“It’s just going to take some getting used to,” Ray said. He took the pill with some juice, which tasted better than he had expected. “Before I came here they drilled it into me that you could kill yourself eating the local food.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Elizabeth said, taking a forkful of salad. “What can you tell me about Faber? I hear he’s an athlete, and he wants to play bagdrag. Is that true?”
Ray nodded. “He was a big-name football player back in Colorado.”
“Good,” she said. “Putting a good human athlete on the team will impress the kya. What’s his scholastic background?”
“He’s got a 2.6 average,” Ray said. Her face fell at that. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “You need a pretty high average to join the bagdrag team; playing is a reward for scholastic excellence, like getting on the dean’s list back home. We may have to tutor him. What’s his major?”
“Education. I was told he wants to study kya classroom techniques, compare them to ours, and see if he can mix them into something better.”
Her frown had turned into a scowl. “That’s a project for a doctoral student, not somebody with a C-plus average.”
“It is?” A 2.6 average had sounded great to Ray; there had been times during his college career when he would have killed for grades that good. He looked at his salad, then worked up the nerve to take a forkful of the chopped-up green leaves. He decided it tasted like lawn clippings. “I guess I’m not that hungry,” he said.
“Stir it up,” Elizabeth said. “The dressing always runs to the bottom of the bowl.”
Ray did that, and found that the watery dressing helped the taste. “You really like this, don’t you?” he asked as she demolished her salad. She had an impressive appetite.
“ ’Sd’licious,” she said around a mouthful of salad. “Anyway. What does the UN embassy have against you?”
Talking gave Ray an excuse not to eat. “I’m a linguist,” he said. “I came here a year ago to translate a sci-fi book for a kya writer. Aside from the fact that everyone at the embassy hated the book, they don’t like the idea of the kya doing business independent of them. The UN wants to control everything that comes in here—money, ideas, equipment, people.”
“I know about their policies,” Elizabeth said in obvious annoyance. “I’ve taken some heat from them over my history class. They’re afraid I’ll give the kya an inferiority complex, because our technology is ahead of theirs.”
“Do you?” Ray asked. “Give them an inferiority complex?”
“I don’t think so,” Elizabeth said. “The kya don’t seem to be capable of feeling inferior; their sense of herd-identity gives them a degree of security.” She took some more salad. “How about you? I take it you’re more than a linguist now?”
“I’ve been working as a business and literary agent,” Ray told her. “Right now my only clients are a few kya writers, and there’s not much of a market for kya literature back home. I’ve been trying to network with some kya business folk, but so far I haven’t had much luck. Anyway, you mentioned avoiding problems. Do you have any trouble at Vrekle?”
“Nothing serious,” Elizabeth said. “There are a few students who don’t like having us there. Usually they’re just reacting to something we’ve done wrong, so the trick is making sure newcomers know how to act.” The loudspeaker on the dining room wall went skreewonk, then gabbled incomprehensibly. “That’s Faber’s flight,” Elizabeth said dubiously. “At least, I think they said something about a spaceship.”
“It’s about time for his shuttle to land,” Ray agreed, while wondering if it was a universal constant that airport announcements had to be unintelligible. “Let’s go.”
They went outside. The morning air above Zgorch Aerodrome was clear and calm, and as Ray scanned the sky he saw a silver gleam appear high in the west. It grew rapidly as it came in. At the last moment it slowed and made a dignified landing on the concrete taxiway, a silver gumdrop resting on four legs.
Ray and Elizabeth walked up to it as the landing ramp unfolded. A score of humans and kya walked out of the lander. One of them was a tall, massive blond man, and even without the information Ray had received from his clients he could guess that this was Faber. “Richard Faber?” Ray asked as he approached him.
“Uh-huh. Who’re you?”
“Ray Bennett. I’m working for—”
“Oh, yeah.” He looked down at the ground, then hopped a few inches into the air. “Hey. They said the gravity was low here. It feels just like home.”
“Kya’s gravity is 91 percent of Earth-normal,” Elizabeth said.
Faber looked irritated. “What’s that mean?”
“It means you weigh about nine-tenths of what you weigh back home,” she said.
“What’s that mean?” Faber repeated.
Elizabeth sighed. “It means you weigh almost as much as you did on Earth.”
“Oh,” Faber said in disappointment. “I thought you could jump a mile here, like on the Moon.”
“I’m afraid not,” Ray said. He exchanged an apprehensive look with Elizabeth. If Faber wasn’t a lot brighter than he seemed, there was going to be trouble.
The UN embassy was a large building in a respectable part of the city. The morning after Faber’s arrival Ray took a bus to it from his rented home and entered the lobby, where the receptionist—a lean young woman named Delores, who wore her red hair in a narrow Mohican crest—tried to ignore him as he stood in front of her desk. “I’m here to see—”
“Ambassador Nyquist is busy,” Delores said, without looking up from her computer pad. “Make an appointment.”
“—About getting some enzyme pills,” Ray finished.
The woman looked up. “What about them?”
Ray sighed. “According to article twelve, paragraph fifty-three of the Interstellar Operating Code of the UN Diplomatic Service, you are required—”
“—To assist all UN citizens on nonhuman planets.” Visibly irked, the redhead tapped something into her pad. “So you can read. I’m impressed. Here.” A sheet of paper extruded itself from her desk’s printer. She handed it to Ray.
“An application?” Ray asked, peering at the fine print.
“We can’t just give the pills away,” Delores said. “Fill that out and the pharmacy will put you on its list.”
“OK.” Ray found a chair and sat down. Filling out the form was an awkward task. Although he had excellent penmanship, the form came with dozens of tiny spaces that seemed meant for a Lilliputian hand and pen.
Ray had almost finished the task when Ambassador Nyquist emerged from his office. “Mister Bennett,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
“About a year,” Ray said. The last time Ray had seen the ambassador, Nyquist had been doing his best to force Ray out of business and off Kya. To judge by the gleam in Nyquist’s eye, his attitude towards Ray hadn’t changed. “Is there a problem?”
“No, no, not at all,” Nyquist said. “I heard you were here, and I just wondered if you were having a problem?” Ray thought he sounded hopeful.
“No, no, not at all,” Ray said. He gestured with the form. “I’m here to apply for some enzyme pills.”
“You are? Well, I’m not sure how long it will take to fulfill your requisition, but we’ll do our best to expedite the matter. By the way, how is your business?”