Will I ever think of them as muck?
It could only happen if he let it happen, he knew. But the temptation was there and he allowed himself a brief commiseration for the Honored Matres. Great Temptation had toppled them into their own muck.
What to do now?
The main line lay open to him. There was a man here in Ysai, one man who would be sure to know everyone Teg required. Teg looked around the alley. Yes, that man was near.
The fragrance of flowers and herbs wafted to Teg from somewhere down this alley. He moved toward this fragrance, aware that it led him where he needed to go and that no violent attack awaited him here. This was, temporarily, a quiet backwater.
He came to the fragrant source quickly. It was an inset doorway marked by a blue awning with two words on it in modern Galach: “Personal Service.”
Teg entered and saw immediately what he had found. They were to be seen at many places in the Old Empire: eating establishments harking back to ancient times, eschewing automata from kitchen to table. Most of them were “in” establishments. You told friends about your latest “discovery” with an admonition to them not to spread the word.
“Don’t want to spoil it with crowding.”
This idea had always amused Teg. You spread the word about such places but you did it under the guise of keeping a secret.
Mouth-watering odors of cooking emerged from the kitchen at the rear. A waiter passed bearing a tray from which steam lifted, carrying the promise of good things.
A young woman in a short black dress with a white apron came up to him. “This way, sir. We have a table open in the corner.”
She held a chair for him to be seated with his back to the wall. “Someone will be with you in a moment, sir.” She passed him a stiff sheet of cheap double-thickness paper. “Our menu is printed. I hope you won’t mind.”
He watched her leave. The waiter he had seen passed going the other way toward the kitchen. The tray was empty.
Teg’s feet had led him here as though he had been running on a fixed track. And there was the man he required, dining nearby.
The waiter had stopped to talk to the man Teg knew held the answer to the next moves required here. The two were laughing together. Teg scanned the rest of the room: only three other tables occupied. An older woman sat at a table in the far corner nibbling at some frosty confection. She was dressed in what Teg thought must be the peak of current fashion, a clinging short red gown cut low at the neck. Her shoes matched. A young couple sat at a table off to his right. They saw no one except each other. An older man in a tightly fitted old-fashioned brown tunic ate sparingly of a green vegetable dish near the door. He had eyes only for his food.
The man talking to the waiter laughed loudly.
Teg stared at the back of the waiter’s head. Tufts of blond hair sprang from the nape of the waiter’s neck like broken bunches of dead grass. The man’s collar was frayed beneath the tufted hair. Teg lowered his gaze. The waiter’s shoes were run over at the heels. The hem of his black jacket had been darned. Was it thrift in this place? Thrift or some other form of economic pressure? The odors from the kitchen did not suggest any stinting there. The tableware was shining and clean. No cracked dishes. But the striped red and white cloth on the table had been darned in several places, care taken to match the original fabric.
Once more, Teg studied the other customers. They looked substantial. None of the starving poor in this place. Teg had it registered then. Not only was this an “in” place, somebody had designed it for just that effect. There was a clever mind behind such an establishment. This was the kind of restaurant that rising young executives revealed to make points with prospective customers or to please a superior. The food would be superb and the portions generous. Teg realized that his instincts had led him here correctly. He bent his attention to the menu then, allowing hunger to enter his consciousness at last. The hunger was at least as fierce as that which had astonished the late Field Marshal Muzzafar.