After the first two shifts of questioners, the third was almost like a casual chat. One count in that shift’s favor was that Marguery Darp was a member. She sat down in front of him and said simply, “We want to know everything there is to know about the Hakh’hli, Sandy. So please just start at the beginning—whatever you think the beginning is—and tell us whatever you think we ought to know.”
That was easy enough. The more Sandy saw of Marguery Darp the easier he found her to talk to. He simply sat there, telling her everything he could think of about Hakh’hli and titch’hik and the way the magnetic repellers made the lander lurch as they came in and the fact that his mother, or anyway some part of his mother, was still alive, or in a manner of speaking alive, in the genetics files on the interstellar ship; and she listened. She listened very well. She didn’t speak, except now and then to give an encouraging grunt or a “Then what happened?” but her broad, strong, interested face spoke for her.
It was almost an annoyance when there was a knock on the door. Hamilton Boyle leaned in to report that the two Hakh’hli were finished with the afternoon’s interrogation; they were having their “cookies and milk,” and did Sandy want to go with them? Marguery answered for him. “Oh, I don’t think so, Ham. We’ll go upstairs and get a drink until they’re ready to join us—if Sandy doesn’t mind.”
Well, of course he didn’t mind. In fact, it was close to perfect. “What would you like?” Marguery asked as they found a table, warm in the afternoon sun. “I’m going to have a cup of coffee. Care to try one?”
“Certainly,” he said, bracing himself for another ordeal by ingestion but pleased for a chance to try to redeem himself for that unisex poem. As the waitress brought the two cups and the silver pot, he reached for his pocket, but as he opened his mouth to speak Polly and Oberon appeared in the doorway. He scowled at them. “I didn’t expect you so soon,” he said accusingly.
“We wouldn’t be here if the Earth people were behaving properly,” Polly said disagreeably, advancing out into the sunshine of the patio. She had every appearance of being in a pinching mood.
“What’s the matter?” Sandy asked.
She bore down on Marguery Darp. She said, “I’ve been talking to our cohort-mates. Do you know that some of your Earth people have been taking ‘souvenirs’?”
Marguery looked astonished. “What do you mean, souvenirs?”
“They’ve stolen pieces of the lander shield. Tanya says big chunks of it have been cut away while they were in stun time.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Marguery said contritely. “Did you mention it to Hamilton Boyle?”
“I haven’t seen Hamilton Boyle since I discovered the crime. You must deal with it. It is an offense to the Hakh’hli to steal parts of our lander. I want it stopped.”
Obie put in, “I told her it didn’t matter, Sandy. It was only the old shield anyway; it was all going to be replaced.” He ducked as Polly turned toward him, but added defensively, “Well, it’s the truth.”
Marguery Darp said firmly, “No, Obie, she’s right. That was a bad thing to do, and I’ll see that it doesn’t happen any more. I apologize, Polly.”
Polly flounced. “And that’s not all of it. Your Boyle person has been grilling me all afternoon about how the lander works, what kind of fuel we use, whether we can take off again without refueling—it is very tiring, to be asked so many questions! And that other person has been doing the same to Oberon, and Titania and Bottom and Helena and Demetrius have all been interrogated. We come in friendship! We should not be cross-examined like Perry Mason!”
“Who’s Perry Mason?” Marguery asked; and then said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that we’re all so very curious about you, uh, you very advanced people from space.”
Sandy decided to get into the conversation. “It’s all right, Marguery. We understand that. If you have any other questions, ask them.”
Marguery hesitated, nibbling at her lower lip and smiling a little. “You’re sure you’re not too tired?”
“Of course not!”
“Well—” She thought for a moment, then smiled apologetically. “There is one little thing that I’ve been wondering about. It’s silly, really, but—your names.”
She stopped there. Waiting for the question, Sandy said encouragingly. “Yes? What about them?”
“Well, this is really unofficial. Just my own curiosity, but they don’t sound like Hakh’hli names or anything, do they? Where did you get them?”
“Oh, our names,” Sandy said, flushing. “Well, they’re just a kind of a joke, you know.”
And Obie jumped in, relaxed now that Polly had stopped making pinching motions with her thumbs. “Yes, a kind of a joke,” he said happily. “They come from a play. An Earth play; we all did it, years ago. We performed it for the whole ship! They were fascinated! It was a great hit; of course, they didn’t understand the language—it was the first we did in English. Sandy? Can we show her? Polly?”
“Show me what?” Marguery Darp asked, sounding a little apprehensive.
“We can’t. We don’t have Theseus here,” Sandy objected.
Obie wriggled in protest. “We don’t need him. I know his lines! And I’m sure Polly knows her own part still, and maybe you could do Egeus—here, let’s do it!”
Obie leaped, laughing, to the top of a parapet and began to declaim:
“Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four anxious days bring in
Another moon, but oh, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes, like to a step-dame or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man’s revenues.
“Now you, Polly,” he coaxed.
Polly looked sullen, but played along. “All right,” she sighed.
“Four days will quickly steep themselves in night.
Four nights will quickly dream away the time.
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold
The night of our solemnities.”
As Sandy opened his mouth, trying to remember the next lines for Egeus, Marguery said, startled, “But that’s Shakespeare!”
“Right, right!” Obie cried happily, leaping down beside her. “It’s called A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Oh, it was wonderful, the way we did it. Shall we go on?”
But all Sandy could remember of Egeus’s part was “Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child, my daughter Hermia,” and then he stalled.
“Aw, try,” Obie coaxed. Sandy shook his head. “Well, we could get the others on the radio,” he offered wistfully, but Marguery shook her head, marveling.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I see the point. Really, that’s wonderful. Is that how you all learned English?”
“One of the ways. That was the best, only ChinTekki-tho got angry at MyThara for getting us to do it. He said we were learning the wrong dialect.”
“We really weren’t,” Sandy said, loyal to MyThara still. “We all knew the difference.”
“But we did keep those names,” Obie said. “Which is lucky for you, Marguery Darp, because you wouldn’t want to have to learn our Hakh’hli ones. Don’t you want to do just a little more, Polly?”
Polly waggled her forearm negatively. “I’m going back to tell Tanya you said that the vandalism would be stopped,” she told Sandy frostily, “so she can advise ChinTekki-tho. Are you coming with me, Obie?”
“No, no! I’m going to stay here and talk to Marguery about New York New York—Times Square, Harlem, Wall Street—” Weeping, he leaped away, singing to himself.
Marguery stared after him. “What did he mean about your real names?” she asked Sandy.
He shifted position, trying to follow Obie as he leaped happily around the almost-empty sun deck. “Well, the Hakh’hli names tell a lot about the person,” he began, and explained about the way the name reflected lineage and status in the Hakh’hli society; and how the numbers that followed the names reflected the egg batches in storage, which led inevitably to the Hakh’hli habit of freezing eggs as soon as they were laid, so as not to overburden the ship’s carrying capacity.
“And Polly says that if you human beings had done that,” Obie called from three tables away, “you wouldn’t have got yourselves into all this trouble.”
“Thank her for her good advice,” Marguery said, which caused Sandy to give her a sharp look. The words and the tone had not matched.
“That’s irony, right?” he asked.
She started to answer, then sneezed instead. Sandy, startled, asked, “Are you all right?”
“Just say gesundheit, all right? I’m fine. What were you asking me?”
“I said—”
“No, now I remember what you said,” she interrupted. “Yes, Sandy, that was irony. There’s something about your friend Polly that gets my nose out of joint.”
He stared at her. “Your nose out of—?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! I just mean she irritates me. I’m sorry about that.”