Chapter 16
THEY DROVE ON, through and over the foothills, always climbing, the snowcapped peak of Olympus ever ahead, until, at last, Brasidus brought the car to a halt in the single street of a tiny village that clung precariously to the mountainside.
“Kilkis,” he announced. “The tavern here could be worse. We halt here for our midday meal.”
“Kilkis.” The Arcadian repeated the name, gazed around her at the huddle of low but not ungraceful buildings, and then to the boulder-strewn slopes upon which grazed flocks of slow-moving, dun-colored beasts, many of them almost ready to reproduce by fission. “Kilkis,” she repeated. “And how do the people here make a living? Do they take in each other’s washing?”
“I don’t understand, Peggy.”
“Sorry, Brasidus. What are those animals?”
“Goats,” he explained. “The major source of our meat supply.” He went on, happy to be upon more familiar ground, “The only helots allowed to carry arms are the goatherds—see, there’s one by that rock. He has a horn to summon assistance, and a sword, and a spear.”
“Odd-looking goats. And why the weapons? Against rustlers?”
“Rustlers?”
“Cattle thieves. Or goat thieves.”
“No. Goat raiding is classed as a military operation, and, in any case, none of the other city-states would dare to violate our borders. We have the Navy, of course, and firearms and armored chariots. They do not. But there’re still the wolves, Peggy, and they’re no respecters of frontiers.”
“H’m. Then I think that you should allow your goatherds to carry at least a rifle. Is it a hazardous occupation?”
“It is, rather. But the schools maintain a steady flow of replacements, mainly from among those who have just failed to make the grade as hoplites.”
“I see. Failed soldiers rather than passed veterinarians.”
They got out of the car and walked slowly into the inn, into a long room with rush-strewn floor, tables and benches, low, raftered ceiling, and a not unpleasant smell of sour wine and cookery. At one end of the room there was an open fire, upon which simmered a huge iron cauldron. The half dozen or so customers—rough-looking fellows, leather-clad, wiry rather than muscular—got slowly to their feet at the sight of Brasidus’ uniform, made reluctant and surly salutation. And then, as they got a proper look at his companion, there was more than a flicker of interest on their dark, seamed faces.
“You may be seated,” Brasidus told them curtly.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” replied one of them, his voice only just short of open insolence.
The taverner—fat, greasy, obsequious—waddled from the back of the room. “Your pleasure, lords?” he asked.
“A flagon of your best wine. And,” added Brasidus, “two of your finest goblets to drink it from. What have you to eat?”
“Only the stew, lord. But it is made from a fine, fat young goat, just this very morning cast off from its father. Or we have sausage—well-ripened and well-seasoned.”
“Peggy?” said Brasidus, with an interrogative intonation.
“The stew will do very nicely. I think. It smells good. And it’s been boiled, so it should be safer . . .”
The innkeeper stared at her. “And may I be so impertinent as to inquire if the lord is from the strange spaceship?”
“You’ve already done so,” Margaret Lazenby told him, then relented. “Yes. I am from the ship.”
“You must find our world very beautiful, lord.”
“Yes. It is beautiful. And interesting.”
Roughly, Brasidus pulled out a bench from a vacant table, almost forced Peggy down onto the seat. “What about that wine?” he growled to the innkeeper.
“Yes, lord. Coming, lord. At once.”
One of the goatherds whispered something to his companions, then chuckled softly. Brasidus glared at the men, ostentatiously loosened the flap of the holster of his projectile pistol. There was an uneasy silence, and then, one by one, the goatherds rose to their feet and slouched out of the room. The Arcadian complained, “I had my recorder going.” She did something to the controls of one of the instruments slung at her side. An amplified voice said loudly, “Since when has the Army been playing nurse to offworld monsters?”
“Insolent swine!”
“Don’t be silly. They’re entitled to their opinions.”
“They’re not. They insulted me.” Then, as an afterthought, “And you.”
“I’ve been called worse things than ‘offworld monster’ in my time. And you’ve ruined their lunchtime session, to say nothing of my chances of making a record of a typical tavern conversation.”
Reluctantly, “I’m sorry.”
“So you damn well should be.”
The innkeeper arrived with a flagon and two goblets. They were mismatched, and they could have been cleaner, but they were of glass, not of earthenware or metal, and of a standard surprising in an establishment such as this. He placed them carefully on the rough surface of the table, then stood there, wine jug in hand, awaiting the word to pour.
“Just a minute,” Margaret Lazenby said. She picked up one of the drinking vessels, examined it. “H’m. Just as I thought.”
“And what did you think, Peggy?”
“Look,” she said, and her pointed, polished fingernail traced the design of the crest etched into the surface of the glass. “A stylized Greek helmet. And under it, easy enough to read after all these years, ‘I.T.T.S. DORIC.’ “
“I.T.T.S.?”
“Interstellar Transport Commission’s Ship.”
“But I thought that your ship belonged to the Interstellar Federation’s Survey Service.”
“It does.”
“But apart from the Latterhaven freighters, no ships but yours have ever called here.”
“Somebody must have. But what about getting these . . . these antiques filled?”
Brasidus gestured to the innkeeper, who, after a second’s hesitation, filled the Arcadian’s glass first. One did not have to be a telepath to appreciate the man’s indecision. Here was a sergeant—and a sergeant in the Police Battalion of the Army at that. Here was an alien, in what might be uniform and what might be civilian clothing. Who ranked whom?
Brasidus lifted his goblet. “To your good health, Peggy.”
“And to yours.” She sipped. “H’m. Not at all bad. Of course, in this setting it should be retsina, and there should be feta and black olives to nibble . . .”
“You will speak in riddles, Peggy.”
“I’m sorry, Brasidus. It’s just that you’re so . . . so human in spite of everything that I keep forgetting that your world has been in isolation for centuries. But suppose we just enjoy the meal?”
And they did enjoy it. Brasidus realized that his own appreciation of it was enhanced by the Arcadian’s obvious delight in the—to her—unfamiliar food and drink. They finished their stew, and then there were ripe, red, gleaming apples—”Like no apples that I’ve ever seen or tasted,” commented Peggy, “but they’ll do. Indeed they will”—and another flagon of wine. When they were done, save for the liquor remaining in the jug, Brasidus wiped his mouth on the back of his right hand, watched with tolerant amusement as his companion patted her lips with a little square of white cloth that she brought from one of her pockets.
She said, “That was good, Brasidus.” From a packet that she produced from a shoulder pouch she half shook two slim brown cylinders. “Smoke?”
“Is this the same stuff that Commander Grimes was burning in that wooden thing like a little trumpet?”
“It is. Yours must be about the only Man-colonized world that hasn’t tobacco. Commander Grimes likes his pipe; I prefer a cigarillo. See—this is the striking end. Just a tap—so. Put the other end in your mouth.” She showed him how, then remarked, as she exhaled a fragrant blue cloud, “I hope that the same doesn’t happen to us as happened to Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“And what did happen?” Brasidus inhaled, then coughed and spluttered violently. He hastily dropped the little cylinder onto his plate. Probably this Sir Walter Raleigh, whoever he was, had been violently ill.
“Sir Walter Raleigh was the Elizabethan explorer who first introduced tobacco into a country called England. He was enjoying his pipe after a meal in an inn, and the innkeeper thought that he was on fire and doused him with a bucket of water.”
“This fat flunkey had better not try it on you!” growled Brasidus.
“I doubt if he’d dare. From what I’ve observed, a sergeant on this planet piles on more G’s than a mere knight in the days of Good Queen Bess.” She laughed through the wreathing, aromatic fumes—then, suddenly serious, said, “We have company.”
Brasidus swung round, his right hand on the butt of his pistol. But it was only the village corporal—a big man in slovenly uniform, his leather unpolished, his brass tarnished. His build, his broad, heavy face were indicative of slowness both physical and mental, but the little gray eyes under the sandy thatch of the eyebrows were shrewd enough.
“Sergeant!” he barked, saluting and stiffening to attention.
“Corporal—at ease! Be seated.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Some wine, Corporal?”
The corporal reached out a long arm to one of the other tables, grabbed an earthenware mug, filled it from the flagon. “Thank you, Sergeant. Your health, Sergeant. And yours, sir.” He drank deeply and noisily. “Ah, that was good. But, Sergeant, my apologies. I should have been on hand to welcome you and . . .” he stared curiously at the Arcadian. “You and your . . . guest?”
“Doctor Lazenby is one of the officers of the starship Seeker.”
“I thought that, Sergeant. Even here there are stories.” The man, Brasidus realized, was staring at the odd mounds of flesh that were very obvious beneath the thin shirt worn by the alien.
“They aren’t concealed weapons,” remarked the Arcadian wryly. “And, in the proper circumstances, they are quite functional.”
The corporal flushed, looked away and addressed himself to his superior. “I was absent from the village, Sergeant, as today is Exposure Day. I had to supervise. But as soon as I was told of your arrival, I hastened back.”
“Exposure Day?” asked Margaret Lazenby sharply.
“Yes,” Brasidus told her. “One of the days on which the newly born—those newly born who are sickly or deformed, that is—are exposed on the mountainside.”
“And what happens to them?”
“Usually the wolves finish them off. But without food or water they’d not last long.”
“You’re joking.” It was an appeal rather than a statement or a question.
“But why should I joke, Peggy? The purity of the race must be maintained.”
She turned to the corporal, her face white, her eyes blazing. “You. Had the wolves come when you left the . . . the Exposure?”
“No, sir. But they’re never long in hearing the cries and winding the scent.”
She was on her feet, pushing her bench away so violently that it toppled with a crash. “Get a move on, Brasidus. If we hurry, we may still be in time.”
Brasidus was sickened by her reactions, by her words. Exposure was necessary, but it was not something to take pictures of, to make records of. As well join the scavengers in their filth-eating rounds of the city streets.
“Come on!” she flared.
“No,” he said stubbornly. “I’ll not help you to make a film that you and your shipmates can gloat over.”
“Make a film? “ Her voice was incredulous. “You fool. We may be in time to save them.”
And then it was Brasidus’ turn to experience a wave of incredulity.