“Oh—nothing much, probably. She’s just been made one of the Jingfired, you know, and they’re virtually untouchable. Also she’s far too brilliant a researcher for the authorities to risk her moving elsewhere, to Hulgrapuk, for example. On top of that, her sentiments are shared by just about all the teachers here. They really do regard people from other continents as basically inferior to themselves.”
“Is the incidence of metal poisoning exceptionally high at Fregwil, then?” Yull murmured, provoking her companions to a cynical chuckle.
And she continued, “I feel a celebration is in order, now that Karg is being properly cared for at last.” They had been assured he would be well enough to leave his bower within two or three days. “Let’s dine at the best restaurant we can find, and afterwards make a tour of this Festival of Science; I gather it finishes tonight. Albumarak, you’ll be my guest, of course. And perhaps you can advise us what we might ask by way of compensation if the proposals made to us tomorrow are inadequate. That is, unless you have a prior engagement?”
“No—no, I don’t! I accept with pleasure!” Albumarak had difficulty concealing her delight. Already she had been favorably impressed by the unaffected way these people treated her: naturally, casually, as though she were one of themselves. Rather than seeking a reward for her assistance, she felt she ought to be performing further services for them, if only to salve the good reputation of her city, so disgracefully mildewed by Quelf.
“Then where shall we eat? For choice, suggest an establishment patronized by members of the Jingfired. I feel an unworthy desire to snub their mandibles.”
Quelf had invited Albumarak to dine with her the day she decided to cite her as her nominee. The idea of taking her new friends to the same place appealed greatly.
“I know just the one!” she declared. “And there’s a dolmusq bound in the right direction over there!”
After the meal—which was excellent—they swarmed the short distance to the park where the Sparkshow was coming to its end. Though the weather was turning wintry, a number of special events had been mounted to mark its final night, and throngs of folk were vastly amused at being charged with so much sparkforce that they shed miniature aurorae from claw-tips and mandibles, yet felt no ill effects.
But Yull and Omber dismissed such shows as trivial, and paid far more attention to experiments with a practical application: gradient separation of similar organic molecules, for instance, and the use of rotating pull-stones to prove that the fields they generated were intimately related to sparkforce, though as yet nobody had satisfactorily explained how. Someone had even bred back what was held to be a counterpart of the long-extinct northfinder, and claimed that its ability always to turn towards the pole must have been due to metallic particles in its pith—a challenge to those who believed that reactive metal in a living nervous system invariably led to its breakdown.
At last they came to what had proved the most popular and impressive item in the Festival: the creation of artificial lightning by means of a charge sent along a loss-free circuit. Despite having been fired a score of times every dark for a moonlong, it was still operating perfectly, as was the message-link over which news of Karg’s crash had come to Fregwil, although the display on which the information appeared had had to be replaced twice.
Here Yull and Omber lingered longer than at all the other demonstrations put together, insisting on watching two of the artificial lightning-flashes and sending an unimportant message—”Greetings to Drupit from citizens of Slah!”—over the communication link. For the first time Albumarak felt excluded from their company as they discussed what they had seen in low and private tones.
But eventually they turned back to her, curling their mantles in broad grins.
“Did you work on this remarkable discovery?” Yull asked.
“Ah … Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did. Quelf has the habit of delegating the details to her students, and—”
“You understand the principle?”
“I’m not sure anybody does, really, but I certainly know how the circuits are grown. Why?”