“Yes, sir!”
Memtok paused on the way out and patted the loin of a stripling buck carcass. “That’s what I would call a nice piece of meat. Eh, Hugh?”
“Beautiful,” Hugh agreed with a straight face. “Your nephew, perhaps? Or just a son?”
There was frozen silence. Nobody moved except that Memtok seemed to grow taller. He raised his whip of authority most slightly, no more than tightening his thumbless grip.
Then he grimaced and gave a dry chuckle. “Cousin Hugh, your well-known wit will be the death of me yet. That’s a good one. Gnou, remind me to tell that this evening.”
The Chef agreed and chuckled, the engineer roared. Memtok gave his cold little laugh again. “I’m afraid I can’t claim the honor, Hugh. All of these critters are ranch bred, not one of them is a cousin of ours. Yes, I know how it is in some households, but Their Charity considers it unspeakably vulgar to serve a house servant, even in cases of accidental death-.- And besides, it makes the servants restless.”
“Commendable.”
“Yes. It is gratifying to serve one who is a stickler for propriety. Enough, enough, time is wasting. Walk back with me, Hugh.”
Once they were clear of the rest Memtok said, “You were saying?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come, come, you’re absentminded today. Something about Their Charity not being in residence.”
“Oh, yes. Memtok, could you, as a special favor to me, let me know the minute Their Charity returns? Whether officially in residence or not? Not petition anything for me. Just let me know.” Damn it, with time pouring away like life through a severed artery his only course might be a belly-scraping apology to Joe, then get Joe to intercede.
“No,” said Memtok. “No, I don’t think I can.”
“I beg your pardon? Has this one offended you?”
“You mean that witticism? Heaven, no! Some might find it vulgar and one bullock gets you three that if you had told it in sluts’ quarters some of them would have fainted. But if there is one thing I pride myself on, Hugh, it’s my sense of humor- and any day I can’t see a joke simply because I am the butt of it, I’ll petition to turn in my whip. No, it was simply my turn to have a little joke at your expense. I said, ‘I don’t think I can.’ That is a statement of two meanings-a double-meaning joke, follow me? I don’t think I can tell you when Their Charity returns because he has sent word to me that he is not returning. So you’ll see him next at the Palace . . . and I promise I’ll let you know when he’s in residence.” The Chief Domestic dug him in the ribs. “I wish you had seen your own face. My joke wasn’t nearly as sharp as yours. But your jaw dropped. Very comical.”
Hugh excused himself, went to his rooms, took an extra bath, a most thorough one, then simply thought until dinnertime. He braced himself for the ordeal of dinner with a carefully measured dose of Happiness-not enough to affect him later, strong enough to carry him through dinner, now that he knew why “pork” appeared so often on the menu of the Chosen. He suspected that the pork served to servants was really pork. But he intended to eat no more bacon nevertheless. Nor ham, nor pork chops, nor sausage. In fact he might turn vegetarian-at least until they were free in the mountains and it was eat game or starve.
But with a shot of Happiness inside him he was able to smile when Memtok tasted the roast for upstairs and to say, “Greasy?”
“Worse than usual. Taste it.”
“No, thanks. I knew it would be. I would cook up better than that-though no doubt I would be terribly stringy. And tough. Though perhaps Cousin Gnou could tenderize me.”
Memtok laughed until he choked. “Oh, Hugh, don’t ever be that funny while I’m swallowing! You’ll kill me yet.”
“This one hopes not.” Hugh toyed with the beef on his plate, pushed it aside and ate a few nuts.
He was very busy that evening, writing long after Kitten was asleep. It had become utterly necessary to reach Barbara secretly, yet his only means was the insecure route through Kitten. The problem was to write to Barbara in a code that only she could read, and which she would see as a code without having been warned and without the code being explained to her-and yet one which was safe from others. But the double-talk mixture he had last sent her would not do; he was now going to have to give her detailed instructions, ones where it really mattered if she missed a word or failed to guess a concealed meaning.