"Well, there's a lot of traffic between here and Splash, and that ferryboat served a vital function. If she were lost, it'd be big news. Something should turn up."
"Right, I'll keep monitoring. Leave the key open, okay?"
"Sure." I put it on the table and activated the microcamera to give him something to look at.
"Nice place. The food any good?"
"Great," Darla told him.
Someone in the crowd had stood up and was speaking. He was like the rest: thick-thewed, long mussy hair, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and dungarees.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen! And ladies, if I may use both terms so loosely." He leered and stroked his wiry red beard.
Rude noises from the crowd.
"I now call this joint, plenary meeting of the Brotherhood of the Boojum and the Sorority of the Snark to order!"
Shouts, jeers, applause.
"Order! I will have order! Sergeant at Arms, will you please see to it that any objectionable behavior is dealt with according to the bylaws of this organization?"
Something hulking in a sheepskin jacket stood up and surveyed the crowd menacingly. He got no takers. Everyone shut up.
"Thank you, Brother Flaherty." The hulk sat down as the one with the red beard took a long pull from his mug, draining it. "The bar is now closed!" he pronounced, banging the mug down on the tabletop.
"Booo!"
"Be reasonable, old man!"
"Who cares? We got three pitchers."
He ignored it. "I now call upon Brother Finch to read the minutes of the last meeting."
Another logger lurched to his feet. "The bloody stupid meeting was called to order by Acting-President Brother Fitzgore. The minutes of the last bloody stupid meeting were read. Weren't any old business, weren't any new business. The bloody stupid meeting was adjourned and we all got drunk as bloody skunks." Brother Finch sat down heavily.
"I thank Brother Finch for that succinct, bare-to-the-bones summation of the salient developments of the last meeting. Do I have a motion to accept Brother Finch's report as it stands?"
"I so move!"
" I second the motion."
"The motion has been made and seconded to read Brother Finch's report into the record without emendation. May I now assume that the membership will assent to do so without a vote? Are there any objections?"
Someone stood up. "I object to the minutes of the last meeting being exactly the same as the minutes of the proceeding meeting, and the one before that. In fact, they're always the same damn minutes!"
Fitzgore raised an imperious eyebrow. "Do you take issue with the contents of Brother Finch's report?"
"No, the report is accurate as it stands. I merely object to his lack of originality and literary style."
"It is not Brother Finch's duty to be original, but to record the facts accurately and without bias!" Fitzgore bellowed. He took a deep breath. "And as for style, I think Brother Finch's prose is almost Homeric in its brilliant use of epithet."
"Almost what?"
"What the hell's an epaulette?"
"At any rate," Fitzgore continued airily, "your objection is overruled."
"This is not a court of law. I demand that my objection be entered in the record."
"So be it," Fitzgore acceded. "Let it be noted in the record that Brother MacLaird has objected to Brother Finch's literary style, or lack thereof."
"I ain't got a bloody pencil," Brother Finch said.
Someone threw a pencil at him. He caught it neatly, snapped it in two between thumb and forefinger, and threw it back.
"Who the hell are these weirdos?" Sam said.
"Is there any old business?" Fitzgore asked.
"I go' a boil on me bum!"
"Any new business?"
"I still go' a boil on me bum!".
Laffs.
"I move we adjourn!" someone shouted.
"Since no new business has been brought up by the membership, I would like to call the following matter to the membership's attention, if I may be permitted."
"According to the rules of procedure, the Acting-President must always entertain a motion to adjourn from any member!"
"Not," Fitzgore retorted, "when said Acting-President can beat said member's arse to a bloody pulp any time he so desires."
"You and what regiment of the Home Guard?"
Cheers for the Home Guard.
"This matter can be settled later, but as for now…"
"Outside in five minutes, Fitzgore."
"I will be honored," Fitzgore acknowledged. "As I was saying―"
"Oh, not again. Last time they were so snockered they couldn't see to swing at one another."
"As I was saying!" Fitzgore roared. Then he cleared his throat and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. "Brothers and Sisters," he said quietly. "It is not often… rather I should say, it is unprecedented for us to have among us as a guest…" He paused for effect as heads turned, searching the room."… a figure of―how shall I put it?―A figure of such epic stature. But that is the case."
"Who?" someone wanted to know, but many eyes were on me.
"The Skyway," Fitzgore continued in stentorian tone, "abounds with legends, myths, tall tales, apocrypha, and general foolishness, all of which are to be taken with a grain of salt, if not the whole bloody cellar and the bloody mine it came from."
"I think I'm going to puke," Sam declared.
"But it is rare that one has the profound honor, the exhilarating pleasure, of meeting a protagonist of one of these sagas in the flesh. However, that is our honor and our pleasure this day. Brothers and Sisters, may I present to you―and would you join me in drinking a toast in honor of―"
"You closed the punking bar, you dolt!"
Fitzgore refilled his mug from a nearby pitcher. "Then I open it again!"
Everyone raised his mug.
"Join me in a toast to that giant of legend, that king of the Skyway, the man who drove into the raging fires of the birthing universe and lived to tell the tale―"
He turned to face me.
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you… Jake McGraw!"
Chapter 4
I frankly can't remember all of what went on that night. I know a great deal of alcohol found its way into my system. Events, as I perceived them, became rather… diffuse. Fitzgore and his compatriots turned out to be very good drinking companions. Excellent drinking companions. They bought all of us a round of drinks. We bought all of them a round of drinks. Everybody bought everybody a round of drinks. Serious drinking then commenced. At some point, I found in my field of vision the wavering image of a stein of beer fully three hands high. They called it the Brobdingnagian Thunder Cup.
I drank it.
That was quite late in the evening―I think. Before that, we did a lot of talking. They wanted to know everything about me, about the Roadmap, about everything. I introduced them to Winnie. She's the map, I said. Fine, they said. Let's trot out pencil and paper and see what she knows. Pencil and paper were trotted out. Winnie proceeded to show her stuff, looking like a kindergartner learning the rudiments of writ, pink tongue protruding as she executed cramped figures with arduous dedication. She filled page after page with spirals and other shapes connected by lines.
"By God," Fitzgore said, "that's the local group! It must be." He stroked his psychotic growth of red beard. "Dammit all, if we had a library on this planet, we could get books to check this." He tossed off half a stein of beer. "If we had any books on this planet."
"I think I've got a few astronomy books in the rig. Matter of fact, there should be a whole crate of 'em. That right, Sam?"
"Yeah, our manifest shows a shipment of book pipettes. But you don't really want go back there and―"