“Yes. As I said, the staff are paid well for this duty. Also the ammunition for the guns is expensive. It will be necessary to discuss the bill.”
The food Corso suggested was partly delicious and partly disgusting, about par for the first meal on a new planet. While they were eating a series of functionaries conferred with the manager, shuffling bits of paper around and talking in the language that wasn’t Grallt. Peters asked for something nonalcoholic to drink, and Todd followed suit, not without a raised eyebrow. “Better keep a cool head,” Peters advised as the waiter brought glass tumblers of something yellow.
“Yeah,” Todd agreed. It was some kind of fruit juice, mildly astringent and not too sweet.
Dessert was sweet and gooey, like ice cream with dark blue berries mixed in. It was good, but didn’t go well with the juice. Corso looked up from his papers, noticed Todd’s grimace, and jabbered at the waiter, who brought cups of something like tea, much better. Over the last of it he laid a piece of paper down with a flourish.
“Looks like chicken tracks to me,” Todd said. Actually it didn’t. It was pretty neat for handwriting, unrecognizable symbols in columns. If those were numbers, the one at the bottom had a lot of digits.
“Could you translate to Grallt symbols?” Peters asked.
Corso obliged, and the two sailors bent to the task of converting base-eight to base-ten. The result would have been a disaster a month ago.
“A little under four thousand ornh, I make it,” Todd noted.
“Expensive walk on the beach,” Peters commented wryly.
“How will you pay this?” Corso asked. “You cannot leave until it is paid. We are not kind to those who leave without paying.”
“There is no problem,” Peters told him. “We do not carry so much money on our persons, but we can pay. We will pay when we leave the hotel.”
Corso stared. “It is not so easy. How can I know you will pay? It is a large amount of money. Not everyone has so much.”
“Man’s got a point,” Todd said.
“Shush,” said Peters. “Corso, we have the money. If you will ask the clerk, we showed our credit when we checked in. Please ask now. We will wait here. Perhaps the waiter could bring us more tea.”
“Yes,” Corso said. He jabbered at the waiter, longer than necessary to order tea, and left in a hurry. The waiter brought a pot and poured. Todd and Peters lounged in their chairs simulating nonchalance, but noticed a good-sized individual, one of the gunners from the beach by his clothes, loitering nearby. They didn’t know the word for “trust” in the local language, and it didn’t look like they were going to learn it any time soon.
“This doesn’t look good,” Peters said when he spotted Corso caming back. He was was striding along briskly, flanked by a pair of underlings in the uniforms of the hotel staff. The two humans started to stand when he approached their table, but he waved them back.
“My apologies,” he said. “If one of you would be so kind as to sign that, I will take it away and no more will be said.”
“Sure,” Peters agreed. “Of course, Corso. I will sign.” He scribbled across the bill, then handed it to Corso. “A little extra for your trouble.”
Corso bowed. “Thank you. In the meantime, we have a small problem. My brizk of a clerk assigned you to the wrong room. If you would give me your keys…”
Peters dug his out, exchanged it for the one the manager proffered. When Todd had done the same Corso bowed again. “Thank you once more. Please don’t trouble yourself about the meal, it is provided by the establishment. And now, if you will excuse me…” He bowed a third time and swept off, trailed by his flunkies.
“Well, well,” said Todd as the manager disappeared through a door. “Did you get all that?”
“Free meal? Sure I got it,” Peters said. “I also got the key. It’s been a long day.”
“You got that right.”
The keys were inscribed with a squiggle that was no doubt the room number. They found the room by selecting an individual from the group near the desk, holding up an ornh, and proferring one of the keys. The woman took the key and led them up to the same floor their first room had been on, then down a long hall, where she opened a door. Todd handed her the ornh, glanced around, and added two more. It seemed appropriate.
“You couldn’t park a Tom in here,” Peters said sardonically when she’d left.
“Maybe a Hornet.”
“You’d have to fold the tail down.”
“Or cut it off.”
Peters wandered out on the balcony, where a glass-topped table held a bottle in ice. He poured, sipped, looked appreciative, and sipped again, looking out across the starlit, snikk-infested waters. “You know what, Kev old boy?”
“No, what, John old friend?”
“I like being rich.” He finished his glass, reached for the bottle. “And I’m gonna enjoy it while it lasts.”
Breakfast the next morning wasn’t nearly so successful. The planet had a long rotation period, so they felt as if they’d slept in, but the sun was barely peeking over the horizon. The waiter spoke no Grallt, and the menu was in the local language. Finally they pointed at things.
Peters got a deep plate or shallow bowl of something orange, viscous, and cold, with occasional bits of white stuff marbled in blue distributed through it, and a ceramic spoon like a smaller version of the one used to serve Chinese food. Todd’s portion was a brownish irregular cylinder swimming in a clear, sticky sauce, accompanied by lumps of something pasty white.
“Look at this crap.” Todd prodded his lump with the two-tined fork, causing it to break up. “Turd in snot sauce. I ain’t even gonna taste it.”
“Wise move.” Peters cautiously brought the spoon to his mouth, took a tiny sip, spat it out immediately. “Yecch. Tastes worse’n it looks. I wouldn’t've thought that was possible.” He looked around, but there was nothing to drink on the table, not even water. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Right.” Todd looked across the room as he got up. Commander Bolton was lethargically spooning something into his mouth, looking neither more nor less discontented than he usually did, and none of the other officers was spurning the food. “They do have stuff we can eat,” he pointed out to Peters.
“Sure they do. They just don’t give a damn if we get any or not.” Peters shoved his chair under the table.
“Must be nice to have an interpreter on call.”
“You wanta ask for advice?” Peters demanded harshly.
Dreelig was engaged in conversation with Mr. Devon and Ms. Weber, shoving something into his face between phrases and paying no attention to anything outside his group of charges. “Uh, no, don’t think I ought to interrupt,” said Todd. “Maybe we could hire one of our own. We got the chill.”
“Maybe later,” said Peters. “Come on!”
Before they got to the door they were intercepted by one of the locals, their waiter perhaps, who spoke in low urgent tones and flourished a slip of paper. “The bill, I reckon,” Peters said disgustedly.
“Fuck that,” Todd said. He pointed back in the general direction of their table, then clutched at his stomach and groaned artistically. Peters followed his lead, embellishing to the extent of generating a dollop of heave that spattered the slip of paper, the arm holding it, and part of a chair back. The waiter retreated hurriedly, waving his soiled arm and jabbering in a loud angry voice, and the two took the opportunity to recover miraculously and escape. “Didn’t know you could do that on demand,” Todd observed as they got back to the lobby.