"I've told you," said Alicia, "sewing is my one domestic accomplishment. I found a picture book of costumes in Gilan's library, bought the fabric in Rosid, and sat up the night before last stitching the thing. It didn't fit very well, but nobody noticed. By the way, Cyril, Cosmic owes me a thousand karda for expenses. No arguments, now! It took most of that just to bribe the Gavehon to deliver the letter and then disappear."
"What'll happen," Ordway asked, "when Gilan and company get to Hershid and find it's all a hoax?"
Alicia shrugged. "That will be interesting to see— preferably from a safe distance."
Reith chuckled and winked at White and Ordway. "Gentlemen, you'd better take Doctor Dyckman back to Earth with you. If you leave her here, she'll soon be running the whole damned planet."
Alicia raised a defiant chin. "And the whole damned planet could do a lot worse than that!"
Back at Novorecife, the travelers renewed their wardrobes, submitted to Heggstad's exhausting athletic drills and torturous massages, studied maps, and sought news of the Republic of Mikardand.
"We don't want to arrive in the middle of a revolution," said Reith at the end of several days of preparation for the next journey.
"If it's already a republic," asked Ordway, "what's their peeve?"
"It's a peculiar kind of republic. The power's in the hands of a military caste, the Garma Qararuma or Knights of Qarar. Among themselves, the Knights practice a land of communism, sharing everything, including sex."
"That I must see!" said Ordway. "That's the kind of communism I approve of."
Ignoring the comment, Reith continued. "They promote the most gifted commoners to knighthood, to nip the buds of disaffection; but sometimes the less fortunate Mikardanduma get restless. Will you and Jack be ready to set out early tomorrow?"
"Certainly, mate," said Ordway.
"Okay; then I'll send Zerré on ahead with a letter to the Grand Master. The Knights have just elected a new one, and I don't know how he feels about Terrans."
As Reith strolled out into the sunny afternoon, a yell of "Haw, Fergus!" made him turn.
"Ken!" he cried as the engineer approached, a smaller companion in tow. "Who's your new—good gods, it's Vázni!"
"The goddess Varzai blast your keen eyesight, Fergus!" said Vázni. "You're the first whom my masquerade hath not befooled."
She was dressed as a Terran youth, with her antennae taped down and freshly-bleached hair arranged to hide her ears. Grease paint and powder had tinted the faintly olive-green hue of her skin to a ruddy pink. Reith said: "Let's step into the Nova Iorque. Have you two just arrived?"
"Aye," said Strachan. "I've been stabling ma ayas and finding quarters for the princess."
In the bar, Strachan took a wall seat. Vázni insisted on sitting beside him, snuggling up close. Reith formed his own opinion as to how these two had amused themselves on the way from Hershid. He said: "Now talk!"
"Weel," said Strachan, "I wanted to go to Hershid wi' the Dasht and the princess, to make sure I received the last installment on ma contract. I wudna have put it past Gilan to hare off to become regent of Dur, leaving me to whistle for ma siller."
Strachan glanced around the barroom and switched to the Duro language, either out of courtesy to Vázni or to baffle eavesdroppers. "I put it up to the Dasht, who said: 'Surely, my lad, come along.' But when we reached Hershid, we found the Dour saying he knew of no such missive to Vázni, and Tashian's ambassador denying he'd received such a word from the Regent, and the Dour's secretary professing equal ignorance. Know you aught of this Fergus?"
Reith shook his head, and Strachan continued: "Seeing that the party would return to Rosid disappointed, I took the Dasht to task about my money. But he was in a fury, threatening to have whoever had perpetrated this jape stepped on by a bishtar from the baronial menagerie. When I spoke of the contract, he said: 'Are ye involved in this unmannerly jest, Strachan? If I discover that ye be ...' And he drew a finger across his throat.
"So I said to myself, Kenneth my lad, you'd better hie you hence before His Self-importance sets his headsman on you with rack and thumbscrews. I was saddling up when along came the princess, disguised as you see, demanding to be taken, too. Since there's no crown awaiting her in Baianch, it was either flee, with her jewels in a little bag in her bosom, or return to Rosid to be Gilan's blushing bride—if these greenish folk can blush. So here we are."
Thoughtfully, Reith said: "Gillan may soon test Novo's right to grant asylum. I, luckily, shall be far away. What are your plans, Princess?"
She glanced appealing from one Terran to the other. "I truly know not. What are yours, Fergus?"
"I leave tomorrow for Mishé with my people."
"And you, Kennet'?"
The Scot grinned. "I'll bide at home a while; then who knows? I hear the Krishnans have made a botch of the Majbur-Mishé railroad. Perhaps they could use a good Terran engineer."
Vázni sighed. "There's nought left for me, save to join my daughter in Suruskand. She hath invited me. I shall have to find trusty bodyguards, who'll not murder me for my gems along the way."
"I'll ask Castanhoso to help," said Reith. "Now I'm bound for the ranch. Can I give you a lift, Ken?"
Before dropping Strachan off at his house, Reith brought the Scot up to date on the movie project. Strachan said: "Aside from your business, how about you and your onetime kimmer, Alicia? What's the status, if ye dinna mind? You two were my favorite people, and I wudna wish to put my foot in it."
"We're just good old friends, that's all."
"Hmph!" Strachan snorted. "I dinna ken about you, Fergus; but if I were unattached, I cudna be just friends' with such a lovely woman for very long. Something would have to give."
Reith grinned. "Something or somebody, eh? Just give us a while to find out."
V - Lady Gashigi
Its folding top up against a drizzling rain, the barouche rolled briskly down the river road to Qou. On their left, the country sometimes opened out into cultivated farmland, then closed in again behind a crowded wall of temperate-zone forest. Gaudy trunks of bright-hued trees lined the roadside, like billboards along a busy Terran highway.
Timásh, riding ahead on a spare aya, threw up a warning hand. Reith pulled up his pair of ayas and set the brake.
"What's up?" demanded Ordway.
"You'll see," said Reith. "Just be quiet."
Across the road, a score of meters beyond, shambled three huge beasts: a female bishtar and two young, one half-grown and one a new calf. The cow was of elephantine size and build, with six columnar legs supporting a long-barreled body. Its hide was covered with glossy far of purpled brown, spangled with constellations of small cream-colored spots, as if a demented painter had flapped his brushes at the animal. The head resembled that of a Terran tapir, though vastly larger, with small, trumpet-shaped ears and a long muzzle ending in a pair of stubby, meter-long trunks.
"Wish I had an elephant gun," breathed Ordway. "There's no hunting for sport on Earth any more; all the wildlife's in parks and preserves."
"We ought to have one of those things in our movie," whispered White. "Do they have tame ones for rent?"
Reith replied: "The Dasht of Ruz has one in his zoo; but I daresay he'd never lease it. We'd have to go to Majbur to find one, at the end of the coastal railroad lines."
"They've got railroads here?" exclaimed White.
"Hush! Yes, they do, with tame bishtars for locomotives."
"We've really got to get one into the picture!" said White. "One good action shot of that animal would be worth a hundred meters of an animated model—"