed up and trimmed his hair and beard. When he emerged, he was in clean khakis and in shoes instead of mud-caked boots.
Drinks consisted of the "whiskey" distilled at Henderson from native Kukulcanian plants, with water and cakes of ice from his small ice-making machine.
The fluid had a plausible amber hue, but a Terran connoisseur of Scotch would not have been impressed. When Salazar rejoined his former wife, Kara said:
"You make those Kookish sounds better than I ever could. The words look simple when written, but they don't sound like what you'd expect."
Ill at ease with his unexpected visitor, Salazar unconsciously took on his classroom manner. "Since the Kookish vocal organs differ so from ours, interspecies speech is like trying to converse with intelligent parrots. You used to know a little Shongo."
"I know, but from lack of practice I've forgotten it. I was never much of a linguist anyway."
"You could pick it up again. The grammar's not very complex; the hard parts are the non-human sounds and the inflections for status. Everything is modified according to whether you're speaking to someone of your own social level, or above it, or below it. Kooks display their status by insulting their inferiors and fawning upon their superiors, like that female from the Maravilla Society, who came upon me in my work clothes and called me 'My good man!' "
Kara chuckled. "You, the planet's leading archaeologist! So much for the snobby descendants of the first settlers, as if the Maravilla had been brought across interstellar space by angels!"
"Kooks," Salazar continued, "are even more class-conscious. An upper-class Kook would consider it rude to shoot out his tongue at an equal or a superior. Since, like Terran snakes, they use their tongues to smell odors, it's like saying: 'You stink!' By the way, how did you get here?"
"My bicycle. I'd have hired a steam car, but I was told the Sappari bridge wouldn't take the weight.
Kono put the bike in the shed. Why did you walk instead of biking?"
"I've found one must get off and push a bike so often it's hardly worth the trouble. Besides, kudzais can't travel much faster than a walk for long, and I've never learned to ride a juten. Did you come all this way by yourself?"
"Sure." Kara sipped and smiled. "Why the frown?"
"Might be dangerous. Choshas have been seen scouting around. Some are headhunters. You came armed, of course?"
She shrugged. "With everything so peaceful, a gun seemed silly."
"Peaceful now, maybe; but it wasn't always so. There are rifles and ammunition from the old days somewhere in the bowels of the museum. Really, Kara, you should know better. Your head's too pretty to end up in a nomad's private collection."
"I didn't have you to advise me." Kara glanced sidelong at her former husband and then at her ringless left hand. "By the way, your friend Cabot Firestone sends his regards."
"You've seen Cabot?"
"Yes. I interviewed him for a story, and later he took me out to dinner."
"How long will you be here?" Salazar asked.
"Depends. Didn't I see another party, with both Kooks and Terrans, go past on the main trail?"
"Guess you did."
"Do you know who they were?"
"Yep."
"Oh, stop playing the Maine storekeeper! Who were they?"
"A hunting party, headed for Kinyobi Valley."
"Was their leader a huge, heavyset man with bushy black eyebrows?"
Salazar tensed. "Their guide said the man's name was Bergen. Do you know him?"
"That's Conrad Bergen, the developer. He's looking for me—wants to kill me."
"What?" cried Salazar.
"I said, he's looking for me to kill me."
"But—why?"
"We were engaged; but when I looked up his previous wife and learned a thing or two, I changed my mind."
"How did you ever get involved with such a character? He obviously needs his screws tightened. He'd look fine in a glass case at the Museum."
Kara shrugged. "It was when he was launching his chicken farm, having somehow gotten around the rule against importing Terran plants and animals. Conrad can put up a good front, as men do when they're courting."
"Putting his best paunch forward, you mean," said Salazar. "I'm surprised at you, Kara."
"I think I missed having a husband—missed being married. I suppose I felt sorry for myself. But when I told him we were through, he had one of his temper tantrums and knocked me down. I left the chicken farm with a fine shiner and Conrad roaring that he'd kill me."
Salazar clenched his fists, then slammed one fist into the other palm. "Oh, God! If I hadn't gone nuts ..."
"Forget that!" Kara snapped. "What's past is past. Anyway, I moved back to Henderson. I don't suppose he'd actually shoot me on sight, but I'd better •not take chances."
Salazar took his larger pistol off the hook and checked the magazine. Kara said: "Nothing rash, please, Keith."
"Don't worry. If his head were mounted over my fireplace, people might think it in poor taste."
She smiled. "Who's Galina, the person you called out to?"
"A graduate student, helping with the dig. My students are running a survey on the site. Do you know the other two in Bergen's hunting party? One's tall and blond, the other short and stout with a Slavic accent."
"They're two of Conrad's cronies; he does have friends in spite of his temper. The blond is Derek Travers, a bureaucrat from the Native Relations Office, who never lets us forget that his grandparents were all English. The other's Oleg Pokrovskii, Conrad's construction supervisor."