“Ssth. Hardly.” Peters kicked at one of the bodies, which was leaking onto the path. “These were stupid, confident of their ability to frighten us into doing whatever they wanted. That made them easy meat. If they had been experienced fighters that would be us down there.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I lack all familiarity with this area of expertise.”
“What, you don’t have bar fights when you visit strange planets?”
“Never… of course I hardly ever visit strange planets. What do we do now?”
“Now we search them. They may possess some clues as to why we were wanted.” Peters suited action to the words, producing his multitool and bringing out the scissors. The leader’s clothing was tough but yielded to the stainless steel; it was the work of a few moments to dispose of the outerwear. Underneath he had on a kathir suit of the same type the ferassi had worn, in a simple pattern, deep forest-green below the waist and white above. A quick search of the pockets produced a handful of ornh and a few bits of unclassifiable debris.
“Nothing concrete, but a strong clue,” Peters pronounced, turning an arm up to display the suit controls. “What have you discovered?”
Gell was disrobing a second figure, more neatly as he had no cutting tool. “Much the same. Half a square of ornh, a small folding knife.”
“Let’s check the third one.” The last of their attackers had much the same assortment as the others did, and they added up the inventory: two, two eights, and a square of ornh, two folding knives, half a pound of miscellaneous stuff including a few coins, and the weapon. No clues beyond the suits presented themselves. “Ssth,” Peters hissed. “Nothing.” He put the ornh in his pocket and gestured. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”
Gell shook his head and followed. A few tle of walking, Peters limping slightly, brought them to the edge of the lawn surrounding the hotel, and a few more had them sitting in rocking chairs on the verandah. A n’saith servitor observed their arrival and came up.
“May I serve you?”
Peters nodded. “Commendably prompt,” he approved. “When I arrived, I found a carafe of liquid in my room. I don’t know the name of it, but I found it quite drinkable. A small quantity of that would be enjoyable.”
“The liquid is called ‘thivid’; it is a specialty, prepared from local flora.”
“Yes. A serving of thivid, then, and whatever my friend will have. I am in suite three-one-two; place the charges on my account.”
“Of course.” The servitor took Gell’s order and turned to go.
Peters stopped him. “A moment, if you would… you may have observed that we are somewhat mussed. We were assaulted on the path in the forest.”
The n’saith expressed alarm. “Terrible! I assure you the establishment makes every effort possible to keep the paths safe.”
“We have no complaint against the hotel,” Peters said. “You might care to inform the staff that the path is disfigured by a quantity of carrion. I’m sure they would wish to tidy up.”
The servitor eyed him sidelong, the effect enhanced by the large liquid eyes. In this light it was possible to see that the eyes were composed of a multitude of pinhead-sized lenses. “I will see to it that the staff are informed,” he said, projecting disquiet. “In the meantime I will get your drinks.” He bustled away, looking back as he entered the door to the serving area.
Gell shook his head. “I believe I have almost stopped shaking,” he remarked. “If I recall correctly, I asked if you would ward off predators, and you agreed. You have certainly been effective in that regard. I have never been so frightened in my life.”
Peters laughed. “Compared to bein’ rolled in a crib in Marseilles, this was a walk in the park,” he pronounced.
“Remind me not to go to Marsay, or whatever you said.”
“I’ll do that,” Peters promised with a chuckle. “For right now, I see our drinks comin’. We’re drinkin’, and they ain’t. That’s what I personally call a happy endin’.”
Peters woke to a pounding headache, a mouth tasting of fur and rotten slime, and a knotted gut. He achieved sufficient coherence to determine that he was nude and that something in his environment was not as it had been, then went unconscious again.
His next waking was more protracted. The headache had localized itself just below his eyebrows, where the two components launched attacks on one another at every pulse, and the knotted gut had eased to the point of incipient nausea. What had waked him, though, was an absolute requirement to urinate, and that provoked a more thorough investigation of his surroundings. If there wasn’t a head somewhere nearby, unfortunate events would result.
He wasn’t in his suite; so much was obvious. No wood paneling, no curtains—in fact, no windows—and no decanter of thivid on the sideboard; no sideboard. The room most resembled his and Todd’s quarters aboard Llapaaloapalla, but it wasn’t that, either: the bunk was wider, there wasn’t a second one, again no window, and the paint was a different color. There was a door in approximately the right place, though, and he investigated that first.
It was a head, similar in most respects to the one on the Grallt ship, lacking the passthrough door to the next compartment. The fittings were almost identical and arranged similarly; he utilized the appropriate one, searched for and failed to find the flushplate, and stepped back with a headshake. The toilet roared; the rush of water made him dizzy and provoked a spasm of vomiting.
He knew this feeling, knew what to do about it. Water and rest were the first requirements; he’d be wanting simple food later, when his alimentary system started up again after being paralyzed by alcohol poisoning. There was no cup by the sink basin, but his cupped hands made a satisfactory expedient. He stumbled back to the bunk and fell on it, with a load of cold water sitting like lead below his diaphragm.
The next couple of hours went exactly as expected, unfortunately. Drink water, rest for a while, heave; rinse and repeat. Gradually the headache subsided to a dull throb, and the nausea to a mild queasiness. About now he wanted something bland to eat, something with a lot of sugar and fat; commercial packaged puddings had always been useful. The room offered nothing in that respect.
He tried the door, a side-swinging latch handle like the shipboard ones. Locked, or blocked from the other side. He regarded himself ruefully. Without clothing his explorations were likely to be restricted, even if the locked door failed to prove a barrier. Exploring in the lockers and cabinets of the room yielded nothing whatever; the place was as bare as it had been when it was built, except for sheets and a thin blanket on the bunk.
He was sitting on the bunk, sourly reviewing the stupidity of getting falling down drunk in a strange place with known enemies about between sessions of dry heaves, when the door mechanism emitted clicks and the panel swung outward. Two Grallt males entered, one coming fully into the room and addressing a remark at the naked sailor, the other hanging back by the doorframe, fingering a weapon similar to the one the guys in the forest had had. Peters shook his head—the language sounded the same, and was still incomprehensible—and the lead Grallt wrinkled his face in a sneer and said something else, an order by the sound of it. When Peters didn’t even bother to look blankly at him he spat a syllable and grabbed an upper arm.
The blow to the gut didn’t work, foiled by muscles operating on about a quarter power, brain ditto, and an alert opponent. He found himself with a mouthful of deck, his arm twisted painfully behind his back, and the Grallt shouting something in his ear. The gust of propelled breath wafted past his nose and tickled his gag reflex; he spasmed and heaved, propelling a stream of vile-smelling pale yellow liquid onto the feet of the weapon-wielder, who stepped back. The one holding him down chattered, and the gunman looked at something outside the door and made a remark of his own.