Narabedla Ltd

by Frederik Pohl

  “Oh, I feel that way, Nolly dear! It’s a wonderful party. And of course I’m completely recovered. Dr. Boddadukti is so very good, and doesn’t even leave a scar—I do wish we’d had barber-surgeons like him when I was a girl! So gentle!”

  Well, I’d had all those drinks. “But Norah,” I said reasonably, “he drinks human blood.”

  “You never saw him do that!”

  “I saw him lick it off his claws, and he didn’t spit it out.”

  “Well,” said Norah vaguely, “what difference does it make, really? The Duntidons don’t eat intelligent beings anymore, so I suppose in a way it’s a treat for him—oh, thank you, Ugo dear.” She was talking to the castrato, who had brought over a pair of drinks for them.

  I didn’t even look at him. “What do you mean, any more?” She looked exasperated. “Oh, Nolly, what difference does it make what they used to do in the old days when they had wars? One does hear these stories about the Duntidons, but they’re all in the past, aren’t they?” Malatesta somehow managed to squeeze into a space on the couch beside her, listening politely.

  “In any case,” he told me in Italian, slow enough for Norah to follow, “we do not need to see Duntidons very often, do we?”

  “I think not,” Norah said. “As I understand it, we’ll be visiting the Hrunwians and the Ptrreek.”

  “Have you been to those places?”

  “Nolly, dear,” she said, “I’ve been to all the places. All the ones that let people in, anyway. Remember how long I’ve been here! These are quite nice ones. Well, true, the Ptrreek do smell a bit odd, and the Hrunwians are a bit rough and ready, you know. But there’s a zoo on the Ptrreek planet; if we have time I’d love to see it again with you. We could pack a lunch, just the two of us.”

  “Careful, careful,” Malatesta warned good-naturedly. “This good young man will think you have an amatory interest in him.”

  “Why should she not?” demanded Bart Canduccio, drunk and nasty. I hadn’t seen him approach, but there he was, wavering as he stood over us. “She has already shown that she can take interest even in a eunuch!”

  I could have told him that, true or not, that was not a good thing to say.

  Malatesta’s good humor dried up like spit on a skillet. He pushed himself away from Norah and bravely stood up to Canduccio. He snarled something unpleasant—all I could make out was the word “ubriaco” meaning drunk—and Canduccio responded in kind. Operatic Italian was not enough to follow that exchange. All I could be sure of was that it was dirty, unpleasant, and loud. Loud enough so that the people around were turning toward us, and even Purry’s music faltered as he peered over at us.

  Norah stood up angrily. “Ugo! Bart! The two of you, stop this at once or I’ll never speak to either of you again—oh, you beast,” she hissed at Canduccio as he flung some more Italian at her and flounced out of the room.

  Malatesta shrugged, triumphant. Norah turned to me. “I do apologize, Nolly,” she said penitently. “Bart simply can’t drink distilled liquor, it makes him crazy. And he’s just the tiniest bit jealous, you know, because he stopped in last night and found Ugo and me watching a film together.”

  “A cassetta,” Malatesta corroborated in English, grinning. “Your, how is it called, Deep-a T’roat.”

  Norah scowled at him. “But do go on with the party, please,” she called to the room at large. “Tricia! Come dance with Nolly. Purry, start the music again, please?”

  In spite of what Malatesta had said (not to mention what I’d seen with my own eyes when we were getting ready for our little operations), I had trouble thinking of Norah Platt as a functioning sexual person. The knowledge of her age kept getting in the way, and when Tricia whispered in my ear, “Was she, Nolly? Coming on to you, I mean?” I was shocked.

  “She’s two hundred years old!” I said.

  “But, hey, that’s not answering my question,” she said, pressing against my chest. “And I saw the way you were hitting on Maggie Murk. You’re wasting your time there, you know. Sue-Mary keeps her all to herself.”

  “Oh, hell,” I said, startled. It was true that the two of them lived together, and spent a lot of time whispering to each other. But I just hadn’t thought.

  Tricia said dreamily, “You know, you do have pretty neat pecs. For a singer, I mean.”

  Dozen-year-old memories were coming back to me. I could feel interest developing inside me. “Tricia,” I whispered, “I like yours, too.”

  And what might have come of it I don’t know, but Binnda spoiled it. He ended the party.

  “Dear members of the Greater Bolshoi Opera Company and honored friends,” he called, sounding very pleased with himself. “May I have your attention?”

  He had climbed up onto the table next to the skry, steadying himself against it with one limber arm. “It is a tragedy to end such a joyous occasion, but all good things must come to an end. And I have an announcement to make.”

  That took care of the party. People turned toward him, even coming in from outside to hear. Already the Kekketies, taking their cue from him, were beginning silently to move about, collecting empty glasses and debris. Through the door to my bedroom I could see the Mother’s drones carefully sweeping up the last few grains of cocaine—I supposed to take home to Mama.

  When he had everyone’s full attention, Binnda said, “This is more than a housewarming party for our dear Nolly Stennis. It is the beginning of a wonderful new episode in the dissemination of the operatic culture of your The Earth among the Fifteen Associated Peoples. My announcement is this: I have just reached agreement with our good friends from Hrunw and Ptrreek. Our tour begins at once! Tomorrow we leave for the Ptrreek planet, and our first public performance of this greatest of all opera seasons!”

  CHAPTER

  29

  Kekketies took our bags away at the rehearsal hall, and Meretekabinnda made a little speech.

  He introduced the honored guests, starting with Barak, slumping restlessly around the stage on his wobbly arms, going on to the Ptrreek, Tsooshirrisip. None of that was necessary. Nor were any of Binnda’s compliments on how well we were going to perform, and how splendid it was of the Ptrreek to invite us, and how certain he was that, with our debut following so closely on the wonderful accomplishment of the launching of the Andromeda probe, the Fifteen Associated Peoples were headed for a new era of peace and goodwill and constructive cooperation for the whole galaxy.

  It got interesting when he warned us to behave. “The trading regulations of the Fifteen Associated Peoples are very strict, and the Eyes of the Tlotta-Mother”—he waved at a couple of the little bedbugs, crouched at the end of the stage—“who are traveling with us will report any infractions. That means any breach of the regulations at all, my dear friends. You must not, any of you, engage in any commercial transactions of any kind with any nonhuman person for the duration of your stay on any planet. Is that understood by all of us?”

  Pause. Then he raised his snaky arms and declaimed, “Now let us move on to the go-box! Our tour is beginning!”

  It was one of the big go-boxes, but even so’ it couldn’t hold the dozen of us humans and our baggage, never mind the aliens. It took two loads to get us all in. “Ladies first,” cried Binnda cheerfully, shepherding Tricia and Norah Platt and the sopranos into the first load, along with a couple of the funnies—apparently claiming honorary status as females for the purpose, though heaven alone knew what gender they really were.

  The door whuffed shut. I rested a hand on it, waiting for it to come back for the rest of us.

  It occurred to me that it was very like the door I’d entered to visit Henry Davidson-Jones in his office.

  I thought hard about that for a while, so that I hardly noticed when it opened again and we got in and it closed on us once more. It wasn’t easy to concentrate. We were all pressed together. Floyd Morcher was standing quietly, eyes closed, moving his lips in silent prayer. Canduccio was ostentatiously pushing his way as far from Malates
ta as possible; and there was a residual cockroachy smell in the place. It couldn’t have been from the bedbug, as it climbed into its niche high in the wall and gazed down at us. It had to be left over from our host, the Ptrreek Tsooshirrisip.

  Then the door opened again.

  Warm, wet air came into the go-box and smote us. Blue light came down from a dark-blue sky. Half a dozen other Ptrreeks were waiting for us, at the side of vehicles—I guessed they were vehicles, though what they looked like was giant-sized bathtubs mounted on tiny, thick wheels.

  It was a wholly fascinating, absorbing, incredible spectacle—good God, actually setting foot on an alien planet!

  I didn’t do it justice. I was still pondering, and slowly, slowly, something had at last penetrated my poor Earth-human brain.

  I turned and looked back at the space-traveling go-box we had just come out of, exactly like the one that had taken me to Davidson-Jones’s office for the phone call to Marlene. And it was only then that I realized what planet I had been on when I made that telephone call.

  CHAPTER

  30

  The Ptrreek planet had a deep blue sky, almost a slate blue, with a tiny, bright blue sun in the middle of it, hammering heat down at me. And we were in a real city. It even had a skyline, and if you half closed your eyes you could almost think it looked a little bit like the canyons of Wall Street, or downtown Chicago. To make it seem a lot familiar, though, you had to close your eyes entirely, and even then, it didn’t sound like anything on Earth. There weren’t any taxicab horns, gears shifting, trucks backfiring. There were plenty of traffic noises that came from the wheeled bathtub things whizzing by, but the noisiest things around were the tall buildings themselves. They creaked. The Ptrreek skyscrapers weren’t masonry, glass, and steel. I suppose they were something like wood.

  They came in clumps, like bamboo clusters, eight or ten dark, skinny, needle-shaped towers bound together by closed passageways. The things that held them must have been loosely joined, because the clusters moved in the wind, and screeched as they moved. And all around us there were Ptrreeks, twice as tall as I was, wearing filmy, feathery cloaks in bright-spectrum colors and gazing at us curiously out of their faceted insect eyes.

  As soon as I stepped out of the box I saw all this and the sudden pang of missed opportunities back on Henry Davidson-Jones’s yacht receded in my mind. I was gaping around like any hayseed on his first trip to the Big Apple. It took a sharp nudge from Tricia to bring me out of it. “Watch it,” she warned, and I did a little waltz step out of the way just in time to avoid being trampled by Tsooshirrisip, the big Ptrreek who had been on Narabedla with us. He loped past us to meet another Ptrreek getting out of one of the bathtub cars, the two of them chirping and barking and flapping their cloaks in what looked like joy. Then Tsooshirrisip turned and gazed at us. He beckoned to Purry, lingering modestly out of the way, and then chirped something at our company as they emerged.

  Purry translated for us. “Mr. Tsooshirrisip welcomes you to the world of the Ptrreek,” he piped, and added, “He also says he hopes you enjoy the clean stink of Ptrreek air after all those foul odors you have been living among; and now you are all, please, to get in the cars which have been provided for you.”

  I hesitated. “What about our bags?”

  “Coming, coming, dear boy,” Binnda called cheerfully from behind me; and indeed a procession of Kekketies was coming toward us clutching suitcases and cosmetic bags. I recognized my own. “You go in the first car with our hosts, Nolly,” Binnda ordered. “I’ll make sure no one gets left behind. And quickly, please! Mr. Tsooshirrisip is a very important person on this planet, and we mustn’t keep him waiting!”

  The cars were the bathtub-shaped things on wheels, and they were right funny-looking. For one thing, the wheels of the car I was directed to weren’t much bigger than basketballs, and shaped the same way. For another, the things were built to the huge Ptrreek scale. Tsooshirrisip and his buddy simply strolled over to the car and stepped inside. (There wasn’t any door.) Purry handled the situation by flinging himself at the side of it and scrambled up and in like an inchworm. That left it up to me.

  The Kekkety with my bag heaved it aboard and waited politely for me to enter, but I could not quite see how to do that. At maximum stretch I could reach the side of the car with my fingertips. After all those workouts in Conjur’s gym, I could have chinned myself out and struggled in; what stopped me was that I simply did not believe I was supposed to do that. After all, I was a visiting opera star! Cars were supposed to be user-friendly. Shouldn’t there be some invisible seam that would open up and let me enter decorously? Steps that ought to extrude magically so that I could climb aboard?

  There was nothing like that.

  Then I felt someone encircling my legs from behind. It was my Kekkety porter, whose strength was a surprise. He got me halfway up and then one of the Ptrreek, laughing (at least, bark-chirping in what I took to be amusement), reached around with those spidery arms and lifted me the rest of the way.

  That was as much crowding as they were willing to accept, though. When the Kekkety started to chin himself in after me, Mr. Tsooshirrisip pushed him off and drove away. Rapidly. The bathtub’s acceleration was amazing. When it took off I went flying. I smashed into Purry, squashing a sort of organ chord of grunts out of his many apertures, and bashed my head against the rear seat of the vehicle. Which was, of course, right about at the level of my eyes.

  Mr. Tsooshirrisip took his eyes off the other cars long enough to turn around and laugh. Then his partner pointed to his own head (both of them had pulled a sort of hood out of their cloaks and covered their heads with it), and then at mine and the sun. He said something which Purry translated. “He’s warning you against sunburn, Mr. Stennis,” Purry said. “Their blue sun is a strong source of—what is the word?—oh, yes, ultraviolet. You should protect your skin against it.”

  “What with?” I asked.

  They had an answer to that. After Purry had debated with them a bit the smaller Ptrreek leaned back and flung a corner of his cloak over me. The texture was marvelously silky. The odor was something else again. That cockroachy aroma had seeped into the cloak, and being under it was a lot like being under a sheepdog’s winter blanket, along with the dog.

  The other thing was that with the Ptrreek’s cloak over me I could see nothing of the city. All in all, it was fortunate that our “hotel” was only a short ride away.

  After I had “checked in” and taken the “elevator” up to my “room” in the “hotel”—but none of those words meant quite the same thing as they would have on Earth—there was a scratch at the door and Tricia came in to see me. “Hey, Nolly,” she said. “How d’you like this place so far?”

  “It moves around a lot,” I complained. From the street I’d been able to see the tall towers swaying, but from inside it was a lot more nerve-wracking as they rocked like the tops of coconut palms in a breeze. “Outside of that it’s all right, I guess. If you like sleeping in a hammock.”

  She reached over and set the thing swaying. “Don’t knock it. They’ve put them in specially for us. I mean, hey, we’d have a little trouble getting in and out of a Ptrreek bed, you know? Did you catch all the fuss when we came in?”

  “What fuss?”

  “The Ptrreek couldn’t get our count to come out right. There’s fourteen of us from Earth in the company, aren’t there? Only the Ptrreek claimed they counted fifteen.”

  I added up on my fingers: three sopranos, three tenors, two baritones counting myself, the two basses, plus Ugolino, Conjur, and Tricia. Oh, and Norah Platt, who had come along to help in rehearsals. “Fourteen is what I make it. It’s a bad mix, though—nine men for only five women.”

  She dimpled. “That’s the kind of odds I like. Anyway, it’s going to be tough for Binnda if they don’t get it straightened out. They don’t want any stowaways sneaking onto their planet. The other thing,” she said, turning to go, “is that Binnda says they’ll be
bringing us something to eat pretty soon. Room service, can you believe it? But I bet it’s just because they don’t want us eating with them. Then Binnda says we should rest for an hour before we go to the theater.”

  “How much rest can you get in a hammock?”

  She laughed. “You’d be surprised what you can do in a hammock, Nolly,” she told me as she left.

  She was right about the room service. Ten or fifteen minutes later, after I’d tried to make some use of the facilities in what I supposed was the bathroom—strenuous, but ultimately successful—a silent Kekkety brought in a tray for me. It looked exactly like the kind of thing they slop the passengers with on airlines. He set it on the floor and left silently, leaving me to decide how to dine.

  There wasn’t much choice. The floor was about the only thing I could reach. I pulled some cushions off an eight-foot-tall thing that was more or less like a couch and sat down.

  The rocking motion was better sitting down, but not much. The meal was edible enough, in a TV-dinner kind of way, but the slow, sinuous waving of the room made me wonder if I really should have eaten it.

  Tricia had said I had an hour to rest before we had to go anywhere.

  I didn’t really need to rest. All I really needed was to get out of that swaying room for a while. So I took my courage in my hands and found my way to the elevator (not a go-box, a real elevator, even if its height was five times its diameter and I had to stretch on tiptoes to reach the control dial), and five minutes later was walking out onto the street of the Ptrreek planet.

  Two suns were in the sky.

  I hadn’t really been prepared for two suns. I’d forgotten about the warning of potential sunburn, too, but the tiny, hot, blue one was sinking toward the horizon and it was a large, red, dim one that was rising on the other side of the sky. If I stayed in the blue-sun shadow as much as I could, I reckoned, I would be all right… and anyway, what was a little sunburn compared to the exploration of a whole new alien planet?