Alien thoughts and tribal lays.
Alien appetites, strange and cold,
Blue Peter's sins are manifold.
The Rhymer actually met Blue Peter before Matilda did.
He was on Bowman 17, which was actually the third planet circling its star but the 17th opened up by a member of the Pioneer Corps named Nate Bowman, who exercised his Pioneer's privilege of naming it after himself. It was an outpost world, with a single Tradertown consisting of a bar, a brothel, a weapon shop, an assay office, and a jail. That last was unusual for any Frontier world, especially one as underpopulated as Bowman 17.
Dante Alighieri was sitting in the bar, relaxing with a drink, when Virgil Soaring Hawk approached him and asked for a loan.
"What for?" replied Dante. "There's nothing to spend it on."
"I have to make a friend's bail."
"You've got a friend locked up on Bowman 17?"
"Yes."
"Who is it?"
"He's more of a what than a who," answered Virgil.
"Worth a verse?" queried Dante, suddenly interested.
"Maybe two or three."
"Santiago material?"
Virgil chuckled. "Not unless the job description has changed in the last couple of minutes."
"All right," said Dante. "Tell me about him."
"You ever hear of Blue Peter?"
"No."
"He an alien," said Virgil. "I have no idea where his home world is. He's the only member of his race I've ever met."
"He's blue?"
"Skin, hair, eyes, teeth, probably even his tongue."
"How did you meet him?"
"It'll just embarrass you," said Virgil.
"Jesus!" muttered Dante. "Is there anyone on the Frontier that you haven't slept with?"
"You."
"Thank heaven for small favors." Dante finished his drink and lit up a smokeless cigar. "What's your friend in jail for?"
"Unspecified crimes against Nature," answered Virgil.
"What does he do when he's not assaulting Nature?"
"You mean for a living?"
"He's got to pay to feed himself, and to get from one world to another. How does he make his money?"
"He does whatever anyone pays him to do."
"Outside of being a rather twisted gigolo, what does that entail?"
"Robbery. Extortion. Murder. Things like that."
"Sounds to me like he's right where he belongs," said Dante.
"You won't loan me the money?"
Dante shook his head. "We have no use for him."
"I do."
"I don't want to hear about the use you'll put him to."
"You really mean it?"
"I really mean it."
Suddenly Virgil smiled and picked up a chair. "Well, if you can't bring Mohammed to the mountain . . ."
He hurled the chair through a window, then threw two more out into the street before the Tradertown's solitary lawman came over from the jail, trained a screecher on him, and escorted him to the jail. Dante had seen Virgil in action before, and never doubted for an instant that the Injun could disarm the lawman any time he wanted—but of course he didn't want to.
Dante made a very happy Virgil's bail the next morning, spent a few minutes visiting with Blue Peter, and left the jail feeling uncomfortable that something like Blue Peter would soon be free. He wrote the poem that afternoon, and never saw Blue Peter again.
But Matilda did.
It was on Gandhi III, which wasn't as peaceable a world as its name implied. Dimitrios was there on business—another ladykiller with a price on his head—and Matilda had accompanied him. She had no reason to be there . . . but then, she had no reason to be anywhere in particular. She was looking for a perhaps- nonexistent man who embodied a complex concept, and there was no more reason to search for him anywhere else than here, and at least here she was under the protection of Dimitrios of the Three Burners.
Dimitrios spent the day gathering information about Mikhail Mikva, the man he was after, while Matilda stayed in her room watching the holo and catching up on the galaxy's news. The Democracy had opened up nineteen new worlds. The Navy had been forced to pacify the native population of Wajima II, which had been renamed Grundheidt II after the commander of the 6th Fleet. Contact had been made with four new species of sentient life; three had joined the Democracy, and the fourth was learning just how effective an quadrant-wide economic embargo could be. The Democracy had moved the planetary populations of Kubalic IV and V and their attendant flora and fauna to new worlds before the star Kubalic went nova. Lodin XI had voted to withdraw from the Democracy, but its resignation had not been accepted and the 15th Fleet was on its way to Lodin to "peacefully discuss our differences". Five new cross-species diseases had been discovered; medical science announced that they would have vaccines and antidotes for all five within one hundred days.
She deactivated the holo at twilight, wondering why she ever bothered with the news. All it did was reinforce her decision never to visit the Democracy again.
The door opened and Dimitrios entered.
"Any luck?" she asked.
"If he's here, he's well-disguised. No one's seen him."
"Could they be lying to you?"
He stared at her.
"No, of course not," she said. She got to her feet. "Shall we go out for dinner?"
"Yeah. I won't start searching the bars and drug dens for another couple of hours."
They left the hotel and went to one of the small city's half-dozen restaurants, one that advertised real meat rather than soya products (though it didn't say what kind of animals supplied the meat).
They sat down, ordered, and began chatting about the news from the Democracy when they became aware of a blue alien standing outside and staring at them through the window.
"You'd think he'd never seen a Man before," grumbled Dimitrios when the alien kept watching them.
"That can't be it," said Matilda. "There are thousands of Men on Gandhi."
"Then what's his problem?"
"I think he's about to tell you," replied Matilda as the alien suddenly walked to the door of the restaurant, entered, and began approaching their table.
The blue alien stopped a few feet from them.
"May I join you?" he asked.
"Do you know Mikhail Mikva's whereabouts?" asked Dimitrios.
"No."
"Then no, you may not join us."
"But you are Dimitrios of the Three Burners, are you not?"
Dimitrios stared at him. "What's it to you?"
"We are in the same poem."
"Do you know the Rhymer?" asked Matilda suddenly.
"I know Dante Alighieri, who calls himself the Rhymer. It is he who put me in his poem."
"Sit down," said Matilda, ignoring Dimitrios' obvious annoyance.
The alien pulled up a chair and sat on it.
"Who are you?" asked Matilda.
"My name when I walk among Men is Blue Peter. And who are you?"