Malina seated herself again. The children remained standing. They were still staring at Miss Schlupe. "I'm a dermatologist," Malina said.
"And your name actually is Darr?"
"It was my husband's name," Malina said. "I adopted it. I'm a widow."
"What did Smith tell you your job would be?"
"He didn't. He just said he had an important job for a dermatologist, and he wanted to engage my services at the usual fee or stipend. I asked him what the usual fee was, and he said a million dollars, and - "
She broke off confusedly. Miss Schlupe had been seized by a convulsion of laughter. "What's so funny?" Malina asked.
"I'll tell you later. Go on."
"I told him I'd believe that when I saw the million, and the next day—;"
"A truck delivered the million dollars," Miss Schlupe said, wiping her eyes. "In small used bills, wrapped in newspapers and packed into a roomful of cardboard cartons with your name stenciled on each one.".
"How do you know?"
"Because my boss was hired in precisely the same way. Jan Darzek. A private detective. He's the one that established the usual fee. He thought the job offer was a joke."
"So did I!"
"So he said he'd do it for a million dollars, just to go along with the gig. A million in small, used bills. And darned if Smith didn't deliver the million. He goofs things up dreadfully, but he certainly comes through where money is concerned."
"Was there anything wrong with the money?"
"Perfectly good U.S. currency. This is the silliest thing Smith has ever done. He chose you because he thought you were related to Mr. Darzek, whose galactic name is Gul Darr."
Rok Wllon, who was listening sulkily, muttered something inaudible.
"As for why he wanted a dermatologist," Miss Schlupe went on, "we'd better find out right now if he goofed that up, too." She turned to him. "Smith, let's have the lowdown. We're all in this together. Exactly what did Supreme say this skin specialist was supposed to do?"
Rok Wllon drew himself up defensively. "Supreme didn't say exactly. Supreme rarely does. I asked if there was any individual with a specialized skill that might be useful in establishing friendly relations with the Monturan natives and securing their assistance, and Supreme said a specialist in diseases or conditions of the epidermis might be useful."
"As far as we've been able to find out, these sensitive-skinned natives don't exist," Miss Schlupe said. "That's probably why the mart was established here - there weren't any native inhabitants around to object. Never mind. I'm glad you goofed. It'll be nice having a few humans to talk with. After they've rested up from their trip, maybe Dr. Darr can help me with my business."
"Are you sure the children will be safe here?" Malina asked.
"I don't know what could happen to them. If crime exists here I've never heard it mentioned. There aren't even any streets for them to get run over in."
"Gula Schlu!" Rok Wllon's tones were icy. He crossed the cubicle with one large stride and stood over Miss Schlupe. "Gula Schlu, I insist on knowing. What is this 'business'?"
"Oh, that," Miss Schlupe waved a hand indifferently. "It just seemed to me that there must be some quicker way of getting to know people and being known. E-Wusk could operate here for years and never get acquainted with anyone but the big traders, and most of the time it's the little people who know what's going on in the world. So I got permission to use that central column in the arena. It's an ideal location. All I had to do was remodel a few windows - "
"What kind of business, Gula Schlu!"
Miss Schlupe turned to Malina. "As soon as you see the arena, you'll know why I thought of it. It's just a lot of county fairs jammed together under one roof. There was only one thing lacking - refreshment stands. Each life form needs its own special kinds of nourishment, so no one ever thought of trying to sell food for immediate consumption at a place like this. But I checked all the foods available here and found some pretty good prepared meats and a lot of interesting vegetables. And there are some fascinating grains - you should see the rolls I can make, though I had the devil's own time finding a yeast that would work. There's a wonderful computer over in the Kloa Common, and I told it the available foods, and it had information on the food requirements of all the life forms here, and it came up with three formulas that meet the needs of every life form on Montura except one. So I leased the column and the space I needed to prepare the food, and I got permission to harvest a crop of wild fruit that no one had ever found a use for. It looks a little like apples, except for the purple color and the sizes - some are as large as basketballs. I had to build a portable mill to process them. When I finally got everything together, the result was absolutely delicious, if I do say so myself, and the business has been a smash success. Of course I had to invent money, because all the trade here is done by barter, and you can't measure the value of a refreshment stand snack in shiploads of things. It took some working out, but I did it, and I'm making tremendous profits. And I know everyone at the mart, and if there's ever anything here that needs finding out, I'm the one that can do it." She turned to Rok Wllon. "Isn't that why we're here?" she asked defensively. "To establish ourselves so we can find out things that will help Mr. Darzek?"
"Gula Schlu!" Rok Wllon thundered. "What are you selling?"
Miss Schlupe answered, in a small voice, "Cider and submarine sandwiches. "
11
"If Mr. Darzek were here," Miss Schlupe said, "he'd know what to do. He always does."
They were moving slowly along an aisle of the arena: Malina and the children, Miss Schlupe, and her scurrying little friend Arluklo. Rok Wllon sourly followed behind them. Malina was engaged in a difficult mental adjustment. She had gradually conditioned herself to meet most alien life forms face to face without wincing. Now, suddenly confronted with an incredible variety of them, she had to regard them as prospective patients.
She was wearing full-length slacks and a long-sleeved sweater, and she had dressed Brian and Maia similarly, on Miss Schlupe's recommendation. "Most of them are nice people," Miss Schlupe had said. "They're cooperative, and helpful, and friendly, and they'd make lovely next-door neighbors wherever you lived. But some of them are actually slimy, and in that crowded arena you keep bumping into them. And some of them are like sandpaper. I lost all the skin off an elbow one day when one of them brushed past me. Since then I've worn nothing but long sleeves and long pants. I wish I'd left the dresses home and brought something more practical. What I'll do when these jeans wear out I don't know."
Maia was asking Arluklo questions in large-talk. "Who eats those ugly-smelling leaves?"
"I don't know of anyone who does," Arluklo answered politely.
"They are used to make perfume."
Maia turned to her mother and demanded, in English, "Does he mean someone likes that smell?"
Malina answered vaguely and returned to the task of considering alien life forms as patients. The longer she thought about it, the more alarming the prospect seemed. This creature with the strange hat that turned out to be ears that enfolded its knobby head: the epidermis was a deep shade of blue, which in humans would have called for instantaneous emergency procedures. Blue probably was its normal condition, but how could she know? Faced with utterly strange physiologies and pathologies, what could she possibly use as clues to normality or abnormality?
The idea of treating one strange life form had not disturbed her, but when she learned that Supreme had used the word "native" to mean everyone in residence at Montura Mart -
"I can't do it," she said. "Every life form would be its own separate lifetime study, and there must be hundreds of them."
"Thousands," Miss Schlupe said carefully. "Don't worry about it. Rok WlIon brought you here - let it be his problem. If only Mr. Darzek - "
Brian dashed up with something small, furry, and squirming and thrust it into Malina's hand. Instinctively she squealed, which set him howling wi
th laughter. A sinister-looking, multiple-legged creature had fought its way through the crowd on Brian's heels, and it now faced her menacingly.
"Buy it!" Brian commanded.
"Buy me one, too!" Maia pleaded. She had been too timid to abduct an animal for herself, and her eyes fervently coveted Brian's.
Malina called over the head of the outraged owner, "Miss Schlupe - would it be possible to buy two of them?"
Miss Schlupe, after one attempt at conversation, referred the problem to Arluklo. The little klo seemed capable of translating any combination of grunts, hisses, clacks, squeals, or other noises into meaningful expression. An outpouring of sputters and whistles followed, after which Arluklo politely informed them that the animals were not for sale. The furry creature was returned to the offended owner, Brian was reprimanded for taking it without permission, and they moved on with the children in tears.
But in that wonderland they quickly were taken with a new passion, a flying snake, though they knew their mother's probable reaction and did not ask for one. When they were out of hearing, Miss Schlupe, who had been quietly talking with Arluklo, informed Malina that the small furry animal was considered a gourmet delicacy on more than a hundred worlds. The cuddly little creature Brian had surrendered so tearfully was in fact its owner's lunch.
The products displayed were sometimes as puzzling to Malina as her prospective patients. Mounds of golden grain proved to be fertilizer; a pulpy, sweet-smelling, delicious-looking fruit turned out to be an insect-like life form that gourmets preferred to eat alive. Precious stones looked like water-soaked charcoal; piles of gleaming diamonds were identified as a by-product of the stomachs of a domestic animal - when ground to powder, they made a popular food seasoner. Not all of the odors were unpleasant. Brian and Maia reveled in some of them, as well as the sights and touches and sounds, and even, when Malina did not intercept samples quickly enough, tastes.
Again she attempted to concentrate on her future patients. For a short time she found herself walking behind a creature whose back displayed what would have been an alarming case of psoriasis in a human. She abandoned him for one whose excessively hairy shoulders displayed unmistakable signs of incipient baldness and then turned her attention to a massive skin cancer until Miss Schlupe, after consulting Arluklo, informed her that it was the creature's organ of hearing.
"Mama!"
Brian and Maia dashed up to her waving enormous, translucent, multicolored leaves on long, flexible stems. There was no outraged merchant in pursuit, but Malina tracked the leaves to their source and asked Arluklo to interpret for her.
But the leaves had been freely given. The proprietor of the display, a strange little hairless creature with a double tail, had been delighted with Brian and Maia. They reminded him of a pet he'd owned as a child.
"Keeping them out of mischief is going to be a problem," Malina said worriedly.
"Oh, they'll be all right," Miss Schlupe said. "That long trip and all - no wonder they're in high spirits. I felt like jumping around a bit when I finally got here."
"I don't think I've seen any children since we arrived. Aren't there any?"
The question was referred to Arluklo. He answered that there were many small adults at the mart but no children that he knew of. Apparently there was no explanation except the possible fact that most traders visited the mart for short periods and didn't bother to bring their families.
"I'd hoped the children would have someone to play with," Malina said.
"Never mind," Miss Schlupe said cheerfully. "If all else fails, Arluklo will find a klo or two who won't mind playing with them. They're happy to oblige with almost anything, and they're just the right size"
"They need a place to play, too," Malina said. "Is there any kind of park nearby? If there are no children here, and no schools, and no playgrounds, they'll have nothing at all to occupy them."
Miss Schlupe snapped her fingers. "I know where there's a sort of park. You can see some of it from one of the Prime Common apartments. I'll ask for permission for you to use it."
As they approached the central column the crowd thickened, and they began to encounter happy monsters drifting along while munching Miss Schlupe's submarine sandwiches or sipping the foaming purple cider. Rok Wllon glared at them resentfully, and Miss Schlupe told him, with a grin, "A fair without a refreshment stand is unthinkable."
They edged through a side aisle and turned back, and Miss Schlupe described to Malina the frenzied maneuvers she'd had to perform to get her business launched. Her greatest achievement had been in persuading the gesardl, the mart's obtuse governing body, to let her have her own transmitters and the use of some air vehicles.
"Can you imagine having to bring every crate of sandwiches and every keg of cider in through the arena?" she asked, gesturing at the crowd of customers surrounding the central column. "I told the gesardl - no transmitters, no business. The wild orchards were a worse problem. They're scattered over half a continent, and the fruit ripens at different times, depending on the latitude and the altitude. I had to invent a portable cider mill, and some gesardl employees move it and my work force from orchard to orchard as the fruit ripens. I'm just barely keeping ahead of the demand, so I may have to import some cider or the juice to make it with. There are only three air vehicles on the entire world of Montura, two transports and a little passenger flyer, and they're mine whenever I want them. No one else has any use for them - though of course the gesardl sticks me with a stiff rental for the aircraft and a chauffeur."
Rok Wllon was stalking along behind them and listening in an attitude of thundering disapproval. Miss Schlupe spoke to him defiantly. "I know everyone of importance at the mart. The gesardl gives me anything I want. Why shouldn't it? I have the most profitable operation in the arena, and I'm paying fifty per cent of the profits as rent. It's a graft, but we aren't here to make money. We're supposed to get the friendly assistance of the natives for Mr. Darzek. Well - I'm ready to deliver it any time he wants it."
Rok Wllon had no comment.
When they left the arena, they looked in briefly on the assembly line operation by which multi-armed assistants were putting submarine sandwiches together. Miss Schlupe's greatest worry had been the possible mix-up of the different kinds of sandwiches, which easily could have poisoned some of her customers. "So I sell them by number and color," she said. "A sign over each sales window lists the ingredients in each kind of sandwich, in the most common mart languages. And each sandwich comes in a numbered paper bag with its own distinctive color. I had to invent the bags. I also invented paper mugs for the cider. There's no room in that refreshment stand for washing dishes."
She picked up a bundle of sandwiches and a crock of cider for lunch. "Number two is the closest to human food," she said, displaying a blue bag with a vivid black hieroglyph on it. "If you close your eyes and hold your nose a bit, you'll swear one of these meats is salami." The cider, unfortunately, had to be drunk warm. She hadn't yet solved the refrigeration problem.
They returned to their apartment to eat their lunch, and the children consumed sandwiches and cider delightedly. Malina found the roll strange-tasting but delicious and the meat passable. The vegetables had a savory tang for which a taste might be cultivated, and the cider was delightful - full - bodied, strong - flavored, and sweet.
When Brian and Maia had eaten to the point of immobility, Malina was able to persuade them to take naps. She went herself to corner Rok Wllon in the Prime Common.
"It's time we had a talk," she said. "I need to know what I'm supposed to be Doing."
"But we've only just arrived," Rok Wllon protested.
"We arrived yesterday, and today I'm ready to work. Where's that group of people with skin problems?"
"There's no hurry," Rok Wllon assured her. "We agreed on three years, didn't we? We must of course study the mart population carefully, and then perhaps we will consult Supreme again."
He slipped away almo
st furtively and joined E-Wusk in his cubicle. Malina determinedly returned to the apartment and conferred with Miss Schlupe. Miss Schlupe dispatched one of E-Wusk's assistants as her escort, and they went by transmitter to the lower level where Miss Schlupe's bakery was located - Miss Schlupe had work and storage rooms scattered all over the mart, wherever space had been available - and from the bakery Malina went by Miss Schlupe's private transmitter to the refreshment stand at the center of the arena.
On the column's second level she found what she wanted - a place where she could sit undisturbed, and observe these outlandish life forms soon to be her patients, and meditate. An employee, another model of E-Wusk, brought a hassock for her, and she placed it in a vacant space by a window.
Around and past her flowed the frenzy of Miss Schlupe's refreshment business. The cider was piped from an upper level down to the spigots where her sales people drew foaming mugs on order. Crates of sandwiches were suspended from the lower-level ceiling, where they could be replaced from the stairs without disrupting the flow of business below: numbers one, two, and three; jagged line with a twitch at each end, ink blot with a stroke across it, square with one side missing; colors red, blue, and yellow. Miss Schlupe was a genius.
[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe Page 11
