"That'll give us a day's shopping, before our host's most welcome dinner. Then off for home!"
"Fine!" said the commissioner. "Menshu, kindly conduct my friends to Khaminé's Inn. Tell Master Khaminé I wish them to be accommodated as a special favor. When you have delivered them safely, hunt down Captain Ozum and pay for three berths on his boat to Novorecife. Bon soir! À demain, sans faute!"
At Khaminé's, Reith ordered a single and a double room as before. At the door of the smaller room, he waved Alicia in. She paused, looking hopefully at Reith, and murmured:
"Fergus, is this your way of saying we can never go back to the way things were, before Ghulindé?"
"That's right," he said.
"I'm so sorry, Fergus. It was such glorious fun, being your amorex."
"I'm sorry, too; but I think it's the best—the only way."
"Even if I solemnly promise never to do anything like that again?"
"No. After that hoax you and Vizman tried to pull, with drink and a dancing girl, I could never again trust one of your promises."
"I didn't mean to hurt you. If I'd known Vizman's plan in advance, I could have discussed it with you. Then, if you refused—"
"My dear Alicia, if I'd said 'no!', you'd have replied: 'It's my body, to do with what I please!' And off you'd go in a fury."
"Oh, come, Fergus! I'm not an utter—but anyway, I figured that, if I gave in to Vizman and you never found out, I might help to end a great injustice to those mine slaves. What would be the harm? Vizman first brought the matter up at dinner. I couldn't very well call out: 'Hey, Fergus, the President wants me for his bedmate tonight! Is that okay with you?' I asked for time to think it over, hoping I'd have a chance to discuss it with you; but no, Vizman wanted his answer right away. So I had to decide quickly, and I chose what seemed the right course."
Reith nodded. "No doubt you did what seemed right to you; and now I'm doing what seems right to me. But let's not further hash over this unfortunate business."
"Oh, all right, Mr. neo-Puritan. Any time you can't stand the primal urge any more, you'll know where to find me."
Reith changed the subject in a marked manner. "How about that shopping spree we've been looking forward to? We can buy necessities today and luxuries tomorrow."
"Oh, good!" she cried, seizing Reith by the neck and planting a lush, moist kiss on his lips. "I want a dress like the one the Sainians gave me." Her eyes lit up with the feral gleam of a carnivore stalking its prey.
When Reith returned to the larger bedroom, Marot said: "I infer, my friend, that the affair is now over, fini?"
"Yep," said Reith.
"A pity. I shall miss my single bed; for you are given to the thrashing and the groaning in your sleep."
"If you like, I'll ask Khaminé—"
"No, no, do not consider it. I am not serious. But the little one, I am sure she most sincerely repents her dalliance with that soi-disant President. She told me all about it after you left the palace. He had cleverly maneuvered her into a position where she had to choose between her ideals and her love for you."
Reith growled: "I might have come to accept her sleeping with Vizman, in time, as I had the Foltz affair. But what really browned me off was her trying to hoax me with the liquor and the dancing girl. There are people you can trust—a very small class—and people you can't. Until that night, I thought she was one of the first kind."
"But you see, Vizman arranged things so that she should have no time to consider the alternatives. When he offered her a seeming way to retain both her ideals and your affection, she yielded to the temptation. Have you never yielded to the temptation?"
"Yes," said Reith, remembering how he had been lured into an affair with Princess Vázni. "It's an unfortunate business all around; but I'm still not going back. If you want to court her, Aristide, feel free."
"You mean to sue in your behalf, like that fellow Miles Standing?"
"Standish, I think you mean. No, I mean in your own behalf."
Marot threw up his hands. "May the good God forbid! If you, with all your experience and force of personality, cannot domesticate this tornado of energy, how could a naive old pedant like me hope to do so? I know my limitations, and I would never, never attempt such a folly."
A half-hour later, the three ragamuffin travelers were canvassing the shops of Majbur for essentials. Knowing the city and its ways, Reith managed their purchases with efficient dispatch.
At last they reentered the inn, cleansed in the public bathhouse, the men freshly shaven and wearing new baldrics and swords over new jackets and divided kilts. Alicia looked a legendary princess in a simple lilac tunic of linenlike fabric, embellished by her necklace and her freshly washed and cropped shining hair.
The clerk at first failed to recognize the former vagabonds. When he realized who they were, he bowed so low that he nearly lost his balance. Reith grinned at the sudden deference and said: "Kindly show us to the dining room."
Alicia brightened at the sight of a dance floor. "Oh, wonderful! Tonight we can dance as late as we want!"
"Good God, woman," laughed Reith. "I thought you were all worn out?"
"Shopping invigorates me," she said. "Poor Fergus, if you are exhausted, you can go to bed right after dinner." She slid an arm through Marot's. "Aristide and I will have fun tonight, won't we?"
"My dear Alicia," said Marot, "me, I have not danced in many years. I warn you, I shall be as maladroit as a bull on the roof."
"If you two can take it, I guess I can," said Reith. "Don't want to spoil my image as a superman."
The entreé was a kind of sea slug with tentacles, which had the unnerving property of continuing to wriggle after being boiled. When the orchestra struck up with the Krishnan equivalents of harps, flutes, clarinets, and trumpets, Alicia fixed Marot with her piercing sapphire eyes. "Let's dance!"
"As I have remarked," said Marot in plaintive tones, "I am hopelessly out of practice ..."
"Aristide! You're going to dance, and that's that! Come along!" She rose and tugged on the Frenchman's wrist.
With a sigh, Marot let himself be cowed into compliance. He cast an appealing glance at Reith, who replied with a flicker of a smirk. As they circled the floor, Reith observed that Alicia was such an exquisite dancer that she could make even the awkward scientist look proficient.
As they returned to their table, the orchestra struck up again. Reith rose and bowed. "May I have the pleasure?"
The band played an athletic dance tune; and Reith and Alicia skipped about the floor with two other lively couples. As the music ended and the musicians tuned their harps and polished their wind instruments, Alicia said: "Fergus, think of all the fun we missed when we were mm—you know—because you didn't take those dancing lessons sooner."
"No doubt," he said dryly, "or to put it another way, because we didn't stay married long enough for me to get around to those lessons."
Alicia sighed. "I know, darling; it's all my fault. Let's make the most of our chances from now on."
When the music resumed, Alicia again bullied the compliant Marot out on the floor. As Reith sat watching them, he became aware that he in turn was being watched by a young Krishnan, who was seated by himself across the room.
The watcher wore baggy black trousers tucked into soft-leather boots, and a jacket of heavy green stuff, which he had opened to bare his chest against the heat. A scabbarded sword lay beneath his table. The garb bespoke a resident of the Empire of Dur, north of the stormy Va'andao Sea.
At last the Krishnan rose and walked unsteadily across the dance floor, narrowly missing a pair of dancers. Reith watched his approach uncertainly. Halting, the Duru said: