boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

510 Anthony Boucher and Miriam Allen deFord
“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 plas-
tic, 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 interestinglooking
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