“Oh, what a miracle! Somebody to talk to after so terribly long!”
The woman had sidled up and cuddled against the man, holding his hand to her cheek. He jerked away impatiently, and barked what must have been an order, for she nodded brightly and trotted back to the kitchen, throwing a kiss as she went. The man shrugged as if throwing off a weight and turned to Patrick with undisguised relief.
“Sit here,” he said. “It is the most comfortable. And now tell me who you are, my friend, and how you found me.”
Patrick showed his credentials. The stranger shook his head. He explained them in words. The man nodded sagely.
“I understand. I had never dared to hope for a visitor from beyond Xilmuch. But I have heard of space travel, though we never attained it.”
“And yet you speak Galactic.”
“Is that what it is? That is one of my— But tell me first—”
“No, you tell me. Who are you? What happened to this city? Why did I see nobody in three days, until I found you and—and the lady? Is all your world like this?”
“My name is Zoth—Zoth Cheruk, but you must call me Zoth, and I shall call you Patrick. All the rest you ask—I shall be glad to tell you everything, but we have plenty of time. We’ll talk and talk! But first I want to know all about you, your world, how you all live, your own life—everything. I have been so starved for conversation—you can’t imagine how much, or how long!”
“But oughtn’t we to be helping the lady?” Patrick asked uneasily.
“Her name is Jyk. She is my wife.” He scowled. “She can manage. She cooks well, at least. It will take her hours; I have ordered all the best for us. Meanwhile, we will drink while we wait.”
He opened a tall cabinet with carved doors and took out goblets and a squat yellow bottle.
“Not rexshan—we shall have that at dinner. But almost as good; it is pure stralp of a very good year.”
He poured an iridescent liquid.
“You smell it for a few minutes, then you sip, then you smell it again,” he explained.
“Like brandy,” Patrick agreed.
“That I do not know. But that is as good a place to start as any. Tell me of your foods and drinks.”
There was no help for it. This guy was going to give in his own good time only. Planet scouts are trained in diplomacy. Patrick settled down to being a vocal encyclopedia attached to a question-machine.
Twice they were interrupted by calls from the kitchen. Each time Zoth rose reluctantly and went out, first replenishing Patrick’s goblet; he could be heard lifting and setting down some heavy object, his annoyed voice interrupted by his wife’s cooing tones. The relation between the two puzzled Patrick as much as anything else he had chanced upon in this strange world, this seeming Mary Celeste of the space-seas.
Several hours and several glasses of the iridescent stralp later, he was feeling only relaxed and very hungry. Zoth’s wife appeared in the kitchen door, rosy and dimpling. This time Zoth beamed. “Now we shall eat,” he said. “We are having a tender young ekahir I had been saving in the freezing-box. I shall bring it in.”
Jyk—what ought he to call her? Mrs. Cheruk—cleared one of the long tables and from the lower part of the cabinet took dishes of some transparent plastic, golden yellow and delicately etched. She drew from a drawer knives and spoons—there were no forks—of a metal that looked like steel. Patrick hurried to help her. Her manner was distrait, and she kept glancing yearningly toward the kitchen. Presently Zoth entered, bearing a large tray heaped with steaming food.
The ekahir turned out to be a crisply roasted bird, its flesh tasting like a combination of turkey and duck. Zoth carved it adroitly, using a long thin knife with a carved metal handle, while his wife piled the plates high with unknown but interesting-looking vegetables. The rexshan, poured into tall slender glasses, proved to be a cool bubbling wine, with a warm aftertaste and an insidious effect.
The food was delicious, the drink delightful, and the Terran’s appetite sharp; but after his first hunger was satisfied, Patrick found himself increasingly disquieted.
Something he could not understand was very wrong between these two. He didn’t need to comprehend the words they exchanged to realize that Zoth loathed his wife, and that she worshiped him. There was scorn in every harsh command he gave her, and to each she hastened to respond with servile promptness. It got on Patrick’s nerves, until at last Zoth himself noticed, and made an obvious effort to restrain himself.
The climax came when Jyk, watching her husband’s plate with anxious solicitude, suddenly jumped from her seat, carried a dish of tart blue jelly to Zoth’s place, placed a portion of it on his plate, and caressingly threw her other arm around his neck just as he was raising a spoonful of ekahir to his mouth.
The meat fell from his jostled arm to the table, and he leapt to his feet. The angry syllables he shouted were unmistakably a curse.
Then suddenly, before Patrick could take in what was happening, Zoth seized the long knife with which he had carved the bird—and plunged it full into his wife’s breast.
Patrick dived and caught him by the arm before he could strike again. Shaking with horror, he turned his eyes to the victim.
She was not dead, she had not fallen, she was not even bleeding. With a gay laugh she plucked the knife from her flesh, chirped a few words in a tone of affectionate teasing, patted her husband’s cheek, and returned amiably to her place at the foot of the table, where she calmly helped herself to more of the jelly.
Patrick’s hand fell. He stood staring in paralyzed astonishment. Zoth laughed then too—but his laugh was
