Most perplexing of all was her aroma. Eitel was gifted with a sense of smell worthy of a parfumier, and he heeded a woman’s fragrance the way more ordinary men studied the curves of hip or bosom or thigh. Out of the pores and the axillae and the orifices came the truths of the body, he believed, the deepest, the most trustworthy, the most exciting communications; he studied them with rabbinical fervour and the most minute scientific zeal. But he had never smelled anything like this, a juxtaposition of incongruous spices, a totally baffling mix of flavors. Some amazing new perfume? Something imported from Arcturus or Capella, perhaps? Maybe so, though it was hard to imagine an effect like this being achieved by mere chemicals. It had to be her. But what mysterious glandular outpouring brought him that subtle hint of sea urchin mingled with honey? What hidden duct sent thyme and raisins coursing together through her bloodstream? Why did the crystalline line of light perspiration on her flawless upper lip carry those grace-notes of pomegranate, tarragon and ginger?
He looked for answers in her eyes: deep green pools, calm, cool, unearthly. They seemed as bewildering as the rest of her.
And then he understood. He realized now that the answer, impossible and implausible and terrifying, had been beckoning to him all evening, and that he could no longer go on rejecting it, impossible or not. And in the moment of accepting it he heard a sound within himself much like that of a wind beginning to rise, a hurricane being born on some far-off isle.
Eitel began to tremble. He had never felt himself so totally defenseless before.
He said, “It’s amazing, how human you seem to be.”
“Seem to be?”
“Outwardly identical in every way. I didn’t think it was possible for life-forms of such a degree of similarity to evolve on two different worlds.”
“It isn’t,” she said.
“You’re not from Earth, though.”
She was smiling. She seemed almost pleased, he thought, that he had seen through her masquerade.
“No.”
“What are you, then?”
“Centauran.”
Eitel closed his eyes a moment. The wind was a gale within him; he swayed and struggled to keep his balance. He was starting to feel as though he were conducting this conversation from a point somewhere behind his own right ear. “But Centaurans look like—”
“Like Anakhistos? Yes, of course we do, when we are at home. But I am not at home now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This is my traveling body,” she said.
“What?”
“It is not comfortable, visiting certain places in one’s own body. The air is sharp, the light hurts the eyes, eating is very troublesome.”
“So you simply put on a different body?”
“Some of us do. There are those like Anakhistos who are indifferent to the discomforts, or who actually regard them as part of the purpose of traveling. But I am of the sort that prefers to transfer into a traveling body when going to other worlds.”
“Ah,” Eitel said. “Yes.” He continued to move through the rhythms of the dance in a numb, dazed way. It’s all just a costume, he told himself. What she really looks like is a bunch of rigid struts, with a rubber sheet draped over them. Cheek-vents for breathing, three-sided slot for eating, receptor strip instead of eyes. “And these bodies?” he asked. “Where do you get them?”
“Why, they make them for us. Several companies do it. The human models are only just now becoming available. Very expensive, you understand.”
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
“Tell me: when was it that you first saw through my disguise?”
“I felt right away that something was wrong. But it wasn’t until a moment ago that I figured it out.”
“No one else has guessed, I think. It is an extremely excellent Earth body, would you not say?”
“Extremely,” Eitel said.
“After each trip I always regret, at first, returning to my real body. This one seems quite genuine to me by now. You like it very much, yes?”
“Yes,” Eitel said helplessly.
He found David out in the cab line, lounging against his taxi with one arm around a Moroccan boy of about sixteen and the other exploring the breasts of a swarthy French-looking woman. It was hard to tell which one he had selected for the late hours of the night: both, maybe. David’s cheerfully polymorphous ways were a little hard for Eitel to take, sometimes. But Eitel knew it wasn’t necessary to approve of David in order to work with him. Whenever Eitel showed up in Fez with new merchandise, David was able to finger a customer for him within twenty-four hours; and at a five percent commission he was probably the wealthiest taxi driver in Morocco, after two years as Eitel’s point man among the E-Ts.
“Everything’s set,” Eitel said. “Take me over to get the stuff.”
David flashed his glittering gold-toothed grin. He patted the woman’s rump, lightly slapped the boy’s cheek, pushed them both on their way, and opened the door of his cab for Eitel. The merchandise was at Eitel’s hotel, the Palais Jamai, on the edge of the native quarter. But Eitel never did business at his own hoteclass="underline" it was handy to have David to take him back and forth between the Jamai and the Hotel Merinides, out here beyond the city wall by the ancient royal tombs, where most of the aliens preferred to stay.
The night was mild, fragrant, palm trees rustling in the soft breeze, huge bunches of red geranium blossoms looking almost black in the moonlight. As they drove towards the old town, with its maze of winding medieval streets, its walls and gates straight out of The Arabian Nights, David said, “You mind I tell you something? One thing worries me.”
“Go ahead.”
“Inside, I watched you. Staring more at the woman than at the E-T. You got to concentrate on the deal, and forget the woman, Eitel.”
Eitel resented being told by a kid half his age how to conduct his operations. But he kept himself in check. To David, young and until recently poor, certain nuances were incomprehensible. Not that David lacked an interest in beauty. But beauty was just an abstraction; money was money. Eitel did not attempt to explain what time would surely teach.
He said, “You tell me, forget the woman?”
“Is a time for women, is a time for business. Separate times. You know that, Eitel. A Swiss, he is almost a Moroccan, when it comes to business.”
Eitel laughed. “Thanks.”
“I am being serious. You be careful. If she confuse you, it can cost you. Can cost me. I am in for percentage, remember. Even if you are Swiss, maybe you need to know: business and women must be kept separate things.”
“I know.”
“You remember it, yes?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Eitel said.
The cab pulled up outside the Jamai. Eitel, upstairs, withdrew four paintings and an Olmec jade statuette from the false compartment of his suitcase. The paintings were all unframed, small, genuine and unimportant. After a moment he selected the Madonna of the Palms, from the atelier of Lorenzo Bellini: plainly apprentice work, but enchanting, serene, pure, not bad, easily a $20,000 painting. He slipped it into a carrying case, put the others back, all but the statuette, which he fondled for a moment and put down on the dresser, in front of the mirror, as though setting up a little shrine. To beauty, he thought. He started to put it away and changed his mind. It looked so lovely there that he decided to take his chances. Taking your chances, he thought, is sometimes good for the health.