that little, if any, progress has been made.”
Trevize said, “That’s two fields in which they might be more advanced than we are; weather control and biotechnology. I wonder what their techniques are.”
“We’d have to find specialists,” said Bliss, “and they might not be willing to talk about it.”
Trevize said, “It’s not
Pelorat said, “We manage to control the weather fairly well on Terminus, as it is.”
“Control is good on many worlds,” said Trevize, “but always it’s a matter of the world as a whole. Here the Alphans control the weather of a small portion of the world and they must have techniques we don’t have. — Anything else, Bliss?”
“Social invitations. These appear to be a holidaymaking people, in whatever time they can take from farming and fishing. After dinner, tonight there’ll be a music festival. I told you about that already. Tomorrow, during the day, there will be a beach festival. Apparently, all around the rim of the island there will be a congregation of everyone who can get away from the fields in order that they might enjoy the water and celebrate the sun, since it will be raining the next day. In the morning, the fishing fleet will come back, beating the rain, and by evening there will be a food festival, sampling the catch.”
Pelorat groaned. “The meals are ample enough as it is. What would a food festival be like?”
“I gather that it will feature not quantity, but variety. In any case, all four of us are invited to participate in all the festivals, especially the music festival tonight.”
“On the antique instruments?” asked Trevize.
“That’s right.”
“What makes them antique, by the way? Primitive computers?”
“No, no. That’s the point. It isn’t electronic music at all, but mechanical. They described it to me. They scrape strings, blow in tubes, and bang on surfaces.”
“I hope you’re making that up,” said Trevize, appalled.
“No, I’m not. And I understand that your Hiroko will be blowing on one of the tubes—I forget its name—and you ought to be able to endure that.”
“As for myself,” said Pelorat, “I would love to go. I know very little about primitive music and I would like to hear it.”
“She is not ‘my Hiroko,’?” said Trevize coldly. “But are the instruments of the type once used on Earth, do you suppose?”
“So I gathered,” said Bliss. “At least the Alphan women said they were designed long before their ancestors came here.”
“In that case,” said Trevize, “it may be worth listening to all that scraping, tootling, and banging, for whatever information it might conceivably yield concerning Earth.”
81.
Oddly enough, it was Fallom who was most excited at the prospect of a musical evening. She and Bliss had bathed in the small outhouse behind their quarters. It had a bath with running water, hot and cold (or, rather, warm and cool), a washbowl, and a commode. It was totally clean and usable and, in the late afternoon sun, it was even well lit and cheerful.
As always, Fallom was fascinated with Bliss’s breasts and Bliss was reduced to saying (now that Fallom understood Galactic) that on her world that was the way people were. To which Fallom said, inevitably, “Why?” and Bliss, after some thought, deciding there was no sensible way of answering, returned the universal reply, “Because!”
When they were done, Bliss helped Fallom put on the undergarment supplied them by the Alphans and worked out the system whereby the skirt went on over it. Leaving Fallom unclothed from the waist up seemed reasonable enough. She herself, while making use of Alphan garments below the waist (rather tight about the hips), put on her own blouse. It seemed silly to be too inhibited to expose breasts in a society where all women did, especially since her own were not large and were as shapely as any she had seen but—there it was.
The two men took their turn at the outhouse next, Trevize muttering the usual male complaint concerning the time the women had taken.
Bliss turned Fallom about to make sure the skirt would hold in place over her boyish hips and buttocks. She said, “It’s a very pretty skirt, Fallom. Do you like it?”
Fallom stared at it in a mirror and said, “Yes, I do. Won’t I be cold with nothing on, though?” and she ran her hands down her bare chest.
“I don’t think so, Fallom. It’s quite warm on this world.”
“
“Yes, I do. That’s how it is on my world. Now, Fallom, we’re going to be with a great many Alphans during dinner and afterward. Do you think you can bear that?”
Fallom looked distressed, and Bliss went on, “I will sit on your right side and I will hold you. Pel will sit on the other side, and Trevize will sit across the table from you. We won’t let anyone talk to you, and you won’t have to talk to anyone.”
“I’ll try, Bliss,” Fallom piped in her highest tones.
“Then afterward,” said Bliss, “some Alphans will make music for us in their own special way. Do you know what music is?” She hummed in the best imitation of electronic harmony that she could.
Fallom’s face lit up. “You mean——” The last word was in her own language, and she burst into song.
Bliss’s eyes widened. It was a beautiful tune, even though it was wild, and rich in trills. “That’s right. Music,” she said.
Fallom said excitedly, “Jemby made”—she hesitated, then decided to use the Galactic word—“music all the time. It made music on a——” Again a word in her own language.
Bliss repeated the word doubtfully, “On a feeful?”
Fallom laughed. “Not feeful,——”
With both words juxtaposed like that, Bliss could hear the difference, but she despaired of reproducing the second. She said, “What does it look like?”
Fallom’s as yet limited vocabulary in Galactic did not suffice for an accurate description, and her gestures did not produce any shape clearly in Bliss’s mind.
“He showed me how to use the——” Fallom said proudly. “I used my fingers just the way Jemby did, but it said that soon I wouldn’t have to.”
“That’s wonderful, dear,” said Bliss. “After dinner, we’ll see if the Alphans are as good as your Jemby was.”
Fallom’s eyes sparkled and pleasant thoughts of what was to follow carried her through a lavish dinner despite the crowds and laughter and noise all about her. Only once, when a dish was accidentally upset, setting off shrieks of excitement fairly close to them, did Fallom look frightened, and Bliss promptly held her close in a warm and protective hug.
“I wonder if we can arrange to eat by ourselves,” she muttered to Pelorat. “Otherwise, we’ll have to get off this world. It’s bad enough eating all this Isolate animal protein, but I
“It’s only high spirits,” said Pelorat, who would have endured anything within reason that he felt came under the heading of primitive behavior and beliefs.
—And then the dinner was over, and the announcement came that the music festival would soon begin.
82.
