She smiled. 'Talk all you want. Smash. You're my mainstay in this strange surface world. I do worry when you're gone.'
Smash put his huge, hairy paw over her tiny human hand. 'I appreciate that, Tandy. I know it would be bad for you if you got stranded alone in wilderness Xanth. But I am learning to handle things in the gourd, and I am getting stronger.'
'I hope so,' she said. 'We all do need you, and not just for protection from monsters. Chem says there seems to be a mountain range to the north that we can't scale; the dragons are to the east, and the air storm to the south. So we'll have to veer west, back through the Region of Earth-and that volcano is still spewing hot lava.'
'We shall just have to wait till the lava stops,' Smash said.
'Yes. But we don't know how long that will be-and it will have to cool so we can walk over it. I guess we're here in the melon patch for a while yet.'
'So be it,' Smash said. He released her hand, lest the inordinate weight of his own damage it. 'Did you say these gourds are edible?'
'Oh, yes, certainly. You can eat all you want. We're all full; they're very good, just so long as you don't look in the peephole. Funny thing is, there's no sign of any world in there, no graveyard or anything.'
She handed him a gourd, peephole averted.
Smash took a huge bite. It was indeed good, very sweet and seedy and juicy. It did seem strange that something that could affect his consciousness could also be such good eating-but, of course, that was the nature of things other than gourds. A dragon could be a terrible enemy-but was also pretty good eating, once conquered.
'That gourd I just looked into-' Smash said between gulps. 'Why didn't it return Biythe when she looked?'
'We discussed that while you were out,' Tandy said. She was the only one of the girls who remained awake; the others were sleeping, including the brass girl. Smash wondered briefly why a person made of metal needed to sleep, then realized this was no more remarkable than a person of metal becoming animate at the punch of a button. 'We concluded that she is merely a representation, like you when you're in the gourd. So she can't cross through by herself; she has to be taken by one of us. Then her pretend-body will vanish here, just as yours vanishes there.'
'Makes sense,' Smash agreed, consuming another gourd m a few bites. 'Did she disappear when I took her aboard the Luna shuttle ship?'
'Yes. You remained, holding nothing. Then she reappeared when we took the gourd away, hugging you-'
'There was no room in that cockpit,' Smash explained.
'I understand,' she said, somewhat distantly.
'I'm out of the ship now, and back in her building. There won't be any trouble this time.'
'That's nice. But please rest before you go back in there,' Tandy said. 'There is time, while we wait for the lava to stop. And-'
Smash glanced at her. She was mostly a silhouette in the wan moonlight, rather pretty in her pensiveness. 'Yes?'
She shrugged. 'Take care of yourself, Smash.' 'Ogres do,' he said, cracking a smile. It seemed to him that she had meant to say something more. But, of course, girls changed their minds readily, especially small girls, whose minds were small. Or whatever.
When he was comfortably stuffed, Smash stretched out among the gourds and slept. Tandy settled against his furry forearm and slept, too. He was aware of her despite his unconsciousness, and found he rather liked her cute little company. He was becoming distressingly un-ogrish at times; he would have to correct that.
As dawn brightened, the lava dulled. The volcano was quiescent. The Siren listened to the Ear and reported silence, which she took to mean that they should wait for further cooling. Periodically she tossed damp fragments of gourd on the nearest hardening lava flow; as long as it sizzled and steamed, the time was not yet right.
'Are you ready to go home, Biythe?' Smash asked the brass girl, knowing the answer. 'I'm back in the building.'
'Good and ready, ogre,' she agreed with alacrity. She turned to the others. 'No offense to you folk; I like you. But I don't understand this wide-open land. It's so much more secure in a brass building.'
'I'm sure it is, dear,' the Siren said, embracing her. 'Maybe in due course the rest of us will find our own brass buildings.'
'And the way you have to sleep here, instead of getting turned off by a button-that's strange.'
'All creatures are strange in their own fashion,' Chem said. 'And we want to thank you for what you did with the dragons. You may have saved our hides.'
'I took no risk,' Biythe said. But she flushed copper, pleased.
Then Smash picked Biythe up by her brassiere. 'And keep your hand off her knee!' Tandy warned.
Everyone laughed, and he looked into a delicious-seeming gourd.
This time it worked. They were both in the brass building.
The brassies spied them and clustered around. There was a flurry of welcomings. Biythe was certainly glad to be home.
'Now if you folk can tell me some other way out of here, I will depart,' Smash said. 'I don't want the spaceship; there must be some land route.'
'Oh, there is!' Biythe said eagerly. 'I'll show you.'
'Haven't you had enough of me?' Smash asked.
'I feel I owe it to you to help you on your way,' she said defensively. 'I'll show you the way to the paper world.'
'As you wish,' Smash agreed. 'But you helped us considerably, what with the tunneling and such.'
Her face clouded, turning leaden. 'The dragons wouldn't eat me!'
Smash did not argue the point. Evidently the brass girl had more than one motive for her scene with the dragons.
Biythe led him out a concealed door, into a smaller chamber. Smash had to hunch over to fit in this one.
Then the room jerked and moved, causing him to bump into a wall. 'This is an elevator,' Biythe explained. 'It leads to the paper works, but it takes a little while.'
'I'll wait,' Smash said, squatting down and leaning into a corner so he would not be bumped around too much.'
Biythe sat on one of his knees. 'Smash-'
He suffered deja vu. His Eye Queue insisted on running down the relevance immediately, instead of allowing it to be the pleasant mystery nature intended. Tandy had addressed him in much the same way last night. 'Yes?'
'I wanted to talk to you a moment, alone,' she confessed. 'That's why I volunteered to show you the way. There's something you should know.'
'Where your dent is?'
'I can't show you that; your knee's in the way. It's something else.'
'You know something about the Night Stallion?' he asked, interested.
'No, not that,' she said. 'It's about Xanth.'
'Oh.'
'Smash, I'm not part of your world. But maybe I see something you don't. Those girls like you.'
'And I like them,' he admitted, voicing the un-ogrish sentiment with a certain embarrassment. How was be ever going to find his Answer in life if he kept losing his identity? 'They're nice people. So are you.'
Again she coppered. 'I like them, too. I never knew flesh people before. But that's not what I mean.
They-they're not just friends to you. It's hard for me to say, because my own heart's made of brass.
They're female; you're male. So-'
'So I protect them,' Smash agreed. 'Because females aren't very good at surviving by themselves. I'll help as long as they are with me and need protection.'
'That, too. But it's more than that. Tandy, especially-'
'Yes, she needs a lot of protection. She hardly knows more of Xanth than you do, and she's not made of metal.'
