“If Karg is still so ill after being so long in your care,” Yull said silkily, “that indicates there must be something wrong with your medical techniques.”
“They are the best in the world! He was half-frozen! It was a miracle he didn’t lose both pads instead of one!”
“I see. How is regrowth progressing?”
“What?”
“I said how is regrowth progressing?”—in the same soft tone but taking a step towards Quelf. “In such a case we would grow him a replacement, which would lack sensation but restore normal motor function. Has this not been done?”
“We—uh, that is, it’s not customary…”
“Well, it’s not important; it will be better for him to have the job done at home anyway, since your methods appear to be suspect.” Yull was ostensibly unaware of the grievous insult she was offering, but Quelf’s exudations ascended rapidly towards the anger-stink level. She went on, “At least, however, we must insist on verifying that he is not at risk from secondary infection.”
“He’s in our finest bower, guarded by a score of winget-killers, with filter-webs at every opening!”
“In that case, judging by his medical record, he should have recovered from a slight attack of frostbite long ago. Did the crash cause worse injuries than you’ve admitted?”
Albumarak was trying not to dance up and down with joy.
But Quelf gathered her forces for an equally crushing rebuttal.
“What you regard as good health may perhaps not correspond with what we of Prutaj take for granted,” she said, having recovered most of her poise. “Indeed, perhaps we have made a mistake in trying to bring him up to that level. But you must not prevent it happening, if it can be done.”
Yull turned her eye slowly on all those present, while drawing herself up to full height. She overtopped Quelf by eye and mandibles; moreover her mantle was sleek and beautifully patterned for her age. Only the youngest students’ could match it. The distinguished visitors, and Quelf too, betrayed the puffiness due to overindulgence, and here and there a fat-sac peeked out under a mantle’s edge, yellowish and sickly.
“I like your boss!” Albumarak whispered to Omber.
“She’s a terror when you cross her,” came the answer. “But this kind of thing she’s very good at.”
There was no need for Yull to spell out the implication of her scornful survey; many of the visitors fidgeted and tried to pull themselves into better shape. Only Quelf attempted to counter it.
“Well, if you prefer to go about half-starved, forever on the verge of becoming dreamlost, that’s your lookout!”
“You’re implying that I’m in that condition now?” Yull’s manner suddenly turned dangerous.
“You? I wouldn’t know about you for certain, but it seems pretty obvious that only people who were good and dreamlost would think of trying to send someone out into space!”
Yull turned away. “There seems little point in pursuing this conversation,” she said to Omber. “Show them what you’re carrying and let’s find out the truth.”
“Ah! The truth is that your costly toy fell out of the sky!” Quelf declared in triumph, using a phrase she had grown fond of. “You can’t deny that, so you refuse to—”
But nobody was paying attention to her. All eyes were on Omber, who had produced from a bag she was carrying something which all present recognized by its unique odor: a farspeaker, smaller, yet patently more powerful, than they had ever seen before.
“This,” said Yull didactically, “is one of the miniature farspeakers we developed to communicate with our spaceship when in orbit. We brought a few of them with us so as to keep in touch with the authorities at Slah.”
She pinched the creature with a gentle claw. Its colors altered slightly and it gave off an aroma of contentment.
“Albumarak programmed a scrapsaq carrying another of these to seek out Karg. By now it should have reached the place where you’re imprisoning him. When I—”
“Imprisoning? You have no right to say that!” Quelf shrieked.
“Let’s find out whether I do or not,” said Yull imperturbably, and activated the farspeaker to maximum volume. At once a voice rang out, impersonal, repetitive: the sound of a recordimal.