"On the other hand, he got Kgama to abolish a lot of harmless and even beneficial things, like our all-night dances and our circumcision ritual, thinking 'em heathen. He made men with more than one wife dismiss all but one, and those poor women had to turn whore or starve. He made us wear coats and ties, in that climate! He stopped the brewing of native beer. That reform hurt our health, because we got our vitamins from the beer. Of course, nobody knew about vitamins then.
"One thing was really funny. The baMangwato had an old tradition that men were descended from monkeys. Then Hepburn told us that was all wrong; men were descended from Adam and Eve, supposedly whites like himself. Many years later, European scientists and teachers came in to say no, we were right the first time. All men were descended from monkeys. From what I've seen, some haven't descended very far.
"So I take a dim view of all these fervent Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists running around Krishna, outraging the locals by blaspheming their beliefs, and getting their silly heads chopped off. Last year we had a fellow preaching what he called Jewish Shinto."
Alicia said: "Boy, is that a contradiction! But I suppose their ideas are no sillier than Khorosh's breeding experiment, or Vuzhov's tower to Heaven."
Mjipa grunted assent. "My impression is that all Khaldonian kings are round the bend. Vuzhov is crackers on the shape of the planet; Ainkhist is mad over sex; and Khorosh is potty on the Terran menace."
"If Vuzhov makes such a fuss over his flat-world idea, what would happen if somebody came preaching modern evolutionary theory?"
"That would shock them less than the round-world idea. They already believe that Krishnans are descended from the mating of their head god with a female—what's the name of those things that look like monkeys? Sounds like a sneeze."
"In Khaldoni, phwchuvit. So they're sort of semi-evolutionists already ? "
"So I'm told. That professor who was in Reith's first gaggle of tourists explained to me how the Krishnans came from phwchuvit, exactly as men came from apes. We baMangwato had the right idea before your white missionaries came along and muddled us up."
Alicia looked thoughtfully at Mjipa. "Tell me, Percy, are you sure you don't have a general prejudice against the Caucasoid race? With your background, it would be practically inevitable."
"I do not!" said Mjipa, smiting one fist into the other palm. "I don't blame the British for coming in and beating civilization into us. If they hadn't, someone else would have. A couple of thousand years earlier, they were barbarians, too, until the Romans came up from Italy and beat civilization into them. I forget who beat it into the Romans. Besides, I was treated perfectly decently at Oxford."
"But still," she persisted, "all people carry such irrational prejudices in their unconscious, and I don't see why you should be an exception. You couldn't help having anti-white prejudice, even if unconsciously."
"Oh, hell!" grunted Mjipa, remembering from his brief earlier meetings with Alicia Dyckman that she would argue the balls off the brazen image of Dashmok in Majbur. "Same opinionated little snip you were in Baianch! Well, I will admit to one prejudice. Your surname is Dutch, isn't it?"
"Yes, though it goes back several centuries in America."
"Well, I'm prejudiced against one white nation: the Dutch."
"Why?"
"Because, in the days of Kgama the Great, the maTabele twice invaded us and were barely driven off. And why did they invade us? Because the damned Dutch—the Boers, that is—had grabbed their land and kicked them out of it. So if you start talking prejudices, you'll first have to work on mine against your name."
"Were you brought up a Christian?"
"Surely. For centuries the baMangwato have been red-hot Christians. We had our slack periods, when advanced ideas filtered in from America; but then came the neo-Puritan reaction, and now we're as straitlaced as ever. As for me, running around Krishna has made me cynical about all gods. Not to change the subject, but when do they feed us here?"
When they had eaten and the wardens had taken their tray, night fell. Mjipa prowled the apartment. He counted on darkness to neutralize the watch the Zhamanacians maintained on their captives.
The massive door of the inner room, which had a small, heavily barred window, was secured not only by a lock but also by two heavy bolts on the far side. If he could drive a wedge between the door and the jamb and had a good hacksaw, Mjipa thought he could saw through those bolts. Otherwise there was no way to get at them. Of course he had no hacksaw, and there was nobody outside his prison whom he could communicate with and persuade to smuggle such tools in to him.
The outer part of the apartment, the porch or terrace, looked out upon the royal gardens. In the light of the two smaller moons, minor buildings of the palace complex loomed behind the shrubbery and fountains. Mjipa could barely make out a piece of the battlemented outer wall, separating the royal compound from the city of Mejvorosh. The night was noisy with the chirps and buzzes of Krishnan arthropods, corresponding to Terran insects.
The bars surrounding the terrace were of wrought iron, square in cross-section and set so closely that not even the slender Alicia could hope to squeeze through. Mjipa's touch told him that these bars were too thick to be bent by even his great strength. Moreover, these bars had been oiled against rust, and running his fingers over them revealed no spots weakened by corrosion. Without a hacksaw and plenty of time and privacy, Mjipa saw no way to freedom there, either.
The floor was of boards, laid over a base of concrete. Around the edges of the terrace, where the boards approached the iron bars, Mjipa detected some rot by digging his thumbnails into the wood. But the cement underneath seemed solid and might go down a meter. Hence there was little prospect for an escape tunnel.
"Don't they even give you a candle?" he grumbled, feeling his way around the inner room.
"No," said Alicia's voice. "I suppose they 're afraid we'd set the palace on fire, hoping to escape in the confusion."
"Well, as some ancient Greek johnny said, what can't be cured must be endured. Good-night, Alicia."
The red rising of Roqir saw Percy Mjipa doing push-ups on the floor. When he rolled over on his back, hoisted both legs in the air, lowered them to the floor, the rhythmic thump aroused Alicia.
"Must keep in shape," grunted Mjipa. "We may be here for a bloody long time. If we do get a chance to do a bunk, we shall want to be in top-hole physical form. Here, hold my ankles while I do sit-ups, will you?" When he had finished, he said: "Now you, too!"
Alicia sighed. "I suppose you're right. I was once something of an athlete, too; but I always found calisthenics a bore."
"Sitting around here doing nothing will be an even bigger bore, so go to it!"
They washed up in the primitive bathroom. When it came his turn, Mjipa called out: "By Jove, real soap! Remember how, when we were in Dur, soap hadn't got there yet?"
"You bet I remember how everybody stank! These people import it from that works in the Sunqar."
The wardens, backed by armed guards, brought in a breakfast tray. As she ate, Alicia said: "Did you have any luck when you were fumbling around in the dark, looking for a weak spot?"
"None whatever. Whoever laid out this detention room, as they call it, knew his business. I suspect it's the best-built part of the whole damned palace."