Not so. Everyone knew what those costumes meant, and more. I was at the buffet, sopping up brandy and a Dagwood of my own invention, when I was cornered by Schherazade’s sister, the pretty one. She was of one of the human-but-not-like-us races. She was dressed in rubies the size of your thumb and reasonably opaque cloth. She stood about five-five, barefooted, weighed maybe one twenty and her waist couldn’t have been over fifteen inches, which exaggerated two other measurements that did not need it. She was brunette, with the slantiest eyes I’ve ever seen. She looked like a beautiful cat and looked at me the way a cat looks at a bird.
“Self,” she announced.
“Speak.”
“Sverlani. World–” (Name and code–I had never heard of it.) “Student food designer, mathematicosybaritic.”
“Oscar Gordon. Earth. Soldier.” I omitted the I.D. for Earth; she knew who I was.
“Questions?”
“Ask.”
“Is sword?”
“Is.”
She looked at it and her pupils dilated, “Is-was sword destroy construct guard Egg?” (“Is this sword now present the direct successor in space-time sequential change, aside from theoretical anomalies involved in between-universe transitions, of the sword used to loll the Never-Born?” The double tense of the verb, present-past, stipulates and brushes aside the concept that identity is a meaningless abstraction–is this the sword you actually used, in the everyday meaning, and don’t kid me, soldier. I’m no child.)
“Was-is,” I agreed. (“I was there and I guarantee that I followed it all the way here, so it still is.”)
She gave a little gasp and her nipples stood up. Around each was painted, or perhaps tattooed, the multi-universal design we call “Wall of Troy”–and so strong was her reaction that Ileum’s ramparts crumbled again.
“Touch?” she said pleadingly.
“Touch.”
“Touch twice?” (“Please, may I handle it enough to get the feel of it? Pretty please, with sugar on it! I ask too much and it is your right to refuse, but I guarantee not to hurt it”–they get mileage out of words, but the flavor is in the manner.)
I didn’t want to, not the Lady Vivamus. But I’m a sucker for pretty girls. “Touch . . . twice,” I grudged. I drew it and handed it to her guard foremost, alert to grab it before she put somebody’s eye out or stabbed herself in the foot.
She accepted it gingerly, eyes and mouth big, grasping it by the guard instead of the grip. I had to show her. Her hand was far too small for it; her hands and feet, like her waist, were ultra slender.
She spotted the inscription. “Means?”
Dum vivimus, vivamus doesn’t translate well, not because they can’t understand the idea but because it’s water to a fish. How else would one live? But I tried. “Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.”
She nodded thoughtfully, then poked the air, wrist bent and elbow out. I couldn’t stand it, so I took it from her, dropped slowly into a foil guard, lunged in high line, recovered–a move so graceful that big hairy men look good in it. It’s why ballerinas study fencing.
I saluted and gave it back to her, then adjusted her right elbow and wrist and left arm–this is why ballerinas get half rates, it’s fun for the swordmaster. She lunged, almost pinking a guest in his starboard ham.
I took it back, wiped the blade, sheathed it. We had gathered a solid gallery. I picked up my Dagwood from the buffet, but she wasn’t done with me. “Self jump sword?”
I choked. If she understood the meaning–or if I did–I was being propositioned the most gently I had ever been, in Center. Usually it’s blunt. But surely Star hadn’t spread the details of our wedding ceremony? Rufo? I hadn’t told him but Star might have.
When I didn’t answer, she made herself clear and did not keep her voice down. “Self unvirgin unmother unpregnant fertile.”
I explained as politely as the language permits, which isn’t very, that I was dated up. She dropped the subject, looked at the Dagwood. “Bite touch taste?”
That was another matter; I passed it over. She took a hearty bite, chewed thoughtfully, looked pleased. “Xenic. Primitive. Robust. Strong dissonance. Good art.” Then she drifted away, leaving me wondering.