“Where were ye when the town itself vanished?”
“Coming home. Aye, coming home I was. I got here and seen there was nothing.” He hoped they didn't ask where it was he had been coming from.
The captain ordered the entry ramp lowered, smiled down at him. In a moment, it clanked upon the dock, sending a booming echo the length of the wharf. “C'mon aboard, then.”
He walked up to the gangplank, still exhausted, and stepped onto the deck. The captain was standing there with the crew behind as if seeking protection. He had no legs. A single limb of metal welded the stumps of his legs together well above the knee and ended in a floating ball which rolled about, taking him where-ever he wished. He rolled over to Tohm, conscious of the appearance he made, and liking it. “Ye look o' the upper class.”
He thought quickly. “My father deals in concubines.”
“Really now,” the captain said, his eyes twinkling.
“What happened to the city?” Tohm asked, looking about uneasily. He was determined to find out as much as possible before someone asked a telling question and his disguise was revealed. It was difficult to tread knowledgeably on the ground of a world you knew the customs of but not the basic concepts behind them. Triggy Gop was indeed a prophet. He was going to have to grasp a better basis of understanding.
“Ye haven't figured “it out yet?” the captain asked.
The men behind him grumbled.
“I… I've been away—”
“An awfully long time and awful far away if ye can't figger it out. The Muties, man! The Muties! Fooling around with the Fringe agin.”
“I should o' known,” he said, still totally in the dark.
“Ya. Ya, all trouble comes from them. But we are in luck! They didn't exchange it. They couldn't hold the Mollycools apart long enough. They didn't exchange it— only managed to move it.”
“Move it?”
“Ya. We got a report from the capital radio and defense system. We first thought it was the end; one minute there was a city, the next—
Tohm shook his head in disgust, as he felt he was expected to.
“Be an improvement, actchilly,” the captain said, rolling closer. “More moderate climate up there. The name's Hazabob. Captain Hazabob.” He offered a weathered hand.
Tohm shook it. “Could ye use a crewman? I'll work my way up to the city.”
Hazabob looked around to his men. Tohm thought the old bird winked. “I'll tell ye what I'll do, Tohm, my boy,” he said, throwing a fatherly arm about Tohm's shoulder. There was a smell of dead fish and perspiration. “I don't need a crewman. Ye'd be in the way, ye would. But I'll take ye along anyway.”
“Well thanks,” Tohm said, grinning, his sunny hair windblown over his forehead.
“I'll take ye, think nothin' o' it. And while ye's talkin' about the city—” He turned and openly winked at his men this time. A few of them winked back, grinned. “While ye's talkin' about the city, perhaps I should say we'd like ye to persuade yer father to reward us, if ye knows what I mean.”
Tohm looked blank.
“With a conkeebine o' our own, ye ninny!” Hazabob roared.
Tohm swallowed. “Certainly. My father always has a broad selection o' women. Ye may have yer pick.”
“Heh, heh,” Hazabob wheezed. “Fine. Fine indeed. The ship is yers to explore. Just stay out o' the cargo hold, cause we got a load o' delicate spices there. Yer breath might contaminate them if ye have a cold or something.”
“Sure. O' course.”
Hazabob snapped two brittle fingers together. “Jake, show Mr. Tohm to his cabin. Be quick about it!”
Jake lumbered forth, a seven foot, three hundred pound giant. “Sure, Cap. This way, Mr. Tohm.”
Tohm followed the man, listening to the faint rumble as the captain rolled away to see about the launching of the ship. He would have to make his getaway quickly when they reached the capital. These men wouldn't show any mercy to an impostor, especially one who promised them a concubine and then reneged.
“This is the guest room,” Jake said, shoving the door open.
Tohm peered in. There was little luxury to the place. It was strictly utilitarian. The commode and shower were unconcealed. The bed was bolted to the wall, a wilted foam mattress and ratty woolen blanket draped across the springs. Springs, Tohm thought, which were probably broken and bent. But it was a way to the capital and Tarnilee.
“Meals are at seven in the evening and five-thirty in the morning. Ye makes yer own lunches when ye have a chance.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Ain't bad.” He lingered at the doorway, shuffling his huge, bucket feet.
“Thank ye, Jake,” Tohm said, reclining wearily on the bunk.
Still Jake did not move. He wiped his left foot back and forth through the thin coat of dust that covered the floor plates.
“Is there something on your mind?” Tohm asked at length.
“Now that ye ask,” Jake said, a dinnerplate-sized grin on his face, “there is something I wanted to ask ye.”
“Well?”
“Ye see, I know what kinda conkeebine they's going to pick, them others. She's going to be tiny and delicate— awful pretty, mind ye — but awful tiny and terrible awful delicate. I was wondering if—”
“Ya, Jake?”
“Well, I got a hunnert creds saved up, and I was wondering whether yer father could maybe have a tall… well, a sorta large… a girl with… well…”
“An Amazon?”
He grinned, flushed. “I know a hunnert ain't much—”
“I'm sure my father can find ye someone, Jake. Someone ye'd be just crazy about. And at yer price.”
“Gee, Tohm,” the ox said, blushing even brighter, “really?”
“Really.”
“Jake!” Hazabob called.
“I gotta go,” he said. “Thanks, Tohm.”
“Yer welcome, Jake.”
The shadow that had been flooding the room was gone.
Tohm stretched back on the bed and found it to be more comfortable than it had looked. Trying to untense every muscle and nerve, he took a moment to think about the events of the last day or so. What were the Muties trying to do? What exactly were the Muties? What was the Fringe? What was the quasi-reality? The Realities? What had the Muties been attempting with Basa II's capital city, and why had they failed? His nerves grew tenser than before as the confusion boiled in his mind. He never had liked to be confused. His curiosity had always driven him to find the answers to things that confused him in the village of his people. This world, however, was far more complex than anything he had ever found in that tiny settlement of dark people. Yet all of the things that perplexed him here were taken as common knowledge by the people who lived in this insane universe. But to him, coming barefoot from a land of thatched huts, it was a riddle. The library materials took a basic understanding for granted too, and thus they were only more confusing, not clarifying.
He closed his eyes, blotting out the stained, gray ceiling and the grease-streaked blue walls. Better to think. But his thinking was interrupted by a low moaning. A slap, like leather hitting leather. This moaning increased. It seemed to seep through the near wall. He got up and walked to the partition. The noise was definitely louder.
Moaning…
Now it was growing fainter. Bending, he found the sound was clearer next to the floor. He got down on his hands and knees, his ears alert as an animal's ears. The slapping had stopped, but the moaning was still there. It
