"Do you have a towel I could borrow?"
Wordlessly she handed him the one she was wearing.
"I ... uh, I'm sorry that I don't have anything to give you. I don't know what sort of line I gave you, but I guess I'm surprised you didn't ask for-"
"Money up front? I wasn't born yesterday. I knew what I was getting into." She went to the window and put her hands on the sill, looking down at the town below. "I've been here for quite a while. The Earth was never too good to me. I like the people here. At least, I think of them as people. I guess I'm starting to go native." She looked at him as though she expected him to laugh. When he didn't, one corner of her mouth turned up. "Hell, I own a third interest in a Titanide myself. You stay here long enough, you start shooting marbles." She went to him and kissed him on the cheek. "I can't believe we did all that and you can't remember any of it. Sort of hurts my professional pride." For a moment he thought she was going to cry and could not imagine what was wrong.
"There's a girl going with you on your trip," she said.
"Robin?"
"That's the one. You tell her I said "hi" and to be careful. And good luck. Wish her good luck for me. Will you do that?"
"If you'll tell me your name again."
"Trini. Tell her to watch out for the Plauget woman. She's dangerous. When she gets back, she's always welcome here."
"I'll tell her."
15 The Enchanted Cat
Titantown was sheltered by a massive tree that had formed when many smaller trees united into one colony organism. Though Titanides never indulged in town planning, their own preferences imposed a certain structure on the settlement. They liked to live within 500 meters of the light, so their dwellings tended to form a ring under the tree's outer periphery. Some of the homes were set sensibly on the ground. Others perched on the gigantic limbs that spread horizontally and were supported by subsidiary trunks themselves as large as sequoias.
Scattered through the residential ring but predominately inward were the workshops, forges, mills, and refineries. Farther out, toward the sunlight and sometimes in the open air, were bazaars, shops, and markets. Throughout the city were public buildings and facilities: the fire brigades, libraries, storehouses, and cisterns. The public water supply was from wells and collected rainfall, but the well water was milky and bitter.
Robin had recently spent a lot of time in the outer ring, using the medallion Cirocco had given her to purchase supplies for the trip. She had found the Titanide artisans polite and helpful. They invariably steered her to the highest-quality merchandise when something less elaborate would have done as well. Thus, she now owned a copper canteen with elaborate filigree chasings which would have made it seem right at home on the Czar's banquet table. The hilt of her knife was shaped to fit her hand. It sported a ruby like a great glass eye. They had tailored her sleeping bag from material so lushly embroidered that she hated to let it touch the ground.
Hornpipe, the Titanide she had met in Cirocco's tent, had been her guide, singing translations to merchants who did not speak English.
"Don't worry about it," he had said. "You'll notice no one else is paying money either. We don't use it."
"What's your system, then?"
"Gaby calls it noncoercive communism. She says it wouldn't work with humans. They're too greedy and self-centered. Pardon me, but that's what she says."
"That's okay. She's probably right."
"I wouldn't know. It's true we don't have the problems associated with dominance that humans seem to have. We don't have leaders, and we don't fight one another. Our economy works through chords and earned entitlements. Everyone works, both at a trade and on community projects. One accumulates standing-or maybe you would call it wealth or credit-by accomplishment, and by aging, or by need. No one lacks the necessities; most have at least some luxuries."
"I wouldn't call it wealth," Robin pointed out. "We don't use money, either, in the Coven."
"Oh? What is your system, then?"
Robin thought it over as dispassionately as she could, recalling the assigned community work backed up by a schedule of punishments, up to and including death.
"Call it coercive communism. With a lot of barter on the side."
La Gata Encantada was near the trunk of the great tree. Robin had been there once, but the darkness was perpetual in Titantown, and there were no road maps. There were no roads. One needed a lantern and a lot of luck to find anything.
Robin thought of the core of the city as the entertainment district. The description would serve, though as everywhere else in Titantown there were shops and even homes scattered among the dance halls, theaters, and pubs. There was an area between the outer ring and the trunk which held few structures. It was the gloomiest part of Titantown, given over to small garden plots that thrived in the warm, damp darkness. Most of the town was lit with big paper lamps; here there were few of them.
It was the closest thing she had seen to what she thought of as a park. Her mother had warned her about parks. Men hid in them to spring out and rape women. Of course, few humans came this far into Titantown, but there was nothing to prevent them from coming. She had thought she was over her worries about rape, but she couldn't help it. There were places where the only useful light was that cast by her own lantern.
There was a hissing sound that made her jump. She stopped to discover the cause and found lines of low, fleshy plants emitting a fine spray. No one reared in the Coven, with its chugging lines of sprinklers crossing the curved agricultural floor, could have failed to see the purpose of the mist. She smiled and inhaled deeply. The smell of damp earth took her back to her childhood, to simpler days spent playing in fields of ripe strawberries.
The pub was a low wooden building with the customary wide door. A sign hung outside: two circles, the top one smaller and with two points on top, slanted eyes, and a toothy grin.
Why a cat? she wondered. And why Spanish? If Titanides learned a human tongue, it was invariably English, but there it was, painted above the doorway, "La Gata Encantada," without even the customary Titanide runes. They were a strange race, Robin decided. They were so like humans in so many ways. Most of their skills were the same as human skills. The things they made were, for the most part, things humans made, too. Their arts were similar to human arts, with the exception of their transcendent music. Their odd system of reproduction was the only thing distinctly their own.
But not quite, she realized, as she walked into La Gata, past the water trough that was a fixture in every Titanide public building. The floor was sand with a layer of straw. All in all, the Titanides dealt with the problem of combining urbanization and incontinence better than, for instance, New York City in the horse-and-buggy era. The city swarmed with small armadillolike creatures whose sole food was the ubiquitous piles of orange balls. In private homes the problem was dealt with as it occurred, with shovels and waste bins. But where many Titanides gathered it was impossible. They threw fastidiousness to the winds and simply did not worry about it. Hence the water troughs, to wash one's feet before going home.
Other than that, La Gata Encantada looked very like a human tavern, but with more space between the tables. There was even a long wooden bar complete with brass rail. The place was full of Titanides who towered over her, but she had ceased to worry about crushed toes. She would have fared worse in a crowd of humans.
"Hey, human girl!" She looked up to see the bartender waving at her. He tossed her a pillow. "Your friends are in back. You want a root beer?"
"Yes, please. Thank you." She knew from her first visit that root beer was a dark, foamy alcoholic brew made from roots. It tasted like the beer she was used to, but stouter. She liked it.