Sinara took a quick look around as she moved between pinnace and building. Close up, the plants between the buildings wore lethal-looking spines. The flowers at their tips were gray to human eyes, but in the hard ultraviolet region where the native pollinators of Pleasureworld lived, those flowers must glow and dazzle in a whole spectrum of colors.
She followed Nenda through a stone doorway and tunnel, and found herself after a few more paces in a chamber so dark that she was forced to remove her goggles to see anything at all. As her eyes adjusted, she found herself facing a green thing—alien? plant? animal?—perched on a slab of stone and balancing itself on a long curled tail.
The creature weaved slightly. It said in a croaking growl, “Here at last. What kept you? You brought me in out of a good hot sun-wallow, so this had better be good.”
“We’ll make it worth your while.” If Nenda found the alien at all peculiar, he didn’t show it. “I am Louis Nenda, and this is Sinara Bellstock. We are both from the Orion Arm.”
“I can see that.” The blubbery lips of a broad green mouth turned down in a scowl. “Humans, eh? My name in your talk is Claudius. I’m a Master Pilot, and I’ve travelled all the Orion Arm. Make it worth my while, you say? How? Backward, primitive place. Nothing there worth having.”
“I think I can change your mind about that. I’ve worked with a Chism Polypheme before. Do you know Dulcimer? He’s a Master Pilot, too, and he can vouch for us.”
“I know Dulcimer. Master Pilot, he calls himself? Pah! Dulcimer is a hopeless amateur. Do you both know Dulcimer?”
Sinara shook her head, then, not sure that the gesture would be understood, said, “I don’t know him.”
“Lucky you.” Claudius sniffed and bobbed up and down on his thick tail. The alien was a three-meter helical cylinder, an upright corkscrew of smooth muscle covered with rubbery green skin and with a head as wide as his body. One huge eye, bulging and shifty, peered out from under the wrinkled brow. The slate-gray organ was almost half as wide as Claudius’s head. The mouth beneath it was wide and seemed to be fixed in a permanent sneer. Between the mouth and the big eye, a tiny gold-rimmed scanning eye, no bigger than a pea, continuously moved across the scene.
The midsection of Claudius was hidden by an orange garment, tight-fitting, from which protruded five three-fingered limbs, all on the same side of the flexible body.
Claudius tightened the angle of his spiral, so that his head moved down to be level with Louis Nenda’s. “Tell me why you’re here. Better make it quick, and make it good. Or I’ll be gone. It’s close to noon, and I’m missing the best part of the day.”
“This won’t take more than a minute. I know of a world, a world in desperate need of help. It’s dead, or it’s dying. Whoever goes there will make a tremendous fortune. Either you take what you want because there is nobody to stop you, or the survivors will give you anything if you can save them.”
“Ah. Interesting.” The secondary eye continued its scanning, but the main optic fixed its attention on Nenda. “Back in the Orion Arm, is it?”
“Until we have a deal, I’m not saying where this world is.”
“You can trust me, human.”
“I wouldn’t question that for a moment.”
“Ah. But it’s not clear why you need me. Unless this world of yours is hard to get to, and you’re looking for the best pilot in the galaxy to take you there? If so, maybe we can do a deal.”
“I don’t think it’s hard to get to.” Nenda consulted a list, derived from the ship’s data bank of the dead Marglotta. “Do you know of planets called Vintner, Blossom, Riser’s Folly, Marglot, Meridian Wall, Desire, and Temblor?”
“Of course I do. I told you, I’m the best, and I’ve been piloting for ten thousand of your years. I know them all, and the best way to get to them. Near one of those, is it?”
“It might be.”
“You’re a long way from most. And I’ll tell you now, I won’t go near some of those places. Ships travel to them, never come back. Which one are you interested in?”
“We need to reach an agreement before I’ll tell you more.”
“Aye. I can understand that.” Claudius stretched upward, uncoiling his tail a fraction. His main eye blinked and rolled toward Sinara, then back to Louis. “I think maybe you and I ought to have a bit of a chat, private-like. Man to man, as you would say.”
He nodded toward Sinara and winked.
“Now wait a minute.” If the first sight of Claudius had overwhelmed Sinara, she was over that. “I’m our ship’s survival specialist.”
“No danger here on Pleasureworld. What I have to say is personal.”
“I don’t care.” Sinara put her hands on her hips. “I’m not leaving. Anything you have to say, you say it while I am here.”
“Then there will be nothing said. And no deal.” Claudius elevated himself to his full height. “That’s it for me. I’m off for a wallow-bake.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
Louis said, “Sinara, maybe if you—”
“You want me to take orders from that—that overgrown twisted cucumber? I won’t.”
“If he has something personal that he wants to say—maybe about Dulcimer—”
“Exactly.” Claudius was nodding. “It’s about Dulcimer. Very private, and very personal.” He turned to Sinara. “Now, if you had known Dulcimer, like the captain here . . . then I’d have been free to talk to both of you.”
“Five minutes. You have five minutes.” Sinara snapped her goggles back in place and turned toward the chamber exit. As she was leaving she added, “And Louis, if you are not outside at our ship in five minutes I will be back in here. It’s my job to make sure you are safe.”
Claudius watched as she left, then bobbed after her on his corkscrew tail to make sure that she was not hiding outside where she could hear what was said.
Nenda said, “What’s this about Dulcimer?”
“Forget Dulcimer. Dulcimer’s a half-wit, I don’t want to talk about him. Or a possible space deal, either. I’ve got something else in mind. That’s a human female, isn’t it, under all those coverings and horrible glop?”
“It is.”
“Does it always give you so much trouble?”
“None of your business.”
“Ah. Because you see, I was thinking.” The broad mouth lost its scowl and took on a knowing leer. “Nobody in this part of the Sag Arm has ever seen a human female. Males, yes, now and again, but not a female—though I must say, even the males didn’t look much like you. I wonder if they were genuine. Anyway, there’s a freak show here on Pleasureworld, the biggest one within twenty lightyears. It’s in a main resort, a town called Carnival not more than a few hours away. Now, if you were to take the female to Carnival, put her in a cage, strip off all those coverings so visitors could get a close look at what’s underneath—well, I’m telling you, that would be a star attraction. Let me have her, and we could be partners. We would both do well.”
The temptation was enormous. Get rid of Sinara, with all the potential problems she promised, and at the same time cement the deal with Claudius. Atvar H’sial would agree. The others on the Have-It-All would not care. You could explain to Julian Graves, if you ever had another meeting with the Ethical Councilor, by saying—
Louis paused. By saying what? That you had sold Sinara?
He shook his head, and Claudius nodded understandingly. “I see. The old, old story. Mating with her, are you?”
“I am not!”
“But hoping to, eh?” The leer on the wide mouth broadened. “In that case, I’ll bide my time. Once you’ve had her a few times, you’ll likely be glad to be rid of her. Then we can come to an arrangement.”