Killashandra now found herself on a long ledge which led to one of the switchback paths she had seen yesterday, though this one was at the rear of the Complex. From that height she had a view of an unpretentious area of the City, to judge by the narrow streets and the small single-story buildings crowded together. Between it and the Complex heights lay a stretch of cultivated plots, each planted with bushy climbing plants and fenced off from its neighbors, and most of them neat. In several, people were busily watering and hoeing in the early morning sunlight. A rural scene served as a restorative to Killashandra’s exacerbated nerves.
She began her descent.
As she reached the valley floor, her nose was assailed by the unmistakable aroma of fermenting brew. Delighted, Killashandra followed the odor, squeezing past an old shed, traversing the narrow path between allotments, nodding polite greetings to the gardeners who paused in their labors to regard her with astonishment. Well, she was wearing a costume which marked her as alien to Optheria, but surely these people had encountered aliens before. The aroma lured her on. If it tasted half as good as it smelled, it would be an improvement on the Bascum brew. Of course it could be Bascum, for breweries were often situated in suburbs where the fumes would not irritate the fastidious.
She reached the dirt road that served as main artery for the settlement, deserted at that morning hour except for some small, peculiar-looking animals basking in the sun. She was aware of being watched, but as that was only to be expected, she continued her inspection of the unprepossessing buildings facing the road. The brew-smell continued to permeate the air but intensified to her right. Common sense indicated that the wide gray structure on the far side of the road some thousand meters away was probably the source. She headed there.
As she walked she heard doors and windows open behind her, marking her passage to her objective. She permitted herself a small smile of amusement. Human nature did not change and anything new and unusual would be marked in a society as dull and repressed as she suspected Optheria’s was.
The brew-smell was almost overpowering by the time she reached the gray building. An exhaust fan was extracting the air from the roof, its motor laboring. Although there was no sign or legend on the building to indicate its purpose, Killashandra was not deterred. A locked front door, however, did pose an obstacle. She rapped politely and repeated her knock when it brought no immediate response. Thumping on the door also produced no results, and Killashandra felt determination replace courtesy.
Was brewing illegal in Optheria’s largest city? Or could it be brewing without due license? After all, Bascum originated on Optheria and might have a monopoly. To be sure, she hadn’t paid much attention to what plants were being so carefully tended in the gardens. Home industry? Thwarting the ever vigilant and repressive Elders?
Quickly she stepped around the building and toward its rear, hoping to find a window. She caught a glimpse of a running juvenile body and heard it raise its voice in warning. So she raced around the corner to find the rear doors folded back on a scene of much industry as men and women supervised the bottling of a brew from an obviously improvised vat. The young messenger took one look at her and fled, ducking down the nearest alley.
“May a thirsty stranger to this planet have a sample of your brew? I’m perishing for lack of a decent glass.”
Killashandra could, when she exerted herself, be smoothly charming and ingratiating. She’d played the part often enough. She glanced from one stony expression to the next, holding her smile.
“I’ll tell you it was some shock to discover this planet doesn’t import anything spirituous or fermented.”
“Shuttle got in yesterday,” someone in the group said.
“Too early for tourists.”
“Those clothes aren’t local.”
“Nor island.”
“I’m not a tourist,” Killashandra inserted in the terse comments. “I’m a musician.”
“Come to see the organ, have you?” The man’s voice was so rich in contempt, disapproval, cynical skepticism, and malicious amusement that Killashandra tried hard to spot him in the hostile group.
“If I can judge by my reception above, that sour lot permits few favors. A body really needs a brew here.” Again she fortified her smile with winning charm. And licked dry lips.
Later, in reviewing the scene at her leisure, Killashandra decided that it might have been that unconscious reflex that won her case. The next thing she knew an uncapped bottle was thrust at her. She reached to her belt pouch for the Optherian coins she had acquired on the Athena but was curtly told to leave off. Money didn’t buy their brew.
Although some had turned back to their job, most watched while she took her first sip. It was rich despite its clandestine manufacture, slightly cool, undoubtedly improved by a proper chilling but superior to the Bascum and almost on a par with Yarran.
“Your brewmaster wouldn’t happen to be of Yarra origin?” she asked.
“What do you know of Yarra?” Once again the question was posed anonymously though Killashandra thought the speaker was on her left, near the vat.
“They make the best beer in the Federated Sentient Planets. Yarran brewmasters have the best reputation in the Galaxy.”
A rumble of approval greeted this. She could feel the tension ease though the work continued at the same swift pace. Above the rattle of bottles, and the noise of crating the full containers, Killashandra heard a gasping wheeze to her right, on the roadway, and then a dilapidated vehicle, its sides scarred and rusting, pulled up to the open door.
Immediately crates were loaded into it, Killashandra helping, for she’d finished her bottle and wondered how she could wheedle another, others, from them. Thirst properly quenched, she’d find it easier to deal with the reproaches of Thyrol and the others. No sooner had the load bed been filled than the vehicle moved off and another, equally disreputable, slid into its place. Of course this patently unauthorized operation proved conclusively to Killashandra that the population of Optheria had not all stagnated. But how much of a minority did they constitute? And did any of them actually wish to leave Optheria! Some people enjoy thwarting their elected/established/appointed governments out of perversity rather than disloyalty or dislike.
When the third transport had been loaded, only a few crates remained. And the vat and its attendant paraphernalia had been dismantled and reassembled in different form entirely. Killashandra gave the brewers full marks for ingenuity.
“You expect a search?”
“Oh yes. Can’t mask brewing completely, you know,” said a sun-wrinkled little man with a twinkle in his eye. He offered Killashandra a second bottle, gesturing to the loaded vehicle in explanation of his generosity.
As she inadvertently glanced in the same direction, Killashandra noticed that his workers, each laden with a crate, were disappearing up and down the street and into the alleys. Just audible was an odd siren. He cocked his head at the sound and grinned.
“I’d take that with me, were I you. Won’t help you to be found in my disreputable company.”
“You’ll be making another batch soon?” Killashandra asked wistfully.
“Now that I couldn’t say.” He winked. The siren became more insistent and louder. He began to fold over the doors.
“What’s the quickest way back to the City?”
“Over two ranks and then to your left.” He closed the last lap of the door behind him and she heard the firm click of the lock.
The vehicle with the siren was moving at a good clip so Killashandra made rapid progress in the direction the brewer had indicated. She had just reached the next parallel road when she heard the sound of air brakes engaging and considerable shouting. She ducked around the corner and was on another deserted block. When she heard the pounding of booted feet, she realized that she might not have time to explain her possession of the illegally brewed beer if she was caught out on the streets.