Why, she herself was going to start putting money aside, one of these years, to pay for anti-senescence. If she had to die at an age of less than a hundred, she wanted it to be violently.
Halting before him, she beamed, spread arms wide, and said, “Good day and welcome! Never before has our world been graced by any of your illustrious race. Yet even we, on our remote and lately embattled frontier, have heard the fame of Wodenites, from the days of Adzel the Wayfarer to this very hour. In what way may we serve you, great sir?”
His face was unreadable to her, but his body looked startled. “My, my,” he murmured. “How elaborately you speak, child. Is that local custom? Please enlighten me. I do not wish to be discourteous through ignorance.” He hesitated. “My intentions, I hope, shall always be of the best.”
His vocal organs made Anglic a thunderous rumble, weirdly accented, but it was fluent and she could follow it. She had had practice, especially with Tigeries, who didn’t sound like humans either.
For an instant, she bridled. “Sir, I’m no child. I’m nine—uh, that is, seventeen Terran years old. For the past three of those I’ve been on my own, highlands and lowlands both.” Relaxing: “So I know my way around and I’d be happy to guide you, advise you, help you. I can show testimonials from persons of several species.”
“Hraa … I fear I am in no position to, m-m, offer much compensation. I have been making my way—hand-to-mouth, is that your expression?—odd jobs, barter—at which I am not gifted—anything morally allowable, planet to planet, far longer than you have been in the universe, chi—young lady.”
Diana shrugged. “We can talk about that. You’re in luck. I’m not a professional tourist herder, chargin’ a week’s rent on the Emperor’s favorite palace to take you around to every place where the prices are quasar-lofty and expectin’ a fat tip at the end.” She cocked her head. “You could’ve gone to the reception center near the Pyramid. It’s got an office for xenosophonts. Why didn’t you?”
“Gruh, I, I—to be frank, I lost my way. The streets twist about so. If you could lead me to the proper functionaries—”
Diana reached up to take him by the rugged elbow. “Wait a bit! Look, you’re worn out, and you don’t have a pokeful of money, and I can do better by you than the agency. All they really know is where to find you the least unsuitable lodgings. Why don’t we go in where you can rest a while, and we’ll talk, and if I only can steer you downtown, so be it.” She paused before adding, slowly: “But you aren’t here for any ordinary purpose, that’s plain to see, and I do know most of what’s not ordinary on Imhotep.”
He boomed a chuckle. “You are a sprightly soul, no? Very well.” He turned serious. “It may even be that my patron saint has answered my prayers by causing me to blunder as I did. M-m-m … my name is Francis Xavier Axor.”
“Hm?” She was taken aback. “You’re a Christian?”
“Jerusalem Catholic. I chose the baptismal name became its first bearer was also an explorer in strange places, such as I hoped to become.”
And I. The heart jumped in Diana’s breast.
She had always sought out what visitors from the stars she could, because they were what they were—farers through the galaxy—O Tigery gods, grant that she too might someday range yonder! And, while she agilely survived in Old Town’s dog-eat-dog economy, she had never driven a harder bargain with a nonhuman than she felt that being could afford, nor defrauded or defaulted.
Orders of magnitude more than she wanted any money of his, she wanted Axor’s good will. He seemed like a darling anyway. And possibly, just barely possibly, he might open a path for her …
Business was business, and Hassan’s booze no worse than most in the quarter. “Follow me,” she said. “I’m Diana Crowfeather.”
He offered his hand, vast, hard, dry, warm. Wodenites were not theroids, but they weren’t herpetoids either; they were endothermic, two-sexed, and viviparous. She had, however, learned that they bred only in season. It made celibate careers easier for them than for her species. Thus far she’d avoided entanglements, because that was what they could too readily become—entanglements—but it was getting more and more difficult.