"Why, hello," Adam stated, smiling, and lowering his left hand. "Allow me to introduce Gomi, the most interesting messenger I've ever encountered." Then, "Gomi, these are my associates, Alf and Medusa. We're all in this together."
Gomi nodded his antennae. "It is good to meet the lady who makes men stiff," he said buzzingly, "and the man who is a sacred river."
Adam raised his eyebrows. "Sacred river?" he said.
"'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree,'" Gomi buzzed, giving me a beat in which to come in and finish, "'Where Alf the sacred river ran through caverns measureless to man.'"
Adam groaned, while I grinned at Gomi. Glory just stared and said, "That is awful."
Gomi's buzzings followed the rhythms of laughter and he raised his brackish-looking drink, sipping off some of the small mushrooms that floated on its surface. Noting Glory's gaze, "Tastes worse," he said. "But you wouldn't want to be in the same room as an alien with turista."
"Thought you guys always did it on the wing," Adam said.
"If we're not careful," Gomi agreed.
"That's bad," Glory stated.
"Not as bad as upchucking in null-grav," Gomi responded, "especially if you've been eating pizza. Grab a seat. Grab anybody's seat."
Glory and I lowered ourselves to nearby cushions.
"Gomi and I met over a million years ago," Adam told us. "Gomi's a messenger, as I said—for off-planet intelligences."
"Freelance courier, actually," the creature corrected. "The message doesn't fly unless there's something in it for me."
"What constitutes the message?" Glory asked.
Gomi tapped the canister with one of his claws. "The medium, of course. I'm really good at paring things down to bare essentials."
Glory moved nearer and peered into the container.
"Oh," she said.
"Yes, I screw my brains out and then I've got it—intelligence in a tube. As in, 'What's in the can, man?'"
"What then?"
"In my case, it goes to the highest bidder. There're lots Of XTs who'd love to explore and discover and meet interesting new people and interrogate them. Haven't the time or the resources to manage it personally, though. So they have standing orders with those of my sort. One may just have an interest in the arts, or philosophy, or the sciences, or theology. Another may only be into the evolution of sea creatures. Another may just want to follow the development of a particular concept among quadrupeds. Someone else may be into cold-blooded thought, or the brains of those living in binary systems. These wish-lists are all posted along the ways. We may consult them after coming across something interesting, or we may go shopping after we learn of someone's special needs."
'"Ways'?" Glory asked. "What ways?"
"Gomi's is one of the few natural space-faring races," Adam said. "They come equipped with the ability to negotiate the undersides of spacetime as we normally perceive it, making their ways from world to world entirely under their own power. They spread their wings like the sails on ancient sea vessels and let the symmetry pressures of the ways propel them."
"They may be the universe's stretch-marks," Gomi said, "or a demonstration that at certain levels space can be eroded, or the game trails of underside beasts whose spoor writes its own rules where they pass—for sometimes we encounter unusual roadkill and hear strange barks and lows across the parsecs. My people are not great theoreticians in this area, since we already have all we need of it."
"Clear sailing and a fair wind to Arcturus," Adam said.
"Yo ho ho," Gomi added.
"Life on the dancing waves."
"Brainwaves."
"Yes, about that," Glory put in. "Why just the brains?"
"The parties interested in the development of intellect under various conditions are interested mainly in just that—intellect," Gomi replied.
"So you just leave the bodies and take them the brains?" I said.
"Well, I get the best deals I can for the bodies whenever there's an opportunity. But yes, mass is extremely important on trips of that sort, and my kind does seem to have a knack for ultra-highspeed neurosurgery."
It clicked its claws once and took another drink. "We've gotten it down to a real art. Pretty much have to, for getting ahead in the world."
"What's special about that one?" I asked, nodding toward the canister.
"It contains the first complete map of the human collective unconscious," Gomi replied. "Lucky find. Worth a great deal. I was going to run it off to old Yog, who has a strong interest in stuff like that, when I ran into Macavity here. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Do you know I've been to the depths, I've been to the heights, I've collected brains on worlds all over the place, and there's half a universe I'd never seen?"
"No," Adam said, "but if you'll hum a few bars I'll try to fake it."
Gomi immediately broke into a raucous, chirping laughter; then, letting up, issued a high, piercing humming that hurt my ears. I almost thought at that time that I also detected a fast UHF exchange between Glory and Adam, using it for cover.
Glory hissed a simple tune then and I tried "I've been to the depths" in my deepest voice. Adam issued a long series of screeches and yowls. A strange sound even emerged from the canister.
Finally, I said, "So what did he give you for the thing?"
"Can't you guess?" Gomi replied. "A sense of humor. I'm the only one of my kind ever to have one, and it's great—seeing the wacky side of life and the ironies. No more being mocked as 'one of those humorless flying clods' by the other races I encounter. I've got some zingers now will knock them over. In fact—I have this ambition of being a standup, fly-by-night comedian. Make the circuit of the worlds, do my shticks. A funny thing happened to me on my way through subspace. Ran into one of my relatives and our parcels got switched while we were talking. Hope his customer likes hot fungi sandwiches from the old country. His canister had a rare twenty-second-century synthoid bookkeeping brain, a thing I didn't even realize till a lot later. Maybe the hot mustard masked it. There's just no accounting for it. C'mon! Give me a break! You an audience or an oil painting? Maybe you'd like I should do some pro bono brain switching? Hey, professor, let's have a little hard claw music!"
It rose, humming, and executed an eight-legged tap-dance about the foyer. I applauded lightly, hoping the creature would stop soon, as some of the more delicate pieces of furniture looked threatened. The others joined my clapping. Gomi took this as a call for an encore, however, and accompanying himself with an even higher-pitched humming, did a faster number about the room, disagreeing only with an end-table and a rocker.
"Fine stage presence and timing," Adam said, "considering he only got his sense of humor a few minutes before you came in."
"Indeed," I said.
"Of course," Glory added.
At that, Gomi bowed and was seated again. "... And a replacement brain of perhaps equal value," it said. "You work out those coordinates yet, Macavity?"
Adam passed over a piece of paper covered with notations. "Yes. Can you read them all right?"
Half of the antennae flicked toward the paper. "Clear enough. Clear enough. I get there, exactamente, for a very special brain. Thanks. Hope you enjoy yours."
It finished its drink, rose to its numerous appendages, unfurled its wings, and was gone, leaving behind the canister it had brought.
"'Not snow, no, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from accomplishing their appointed rounds/" said Adam, rising to his feet and saluting. Then he stretched.