Reith turned his head. Marching past their table were three reptilian creatures, taller than a man but more slender, who walked on their hind legs with tails held stiffly out behind them to balance their bodies. Heads, a little smaller than human but with bulging crania, rode atop necks thirty centimeters long. Arms much like human ones ended in four-clawed hands. Instead of clothes, the newcomers bore on their scaly hides intricate patterns of spots and stripes, in black, white, and red.
"Those?" said Reith. "Osirians. From the planet Osiris."
"Of the Procyonic system," added Alicia. "Quite a few visit Krishna."
She wore the filmy, nipple-baring dress that Ilui had given her in Kubyab. The sight of Alicia in that dress stirred a cauldron of emotions in Fergus Reith. There was sexual excitement, unsuppressible yearning love, anger at her past treatment of him, sorrow that she was no longer truly his, and relief that he no longer had to brook her volcanic temperament. There were also a half-hidden wish to break out of her spell and forget her, and resentment that he could not seem to do so—at least, not while she was present and visible day after day.
Marot mopped the trickle of blood on his chin and held his napkin (a recent innovation on Krishna, inspired by Terran example) against the wound until it stopped bleeding. "If the dinosaurs had not become extinct on Terra, that is what we might look like today. I mean, that is what the intelligent Terran species, occupying our place in the biota, might resemble."
The three Osirians did not sit at table. Instead, the waiters moved a couple of tables away from a comer, and the Osirians lowered their scaly, baggy bodies to the floor. They squatted facing outward, so that the tips of their tails met in the comer. Waiters set down drinks on the floor before them.
Angur wandered past the Terrans' table, remarking: "Be the victuals to your taste, Master Reit? Doctor Dyckman? Doctor Maghou?" Assured that Angur's cook had done himself proud, Angur followed the Terrans' glances towards the Osirians. "They're good customers but afeared lest some wight tread upon their tails.
"I mind me some years since, one of that ilk had a drop too much kvad and decided he must needs monstrate to all a Terran dance. So he seized our entertainer, the talented Pari bab-Horaj, spun her out upon the floor, and whirled her round and round. Another couple was dancing a simple ragsudar. The alien's tail, swinging like the boom of a ship, smote the man on's arse as he bowed to's lady. His partner, being of the then dominating Balhibiya, wore a sword loose in its scabbard. The man, incensed, snatched his partner's weapon and would most bloodily have slain the tailed one, had not a wandering Earthman dissuaded him with an earthen mug, launched like a dart from a catapult, to's cranium. 'Twas a near thing. Now I tell Osirian patrons they may not dance when the floor's in use by dancers of tailless species.
"Here come our present minstrels. May ye enjoy their performance!"
Five musicians took places in an alcove on the far side of the dance floor. They brought a drum, a harp, a kind of miniature xylophone, and two instruments that looked like woodwinds. The clatter of eating spears died down as patrons turned to listen.
"Ah!" said Marot. "At last I shall enjoy some of the genuine Krishnan performing arts! It is a thing I have long wished; but on this safari, we have been too hurried and harassed."
The harpist signaled the start. All five instruments crashed together in four notes, da-da-da-DUMM; and then in a lower register, da-da-da-DUMM.
"Mon dieu!" cried Marot, clapping a hand to his forehead "They are giving us Beethoven's Fifth! So much for the native arts!"
Alicia said: "Well, he was a great composer. I've heard that piece on the Japanese koto, the Indian sârangi, the Russian domra, and Trinidadian steel drums. I've even heard it on Ken Strachan's bagpipes; at least that's what he said he was playing."
The musicians worked their way through the first movement only, then rose, bowed, and went out, leaving their instruments. A Krishnan female, wearing heavy makeup, appeared.
Her costume consisted of a spangled, metallic loin garment; a tiara; a complex necklace whose strings of gems spilled down on her bare breasts; and bejeweled sandals. Reith assumed that the hundreds of glittering gems were faceted pieces of colored glass; but they glittered beautifully in the lamplight, crimson and emerald and sapphire and white amid the gold of the spangles.
The entertainer sat down and began talking, telling jokes and stories in so pronounced a dialect, and so filled with local slang, that they went over the heads of the Terrans. The Krishnans seemed to find them uproarious, for they burst into the gobbling Krishnan laugh until they nearly drowned out the speaker. Next, she did a little dance, playing a small metallic instrument that looked to Reith like a kazoo.
When she had ground and bumped and twee tied about the stage, she sat down to a lively cracking of joints, the Krishnan applause. She picked up the harp, struck a chord, and launched into a song:
Mainai zafsin zeglo ridv zeke mináv zelort ...
"I have heard that tune somewhere," said Marot.
"You probably have," said Alicia. "It's The Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Julia Ward Howe. 'Mine eyes have seen die glory ...' "
Marot sighed and shook his head. "It is depressing enough the way our own planet has become homogenized, so that in a given latitude everyone dresses the same the world round. Local traditions and customs are virtually extinct, save where artificially maintained as bait to draw tourists. Now I see that Krishna is starting down the same road."
"It'll take some time," said Reith. "I certainly expect enough local differences to keep tourists coming here through my lifetime. After all, nobody forced either Beethoven or Mrs. Howe on these folks."
"No; but I ask myself: is this blending of all cultures good?
Does it rob the individual of his sense of identity?"
Reith shrugged. "Who knows? But I wonder if they'd like The Battle Hymn so well if they knew it was an anti-slavery song?" The song ended in cracking of thumb joints and shouts of approval.
The band struck up. Reith listened, then tapped the table: "One, two, three-four-five! One, two, three-four-five! You're foutu again, Professor. That's a tango, or else a cha-cha at half speed." He stood up and nodded to Alicia. "Would my lady care to dance?"
"Really? Why, Fergus, I thought you hated dancing!"
"I try to give my clients satisfaction. Come on!"
They began their tango, although nobody else got up to share the floor with them. When they had made one circuit alone, Alicia exclaimed: "Why, Fergus, what's happened? The last time I danced with you, you weren't so bad as some I've known but not very good, either. Now, all of a sudden, you're simply divine! Have you been taking lessons on the sly?"
"To tell the truth, I got tired of being embarrassed, like the time I was commanded to dance with Princess Vázni."
"The one you were forced to marry?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you stay with her?"
"Vázni's a nice girl in her way, but she's just the opposite of you. She's placid, amiable, loving, sexy, frivolous, stupid, and dull. Mostly dull."
She jerked her head back, missing a step. "You mean I'm not loving or sexy?"
"I don't mean that; but you're certainly neither placid nor stupid. Vázni's only interests were clothes, parties, and screwing. Being a bird in her gilded cage became as boring as a life sentence in a Terran jail."
"Too bad you couldn't have married both of us and divided your time between us, like Captain Sarf and his wives. When you couldn't stand one, you could flee to the other."