Space Magic (19 page)

He drummed his fingers on the countertop and fidgeted while he waiting for the server to appear. Say what you like about these creatures, they were unfailingly polite, and prompt. Usually. But not here, apparently. Finally, frustrated, he got up to leave. But as he was putting on his jacket, trying to steel himself for the crowd outside, he caught another whiff of that baked-potato smell. He turned back to the other customer, still sitting quietly. “No menu. No server. Hungry. How order?”

The alien did not turn. “Sit quietly. With peace comes fulfillment.” Its voice was a low susurration, not as harsh as most of the others he’d heard.

With peace comes fulfillment? Walker opened his mouth for a sarcastic reply, but found his grammar wasn’t up to the task. And he was hungry. And the food smelled good. So he took off his jacket and sat down again.

He sat with back straight and hands folded, staring at the swirled brown and cream colors of the wall in front of him. It might have come from Amber Stone’s factory, produced by a huge genetically-modified life form that ate garbage and shat building supplies. He tried not to think about it too much... The aliens’ biotechnology made him queasy.

Looking at the wall, he thought about what it would take to sell Amber Stone’s products on Earth. They couldn’t be any more incomprehensible to him than the software he had been sent here to sell, and as his father always said, “A good salesman can sell anything.” Though with three failed jobs and a failed marriage behind him, he was no longer sure that description had ever really fit him. No matter, he was too old to change careers now. The most he could hope for now was to stay alive until he could afford to retire. Get off the treadmill, buy a little house in the woods, walk the dog, maybe go fishing...

Walker’s reverie was interrupted when the other customer rose from its squatting-post and walked around the counter to stand in front of him. “Greetings,” it said. “This one welcomes the peaceful visitor to the Spirit of Life.”

Walker sputtered. “You... you server?”

“All serve the Spirit of Life, well or poorly, whether they understand it or not. This one serves food as well. The visitor is hungry?”

“Yes!” Walker’s head throbbed. Was the alien laughing at him?

“Then this one will bring food. When peace is attained, satisfaction follows.” It vanished through the door behind the counter.

Walker fumed, but he tried to wait peacefully. Soon the alien returned with a steaming pot, and ladled out a portion into the indentation in front of Walker. It looked like chunks of purple carrot and pale-yellow potato in a saffron-colored sauce, and it smelled wonderful. It tasted wonderful, too. A little strange, maybe—the purple carrots were bitter and left an odd aftertaste—but it had a complex flavor and was warm and filling. Walker spooned up every bit of it.

“Very good,” he said to the server, which had returned to its previous station in front of the counter. “How much?”

It spread its hands and said “This establishment serves the Spirit of Life. Any donation would be appropriate.” It pointed to a glass jar on the counter, which contained a small pile of money.

Walker considered. How much of his limited funds could he spare? Yesterday’s lunch had cost him five and a half. This place, and the food, were much plainer. But it was the single best meal he had eaten in weeks. Finally he chose a seven from his pocket, scanned it with his reader to make sure, and dropped it in the jar.

“This one thanks the peaceful guest. Please return.”

Walker gave an awkward little bow, then pushed through the restaurant’s labia into the nightmare of the street.

-o0o-

Walker waved his room key, a twisted brown stick reeking with complex pheromones, at the hotel desk clerk. “Key no work,” he said. “No let me in.”

The clerk took the key, ran its fingers over it to read the codes. “Ah. Yes. This most humble one must apologize.
Fthshpk
starts tomorrow.”

“What is
Fthshpk
?”

“Ah. Yes. This humble one has been so unkind as to forget that the most excellent guest is not familiar with the poor customs of this humble locale.
Fthshpk
is a religious political holiday. A small and insignificant celebration by our guest’s most elevated standards, to be sure.”

“So why it not work, the key?”

“Humble though it may be,
Fthshpk
is very important to the poor folk of the outlying regions. They come to the city in great numbers. This humble room has long been promised to such as these. And surely the most honored guest does not wish to share it?”

“No...” The room was tiny enough for Walker alone. And he didn’t want to find out how some of the equipment in the toilet-room was used.

“Indeed. So this most humble establishment, in a poor attempt to satisfy the most excellent human guest, has moved the guest’s belongings to another room.” It held out a new key, identical in appearance to the old one.

Walker took the key. “Where is?”

“Three levels down. Most cozy and well-protected.”

The new room was larger than the old one, having two separate antechambers of unknown function. But the rounded ceiling was terribly low—though Walker could stand up straight in the middle of the room, he had to crouch everywhere else—and the lighting was dim, the heat and humidity desperately oppressive, and everything in the room stank of the aliens.

He lay awake for hours, staring into the sweltering darkness.

-o0o-

In the morning, he discovered that his shaver and some other things had vanished in the move. When he complained at the front desk, he got nothing but effusive, meaningless praise—oh yes, the most wonderful guest must be correct, our criminal staff is surely at fault—and a bill for the previous night’s stay.

“Three hundred eighty-three!”

“The usual
Fthshpk
rate for our highest-quality suite is five hundred sixty-one. This most inadequate establishment has already offered a substantial reduction, out of respect for the highly esteemed guest and the unfortunate circumstances.”

“Highest-quality suite? Too hot! Too dark! Too low!”

“Ah. Yes. The most excellent guest has unique tastes. Alas, this poor room is considered the most preferential in the hotel. The heat and light are praised by our other, sadly unenlightened, customers. These most lowly ones find it comforting.”

“I not have so much money. You take interstellar credit? Bank draft?”

The clerk’s gills stopped pulsing and it drew back a step, going
tk’tk’tk
. “Surely this humble one has misheard the most honored guest, for to offer credit during
Fthshpk
would be a most grave insult.”

Walker licked his lips. Though the lobby was sweltering hot, suddenly he felt chilled. “Can pay after holiday?” He would have to find some other source of local currency.

Tk’tk’tk
. “If the most honored visitor will please be patient...” The clerk vanished.

Walker talked with the front desk manager, the chief hotelier, and the
thkfsh
, whatever that was, but behind the miasma of extravagant politeness was a cold hard wall of fact: he would pay for the room, he would pay in cash, and he would pay now.

“This establishment extends its most sincere apologies for the honored guest’s unfortunate situation,” said the
thkfsh
, which was dark yellow with green spine-tips and eyes. “However, even in this most humble city, payment for services rendered is required by both custom and law.”

Walker had already suffered from the best the city had to offer—he was terrified of what he might find in the local jail. “I no have enough money. What can I do?”

“Perhaps the most honored guest would consider temporarily lending some personal possessions to the hotel?”

Walker remembered how he had sold his voice recorder. “Lend? For indefinite period?”

Tk’tk’tk
. “The honored guest is most direct and forthright.”

Walker thought about what they might want that he could spare. Not his phone, or his reader. “Interest in clothes? Shoes?”

“The highly perceptive guest will no doubt have noticed that the benighted residents of this city have not yet learned to cover themselves in this way.”

Walker sighed, and opened his briefcase. Mostly papers, worthless or confidential or both. “Paper fastening device,” he said, holding up his stapler. “Earth technology. Nothing like it for sixty-five light years.”

“Surely such an item is unique and irreplaceable,” said the
thkfsh
. “To accept the loan of this fine device would bring shame upon this humble establishment. However, the traveling-box...”

“Not understanding.”

The
thkfsh
touched the scuffed leather of Walker’s briefcase. “This traveling-box. It is most finely made.”

Walker’s chest tightened. “This humble object... only a box. Not worth anything.”

“The surface has a most unusual and sublime flavor. And the texture is unlike anything this unworthy one has touched.”

Desperately, Walker dug under papers for something, anything else. He found a pocket umbrella. “This, folding rain-shield. Most useful. Same technology used in expanding solar panels.”

“The honored visitor’s government would surely object to the loan of such sensitive technology. But the traveling-box is, as the visitor says, only a box. Its value and interest to such a humble one as myself are far greater than its value to the exalted guest.”

Walker’s fingernails bit into his palms. “Box has... personal value. Egg-parent’s egg-parent used it.”

“How delightful! For the temporary loan of such a fine and significant object, this establishment might be willing to forgive the most worthy visitor’s entire debt.”

It’s only a briefcase, Walker thought. It’s not worth going to jail for. But his eyes stung as he emptied it out and placed its contents in a cheap extruded carry-bag.

-o0o-

Unshaven, red-eyed, Walker left the hotel carrying all his remaining possessions: a suitcase full of clothes and the carry-bag. He had less than a hundred in cash in his pockets, and no place to spend the night.

Harsh sunlight speared into his eyes from a flat blue sky. Even at this hour of the morning, the heat was already enough to make sweat spring from his skin. And the streets swarmed with aliens—more of them, in greater variety, and more excited than he had ever seen before.

A group of five red-and-black laborers, each over two and a half meters tall, waded through the crowd singing—or at least chattering rhythmically in unison. A swarm of black juveniles crawled over them in the opposite direction, flinging handfuls of glittering green rings into the air. All around, aliens large and small spun in circles, waving their hands in the air. Some pounded drums or wheedled on high-pitched flutes.

A yellow merchant with black spines grabbed Walker’s elbows and began spinning the two of them around, colliding with walls and with other members of the crowd. The merchant chattered happily as they spun, but its words were lost in the maelstrom of sound that surrounded them. “Let go! Let go!” Walker shouted, clutching his suitcase and his bag as he tried to squirm away, but the merchant couldn’t hear—or wasn’t listening—and its chitinous hands were terribly strong.

Finally Walker managed to twist out of the merchant’s grasp, only to spin away and collide with one of the hulking laborers. Its unyielding spines tore Walker’s jacket.

The laborer stopped chanting and turned to face Walker. It grasped his shoulders, turned him side to side. “What are you?” it shouted. Its breath was fetid.

“Visitor from Earth,” Walker shouted back, barely able to hear himself.

The laborer called to its companions, which had moved on through the crowd. They fought their way back, and the five of them stood around him, completely blocking the light.

“This one is a visitor from
h’th
,” said the first laborer.

One of the others grabbed a handful of green rings from a passing juvenile, scattered them over Walker’s head and shoulders. They watched him expectantly.

“Thank you?” he said. But that didn’t seem to be what they wanted.

The first laborer cuffed Walker on the shoulder, sending him reeling into one of the others. “The visitor is not very polite,” it said. The aliens loomed close around him.

“This-most-humble-one-begs-the-honored-one’s-forgiveness,” Walker chattered out, clutching the carry-bag to his chest, wishing for the lost solidity of his grandfather’s briefcase. But the laborers ignored his apology and began to twirl him around, shouting in unison.

After a few dozen spins he made out the words of the chant: “Rings, dance! Rings, dance!” Desperately, not at all sure he was doing the right thing, he tried to dance in circles as he had seen some of the aliens do.

The laborers pulled the bag from Walker’s hands and began to stomp their feet. “Rings, dance! Rings, dance!” Walker waved his arms in the air as he spun, chanting along with them. His breath came in short pants, destroying his pronunciation.

He twirled, gasping “rings, dance,” until he felt the hot sun on his head, and twirled a while longer until he understood what that sun meant: the laborers, and their shade, had deserted him. He was spinning for no reason, in the middle of a crowd that took no notice. He stopped turning and dropped his arms, weaving with dizziness and relief. But the relief lasted only a moment—sudden panic seized him as he realized his arms were empty.

There was the carry-bag, just a meter away, lying in the dirt surrounded by chitinous alien feet. He plowed through the crowd and grabbed it before it got too badly stomped.

But though he searched for an hour, he never found the suitcase.

-o0o-

Walker leaned, panting, against the outside wall of Amber Stone’s factory. He had fought through the surging streets for hours, hugging the bag to his chest under his tightly-buttoned jacket, to reach this point. Again and again he had been sprinkled with green rings and had danced in circles, feeling ridiculous, but not wanting to find out what might happen if he refused. He was hot and sweaty and filthy.

The still-damp pheromone line drawn across the office’s labia read CLOSED FOR
FTHSHPK
.