He snapped down his goggles. Some of the big men crowding about him wore chain armor, but he preferred a cuirass of harden leather, Mong style; it was nearly as strong and a lot lighter. He was armed with a pistol, but had more faith in his battle ax. An archer could shoot almost as fast as a gun, as accurately—and firearms were getting fabulously expensive to operate as sulfur sources dwindled.
He felt a tightness which was like being a little boy again, opening presents on Midwinter Morning. Oktai knew what treasures he would find, of gold, cloth, tools, slaves, of battle and high deeds and eternal fame. Possibly death. Someday he was sure to die in combat: he had sacrificed so much to his josses, they wouldn’t grudge him war-death and a chance to be reborn as a Sky Man.
“Let’s go!” he said.
He sprang up on a gallery rail and over. For a moment the world pinwheeled, now the city was on top and now again his Buffalo streaked past. Then he pulled the ripcord and his harness slammed him to steadiness. Around him it bloomed with scarlet parachutes. He gauged the wind and tugged a line, guiding himself down.
U
Don Miwel Carabán, calde of S’ AntOn d’ Inio, arranged a lavish feast for his Maurai guests. It was not only that this was a historic occasion, which might even mark a turning point in the long decline. (Don Miwel, being that rare combination, a practical man who could read, knew that the withdrawal of Perio troops to Brasil twenty years ago was not a “temporary adjustment.” They would never come back. The outer provinces were on their own.) But the strangers must be convinced that they had found a nation rich, strong, and basically civilized: that it was worthwhile visiting the Meycan coasts to trade, ultimately to make alliance against the northern savages.
The banquet lasted till nearly midnight. Though some of the old irrigation canals had choked up and never been repaired, so that cactus and rattlesnake housed in abandoned pueblos, Meyco Province was still fertile. The slant-eyed Mong horsemen from Tekkas had killed off innumerable peons when they raided five years back; wooden pitchforks and obsidian hoes were small use against saber and arrow. It would be another decade before population was back to normal and the periodic famines resumed. Thus Don Miwel offered many courses, beef, spiced ham, olives, fruits, wines, nuts, coffee, which last the Sea People were unfamiliar with and didn’t much care for, et cetera. Entertainment followed—music, jugglers, a fencing exhibition by some of the young nobles.
At this point the surgeon of the Dolphin, who was rather drunk, offered to show an Island dance. Muscular beneath tattoos, his brown form went through a series of contortions which pursed the lips of the dignified Dons. Miwel himself remarked, “It reminds me somewhat of our peons’ fertility rites,” with a strained courtesy that suggested to Captain Ruori Rangi Lohannaso that peons had an altogether different and not very nice culture.
The surgeon threw back his queue and grinned. “Now let’s bring
the ship’s wahines ashore to give them a real hula,” he said in Maurai-Ingliss.
“No,” answered Ruori. “I feaf we may have shocked them already. The proverb goes, ‘When in the Solmon Islands, darken your skin.’”
“I don’t think they know how to have any fun,” complained the doctor.
“We don’t yet know what the taboos are,” warned Ruori. “Let us be as grave, then, as these spike-bearded men, and not laugh or make love until we are back on shipboard among our wahines.”
“But it’s stupid! Shark-toothed Nan eat me if I’m going to—”
“Your ancestors are ashamed,” said Ruori. It was about as sharp a rebuke as you could give a man whom you didn’t intend to fight. He softened his tone to take out the worst sting, but the doctor had to shut up. Which he did, mumbling an apology and retiring with his blushes to a dark corner beneath faded murals.
Ruori turned back to his host. “I beg your pardon, S’flor,” he said, using the local tongue. “My men’s command of Spaflol is even less than my own.” –