The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

Surely, the cameraman had taken other shots. But Bagg had chosen this one just to make her a laughingstock.

She was so furious she almost forgot to pick up her grail. Swing­ing it from one hand, thinking how she was going to brain Bagg with it, the newspaper clutched in the other-it was also going to be jammed all the way up-she stormed toward the building. But when she got to the door, she stopped.

“Come on, Jill!” she told herself. “You’re reacting just as he hoped you would, just as they all hope you will. Play it cool; don’t be a knee-jerk. Sure, it’d make you feel great to slam him around his office a little. But it might ruin everything. You’ve endured worse, and you’ve come out on top.”

She walked slowly homeward, the handle of the grail looped over one arm. In the fading light, she read the rest of the paper. She wasn’t the only one Bagg had libeled, slandered, and mocked. Firebrass himself, though treated gently in the write-up on her, was severely criticized elsewhere and not only by Bagg. The vox pop page contained a number of signed letters from citizens outraged by Firebrass’ policies.

As she left the plain and started her winding way through the hills, she was softly hailed. Turning, she saw Piscator. He smiled as he walked toward her and said in an Oxford accent, “Good evening, citizen. May I accompany you? We will be happier in each other’s company than alone? Or perhaps not?”

Jill had to smile. He spoke so gravely, almost in a seventeenth-century style. This impression was strengthened by his hat, a tall cylinder sloping inward to the top and with a wide circular brim. It reminded her of the hats of the New England Pilgrims. It was made of dark-red leather from the scaleless redfish. Several aluminum alloy flies were snagged in its brim. A black cloth was over his shoulders, held together at the throat. A dark-green cloth served as a kilt, and his sandals were of redfish leather.

Over his shoulder was a bamboo rod. In the other hand was the handle of his grail. A newspaper was clamped by an arm to his body. A wicker basket hung by a strap from the other shoulder.

He was tall for a Japanese, the top of his head coming to her nose. And his features were attractive, not too Mongolian.

“I suppose you’ve read the paper?” she said.

“Unhappily, most of it,” he said. “But don’t be grieved. As Solomon says of scoffers, Proverbs xxiv. 9. They are an abomina­tion to mankind.”

“I prefer humankind,” she said.

He looked puzzled. “But what . . .? Ah, I see, you obviously object to man in mankind. But man means man, woman, and child in this usage.”

“I know it does,” she said as if she were repeating this for the thousandth time, which she was. “I know it does. But the use of man conditions the speaker and the hearer to think of man as the human male only. The use of humankind, or personkind, condi­tions people to think of Homo sapiens as consisting of both sexes.”

Piscator drew breath in through his teeth. She expected him to say, “Ah, so!” but he did not. Instead, he said, “I have in this basket three of the savory tench, if I may call them that. They are remarkably similar in appearance and taste to Terrestrial fish of that name. They are not quite as delicious as the grayling, if I may call them that, which are caught in the mountain streams. But they are much sport, a cunning and lusty fish.”

She decided that he must have learned his English from The Compleat Angler.

“Would you care to share some of the fish with me tonight? I’ll have them baked piping hot at 16:00 by the waterclock. I will also have a plentiful supply of skull-bloom.”

This was the local name for alcohol made from the lichen scraped off the mountain face. It was watered down, three parts to one, and then blossoms from the irontree vines were dried, crushed, and mixed with alcohol. After the blossoms had given a purplish color and a roselike fragrance to the liquid, it was ready to be served.