“Thank you,” said the alien. “And now I introduce Zalaniski—” and a lot more. “Call him Zala. He will assist you with your equipment, and show you to your room. I must be off.” He bowed, briefly but low, without any showy gestures, and said something in squeaky staccato to the rest of the group. He and a half-dozen others double-timed across the grass to the third dli, which was beginning to disgorge passengers, with Dreelig and a pair of Grallt stewards in the lead.
Peters turned to Zala. “We will go and find our equipment now,” he said. The other nodded and set off toward the rapidly diminishing pile of seabags, scurrying on short legs to keep up with Peters and Todd, who shortened their steps a bit, embarrassed to make the little alien work so hard.
“Not bad at all,” Todd observed, looking around their room. It had a sizeable common area and two small bedchambers, each little more than a closet but furnished with a narrow bed, a nightstand with lamp, and a wardrobe or armoire. The place was paneled in light tan material, wood until somebody told them different. The common area was furnished with a couch, a table with four chairs, a pair of comfortable looking armchairs, and a sideboard, all wood or wood-framed, upholstered in warm tones. One wall, opposite the door, had large sash windows, curtained with sheer fabric in cool green with broad tan stripes; the windows were open to admit a breeze that stirred the curtains. Comfort falling short of true luxury seemed to be the aim, a place to relax and look out over the black sand beach to the silver sea beyond.
They tossed their seabags on the beds and began stowing their things. Peters came back out into the common room to find Todd lounging in an armchair, looking out the window and sipping from a tall glass that tinkled. Another glass sat on the little round table by the right arm of the other chair, the pale wood protected by a diamond-shaped doily. Peters sat and sipped, to discover a pleasantly astringent citrusy taste with a slight alcoholic kick. “That’s good,” he said, in Grallt for some reason. “Where did it come from?”
Todd looked at him oddly. “I really don’t know,” he confessed. “I heard the door close while I was putting my stuff away, and when I came out they were sitting here.”
“Well, Aunt Lulu always said the pixies worked where you can’t see ‘em,” Peters said. “Granpap was skeptical, but it looks like Aunt Lulu was right.”
Todd chuckled. “Yes, all they lack is dangling earlobes, isn’t it? I wonder about this place.”
“How so?”
“Well, look how comfortable this chair is. These people are a lot littler than we are. They couldn’t sit in this chair and touch the floor.”
Peters shrugged. “Cacawhatever said they expected aliens. I reckon that means they set it up for whoever’s comin’ to visit.”
“You’re probably right. I keep forgetting that these folks are used to all kinds dropping in.”
There was a knock at the door. Peters sighed, set his glass down, and got up to answer it, during which time it was repeated. Opening the panel revealed Mannix, who looked around the room with interest. “My, my,” he said, “the high-rent district, I do believe. My room has a single space with two beds and one small window looking over a lovely vista of farmhouses and what are apparently domestic animals. No, no,” he waved negatively with both hands when Peters felt his face stiffen, “I’d not dream of turfing you out of the lap of luxury, especially since you’re likely to earn it twice over. Several of our comrades have repaired below, to what is apparently an establishment serving refreshment, and are having difficulties. Gracious fellow that I am, besides your being somewhat in my debt, I volunteered to seek you out and request your assistance.”
Peters felt himself loosening up. Mannix was short and slight, with a thin mobile face that looked inconsequential over civvies, but he hadn’t found three chevrons and four hash marks, all gold, in cereal packages. Mock-formal babble in a sunnily cheerful tone was one of his main tactics in dealing with interpersonal relations; he reguarly got more and better work out of his crews than anybody else did, without ever seeming to push or force. “Let’s go,” Peters told the First Class. “Our people don’t need to be havin’ difficulties.”
“My sentiments precisely.”
“Yeah, I bet. Comin’, Todd?”
“In a little bit. I’m gonna finish my drink first,” the younger sailor said. “I don’t have your sense of responsibility, I guess.”
“That’s quite all right,” Mannix told him. “I’m quite sure you’ll find ample opportunity to contribute your abilities at a somewhat later time. Come along, Peters.”
The bar was a bar, slightly upscale, paneled in blond wood and furnished with small round tables and bentwood chairs, most of which were currently occupied by sailors. “As you can see, my quest was successful,” Mannix announced as they entered, and took a comic stance, one hand over his breast, the other out in an exaggerated presentation gesture. “Petty Officer Peters, over to you.”
“Right,” said Peters. He surveyed the crowd. “Lemme get straight with the tender first.”
“Ask him if he has beer,” said Tollison. “If he does, I want some.” The blonde sailor held his hand out, miming a glass of three or four liters, and there was a general cry of cheerful agreement mixed with a few catcalls.
Peters approached the barkeep, one of the pixie people who staffed the hotel, who stood with arms akimbo, regarding the crowd with seeming apprehension over the low bar. “Pleasant greetings,” the sailor began. “I hope you have not had too much trouble with my associates. They are good fellows overall, if not terribly cultured.”
The bartender grinned broadly, and the tension went out of his stance. “I wasn’t really all that worried,” he said. “If they started breaking the furniture, I have a place to retreat, and as for the furniture and fittings—” he spread his arms and bent slightly at the hips, still grinning “—I just work here.”
“We can hope that won’t be a consideration,” Peters told him.
“We can hope,” the bartender said with a nod. “To business. What will they have?”
“Well, to begin with, they’d like to know if you have beer,” Peters said.
The bartender bowed. “My good fellow, everybody has beer. Everybody with any sense, that is. Beer is like gravy. Everybody has it, and everybody claims to have invented it. In my own humble opinion—” this with another bow “—no people can properly be considered of the kree unless they have beer. Certainly I have beer. Shall I serve some?”
“You should serve a great deal of beer,” Peters advised. “If you have containers of about this size—” he mimed a pitcher-sized object “—you should deliver one to each table, along with individual glasses. Is this possible?”
“Certainly. Let me ring for assistance; there are a great number of you.” The barkeep tapped a lever, generating a musical bong, and began producing and filling pitchers. “I must say, I begin to have doubts about your people,” he went on as he busied himself at his task.
“How so?” Peters asked. Staff members showed up and started delivering pitchers and glasses to tables.
“In any bar, in fact in any civilized establishment, in this volume of the void,” the barkeep said, punctuating the phrase with the thunk of another pitcher on the polished wood, “a being may call out the word “beer” in the Trade language, accompanied by the appropriate number of digits or other appendages, and depend upon being served appropriately. How is it that your people cannot achieve this minimal accomplishment?”
Peters laughed and bowed. “I offer apologies on their behalf,” he said. “We are new to this experience; in fact this is the first planet other than our own we have visited. I hope we can learn quickly.”