Дэймон Найт - Orbit 12

“What?” Nert was still recovering from his fear. “Who are you?”

“I’m Arvin.” He waited a moment and when Nert didn’t respond, went on, “the Moretam?” He flapped his wing membranes slowly, as if that would explain everything.

“Strange name for a hurricane. What do you want?”

“Don’t you know?”

“How should I—”

“What are you, a numby or something?”

“A what?”

“A policeman.” Arvin levitated his head a little and looked around.

“No. What do you want?”

Arvin spoke directly into Nert’s earhole. Someone two feet away couldn’t have heard them. “Kwishing,” was all he said.

“Frooth save you.”

“What?”

“You cleared your breathing tract and I said, ‘Frooth saveyou.’”

The Moretam flew around Nert’s head a few times, his long body dangling limply below his wings, and settled on Nert’s other arm. “Frooth and breathing tracts have nothing to do with it. Haven’t you ever heard of lavishing?”

“No.” Nert shook his arm violently and started to walk, hoping to give Arvin the idea that he wasn’t interested in kwishing, no matter what it was. If the Moretam wanted to sell him something, he’d made a bad start. Nert came from a planet where high winds blow the razor-sharp flowers off the jelbum tree and whip them through the air at tremendous and dangerous speeds. His race had adapted to that by getting as close to the ground as possible and shielding their eyes during windstorms. Usually Nert was able to control his reaction, but he could not when the wind came as suddenly as it had.

Arvin said, “How can you say no if you don’t know nothing about it?” Nert jumped onto the slideway behind a windscreen. “I don’t want to know,” he said. “It isn’t necessary that I know.” He ignored the Moretam and watched the city flinging itself backward around him.

“You’re here for a good time, right?”

After a moment Nert admitted that he was.

“Well then, you’re here for kwishing.”

They passed a large rorschach building proclaiming in letters slithering across the facade that inside were prepared the most unusual foods in the galaxy: BOILED GREEB, OUR SPECIALTY. Nert leaped off the slideway and went into the restaurant. He sat down at a long counter and said to the waiter, “One boiled greeb, please.” The waiter was a mobile pair of antlers with eyes and small sets of tentacles arranged apparently at random on the points. It said, “Yeth, thir,” and clattered away on its innumerable stiff limbs.

Nert took a thick booklet from the pouch slung around his neck and turned to the index. “Let’s see,” he said. “Kwishing . . . kwishing . . .” Arvin said, “You won’t find it,” and began to scratch under one of his wings with his teeth.

At last Nert said, “Here is it. wishing, along with sprinkling mittlebran, is one of the few illegal activities on Spangle. It consists of electronically turning a being inside out through the fourth dimension. Frequently the initial change is free, while the operator (usually, though not always, a Moretam) charges a high price to change the victim back. Though seriously disorienting to most other beings, this treatment is no more than mildly stimulating to the Moretam, and if necessary they can even change themselves back without any mechanical help.’“

Arvin had tried to leave when Nert began to read, but Nert grabbed him just behind the head and held him despite all Arvin could do. Nert snapped the book shut and slowly put it away. “What am I going to do with you?” He shook the Moretam.

“You could let me go.” It was almost a question.

“If Herbie were here, he’d know what to do.”

“Herbie?”

A policeman, a round, stringy ball, more like a tumbleweed with an official stick-pin as an axis than a minion of the law, rolled in. Nert and Arvin watched, one with indecision, the other with fear, as he came to rest two seats away from them. Arvin’s wings rested lightly on his body as if he were about to take flight

The policeman rustled. “Something the matter?” It was impossible to tell which way he was facing. Maybe he faced in all directions at once.

Arvin looked at Nert. Nert let go of him and said, “No. Nothing. Is there?”

“No. No, no,” Arvin said, eyes wet with thanks.

“Good to hear it.” A waiter, ticking against the floor as he walked, approached the policeman. They got into an animated discussion about something called creetoth. The policeman finally ordered one, and the waiter went away.

Another waiter stopped in front of Nert with a large pan balanced among his horns like a nest in a tree. It was filled with a hot violet liquid surrounding white doughy lumps. Floating in it was something that looked very much like a small version of Herbie. Small black spots were crawling all over it, and it smelled like unprocessed waste material. Nert said, “What’s that?”

“Boiled greeb. Best in the galaxy.”

Putting down a few bills, Nert said, “You eat it. My compliments.” He left with Arvin still coiled around his arm.

When they were outside, Arvin said, “Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?” Nert began to walk slowly toward Amusement Central.

“You know. You could have turned me in. The numbies are ready to believe almost anything about Moretams, especially when it comes to kwishing.” He flew around to Nert’s other arm.

Nert said, “You don’t understand. I wasn’t angry about you trying to sell me on kwishing. That’s your business. I was upset first about the hurricane you made when you found me, and second that you wouldn’t tell me what kwishing is.”

Arvin buried his head under a wing. He said, “You never asked.”

“I did “

“You didn’t, but all right I owe you a favor.”

“No, you don’t. Why should I care how many silly beings you sell on kwishing? Besides, if I’d reported you, I’d have to wait around until the trial. I might never get off this rock.” He’d heard Herbie call planets “rocks” and the word had a professional and rough-and-tumble sound that Nert liked.

“I still owe you a favor.”

They traveled in silence for a while. Nert thought about Herbie back in the hotel room, missing all this excitement. He was probably all right, but Nert couldn’t be sure, and he was still worried.

Maybe Arvin knew a good doctor. In a city this size Nert might search for days before he found one he could trust. If Arvin told him, that would take care of two things: It would cancel the debt before Arvin forgot there was one, and it might save Herbie’s life—if it needed saving.

Nert told Arvin what he wanted. Arvin said, “A doctor? Sure, I know a doctor. For you?”

“No. It’s for my friend Herbie.” Nert explained his friend’s condition.

Arvin said, “It sounds serious. Come on, well go there right now.” He unwound himself from Nert’s arm and flew down a side street so quickly that Nert couldn’t see him until he stopped and hung in midair, his wings a blur.

“I can’t follow if you go that fast. Why don’t you just give me directions and I’ll find the place myself?”

“Ever been on Spangle before?”

“No.”

“Then I better stay with you. There’s all kinds of characters who would take advantage of a new Blue.” Arvin settled back around Nert’s arm and said, “All right, straight ahead.”

Arvin led him away from Amusement Central and down increasingly dark and narrow streets. It was a good thing Nert had not insisted he go alone, because he was already lost many times over. They were in a part of town Nert never would have gone to alone, and he felt none too safe even with Arvin around. The farther from Amusement Central they went, the fewer brightly lit buildings there were, and soon it was not unusual to see an entire block of dark buildings crouching beside the street like a line of ragged beggars.