To Masurathoo’s very great surprise, he gave vent to what he was feeling. It was most atypical of him, and he was startled by his own audacity.
“I—I don’t like you, sir. Not even a little bit.”
Hasa looked up over his cup. Though promulgated by such small eyes, Masurathoo noted, an unbroken human stare could be exceedingly unnerving.
Tossing aside the remnants of his coffee, Hasa laughed loudly, indifferent to whatever menacing creatures lurked nearby that his voice might alert.
“Well, I’ll be damned! Somebody once told me a few of you baby-butt skinned shopkeepers had guts. I didn’t believe ’em. Glad to be corrected.” He indicated the side arm that lay among the Deyzara’s clothes. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to use that. I’d like to think that the next time some purple-pussed fiend drops out of the trees on top of us, you’d be able to save my ass for a change.”
It took Masurathoo a moment to classify the colloquialism. “I would think, sir, you would have a greater care for your brain.”
For some unknown reason, this set the human to laughing again, much harder this time.
Hasa had settled down by the time Jemunu-jah returned. In his long, thin arms the Sakuntala carried more than a dozen sausage-sized lumps of dark blue flesh. Tiny cilialike feet allowed them to creep slowly over and around one another, forcing the Sakuntala to continuously turn back one creature after another lest it crawl out of his arms. Dozens of what appeared to be glass tubes protruded from their backs.
Carefully he set them down underneath the branch that held the two sets of clothing, human and Deyzara.