The colonel’s jaw dropped. “He’s a temple dancer?”
“Chief temple dancer. I was a little worried about that, because I didn’t want to get in bad theologically. So I went to the priest and apologized for any inconvenience I might have caused. He said not to worry; Mundes had had it coming to him for a long time and his one regret was that he hadn’t been there to see it. Then we touched toes and he said he liked to see a young fellow with brawn who also took an interest in cultural pursuits like reading. He trusted I’d have a beneficial effect on the youth of the village. And then he asked me to fill in for Mundes as chief temple dancer until he—ah—recovered. It’s a great honor, you know!” he said sharply, as the colonel seemed more moved to mirth than awe. “But I’ve never been much of a dancing man and that’s what I told him.”
“Very well done,” the colonel said approvingly. “But you still haven’t explained where you got lodgings and a landlady.”
“She’s Embelsira’s mother. I was invited over for dinner from time to time.... It’s a local custom,” he explained as Blynn’s eyebrows went up. “So, when Embelsira told me her mother happened to have a compartment to let with meals included, I jumped at it. Blynn, you really ought to taste those pastries of hers!”
The colonel managed to divert him onto some of the other aspects of Katundut life. When he’d finished taping everything he had to say, the colonel gave him a list of artifacts and small-sized flora and fauna the specialists on Earth wanted him to collect for his next trip, providing he could do so without arousing attention or violating tabus.
They shook hands. “Clarey,” the colonel said, “you’ve done splendidly. Earth will be proud of you. And you might bring along one or two of those pastries, by the way.”
When Clarey got back to Katund, Embelsira and her mother gave a little welcome home party for him. “Nothing elaborate,” the widow said. “Just a few neighbors and friends, some simple refreshments.”
The tiny residential dome was packed with people; the refreshments, Clarey thought, as he munched industriously, were magnificent. But then he’d been forced to live on Earth food for a weekend, so he was no judge.
After they’d finished eating, the young people folded the furniture, and, while one of the boys played upon a curious instrument that was string and percussion and brass all at once, the others danced.
Clarey made no attempt to participate. In his early youth, he’d flopped at the Earth hops—and the Damorlanti had a distinctly more Dionysian culture than his home world. He stood and watched them leaping and twirling. When they’d dropped, temporarily exhausted, he made his way over to the musician, whom he recognized as one of Piq’s numerous grandsons; this one was Rini, he thought.
“Is that difficult to learn?” he asked, touching the instrument.
“The ulerin is extremely difficult,” the boy said importantly. “It takes years and years of practice. And you’ve got to have the touch to begin with. Not many do. All our family have the touch, my brother Irik most of all. He’s in Barshwat, studying to be a famous musician.”
Clarey looked at the ulerin with unmistakable wistfulness.
“Care to try it?” the boy asked. “But, mind, you have to pay for any bladders you burst.”
“I shall be very careful,” Clarey said, taking the instrument reverently in his hands. He had never touched a musical instrument before—an Earth instrument would have been no less unfamiliar, no more wonderful. Gently he began to pluck and bang and blow, in imitation of the way the boy had done, and, though the sounds that came out didn’t have the same smoothness, still they didn’t fall harshly on his ears. The others stopped talking and listened; it would have been difficult for them to do otherwise, as he was unable to find the muting device.
“Sounds like the death wail of a hix,” Piq sibilated, but he added grudgingly, “Foreigner or not, I have to say this for him—he’s got the touch.”
“Yes, he’s got the touch,” others agreed. “You always can tell.”
Rini smiled at Clarey. “I believe you do. I’ll teach you to play, if you like.”
“I would, very much.” Clarey was about to offer to pay for the lessons; then he remembered that, though this would have been the right thing on Earth, it would be wrong on Damorlan. “If it is not too much trouble,” he finished.
“It’s the kind of trouble I like.” The boy twisted his nose at Clarey. “Sometime you can hide the reserved books for me.”
After the guests had gone, Clarey insisted on helping the women with the putting away. “Well, as long as Embelsira has a pair of brawny arms to help her,” the widow yawned, “I might as well be getting along to my pallet. I seem to get more and more tired these days—old age, I expect. One day I’ll be so tired I’ll never wake up and Embelsira’ll be alone and what’ll she do, poor thing? Who can live on a librarian’s salary? Now, on two librarians’ salaries—”
“Mother,” Embelsira interrupted furiously, “you go to bed!”
She did, hurriedly.
“Don’t worry, Embelsira,” Clarey said. “She will be weaving away for decades yet. Everybody says she’s the best weaver in the district,” he added, to change the subject.
“Yes,” Embelsira said as they gathered all the oddments the guests had left, “she’s been offered a lot of money to go work in Zrig. But she won’t leave Katund; she was born here, and so were her parents.”
“I do not blame her for wanting to stay,” he said. “It’s a very—homelike place.”
She sighed. “To us it is, but I don’t suppose someone who’s city born and bred would feel the same way. I know you won’t let yourself stay buried here forever, and what will I—what will Mother and I ever do without you?”
“It is—very kind of you to say so,” he replied. “I am honored.”
The girl—she was still young enough to be called a girl, though no longer in her first youth—looked up at him. Blue eyes could be pleasing in their way. “Why are you always so stiff, so cold?”
“I am not cold,” he said honestly. “I am—afraid.”
“There is nothing to be afraid of. You’re safe, among friends, no matter what you may have done back where you came from.”
“But I have done nothing back there,” he said. “Nothing at all. Perhaps that is the trouble with me.”
She looked up at him and then away. “Then isn’t it about time you started to do something?”
The next time he went to Barshwat he took a lot of luggage with him, because, besides the artifacts and the flora and fauna, he brought cold pastries for the colonel. The colonel ate one in silence, then said, “Try to get the recipe.”
“By the way,” said Clarey, “the X-T boys made a few mistakes. The bugg isn’t an insect; it’s a bird. And the lule isn’t a bird; it’s a flower. And the paparun isn’t a flower; it’s an insect.”
“Oh, well, I guess they’ll be able to straighten that out,” the colonel said, licking crumbs from his thick fingers. “We do our jobs and they do theirs.” He reached for another pastry.
“Take good care of the bugg,” Clarey said. “He likes his morning seed mixed with milk; his evening seed with wine. His name is Mirti. He’s very tame and affectionate. I—said I was bringing him to my aunt....” He paused. “You are going to take him back alive, aren’t you? You’d get so much more information that way.”
“Wouldn’t