PS. I know you are a gentleman and would not try to remove the nose ring. But I thought I should tell you that you can't anyhow because it is locked in place with a microscopic Jayverg Bonded Molecular Padlock. Goodbye again, and do try to put all this unpleasantness out of mind and enjoy your two weeks on our lovely planet.
Your Sincere Friend,
Marduk Kras
At first Marvin was irritated by the note. But then he laughed and crumpled it up. Marduk was undoubtedly a scoundrel, but he was a likeable one, and not ungenerous. Marvin decided to make the best of his dubious bargain, forget about the putative bomb nestling just above his lip, and enjoy his time on Celsus.
He went on an exploration of his new home, and was well satisfied with what he found. It was a bachelor burrow, designed for residence rather than for reproduction. Its main construction feature – pentabrachation – reflected Kras' status as a public official. Less fortunate sorts had to get by with three or four gallery systems; and in the slums of North Bogger, whole families were crowded into wretched mono– and duo-brachate systems. Housing reform had been promised in the near future, however.
The kitchen was neat and modem, and well stocked with gourmet items. There were jars of candied annelids, and a bowl of exotic Alcyonium Salad mixture, and delicious titbits of Tubipora, Pennatula, Gorgonia, and Renilla. There was a can of Goose Barnacle in rotifer and orchid sauce, and a quick-frozen package of sweet and sour Uca. But – how like a bachelor – there were no staples, not even a gastropod loaf or a bottle of carbonated Ginger Honey.
Wandering down the long, curving galleries, Marvin found the music room. Marduk had not stinted here. A gigantic Imperial amplifier dominated the room, flanked by two Tyrant-model speakers. Marduk used a Whirlpool semi-mix microphone, with a forty-bbc channel rejection, an 'expanding' type sense-discrimination selector, with a floating throat-slot 'passive' director. Pick-up was by image regeneration, but there was provision for changing over to decay modulation. Although not professional in quality, it was a very good amateur rig.
The heart of the system, of course, was the Insectarium. This particular one was an Ingenuator, the Super-Max model, with both automatic and manual selection and mixture controls, regulated feed and disposal, and various maximizing and minimizing features.
Marvin selected a grasshopper gavotte (Korestal, 431B) and listened to the thrilling tracheal obbligato and the subtle bass accompaniment of the paired Malphigian tubules. Although Marvin's appreciation was casual, he was well aware of the virtuoso ability of this particular performer: a Blue-Striped Grasshopper, his second thoracic segment pulsating slightly, visible in his own compartment of the Insectarium.
Leaning down, Marvin nodded in appreciation. The Blue-Stripped Grasshopper clicked mandibles, then turned back to his music. (He had been bred especially for treble and brilliance, a flashy performer, more showy than sound. But Marvin did not know this.)
Marvin turned off the selection, flipped the status switch from Active to Dormant mode; the grasshopper went back to sleep. The Insectarium was well stocked, especially with Mayfly symphonies and the strange new cutworm songs, but Marvin had too much to explore to bother with music just now.
In the living-room, Marvin lowered himself into a stately old clay bank (a genuine Wormstetter), rested his head against the well-worn granite headrest, and tried to relax. But the ring in his snout ticked away, a continual intrusion to his sense of well-being. He reached down and picked at random a quick-stick from a pile on a low table. He ran his antennae over the grooves, but it was no use. He couldn't concentrate on light fiction. Impatiently he threw the quick-stick aside and tried to make some plans.
But he was in the grip of an implacable dynamism. He had to assume that the moments of his life were severely limited, and those moments were passing away. He wanted to do something to commemorate his final hours. But what was there he could do?
He slid out of the Wormstetter and paced the main gallery, his claws clicking irritably. Then, coming to an abrupt decision, he went to the wardrobe room. Here he selected a new casing of gold-bronze chitin, and arranged it carefully over his shoulders. He plastered his facial bristles with perfumed glue, and arranged them
Surveying himself in the mirror, he decided that the effect was not unpleasing. He was well dressed, but not dandified. Judging as objectively as he could, he decided that he was a presentable, rather scholarly-looking young fellow. Not a Squig Star by any means, but definitely not a drunfiler.
He left his burrow by the main entrance, and replaced the entrance plug.
It was dusk. Stars glittered overhead; they seemed no more numerous than the myriad lights in the entrances of the countless burrows, both commercial and private, which made up the pulsating heart of the city. The sight thrilled Marvin. Surely, surely, somewhere in the endless intertwining corridors of the great city, there would be that for him which would bring pleasure. Or, at least, a soft and forgetful surcease.
Thus, Marvin walked dolorously, yet with a tremulous hopefulness, towards the hectic and beckoning Main Groove of the city, there to find what chance held out for him or fate decreed.
Chapter 16
With a long rolling stride and a creaking of leather boots, Marvin Flynn strode down the wooden sidewalk. Faintly there came to him the mingled odors of sagebrush and chaparral. On either side of him the adobe walls of the town glittered under the moon like dull Mexican silver. From a nearby saloon there came the strident tones of a banjo-
Frowning deeply, Marvin stopped in midstride. Sagebrush? Saloons? What was going on around here?
'Something wrong, stranger?' a harsh voice intoned.
Flynn whirled. A figure stepped out of the shadows near the General Store. It was a saddlebum, a snuffling, slump-shouldered loafer with a dusty black hat crushed comically on his begrimed forehead.
'Yes, something is very wrong,' Marvin said. 'Everything seems – strange.'
' 'Tain't nothing to be alarmed about,' the saddlebum reassured him. 'You have merely changed your system of metaphoric reference, and the Lord knows there's no crime in that. As a matter of fact, you should be happy to give up those dreary animal-insect comparisons.'
'There was nothing wrong with my comparisons,' Marvin said, 'After all, I am on Celsus V, and I
'So what?' the saddlebum said. 'Haven't you any imagination?'
'I've got plenty of imagination!' Marvin said indignantly. 'But that's hardly the point. I simply mean that it is inconsistent to think like a cowboy on Earth when one is actually a sort of molelike creature on Celsus.'
'It can't be helped,' the saddlebum said. 'What's happened is, you've overloaded your analogizing faculty, thereby blowing a fuse. Accordingly, your perceptions have taken up the task of experimental normalization. This state is known as 'metaphoric deformation'.'
Now Marvin remembered the warning he had received from Mr Blanders concerning this phenomenon. Metaphoric deformation, that disease of the interstellar traveller, had struck him suddenly and without warning.
He knew that he should be alarmed, but instead felt only a mild surprise. His emotions were consistent with his perceptions, since a change unperceived is a change unfelt.
'When,' Marvin asked, 'will I start to see things as they really are?'
'That last is a question for a philosopher,' the saddlebum told him. 'But speaking in a limited fashion, this particular syndrome will pass if you ever get back to Earth. But if you continue travelling the process of perceptual analogizing will increase; though occasional short-lived remissions into your primary situation-perception context may be expected.'
Marvin found that interesting, but unalarming. He hitched up his jeans and said, 'Waal, reckon a man's
