“Forgive me for interrupting our meal so impolitely, my friend,” he said. “Sometimes this woman exasperates me beyond endurance—but, as you see, it does her no harm.”
Patrick could only continue to stare, as he slowly resumed his seat.
As for Jyk, she sat drinking rexshan, and smiling at her husband as a mother smiles at her naughty child.
Patrick’s appetite was gone; he sat uncomfortably waiting for an explanation that did not come. Zoth cleaned the last scrap from his plate, drained the last drop of rexshan, and only then addressed a few curt remarks to his wife. She rose quickly and began removing the dishes. The host turned to his guest.
“Exercise is good after a full meal, Patrick. Let us walk for a while around the city, and I will show you how I get our food and all our supplies. There is still much I have not yet asked you about your world.”
“There is much I want to know also, Zoth,” the Terran reminded him.
“Later; there is no hurry. When it is dark I shall send the woman off to bed alone, and then we shall sit over glasses of stralp and you may ask me anything you wish to know. But now you must tell me more of this Galactic Presidium, and how it operates. You say there is an agreement by which hitherto undiscovered planets are opened for colonization by whatever life-form is best adapted to them? You may imagine how much this interests me, since I can detect no difference whatever between your form and mine—we are akkir together.”
“Akkir—that means human?”
“Yes. And here is a whole empty world, with all the foundations of civilization already laid.”
“I am only a scout, you understand,” said Patrick. “I have no authority.”
“I understand. But your recommendation would have great influence. I am only wondering how long it would take. Perhaps it would be better . . . However, all that we can discuss later. Now I want to ask you—”
Patrick turned again into a vocal encyclopedia.
Their walk took them to a large warehouse. Zoth opened the door.
“Here, you see,” he explained, “are stored garments made of furs—furs of the carnivorous animals which no longer exist on Xilmuch. When it is cold, and we need warm clothing, we have only to take our pick. In the same way, all the stores and warehouses of the city are open to us to obtain whatever we desire in the way of food, clothes, furniture, ornaments—anything at all. There is only one real scarcity: rhaz, the fuel by which we run our planes and cars. I have stored all of that I could find in our house, which was once the City Hall, and I use a vehicle only when it is necessary to carry heavy loads. Otherwise, I walk. One man cannot operate the rhaz supplier, though when mine is gone I shall have to find some way.”
“What about public utilities?” Patrick asked. “Water, lights, things like that?”
“Enough is still operating automatically to serve us. Much, of course, has failed. If, before I—if we of Xilmuch had only learned to split the atom, as you say your world has done— But we hadn’t, and so, you will understand, there is great deterioration in such things, though they could be easily rehabilitated with sufficient manpower. After all, it has been fifty years.”
“Fifty years since what?”
“Shall we turn back now? I don’t want to tire you, and the sun will be setting soon. There are no street lights any more, and I shouldn’t like you to stumble in our ruts and gullies in the darkness. Besides, I’m thirsty again, and so must you be. The woman will have finished cleaning up; I shall have her set out some refreshment for us and send her off.”
They had walked farther than Patrick had realized; it was twilight before they crossed the bridge to the Civic Center where the great dome dominated the skyline. A glow of lights came from the right-hand windows on the first floor, and as they mounted the steps they found Jyk pacing up and down before the bronze door.
As soon as she glimpsed them, she ran toward them and threw her arms around her husband with a babble of speech. Zoth pulled away impatiently.
“The fool thought she had lost me,” he said with a wry grin. “This is the first time I have been this long out of her sight in fifty years. She insists on following me everywhere I go, and it’s not worth the trouble to get rid of her when I have no other companion—but today, when I have you—today I ordered her to stay at home and leave me free. She has been weeping. I am glad of it. Let her weep.”
Pretty cool, thought Patrick, for a man who had just tried to murder his wife in cold blood, and had failed to do so only by a miracle!
The big municipal-office-turned-living-room was aglow with tubes of soft neo-neon light, and he sank wearily into one of the soft chairs. The cream-colored curtains were drawn, but through a gap he could see the dark sky. This world, he had found, had no moon; and since the city lay near the equator, twilight and dawn were very brief.
He could have done with some sleep; but after all, a scout is a sort of diplomat: if his host were looking forward to a long evening, there was nothing to do but acquiesce. Besides, curiosity was scratching at him; he could make nothing at all of the personal situation here, and it was time for Zoth to talk.
Zoth addressed his wife in a series of staccato remarks. She bustled obediently into the kitchen, while her husband laid out the goblets and fresh bottles of the stralp. In a few minutes she returned, bearing a plate heaped with strips of some crisp white substance glistening with what looked like salt. She threw her arms around her husband’s neck, and, standing on tiptoe, pressed
