The area at which he stopped was one of the very few that still had a plentiful store. The locals, a majority of pre-Columbian Algon-quins and a minority of pre-Roman Picts, were well aware of the value of their stones. Their chief, a Menomini named Oskas, haggled fiercely with Burton. Finally, he stated that his rock-bottom price was seven thousand cigarettes of tobacco, five hundred of marijuana, twenty-five hundred cigars, forty packages of pipe tobacco, and eight thousand cupfuls of liquor. He also suggested that he would like to sleep with the blonde, Loghu, every five days or so. Actually, he would prefer that it be every night, but he did not think his three women would like that.
Burton took some time to recover from his shock. He said, ' "That's up to her. I don't think either she or her man would agree to it. Anyway, you're asking far too much. None of my party would have booze or tobacco for a year."
Oskas shrugged and said, "Well, if it isn't worth it to you... ?"
Burton called a conference and told his crew what Oskas demanded. Kazz objected the most.
"Burton-naq, I lived all my life on Earth, forty-five summers, without whiskey or nicotine. But here I got hooked and if I go a day without either, I am ready, as you put it, to climb the wall. You know that I tried to quit both at different times, and before a week was gone I was ready to bite my tongue off. I was as mean as a cave bear with a thorn in his paw."
Besst said, "I haven't forgotten."
"If there was no alternative, we'd have to do it," Burton said. "It'd be cold turkey or no boat. But we do have the extra grails."
He returned to Oskas and, after they had smoked a pipe, he got down to business.
"The woman with the yellow hair and blue eyes says the only part of her you'll get is her foot, and you might have a hard time pulling it out of your ass."
Oskas laughed loudly and slapped his thigh.
When he had dried his tears, he said, "Too bad. I like a woman with spirit, though not with too much."
"It so happens that some time ago I got hold of a free-grail. Now, I am willing to trade that for a place in which to build our boat and the materials to build it."
Oskas did not ask him how he got it, though it was evident that he thought Burton had stolen it.
"If that is so," he said, smiling, "then we have a deal."
He stood up. "I will see that things are arranged at once. Are you sure that the blonde is not just playing hard to get?"
The chief took the grail to the council's stronghouse, adding it to the twenty-one free-grails there. These had been collected through the years for the benefit of himself and his subchiefs.
Here, as everywhere, special people made sure that they got special privileges.
It took a year to build another cutter. When it was half-finished, Burton decided not to name it after its predecessors, Hadji I and Hadji II. Both had come to bad ends, and, though he denied it, he was superstitious. After some talk with his crew, it was agreed that Snark was suitable. Alice liked the name because of her association with Lewis Carroll, and she agreed with Frigate that it was most appropriate.
Smiling, she recited part of the Bellman's speech from The Hunting of the Snark.
"He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they
found it to be A map they could all understand.
" 'What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and
Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?'
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would
reply "They are merely conventional signs!
" 'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands
and capes!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank' (So the crew would protest) 'that he's bought us A perfect and absolute blank!' "
Burton laughed, but he was not sure that Alice was not obliquely insulting his abilities as a captain. Lately, they had not been getting along so well.
"Let's hope the voyage in the new boat won't be another agony in eight fits!" Alice cried. .
"Well," Burton said, grinning savagely at her, "this Bellman knows enough not to get the browsprit miffed up with the rudder sometimes!
"Nor,'' he added, "is there a Rule 42 of the boat's code. No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm."
"Which," Alice said, her smile gone, "was decreed by the Bellman himself. And the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." .
There was a short silence. All felt the tension between the two, and they looked uneasy, dreading another violent explosion of their captain's temper.
Monat, eager to avoid this, laughed. He said, "I remember that poem. I was especially struck by 'Fit the Sixth, The Barrister's Dream.' Let me see, ah, yes, the pig was on trial for having deserted its sty, and the Snark, dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending it.
"The indictment had never been dearly expressed,
And it seemed that the Snark had begun, And had spoken three hours, before any one
guessed What the pig was supposed to have done."
He paused, rolled his eyes, and said, "I have it. That one quatrain which so impressed me.
"But their wild exultation was suddenly checked When the jailor informed them with tears,
Such a sentence would not have the slightest effect, As the pig had been dead for some years.''
They all laughed, and Monat said, "Somehow, that verse squeezes out the essence of Terrestrial justice, its letter if not its spirit."
"I am amazed," Burton said, "that in your short time on Earth you managed not only to read so much but to remember it so well.''
"The Hunting of the Snark was a poem. I believe that you can understand human beings better through poetry and fiction man through so-called fact-literature. That is why I took the trouble to memorize it.
"Anyway, an Earth friend gave it to me. He said that it was one of the greatest works of metaphysics that humanity could boast of. He asked me if Arcturans had anything to equal it."
Alice said, "Surely he was pulling your leg?"
"I don't think so."
Burton shook his head. He had been a voracious reader, and he had an almost photographic memory. But he had been on Earth sixty-nine years, whereas Monat had lived there only from 2002 to 2008 a.d. Yet, during the years they had voyaged together, Monat had betrayed a knowledge that no human could have accumulated in a century.
The conversation ended since it was time to go back to work on the boat. Burton had not forgotten Alice's seeming barb, however. He brought it up as they got ready to go to bed.
She looked at him with large, dark eyes, eyes that were already retreating into another world. She almost always withdrew when he attacked, and it was this that heated his anger from red to white-hot.
"No, Dick, I wasn't insulting you. At least, I wasn't doing so consciously."