But Hal comforted himself with the thought that Pornsen was not a very brave man. If he took the liberty of entering Hal's place, he would also take the chance being discovered. And Hal, as a lamedhian, could bring so much pressure to bear that Pornsen might not only be disgraced and demoted, he might even be a candidate for H.
Loudly, impatiently, Hal rapped on the door again. This time it swung open. Abasa, Fobo's wife, was smiling at him.
'Hal Yarrow!' she said in Siddo. 'Welcome! Why didn't you come in without knocking?'
Hal was shocked. 'I couldn't do that!'
'Why not?'
'We just don't do that.'
Abasa shrugged her shoulders, but she was too polite to comment. Still smiling, she said, 'Well, come on in. I won't bite!'
Hal stepped in and shut the door behind him, though not without a backward glance at Pornsen's door. It was closed.
Inside, the screams of twelve wog children at play bounched off the walls of a room as large as a basket-ball court. Abasa led Hal across the uncarpeted floor to the opposite end, where a hallway began. They passed by one corner where three wog females, evidently Abasa's visitors, sat at a table. They were occupied in sewing, drinking from tall glasses before them, and chattering. Hal could not understand the few words he could hear; wog females, when talking among themselves, used a vocabulary restricted to their sex. This custom, however, so Hal understood, was swiftly dying out under the impact of increasing urbanization. Abasa's female children were not even learning woman-talk.
Abasa led Hal down to the end of the hall, opened a door, and said, 'Fobo, dear! Hal Yarrow, the No-nose, is here!'
Hal, hearing himself so described, smiled. The first time he had met this phrase, he had felt offended. But he had learned that the wogs did not mean it to be insulting.
Fobo came to the door. He was dressed only in a scarlet kilt. Hal could not help thinking for the hundredth time how strange the Ozagen's torso was, with its nippleless chest and the curious construction of shoulder blades attached to the ventral spine. (Would it be called a forebone as opposed to the Earthman's backbone?)
'You are welcome indeed, Hal,' said Fobo in Siddo. He switched to American, 'Shalom. What happy occasion brings you here? Sit down. I'd offer you a drink, but I'm fresh out.'
Hal did not think his dismay showed on his face, bu Fobo must have discerned it.
'Anything wrong?'
Hal decided not to waste time. 'Yes. Where can I get quart of liquor?'
'You need some? Shib. I will go out with you. The nearest tavern is a low-class hangout; it will give you a chance to see at close range an aspect of Siddo society you doubtless know little about.'
The wog went into the closet and returned with an armful of clothes. He put a broad leather belt around his fat stomach and to it fastened a sheath containing a short rapier. Then, he stuck a pistol in the belt. Over his shoulders he fastened a long, kelly green cloak with many black ruffles. On his head he put a dark green skullcap with two artificial antennae. This head covering was the symbol of the Grasshopper clan. Once, it would have been important for a wog of that clan to have alway worn it outside his house. Now, the clan system had degenerated to the point where it represented a minor social function, though its political use was still great.
'I need a drink, an alcoholic beverage,' Fobo said. 'You see, as a professional empathist, I encounter many nerve-racking cases. I give therapy to so many neurotics and psychotics. I must put myself in their shoes, feel their emotions as they feel them. Then I wrench myself out of their shoes and take an objective look at their problems. Through the use of this' – he tapped his head – 'and this' – he tapped his nose – 'I become them, then become myself, and so, sometimes, enable them to cure themselves.'
Hal knew that when Fobo indicated his nose, he meant that the two extremely sensitive antennae inside the projectilelike proboscis could detect the type and flux of his patients' emotions. The odor from a wog's sweat told even more than the expression of his face.
Fobo led Hal down the hall to the big room. He told Abasa where he was going and affectionately rubbed noses with her.
Then, Fobo handed Hal a mask shaped like a wog's face, and he put his own on. Hal did not ask what it was for. He knew that it was the custom for all Siddo to wear nightmasks. They did serve a utilitarian purpose, for they kept the many biting insects off. Fobo explained their social function.
'We upper-class Siddo keep them on inside when we go – what's the American word?'
'Slumming?' said Hal. 'When an upper-class person goes to a lower-class place for amusement?'
'Slumming,' said Fobo. 'Ordinarily, I do not keep the mask on when I go into a low-class resort, for I go there to have fun with people, not to laugh at them. But, tonight, inasmuch as you are a – I blush to say it, a No-nose – I think it would be more relaxing if you kept the mask on.'
When they had walked out of the building, Hal said, 'Why the gun and sword?'
'Oh, there isn't too much danger in this – neck of the woods? – but it's best to be careful. Bemember what I told you at the ruins? The insects of my planet heve developed and specialized far beyond those of your world, according to what you have told me. You know of the parasites and mimics that infest ant colonies? The beetles that look like ants and freeload off the ants because of that resemblance? The pygmy ants and other creatures that live in the walls of the colonies and prey on the eggs and young?
'We have things analogous to those, but they prey off us. Things that hide in sewers or basements or hollow trees or holes in the ground and creep around the city at night. That is why we do not allow our children out after dark. Our streets are well lighted and patrolled, but they are often separated by wooded stretches.'
They walked through a park over a path lit with tall lamps that burned gas. Siddo was still in the transition between electricity and the older forms of energy; it was not unusual to find one area illuminated by light bulbs, the next by gaslights. Coming out of the park and onto a broad street, Hal saw other evidences of Ozagen's culture, the old and the brand new side by side. Buggies drawn by hoofed animals belonging to the same sub-phylum as Fobo and steam-driven wheeled vehicles. The animals and cars passed over a thoroughfare covered with tough short-bladed grass that resisted all efforts to wear it out.
And the buildings were so widely separated that it was difficult to think of oneself as being in a metropolis. Too bad, thought Hal. The wogs had more than enough Lebensraum now. But their expanding population made it inevitable that the wide spaces would be filled with houses and buildings; someday, Ozagen would be as crowded as Earth.
Then, he corrected himself. Crowded, yes, but not with wogglebugs. If the Gabriel carried out her planned function, human beings from the Haijac Union would replace the natives.
He felt a pang at this and also had the thought – unrealistic, of course – that such an event would be hideously wrong. What right did beings from another planet have to come here and callously murder all the inhabitants?
It was right, because the Forerunner had said so. Or was it?
Fobo said, 'Ah, there it is.'
He pointed to a building ahead of them. It was three stories high, shaped something like a ziggurat, and had arches running from the upper stories to the ground. These arches had steps on them on which the residents of the upper stories walked. Like many of the older Siddo buildings, it had no internal stairways; the residents went directly from the outside into their apartments.
However, though old, the tavern on the first story had a big electric sign blazing above the front door.
'Duroku's Happy Vale,' said Fobo, translating the ideograms.
The bar was in the basement. Hal, after stopping to shudder at the blast of liquor fumes that came up the steps, followed the wog. He paused in the entrance.
Strong odors of alcohol mingled with loud bars of a strange music and even louder talk. Wogs crowded the hexagonal-topped tables and leaned acrosss big pewter steins to shout in each other's face. Somebody waved his hands uncoordinatedly and sent a stein crashing. A waitress hurried up with a towel to mop up the mess. When she bent over, she was slapped resoundingly on the rump by a jovial, green-faced, and very fat wogglebug. His tablemates howled with laughter, their broad V-in-V lips wide open. The waitress laughed, too, and said something to the fat one that must have been witty, for those at the neighboring tables guffawed.
On a platform at one end of the room a five-piece band slammed out fast and weird notes. Hal saw three instruments that looked Terranlike: a harp, a trumpet, and a drum. A fourth musician, however, was not producing any music himself, but he was now and then prodding with a long stick a rat-sized locustoid creature in a cage. When so urged, the insect rubbed its hind wings over its back legs and gave four loud chirps followed by a long, nerve-scratching screech.
The fifth player was pumping away at a bellows connected to a bag and three short and narrow pipes. A thin squealing came out.
Fobo shouted, 'Don't think that noise is typical of our music. It's cheap, popular stuff. I'll take you to a symphony concert one of these days, and you'll hear what great music is like.'
The wog led the man to one of the curtained-off booths scattered along the walls. They sat down. A waitress came to them. Sweat ran off her forehead and down her tubular nose.
'Keep your mask on until we've gotten our drinks,' said Fobo. 'Then we can close the curtains.'
The waitress said something in Wog.
Fobo repeated in American for Hal's benefit. 'Beer, wine, or beetlejuice. Myself, I wouldn't touch the first two. They're for women and children.'
Hal didn't want to lose face. He said, with a bravado he didn't feel, 'The latter, of course.'
Fobo held up two fingers. The waitress returned quickly with two big steins. The wog leaned his nose into fumes and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, lifted the stein, and drank a long time. When he put the container down, he belched loudly and then smacked his lips.
'Tastes as good coming up as going down!' he bellowed.
Hal felt queasy. He had been whipped too many times as a child for his uninhibited eructations.