“What does ‘immodest’ mean?” he inquired.
She blushed and tried to explain, without success. Ruori decided it was another local concept which the Sea People lacked. By that time the Meycan girls and their cavaliers were out on the ballroom floor. He studied them for a moment. “The motions are unknown to me,” he said, “but I think I could soon learn.”
She slipped into his arms. It was a pleasant contact, even though nothing would come of it. “You do very well,” she said after a minute. “Are all your folk so graceful?”
Only later did he realize it was a compliment for which he should have thanked her; being an Islander, he took it at face value as a question and replied, “Most of us spend a great deal of time on the water. A sense of balance and rhythm must be developed or one is likely to fall into the sea.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh stop,” she laughed. “You’re as solemn as S’ Osé in the cathedral.”
Ruori grinned back. He was a tall young man, brown as all his race but with the gray eyes which many bore in memory of Ingliss
ancestors. Being a N’Zealanner, he was not tattooed as lavishly as some Federation men. On the other hand, he had woven a whalebone filigree into his queue, his sarong was the finest batik, and he had added thereto a fringed shirt. His knife, without which a Maurai felt obscenely helpless, was in contrast: old, shabby until you saw the blade, a tool.
“I must see this god 5’ Osd,” he said. “Will you show me? Or no, I would not have eyes for a mere statue.”
“How long will you stay?” she asked.
“As long as we can. We are supposed to explore the whole Meycan coast. Hitherto the only Maurai contact with the Men-ken continent has been one voyage from Awaii to Calforni. They found desert and a few savages. We have heard from Okkaidan traders that there are forests still further north, where yellow and white men strive against each other. But what lies south of Calforni was unknown to us until this expedition was sent out. Perhaps you can tell us what to expect in Su-Merika.”
“Little enough by now,” she sighed, “even in Brasil.”
“Ah, but lovely roses bloom, in Meyco.”
Her humor returned. “And flattering words in N’Zealann,” she chuckled.
“Far from it. We are notoriously straightforward. Except, of course, when yarning about voyages we have made.”
“What yarns will you tell about this one?”
“Not many, lest all the young men of the Federation come crowding here. But I will take you aboard my ship, Doñita, and show you to the compass. Thereafter it will always point toward 5’ AntOn d’ Inio. You will be, so to speak, my compass rose.”
Somewhat to his surprise, she understood, and laughed. She led him across the floor, supple between his hands.
Thereafter, as the night wore on, they danced together as much as decency allowed, or a bit more, and various foolishness which concerned no one else passed between them. Toward sunrise the orchestra was dismissed and the guests, hiding yawns behind well-bred hands, began to take their departure.
“How dreary to stand and receive farewells,” whispered Tresa.
“Let them think I went to bed already.” She took Ruori’s hand and slipped behind a column and so out on to abalcony. An old serving woman, stationed to act as duenna for couples that wandered out, had wrapped up in her mantle against the cold and fallen asleep. Otherwise the two were alone among jasmines. Mists floated around the palace and blurred the city; far off rang the “Todos buen” of pikemen tramping the outer walls. Westward the balcony faced darkness, where the last stars glittered. The seven tall topmasts of the Maurai Dolphin caught the earliest sun and glowed.
Tresa shivered and stood close to Ruoni. They did not speak for a while.
“Remember us,” she said at last, very low. “When you are back with your own happier people, do not forget us here.”
“How could I?” he answered, no longer in jest.
“You have so much more than we,” she said wistfully. “You have told me how your ships can sail unbelievably fast, almost into the wind. How your fishers always fill their nets, how your whale ranchers keep herds that darken the water, how you even farm the ocean for food and fiber and—” she fingered the shimmering material of his shirt. “You told me this was made by craft out of fishbones. You told me that every family has its own spacious house and every member of it, almost, his own boat. . . that even small children on the loneliest island can read, and own printed books . . . that you have none of the sicknesses which destroy us. . . that no one hungers and all are free— Oh, do not forget us, you on whom el DIo has smiled!”