“Hello, Sympathetic Ear!” Bhelabher reached out a tentative hand and smiled at Cholly with genuine, if confused, warmth.
Cholly accepted the hand as Shacklar murmured, “The Honorable Vincent Bhelabher; of the Bureau of Otherworldly Activities.”
“Pleased,” Cholly affirmed, with an eye on the General.
Dar choked in his beer.
“Yes…” Bhelabher murmured. “The General had mentioned something about your commercial enterprise…” He seemed rather bemused.
“Enterprising it is, enterprising it is.” Cholly nodded. “Though lately, it’s not been too commercial…”
“Well, I’m, sure there’re slack periods in any line of commerce. But the General seems to feel that this particular line of exchange offers his only real hope of any lasting peace with the natives.”
“The General’s too kind,” Cholly demurred. “Has he told you of his war games?”
“Only a stopgap, Charles,” Shacklar murmured. “I was speaking of hopes for a permanent peace, which must be founded on mutual understanding.”
“I’m sure, I’m sure.” Bhelabher nodded genially. “Still, I’d like to witness one of these, ah, ‘games.’ ”
“As indeed you shall. I regret that I won’t be able to conduct you, myself, due to the press of business; will you excuse me, Honorable?”
“Eh? … Yes, of course, of course!” Bhelabher seized Shacklar’s hand and pumped it. “No need even to explain, of course, old chap; I’ve had responsibility for major administrative sectors myself. Of course I understand!”
“I hoped you would.” Shacklar’s smile seemed real. “Charles, I trust you’ll be able to spare the Honorable your best trader for a guide during his stay here.”
“Oh, of course!” With a wicked grin, Cholly slapped Dar on the back. “None but the best. General! Ard here, he’s yer man!”
This time Dar managed to at least get the beer down the right pipe, and lifted his head to give Cholly his best gimlet-glare. But Cholly just kept grinning, as though he hadn’t a care in the world, which he hadn’t.
“Ard will see you get a thorough look at our piece of this planet, and a good bit of what’s outside the wall then,” Shacklar said. “In the meantime, please be assured we’ll do all we can to recover your credentials.”
“Not unless they’re awfully good at reconstructing ashes,” Dar murmured to Sam. She kicked him.
“I very much appreciate it,” Bhelabher said earnestly. “For my part, I’ve seen to it that the shuttle pilot carried back a note to BOA, an official dispatch, of course.”
“And the liner should be bound back inward in a week.” Shacklar nodded. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to ask your indulgence there. Honorable—after all, it is a two-month journey to Terra.”
“Oh, I quite understand! But if all goes well, we should receive a reply in half a year, Standard Terran. Still, I have hopes we’ll recover our credentials before then.”
“I’m sure we’ll manage to conclude the manner in some fashion,” Shacklar assured him. Something beeped at his hand, and his brow netted. “Can’t they get by without me for a short hour? Yes, Fordstam, what is it?” he murmured into his ring, then held it to his ear. After a moment, he sighed and spoke into it again. “Yes, yes, I’m on my way… You’ll excuse me, Honorable, but it seems one of my soldiers has been making decent proposals to a Wolman girl, and the tribe’s mayor’s concerned. Indecent proposals they’re used to, but they don’t know quite what to make of this one.”
“Well … I’m sure it had to happen sooner or later,” Bhelabher mused. “What’s your policy on intermarriage?”
“None at all, at the moment,” Shacklar confessed. “But I hope to have one by the time I get back to HQ. Will you excuse me?” The General went out the door.
Dar counted mentally, ticking off seconds on his fingers. When he got to five, a joyful whoop resounded from the street outside. Bhelabher looked up, blinking, but Dar nodded. Shacklar’d been waiting a long time for this “incident.” He might not have had the policy, but he sure had it ready.
“Do your people always express themselves so exuberantly?” Bhelabher seemed smaller, somewhat lost, with Shacklar’s departure.
“Not always,” Cholly admitted. “They’re often depressed. Still, there’s no sense just telling you—take the good man and show him, Ard.”
“Mm?” It only took Sam’s elbow in his ribs to make Dar react to his new name. “Oh, yes! Yes…” He heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. “Yes, if we hurry, we can just make the two o’clock war. See you later, Cholly.” It was more of a threat than a promise.
5
Dar lifted a glass in a trembling hand and drank deeply. “I tell you, I don’t know if I can last it out.”
“What for?” Cholly twisted the empty out of his hand and replaced it with a full one. “There’s never a chance that he’d recognize yer.”
“Yeah, but I’m running out of things to show him.” Dar started to sip, then stared at the glass. “I just emptied this.”
“And he just refilled it.” Sam shook her head. “You are in bad shape.”
“Come, now!” Cholly cajoled. “A whole planetful of marvels, and you can’t find a week’s tour? Come, indeed! What’ve you shown him?”
“Well, let me see.” Dar started ticking them off on his fingers. “The Wall—all—all thirty miles of it. The Two-O’Clock War. A Wolman village. The Eight-O’Clock War. He had a conference with Shacklar. The Two-O’Clock war. The enlisted men’s recreation complex and organic market. The officers’ recreation complex and fixed market. The Eight-O’Clock War. Conference with Shacklar. The Two-O’Clock War. A Wolman trading session. A Wolman information-barter …”
“Adult school,” Cholly murmured.
“That, too… A Wolman workshop. The Eight-O’Clock War. Conference with Shacklar. The Two-O’Clock War. He likes wars.”
“I was beginning to get that impression,” Sam agreed.
“You still haven’t shown him the parade ground. Or the gaol.”
Dar shook his head. “Depressing.”
“Or the Little Theater. The Concert Hall.”
“Boring.”
“How do you know? Could be he likes amateurs. Then there’s the radio studio, the 3DT studio, the barracks …”
“All the high spots, huh?”
Cholly shrugged. “Nobody said you had to entertain the man—just to guide him. You wouldn’t want him to get a false impression of us, would you?”
“Yes,” Dar snapped. “Definitely.”
Cholly straightened up with a sigh. “Then ye’ve nought but yourself to blame if he’s hard to get along with.”
“That’s the strange part.” Dar’s brow knit. “He’s not.”
“ ‘Course he would be. You’d be, too, if … how’s that again?”
“He’s not,” Dar repeated. “He’s not tough to get along with at all. He’s been getting more and more pleasant every day. In fact, today he was a real nice guy. I’m amazed at how wrong my first impression of him was.”
“I’m amazed at how good a psychiatrist the General is,” Cholly grunted.
Something beeped in the back corner, and kept on beeping.
Sam looked up. “A holophone? Here?”
“Why not?” Dar smiled. “Radio waves don’t have to have plastrete buildings around them, you know.”
Cholly ambled back to the phone and pressed the “receive” button. “Cholly’s Hash House, Bar, an’ Natural Food Emporium… Oh, it’s yerself, General! … Who? … Oh, yes, he’s here! You want to … You don’t want to … You want to see him? Right now? Begging yer pardon, General, but—what’s he done? … Oh? Oh, I see. Yes, yes, right away … Same to you, General… Right.” He switched off and ambled back to Dar. “Well, well, my boy, seems you’ve attracted notice.”