But the day had a pleasant surprise. When they got back to their apartment they found a stack of hexagonal boxes, great and small, just inside the door. What they contained was the personal possessions they had had in their Five, left behind on Door and finally returned to them by some considerate Heechee. The smallest of the boxes held half a dozen of Stan's old sheet-music selections, and that was all they needed to get their instruments out of the wall cupboard and begin to play. It was a nice way to end a day.
And, the next morning, a nice way to begin one, too. It was Estrella's flute, played as she was sitting on the side of their bed, that woke Stan up, and he only took a moment to use the waste disposer before he joined her in a couple of choruses of "Stardust" and "The Jelly Roll Rag." Then Stan remembered that he hadn't used the drencher that morning, and he invited Estrella to join him, and one thing led to another and they found themselves right back in bed again. After that Stan didn't think he had gone back to sleep again, but the next thing he knew he heard that soft, deep-down low-frequency rumble that meant there was something in the food dispenser. "Estrella?" he called.
It took a moment for her to show herself, coming in off the balcony and still brushing her hair. "What?" she asked.
"Did you order lunch?"
She frowned. "Well, I did say, out loud, that I was getting hungry."
Which led Stan to observe that, as a matter of fact, so was he. "Let's see what we've got," he said.
When they had punctured the bubble-covers, what they'd got was a total surprise to both. The smell of Estrella's meal identified itself even before Stan saw what it was: chili. Served in a bread bowl, with sides of guacamole and two kinds of salsa, with a dab of sour cream on top and a scattering of corn chips all around. "Real Texas-style chili," Estrella announced, as soon as she had had a taste.
Stan objected, "You weren't from Texas, were you?"
"I said Texas-style. The only style worth eating. I even think I can taste a little rattlesnake meat in it. But what've you got?"
Stan had already eaten two of his half-dozen slippery-looking green things, and was covetously eyeing the platter of some kind of a roast surrounded by vegetables. "Stuffed grape leaves," he announced. "Haven't had those since my last birthday, and the meat looks good. And, look—" pointing to a pouted copper pot, accompanied by a pair of tiny cups, "there's real Turkish coffee, too."
Estrella tasted a forkful of the perfectly prepared guacamole. "We should thank her," she said meditatively.
Stan had already moved on to the next course. "I think it's lamb," he said, tasting. "You know, I never had roast lamb before? Couldn't afford it."
Estrella didn't answer. After a moment of struggling with her notions of acceptable behavior, she gave up and licked the plate. They gazed at each other in rapture. "Things are definitely looking up," Stan told Estrella.
She nodded, but had a question. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"God knows. I don't. All I know is that's about the best meal I've had since—since—" He frowned, casting his mind back over the rations in their Five, the occasional splurge in Gateway's spindle, Mrs. Kusmeroglu's cooking way back in Istanbul. "Since ever," he finished. "Now how about we take another look at our daughter?"
Their daughter had to wait, while Estrella called Klara's home to thank her, or maybe Hypatia, but in any case whoever had provided that meal. Curiously, there was no answer.
When Stork had done its thing, Estrella took a good, long look at the baby and decided she hadn't changed much. Stan was less sure. "Is that an eye?" he demanded. "What's it doing on the side of her head? And what's that thing at the back of her head, right where it joins the neck? Some kind of wart?"
"Babies in the womb don't get warts. I think." She was on the little lookplate again.
Stan took his mind off the unborn child long enough to ask what she was looking at. She moved slightly so he could see the plate. "Our new neighbors," she said.
What the lookplate showed was a lanai very like their own. It looked out on the same valley and the same Mica Mountains beyond. Eight or ten inarguable humans, male and female, were sharing a meal on it, passing around oddly shaped ceramic dishes and small wicker baskets.
"They're Chinese or something," he pointed out. Estrella didn't dispute it. "Well, maybe we should visit them sometime. What's on the other plates?"
The answer to that was, not much, or, alternatively, far too much to take in. Stan watched the parade of strange-looking people doing unidentifiable things in unrecognized places. "Oh, hell," he grumbled at last. "I don't have a clue."
She was sympathetic. "Me, too." They left it at that. They both know that the villain was that terrible ratio, 40,000 to 1. To compress forty thousand Outside hours into one Core hour program meant that a lot—in fact, nearly everything—had to be left out.
"Well, hell," Stan said moodily. "I guess it doesn't matter. We're never going to go Outside again anyway."
They had another meal, very nearly as rapturous as the one before, and as Stan was gathering up the dishes to put in the waste the door growled at them. It was Salt, belly muscles nervously rippling under her gown. "Did not wish to interrupt your feeding," she said. "But all right to enter now?"
"Sure," Stan said, thinking that Salt was not looking her best. Her skin color seemed—well, not exactly right, though with a Heechee how could you tell?
Once inside she brightened. She sat down on the edge of an actual chair, her pod sticking awkwardly into air. She accepted a cup of tea and nibbled on the chocolate-covered biscuits the dispenser had included with the tea quite as though enjoying them. She gave the little sneeze that was the Heechee equivalent of clearing her throat, then began: "Have request to request of you. Human courtesy custom, however, requires I first ask of you what questions or requests you may have of me?"
"Well," Stan said, "actually we've been wondering if Klara is at home. We haven't spoken to her in quite a while—"
"Have not?" Salt asked politely. "Wish to verify?"
She didn't wait for an answer to that, but turned to the lookplates. A few soft-voiced commands to the small one—in one of the Heechee languages, of course—and it displayed an interior view of Klara's apartment. The view changed as they watched, as though the camera were hunting through the rooms. All the rooms were in order—bedroom and bathroom included—but there was no sign of either Klara or her shipmind.
"Quite sorry," Salt apologized. "Not present, as you have seen."
"And you don't have any idea of where she's gone?"
Salt's skull muscles twitched. "Any idea? But yes, have some idea, simply do not know if it is good idea. She spoke of persons called 'Old Ones,' now resident on One Moon Planet of Pale Yellow Star Fourteen. Perhaps has gone to see them."
Stan gave another of those dissatisfied grunts he was getting really good at, and Salt again politely sneezed. "May I at present time request the request I spoke of?"
Stan shrugged. "Request on."
"Is perhaps excessive, this request," she said regretfully. "All the same wish to request it. Have greatly enjoyed peculiar 'musical' sounds produced by you, on balcony and elsewhere. Is possible you produce same sounds in other venue? That is, in place you term 'institution'? Doing same for entertainment and education of persons resident therein and nearby?"
Then, before either of them could answer, she rose. "Am aware, as stated, request possibly excessive. I will now depart, leaving time for you, and also you, Estrella, to consider before giving answer. But would be quite greatly appreciated."
When she was gone, Stan and Estrella looked at each other. "What do you think, Strell? Should we do it?"