Spellsinger 03 – The Day of the Dissonance by Foster, Alan Dean

“I think one day you will, though I sense you still have

along way logo.”

“It’s just that it’s so new to me. The magic, not the

music. Everything’s so new to me. I’m not of this world.”

“I know. You smell of elsewhere. Do not let your

transposition faze you. Newness is life’s greatest pleasure

and delight.” She indicated the shelves wailing them in.

“Every new product I encounter is a source of wonder-

ment to me.”

“1 wish I could share your enthusiasm. But I can’t help

my homesickness. You can’t, by any chance, send me

home by the same means you use to stock your goods?”

he asked hopefully.

“I am truly sorry,” Snooth told him softly, and it struck

him that she was. “This is only a receive-and-disperse

operation. I can only ship products, not people.”

Jon-Tom slumped. “Well, it’s no more than what I

expected. Clothahump said as much.”

“You must tell me about your travels. Oddly, I know

more about many other worlds than about this one. The

result of being tied to my business.”

So partly to please her and partly to help relieve his own

disappointment, Jon-Tom regaled her with a recitation of

the adventures they had experienced during their long

journey. It took at least the half day Snooth had claimed

before she finally called the march to a halt. Jon-Tom

looked down the aisle. They stili were not in sight of its

end.

Strange medications filled bottles and jars and contain-

ers of unfamiliar material. The twenty-foot-high shelves

they had halted before represented a cosmological phar-

macopia. Jon-Tom made out pills and drops, salves and