When at last Nindala disembarked, she promised to look me up if she ever made it to Darconia. She seemed to think there was a possibility that her troupe could add another planet to their tour of the quadrant, if she could get their booking agent to comply.
"If we do come, I promise to look for you at the show,"
she said. "But from the stage, it is difficult to see."
"Well, you shouldn't have too much trouble picking me out of the crowd—any crowd," I said dryly. "After all, it's a pretty safe bet I'll be the only non-reptile on the whole planet."
As it turned out, I was wrong about that.
THE HEAT WAS OPPRESSIVE, BUT IT WAS A DRY HEAT, AND I wondered if there was enough water on the whole planet of Darconia to keep me alive. I learned later that this was only the desert sector and that there were other, more verdant areas, but you certainly couldn't tell it from where I stood on the landing platform at the spaceport.
I consoled myself with the fact that there were at least some mountains in the distance to break the monotony of the horizon, but the rest was a sea of rocks.
The scenery may have been drab, but the lizards of Darconia were quite colorful, with scales ranging in hue from yellow all the way to purple. Like Nindala, they didn't wear very much—which made sense for a lizard living in the desert. But I did wonder how you could tell the Queen from the others; without royal robes and a crown, she would look no different from her subjects.
The best I could tell, most of what the Darconians wore was utilitarian—belts or harnesslike straps around the upper body,
etc.
They did have a decorative aspect: some adorned themselves with jewels, while others wore badges of a sort. I had no idea whether this had a particular significance or if it was simply a matter of personal preference. I hoped that someone would explain all of this to me, and I was counting on an ex-tensive orientation period. My biggest fear was that I'd make some sort of cultural faux pas on my very first day, and I realized that I should have insisted on a visitor's information packet to go along with my boarding pass and letter of introduction.
By the time I left the ship and had walked the short distance to the cavernous spaceport building, I was already welcoming the opportunity to get out of the sun.
Waiting in the shadows while the crew dumped the luggage from our flight in the middle of the stone floor, I let everyone else get theirs first so I wouldn't have to dig for mine, and then just stood there wondering what the hell I should do next. The words, "Take me to your leader," popped into my head, but I suspected I would have to go through all sorts of underlings before I met with the Queen, if, indeed, I ever saw her at all.
Pomp, formality, and proper etiquette weren't the sort of things I normally had much use for, but I'll have to say that a letter from the local queen is a darn good thing to have in your hand when you land on a strange planet, and the huge teeth of the locals made me wonder if the Queen's seal of approval was the only thing that kept me from being eaten alive. Darconians had lower jaws that opened much wider than mine did; the guy who came to inspect my letter could have gotten his jaw around my whole arm—perhaps even my leg. My only consolation was that they walked upright and didn't slink around like snakes or crocodiles—and they didn't smell particularly bad, though they did have a characteristic odor.
This one certainly looked official, with lots of little carved stones stuck to his breastplate, and I was pretty sure he was male because no female of
any
species would ever have consented to be that ugly—or that big.
I'm fairly tall, myself, but this guy towered over me, the top of my head only reaching the middle of his chest. He spoke the Standard Tongue with a slightly raspy voice, clipping off his words in a brusque manner that led me to assume he was no diplomat or official greeter, but was either a member of the police force or the military.
Not knowing the proper etiquette for meeting someone on Darconia, I wondered if I should have bowed or saluted or something, but he took my letter without pre-amble. Having perused it briefly, as though to confirm what he'd already expected, he gave it back to me with a hand whose fingers would have spanned nearly two octaves on any keyboard instrument in the galaxy.
"I am Wazak, Chief of Security for the palace," he said. "You are the teacher, Kyra Aramis. You will accompany me now."
Nodding dumbly, I reached down for my bags, never dreaming of saying no for even a moment. I couldn't imagine that there would ever be any problems with crime or breaches of security with him around, because one look at Wazak was enough to make anyone want to walk the straight and narrow forever. It occurred to me that I ought to have offered to shake hands with him, but I had an idea that his grip would have ended my career as a pianist.
"You will not touch that!" he said sharply, and for a moment there, his hand seemed to edge toward the hoistered pulse pistol that hung from his belt.
I glanced around briefly to see what important piece of official property I'd inadvertently touched, and, not seeing a thing, I looked up at him with as blank an expression as I possess, and asked, "Touch what?"
"That," he said, pointing to my luggage. "They will see to it."
I nearly jumped out of my skin as I realized that I was now being flanked by two more Darconians, not as big as Wazak, but still quite imposing. They picked up my heavy bags with no more effort than it would have taken me to pick up a silk scarf, and despite the heat, I found myself shivering. There went faux pas number one, and I hadn't even left the spaceport!
Wazak started off, and I followed him with all the cheerful demeanor of one who was marching off to be fed to the lions—or, in this case, the lizards. Then I went from wondering if they were going to eat me to what they might be intending to feed me in order to fatten me up a bit before grinding me to a pulp with those teeth. I hoped it wasn't animals or insects. Call me squeamish if you will, but I didn't think I'd care for crunching on beetles or crickets, and I never
had
eaten meat. Plants were what I preferred, but all I saw were a few bristiy-looking things sprouting between the cracks in the rocky pavement— nothing green anywhere. The wiggling grub worm image ran through my mind again, and I shuddered with revulsion, but I didn't see any of them, either. What
did
they eat? I didn't dare ask Wazak. Aside from the fact that he didn't look like the type you'd ask "What's for dinner?"
something told me that I wouldn't care for his reply.
Something else occurred to me: they didn't wear clothes. What was I going to do when mine wore out?
I'd have to take really good care of them, or I'd end up wearing nothing but belts and jewelry like the natives. It was hot enough that I wouldn't freeze to death, but still, I didn't think I'd care for it.
I looked at Wazak's back (it was the largest and most eye-catching thing in sight), noting that his breastplate was held in place with strips of some kind of leather. I had almost gotten to the point of deciding that I could wear a dress made out of that when I realized that the leather had scales; without anything else to eat, these lizards might have to eat each other. Stricken with a sudden wave of nausea, I wondered just how much I'd have to pay for a return ticket to Earth.
Wazak led me out to an open-sided hovercraft of some kind, and there were two other vehicles that served as our escorts—each carrying three well-armed guards.
It seemed like awfully tight security for a piano teacher, though I
had
come a very long way at considerable ex-pense, and it probably made sense to keep me out of harm's way—at least until I reached the palace. It was also possible that this was simply a ceremonial escort, but, of course, I didn't ask.
Along the way, I was heartened by the sight of a camel-like creature being led down the street, carrying a large pack on its back. I say heartened because, if there was one animal like that, there were bound to be other, lesser creatures that the lizards might use for food. I was sure I could have eaten meat if given no other choice, but it seemed to me that something farther down the food chain had to eat plants, so maybe we could eat the same thing.
I chuckled to myself, wondering what the Queen would say if I were to come tripping into the palace requesting Camel Chow for dinner.
I spotted a few non-Darconians on the streets—though none that looked particularly human—and some of them were wearing long robes made of a rough, white fabric to protect themselves from the burning sun, which made me feel much better with respect to the clothing issue, too.
Looking over at Wazak, I decided that I could get used to the scales eventually, but the fact that the Darconians put me in mind of carnivorous dinosaurs didn't make me very comfortable with them. They even had tails! I told myself that I was being silly; they were intelligent beings, and as such, it shouldn't have mattered if they had three heads, but I was still uneasy. I might have been less so, if Wazak had been a bit chattier, but he kept his eyes on the street and surrounding areas as though assassins lurked around every corner.
As we moved deeper into the city, an odd thing happened: buildings and streets abruptly gave way to open ground, and I began to see more plant life, and also understood why the city had been built there. It was an oasis, and, as in any desert, water is worth more than just about anything, even to a lizard. Off in the distance at the center of the fields, I could see what had to be the palace. It made sense to have the crops and trees grown near the source of the water, but it was still the reverse of any city I'd ever seen, and, with no room to expand, the layout certainly limited the amount of land avail-able for growing crops, though the operation appeared to be fairly intensive. If there was a square centimeter of wasted space, it wasn't apparent from the road.
I could understand the way the city was mapped out now, and I wished I'd been able to get a look at it from space. The farms were in the center, encircled by a single road from which the other streets stretched away from the heart of the city like spokes on a wheel.
To further reduce the amount of land wasted by putting streets through, there appeared to be only one road to the palace—appropriate from an ecological standpoint, though an escape route might have been useful in case of attack.
Still, the armed guards notwithstanding, Arconcia seemed peaceful and prosperous. The buildings had been a bit more seedy-looking out near the spaceport, but improved in quality as we moved through to the heart of the city. It was possible that we were simply passing through the nicer end of town—which would make sense, since it was the only direct route from the palace to the spaceport—but all in all, it was an attractive city. Everything I saw was made of stone, too, and stone carving seemed to be the decorative touch of choice.
At this point I noticed that while I was finding the scenery interesting, the locals all seemed to think I was pretty darned interesting myself! Since the vehicles we rode in were open, any of the passersby could see me quite plainly, making me wish I'd been wearing a big hat, as much to protect myself from their inquisitive stares as from the sun. To my surprise, Wazak seemed to notice this and commented on it.
"They have never seen a human before," he said.
"They are... curious. Do not let it disturb you."
"I would be, too, I suppose," I agreed. "Curious, that is—" I added quickly—"not disturbed."
He nodded as though he understood, and I decided to take advantage of his efforts to reassure me by asking a few questions.
"Urn, Wazak," I began timidly. "Is there anything special I should know before we get there? You know, like certain things I should or shouldn't say or do?"
I thought he waited a long time before he answered me, and just about the time I decided he wasn't going to say anything at all, he replied, "Queen Scalia is tolerant of breaches in etiquette."
He didn't say anything else. So much for being chatty.
I tried again.
"Is there a rule book of some kind that I could read?"
Wazak shook his head. "No," he replied, "but you are to be an honored guest in the palace, not a servant or a slave."
"Slave?" I echoed. "You mean you have slaves here?" I found this difficult to believe. I mean, I'd never read any mention of such a thing in the descriptions of Darconia I'd found.
Wazak hitched his tail beneath him before he answered me. I wondered if sitting on it was the reason for his discomfort, or if it had been my question which disturbed him. Avoiding my eyes, he said, "Not many.
The Queen is a... collector."
"A collector?" I repeated. "Of what?"
"Exotic slaves," he replied. "She finds the different species fascinating."
"Well, I can understand that," I said reasonably, "but why do they have to be slaves?"
Wazak might not have known many humans before, but he did seem to know an expression of horror when he saw one, and he hastened to assure me that the slaves were well treated and not used for drudgery, though they did have certain duties to perform. But even so, he didn't seem to care for the idea any more than I did.
"The Queen has also encouraged other species to settle here because of that fascination," he went on.
"She enjoys the... diversity." The way he said it led me to believe that he didn't particularly enjoy "diversity" himself, though it did explain the aliens I'd seen on the streets, and possibly my own presence, as well.
"Is that why she wanted a human to teach her daughter the piano?"
"Perhaps," Wazak said evasively.
"But I'm definitely not a slave?" I was pressing the point more than I needed to, perhaps, but I wanted to make absolutely certain of this before we went any further. "I get paid, right? And I don't have to stay here if I don't want to?"
"That is correct."
While this was comforting, it was also what he would have said in any case.
"But I'll live in the palace?"
"Yes," said Wazak. He seemed to be getting rather testy by this time, but I figured I was safe enough, since presumably the Queen would be upset if her security chief slugged the new piano teacher on the way to the palace. He might try to intimidate me, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't kill me.