"I don't know, Your Altitude, but I fear the worst. We got separated while they were chasing us in the Sunqar."
"A woeful loss, but we'll keep hope for the nonce. Let's within, to restore your tissues before the banquet."
Banquet? Barnevelt feared there'd be speeches, and after all his narrow escapes from death it would catch up with him in the form of acute boredom.
They filed into the palace and were passed mugs of spiced kvad. Barnevelt had his thumb wrung by admirers until he thought it would come off. He couldn't get near Zei who, still in her seagoing rig, was surrounded by the gilded youth of the land packed four deep.
The President of Suruskand, a stout little party in hornrimmed spectacles and vermilion toga, astonished Barnevelt by producing a little native notebook and a pen-and-inkwell set from the folds of his garment, saying, "General Snyol, since my elevation has my eldest chick besought me to exploit my station to gather for him autographs of the great. So, sir, if you'd not mind posing your signature hereon…"
Barnevelt laboriously indited a series of Gozashtandou curleycues upon the proffered sheet. "Excuse me, Your Beneficence," said Barnevelt and tore himself away. Since Zei had disappeared, he went over to speak to Tangaloa, who was quietly swilling his drink and waiting.
The big brown man was as stout and jovial as ever. Wringing Barnevelt's hand, the xenologist said, "My God, cobber, but you resemble a swagman!"
"You would, too, if you'd been with us. When did she let you out of pokey?"
"As soon as she got word by that smoke-telegraph thing that you and the sheila were safe."
"How's your arm?"
"Nearly as good as new. But you're the lad with things to yarn about. Let's have the dinkum oil."
Barnevelt gave a synopsis of his adventures. "… so we can take it as proved that this Osirian, Sheafase, is the boss of the buccaneers. Further, he's put Igor under Osirian pseudo-hypnosis, so that our cream of the Muscovite team doesn't know who he is any more. It was only those silver helmets that saved Zakkomir and me from the same fate."
Tangaloa clucked. "That'll complicate our efforts to rescue him, but I daresay something will turn up. Go on."
When Barnevelt told of setting fire to Fossanderan, he was surprised to see Tangaloa's good-humored face take on a look of stern disapproval.
"What's the matter?" said Barnevelt.
"That was a hang of a thing to do! Think of all the good timber you destroyed! On Earth we have to watch every stick of it. And what happened to the tailed men?"
"How should I know? Maybe they got roasted. Maybe they swam over to the mainland on the other side. What about them?"
"Why, there's a whole culture group that has never been investigated! They sound like the same species as those of Koloft and Za, but the culture may be quite different. These groups are all enclaves of the tailed species that were left when the tailless Krishnans overran the country thousands of years ago. Perhaps our hosts here derived their cannibalism from the tailed aborigines they displaced. Oh, there are all sorts of possibilities—or there were until you burned the evidence. How could you, Dirk?"
"Jeepers!" cried Barnevelt. "What the hell d'you expect me to do, let these bloody savages eat me so you can come along later with your little notebook to study 'em?"
"No, but…"
"Well, it was them or us. As for the trees, Krishna's only got a small fraction of Earth's population, with three or four times the land area, so we needn't worry about its natural resources yet. Tailed men, fool!"
"But when I think of the scientific data going to waste… What happened next?"
Barnevelt told the tale of their adventures in the forest of Rakh. "The only thing that saved us," he said, "was stumbling on a cache of eggs. Four big ones. I don't know which of the local critters laid 'em. Anyway, mama was away from the nest, so we scooped up the eggs and legged it."
"How'd you cook them?"
"Set them on the ground beside the fire and turned them every few seconds. Turned out all right—they must have been freshly laid. Otherwise the yekya would be gnawing our bones in the somber forest of Rakh."
"Oh, nonsense, cobber, don't make such a big thing of it! A healthy young couple like you and the princess could have gone for weeks without food before you collapsed. We did on Thor, when they thought we'd stolen their sacred pie and we had to shoot our way out. We didn't even have shellfish and-berries, let alone eggs to eat." Tangaloa looked down at his paunch. "I was actually slender when we'd finished that stroll. And, by the bye, how much film did you get?"
"Not enough. We were in the Sunqar only overnight, and after we got away I hardly gave the Hayashi a thought until now. The forest was mostly too dark anyway. I have some exposed rolls in my pocket, if the water hasn't gotten into the capsules. But what'll we do about Igor? He'll have to be taken by force."
"That will take care of itself," grinned Tangaloa.
"How d'you mean?" said Barnevelt uneasily.
"The queen is pushing you for commander-in-chief of this expedition against the pirates."
"Me? Why me?"
"Because you're a famous general, if you've forgotten. As you're from a distant country, she figures these temperamental skites might agree on you when they wouldn't let one of their own group lord it over the rest. Penjird is jealous of Ferrian, Ferrian is jealous of Rostamb, and Rostamb is jealous of everybody."
"But I'm no admiral. I couldn't even keep control of the crew of a little fourteen-oared smuggler."
"They'll never know that if you don't tell 'em. Here they have been beating their brains out to think of a way through the sea vine, and you've solved it."
"You mean my skis? Maybe…"
Barnevelt hesitated. On one hand, the expedition would furnish a good excuse to get clear of Qirib before he fell so deeply in love with Zei that his will power could no longer extricate him. Besides, something had to be done about Igor Shtain and the Cosmic Features contract. On the other hand, his old shyness filled him with dread at having to stand up in front of hordes of strangers and shoulder vast responsibilities to which he was unequal.
"Of course it is all nonsense," said Tangaloa. "If Castan-hoso had given me the name he gave you, I should have been chosen admiralissimo instead of you. As it is, having no military ambitions, I will happily shoot film while you wrestle with logistics."
The flash of jewels in the gaslight caught Barnevelt's eye. Here came Zei, freshly scrubbed and waved, in gauzy tunic and glittering tiara, dodging through a scrimmage of painted youths towards himself and George. Barnevelt whistled his admiration and quoted:
"Let never maiden think, however fair, She is not fairer in new clothes than old!"
"What's that, my lord?" she asked, and he translated.
She turned to Tangaloa. "Does he narrate our adventures, Master Tagde? The telling could never in a millennium do justice to the doing, for compared to our struggles were the Nine Labors of Qara as nought. Has he told you of the time, after we attained the mainland, when we were treed by a yeki? Or again how, after his lighter broke down, he made a fire by rubbing sticks together?"
"No—did you?" asked Tangaloa.
"Yes. The Boy Scout handbooks are right. It can be done if you have dry wood and the patience of Job. But I don't advise…" He glanced at the clepsydra on the wall. "I'd better get washed and dressed:
"The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing."
CHAPTER EIGHT
As guest of honor, Barnevelt had the seat on the queen's right, with Zei on her left looking like one of the gauzier Greek goddesses. The rest of the company ranged in a crescent, jewels gleaming in the gaslight.