Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds (12 page)

Alacrity had started playing Floyt's conditioned commitment to his mission against his natural aversion to non-Terrans. The breakabout had guessed shrewdly about the tack selected by the behavioral engineering team, and when he put things that way, Floyt found, the company of off-world mongrels didn't seem so detestable.

But Floyt hated feeling manipulated; Bear and Earthservice had done quite enough of that. "We're strangers to them. I don't see why they should care whether we enjoy ourselves here anyway," the Terran huffed.

"It's as much for the Sockwallets as for us. Foragers don't let many outsiders inside their lashups, you know. This gives them an excuse to whoop it up and show off their kids." He turned sideways and eyed the dressing-imager critically.

"Children? Why is that so important?"

"Makes them feel like part of the group." Alacrity adjusted his mantlet fastidiously. "Loved, appreciated. Common to a lot of cultures."

"Common in Terran cultures, once," Floyt mused, gazing through a thick bull's-eye porthole at the stark lunascape.

Gunny appeared at the lock just then. "Shipwreck! Delver! You're keeping people waiting, boys!"

Foragers let outsiders think them malodorous tramps. They proved differently to their guests. The Sockwallets turned out under the great inverted bowl of the main dome, gathered around their pylon.

Toddlers to oldsters, they were scrubbed and groomed, scented and attired in every sort of finery. Floyt could now appreciate how beneficial it was, in a sealed environment like the lashup, to place heavy social emphasis on hygiene, filters and purifiers notwithstanding.

Since leaving Earth, he'd been subjected to a number of different scent-ambiances,
Mindframe
and Billingsgate Circus among them. But the lashup's was the most pleasant, with its suggestions of flowers and fresh breezes, open sky and summer rain! Floyt wondered how they did it.

The pre-adults there, in particular, were preening. Arrayed in the very best clothing they owned or could beg or borrow, they were doing their best to look formal and grown-up, even while they blushed or indulged in a bit of horseplay.

About a hundred people were already present, with more arriving all the time. The dome had been polarized a bit to cut the sun's glare. Tables and chairs, in mismatched variety, had been set out.

As Floyt watched, the Sockwallets rolled out kegs of Old Geyserfroth, the superlative pilsner that had been brewed on Luna since the First Breath. They uncrated noble, prismatic bottles of Gunga Din Gin brought with them from Raj, planet of their previous lashup. Assorted other beverages and concoctions appeared in squeeze bottles and decanters, demijohns and skins, and various punch bowls, some of which were big enough to wade in.

The light gravity helped the tables bear up under the prodigious weight of the smorgasbord set out.

Despite Earth's isolationism, the moon had a comfortable, even thriving economy, being a tax haven, manufacturing center, trade nexus, and main intermediary for Terra. The Sockwallets had done well here, and this was their opportunity to indulge themselves and celebrate.

The Foragers fell to with unrestrained gusto. Self-appointed hosts and hostesses began pressing drinks of all types on their guests. Alacrity gratefully accepted a Geyserfroth, and Floyt was introduced to a formidable, fruity libation called "Fireman, Save My Child!" that was reputed to be an effective antiscorbutic. Gunny held a tall, moist tumbler filled to the brim with a lovely verdant drink he called a Kamikaze.

Music drifted through the dome; the chatter nearly matched it in volume. The Foragers switched from language to language without hesitation, though Terranglish seemed most popular. Gunny seated the guests of honor in hand-molded chairs at a long table near the pylon, then lowered himself into a mammoth seat of his own as the celebration picked up intensity all around them.

"How do you like the music?" Alacrity shouted to Floyt.

"I just hope no one asks me to dance. But it's very sprightly," he conceded.

"Don't worry. They don't do much formal dancing. The Outfits move around too much; zero gee, heavy gee, and everything in between. Lots of Terran dances'd get you a concussion on Ceres, if you were silly enough to try 'em, or a broken leg on Mammon."

The Sockwallets were having a grand time nevertheless. Some played conventional instruments, sound synthesizers, and improvised noisemakers. Others used offworld devices Floyt couldn't identify.

The lashup residents sang out wholeheartedly. Some of it sounded eerie, having been created for and in other atmospheres.

There was dancing of a sort, sidling and bouncing, jump-spinning and strutting, improvised in the light gravity. There was also a lot of drinking and joking and eating and merriment and more drinking.

Sockwallets were now fetching the visitors samples of this and that from the smorgasbord.

"Poached yabs," Alacrity called as Floyt poked at a mass of gelatin beryls, "from Aphrodite, where all the founding fathers were mothers."

They weren't bad. Floyt pointed to a basket of stuff that looked for all the world to be a pile of stir-fried lint. Alacrity shrugged, baffled.

"Cider floss, from Conniption," Gunny called, resolving the mystery. "Not a bad planet, as a matter of fact—practicing law for money there will earn you public impalement."

Some of Gunny's own vaunted Space and Thyme Ragout appeared, followed by shot glasses of a liquid called ratafee, then creamed tuft-scuttler roe, which Floyt thought resembled blobs of zinc ointment.

He tasted something that might very well have been corn-bread stuffing, a dish he'd sampled in a history seminar. Marveling, he tried short ribs.
Protein still on the ossicle!
The sauce was sinfully good.

Floyt was amused by the Forager names, which had been handed down proudly since the strange culture had come into being in the First Breath. He met Scurry Clutchbuck and Honeytongue Wampum, Bigwig Swellbundle and Coaxer Reampocket.

The Sockwallets were cordial and folksy, touching in their earnest efforts to make a good impression.

Somewhere in the midst of greeting Itchpalms and Lustducats and Moneymoils, Hobart stopped pretending to be civil and actually began liking them.

The crowd swelled, filling the dome. Simoleanna Coup somehow ended up sitting next to Alacrity.

She was quite striking in a snow-white, sequined sheath gown cut rather high on the hip, with matching cloche and high-heel shoes. She and the breakabout were engaged in exploratory conversation.

Gunny proposed toasts to the guests; toasts to the Outfit; to Luna and Earth; a safe trip for Alacrity and Floyt; peace; prosperity; and anyone anywhere who had ever screwed over a customs official in any way, shape, or form.

Alacrity and Sim nuzzled and whispered in each other's ears. Floyt found himself wondering dizzily if all this debauchery wouldn't prejudice Earthservice against him, and began thinking about how he could gracefully withdraw from the bash. Just then he realized that Gunny was talking to him.

"Yessir, Delver," the Forager averred, splashing a little Gunga Din and tonic, which fell with leisurely beauty. "The Third Breath will be the one, you'll see. Third time's the charm! Haven't we known that all along? No more dark ages!"

"Are you talking about the—whatsit—the Cooperative of Species?" It was an embryonic organization, Floyt knew; his orientation hadn't mentioned it in detail. He only recalled that it wasn't given much hope of enduring; his brain felt fuzzy.

Gunny had set sail on a stately voyage of discourse. "Naw, not that debating society! We're discussing the real item, human reciprocity—
lifeform
reciprocity—on an interstellar scale. Progress!

Freedom! And this time it's gonna last."

The Sockwallets' boss looped a large arm around Floyt's shoulders. "The word's gettin' around, you see." He began nodding to himself, blinking, breathing high-octane fumes on his guest. "To poor miserable beaten-down sods everywhere. The caste-imprisoned and the class-encysted. Worlds and worlds of 'em."

Floyt's brow furrowed.
"What
word, Gunny?"

The boss swept his glass through a gesture that took in the majority of Creation. "That! Opportunity!

Get 'em to understand that the galaxy's accessible now and they fill in the rest! Revelation! Renown! A true and perfect love!"

"Damnation!" threw in a Forager who was passing by with eight liter-mugs of Old Geyserfroth in her fists. "Paradise!"

"Change," somebody laughed from the sidelines.

"Power!"

"Hope," Sim added quietly from her seat on Alacrity's lap. Alacrity said nothing, studying Floyt and listening, to decide whether he ought to divert the conversation.

"Maybe the secrets of the Precursh—cursh—Precursors, damn it!" a tall redhead finally got out; the crowd whistled and cheered his success.

"Or the key to the universe!"

"Same thing!"

"A grand spree across Immensity!" Gunny trumpeted. "A chance to find out who they are and what they can do. And the word keeps getting around. No matter what the paranoid little local rulers do to suppress it—the single-system politburos, the phony popes, and planetary strongmen. The word gets out!"

"You mean, 'in'," Alacrity corrected mildly.

"How does the word get around, Gunny?" Floyt asked in a neutral voice. "Who gets it around?"

"Nobody." Gunny shrugged ponderously. "Anybody."

Sim flung her hand up in a graceful gesture. "Sometimes, Delver Rootnose, if it isn't too much trouble,
we
do." She, Gunny, and the other Foragers laughed, but Alacrity didn't join in.

Floyt blushed, feeling that he was the butt of their joke. He'd heard enough; it all struck him as anti-Earthservice. More, a secret part of him found it too delirious to dwell upon.

He gathered himself to leave, whether it was rude or not. Gunny, shaking his head like a buffalo, said to no one in particular, "Got all interested in hearing m'self talk, there." His head cleared a bit; he slid a splendidly painted porcelain dish toward Floyt. "Almost forgot; here're your wonderments, Delver."

In the dish lay two delicacies that looked like folded pastries or turnovers, one with white icing and the other, orange. Floyt was halted in mid-rise.

"Wonderments?"

"Guest gifts," Alacrity clarified, making a long arm for one while holding onto Sim. She reached, stopped him when he would've taken the white one, and guided his hand to the other.

Floyt wavered, then took the remaining wonderment dubiously. Gunny showed him how to open it.

Inside was a commemorative coin with the dates
April 12, 1961—April 12, 2461
and the inscription terra: 500 years in space, circling a portrait of Yuri Gagarin.

Floyt gasped. A coin like that, struck in the bright noonday of the Second Breath—the gift was overwhelming.

"Safe landings, rig," Gunny bade.

"I—Gunny, I can't accept a thing like this."

"Um, that is, y'see, Delver"—Gunny's thick eyebrows danced—"I'm afraid it's not what you could really call
authentic.
Luna's lousy with ersatz souvenirs. But it's the thought that counts."

"The thought plus the markup," someone joked.

"Thank you all very much." Floyt rubbed his thumb across TERRA: 500 years IN space. He was caught in a whirlpool of conflicting emotions.

Alacrity saw, and blustered, "Now, let me see what kind of karmic value the Sockwallets have me tabbed for, here." He made a big production of opening his cake, getting into a dramatic wrestling match, panting, "Nice and fresh, hah?" Foragers hooted and jeered him on.

In the end he drew out a long chain of fine gold links holding a heavy, ornate Christian cross. Floyt was willing to bet Balensa could've identified the metalworking style.

Alacrity's long fingers found a hidden release. Inside the cross was a sliver of extremely aged wood.

He stared at Sim. "You can't be serious."

"You're right. Some crosses came our way on Holy See. We got slivers of wood off a piece of pool cue in the wreckage over at the mass driver. I aged them myself."

Alacrity glanced around at his hosts. "I'm speechless, rigs, except—drinks all around!" The Sockwallets clapped and stamped their feet in the light gravity. The party was at full velocity; the dome shook with it. A group nearby was singing a song Floyt thought he recognized. The Foragers had reworked "Bless 'Em All" to extol their own life. Everyone joined in the chorus, Floyt included.

While the racket went on, Gunny motioned Floyt closer. "I've been meaning to ask you, if it's not too much trouble

… "

He pulled a sheet from beneath his sweater. It was a yellowed piece of paper preserved in some sort of clear, flexible coating.

"It's from the real old days," the boss confided, a bit owl-eyed. "I couldn't puzzle it out, though, and I didn't want to just go showing it around."

The handwriting was a strange combination of old English script and the lovely, vanished Palmer method. Floyt had taught himself to read both in the course of his genealogical studies. He skimmed the paper. "Where did you get this, Gunny?"

"It came to us here on Luna; fella said a Forager gave it to an ancestor of his."

"It's in Ancient English, Gunny. It's from Shakespeare,
King Henry VI,
and it says:
My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,

Nor to be seen: my crown is call'd content;

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy."

Floyt handed it back, and Gunny said, "Thanks, Delver." No thumps or hand-pumping this time.

Clearing his throat, Gunny pounded the table. "Hey! HEY! SETTLE DOWN!" he bellowed into the resonant din. "It's about time Delver Rootnose and Shipwreck Mazuma met the pride of the Sockwallets!"

Uproarious Foragers calmed quicker than Floyt would've thought, clearing a space just behind the guests. Gunny swung his chair around to face it; Floyt and Alacrity did the same. Simoleanna removed her tongue from Alacrity's ear, sliding out of the way, and he lifted his hand from her thigh. The lights dimmed, except for those focused on the cleared area.