Alex left the control system. Detached himself from the pilot’s chair, glanced briefly at the screens, and left the bridge.
The first thing that attracted his attention was the sound of laughter.
From the recreation lounge. Many happy voices joining in a merry uproar. He immediately recognized Kim’s bright peals of laughter, the high tiny voices of the Zzygou, and the deep throaty voice of… Janet!
Alex quickened his pace, cursing his own indecisiveness. He should have ordered Janet never to appear in the common modules while the Zzygou were there. He should have warned C-the-Third that sudden aggression from Janet might be expected….
He stopped at the entrance to the recreation lounge.
“We greet you, Captain!” the Zzygou sang out, though they didn’t seem to have been looking in his direction. “We thank you for the hyper-jump and for the second hyper-jump as well!”
No… There didn’t seem to be any trouble.
Kim was sitting next to the Zzygou, and Alex had to agree with Janet’s recent suspicions. The human and the adult Zzygou did look very similar. Even their clothes were alike—a dark-navy skirt suit on Kim and almost the same on the two aliens, though theirs were lace-decorated and a little lighter in color. If it weren’t for the Zzygou’s strange way of talking, no one could ever tell that they were a completely different life form.
Janet, with a rather placid smile on her face, was at the bar, mixing some cocktails. Generalov, lounging with a small glass of whiskey, greeted the captain’s arrival with a good-natured wave of his hand. And Paul, whose glass of wine was still untouched, gave a shy nod. C-the-Third smiled affably as he leaned against the wall behind the Zzygou. He seemed to be quite favorably impressed by the crew Alex had hired.
“And then we got very surprise-ed!” said one of the Zzygou brightly, moving the conversation along.
“We, I got very surprise-ed,” the other one intoned. “A smell? What smell is? Molecule movement in air?”
All right… then the second Zzygou had actually been the one who witnessed what was being described. They were not the same age. They had just lived together for a long time, and their appearance had synchronized.
Alex sat down at the table, opposite the Zzygou. Gave Kim a little wink. The girl replied with a barely noticeable but rather inviting smile.
“Would you like a cocktail, Captain?” asked Janet cheerily.
“Yes please, but not too strong.”
“Very well, Captain.” Janet reached for another cocktail glass.
“We were shock-ted!” pronounced the Zzygou. “How can molecule be offensive? They don’t harming, but offending?”
“Yeah, sometimes it might be very convenient to be unable to smell,” remarked Paul. “When I was a scout, we took long hikes in the woods for three or four days in a row. And if there happened to be no brook nearby, the tent in the evening got quite odorific…”
“How can the scent of a healthy young body be unpleasant?” asked Generalov with a dramatic flair.
“I don’t know about healthy young bodies,” Lourier countered, “but the scent of nice dirty socks…”
The Zzygou giggled, indicating to the others that they got the gist of the joke.
“And we, I suggest-ed a solution,” sang out the second Zzygou. “Spacesuit. Tight spacesuit. No molecule can escaping!”
“And then we made a fix,” the other one continued. “It’s painful… Ouch! But no smell at all. But going to the toilet very-very often, even every day!”
“Cocktails?” Janet came up to the table with a tray in her hands.
“We thank you, servant…” the Zzygou sang out. Alex held his breath. Janet had already been bending over backwards for them….
“Oops!” The Zzygou got up from their chairs, slightly bowing their heads. “We remember! Offensive word, causing pain… We mean ‘thank you, male or female friend!’”
“‘Friend’ will do,” Janet answered calmly.
“We thank you, friend!”
Alex also reached for a glass. Took a hurried sip, still watching Janet’s reactions. What if she had mixed in some poison?
But Janet took up a cocktail glass herself.
The drink was excellent, though it had a slightly unusual taste—lemon and anise, with just a hint of mint and honey, very refreshing. And it was no stronger than forty proof. Little colored ice cubes, made with slightly magnetized water, swirled around gracefully in the tall glasses. They reminded Alex of his virtual image of the ship.
“Alcohol wonderfully!” the Zzzygou declared, having taken a few sips. “We did not know taking alcohol internally. We knew humanity was a great race for invented alcohol. But it is still hard for us to drink a lot.”
“Not to worry,” said C-the-Third, joining the conversation. “Humans also didn’t adapt right away to drinking alcohol. There was even a time when it used to cause unpleasant aftereffects. Some radical naturals, who totally reject any kind of genetic engineering, still have a natural limit to their alcohol intake…”
Alex, utterly confused at this point, sat watching what was going on around him. It was a nice friendly get-together, as though the passengers and the crew had been good friends for a long time. Janet was a wonderful hostess, making hot cheese sandwiches for the Zzygou and all manner of snacks for the crew, while also refilling everyone’s drinks and keeping up the conversation. Kim and the Zzygou sitting closest to her were discussing the cut of their suits and the peculiarities of fashion in the Zzygou Swarm. The Zzygou had already produced a portable computer, quite human in its design, and was showing Kim some pictures.
Only Generalov’s tone of voice, when he addressed himself to C-the-Third, had a hint of spiteful irony. But Alex wasn’t sure if he was just imagining it.
Trouble began a quarter of an hour later. And, of course, Janet was the one to start it. With a perfectly innocuous, or so it seemed, friendly phrase:
“It is wonderful that the Zzygou race became a human ally from the very first contact…”
The Zzygou who sat chatting with Kim had no reaction to this whatsoever. But her companion chirped happily:
“No! No from the very first contact! We were first deeply offend-ed by the Empire. Your appearance, your behavior, and your morals are all offen-sive! We prepare-ed for big war.”
“Really?” rejoined Janet in a honey-sweet mellow tone. “And I was sure that was all an Ebenian extremist lie…”
“We prepare-ed, prepare-ed!” the alien chirped on. “But later we rejecting all the violent ways. The human race will meet its own natural end. Humanity are way too aggres-sive to reject expansion. You are also too fond of biological modeling for preserve unity. When the Empire finally falls apart in hundreds of independent planets, it will be conquer-ed by other race-es. Then we take our slice of cake! A large, very large slice!”
The pealing laughter of the Zzygou sounded especially odd in the silence that abruptly froze the air in the recreation lounge. The Zzygou smiled for another second or two. Then her face went ashen. The other alien, who had been caught up in telling Kim all the super-secret details of the Great Zzygou sacred fertilization ritual, stopped in mid-sentence. Looked at her companion. Touched the panel of the portable computer, folding the image. Then quietly said:
“We ask forgiving.”
“We ask forgiving,” sang out the Zzygou who had been chatting with Janet. The alien’s face had lost all color.
“We overestimate-ed ability drinking ethanol,” sang the two Zzygou in complete unison. “We start-ed joking, but our joking are somewhat strange and offen-sive to humans. We ask forgiving, we ask forgiving…”
They got up and backed out of the recreation lounge.