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Bzya, Farr was aware of curious, hungry eyecups peering out at him. Here and there people Waved
unevenly past men and women, some of them Harbor workers, and many of them in the strange state
called "drunkenness." Nobody spoke, to him or anybody else. Farr shivered, feeling clumsy and
conspicuous; this was like being lost in a Crust-forest.
After a short time's brisk Waving, Bzya began to slow. They must be nearly at his home. Farr looked
around curiously. They were still in the deepest Downside, almost on top of the Harbor, and the buildings
here had the shrunken meanness of the areas closest to the Harbor itself. But in this area there was a
difference, Farr saw slowly. The walls and doors were patched, but mostly intact. And there were no
"drunks." It was astonishing to him how in such a short distance the character of Parz could change so
completely.
Bzya grinned and pushed open a doorway a doorway among thousands in these twisting corridors.
Once again Farr wondered how Bzya knew how to find his way around with such unerring accuracy.
He climbed after Bzya through the doorway. The interior of the home was a single room a rough
sphere, dimly illuminated by wood-lamps fixed seemingly at random to the walls. He felt his cup-retinas
stretch, adjusting to the low level of light.
A globe-bowl of tiny leaves was thrust into his chest.
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He stumbled back in the Air. There was a wide, grinning face apparently suspended over the
bowl startlingly like Bzya's, but half-bald, nose flattened and misshapen, the nostrils dulled. "You're the
upfluxer. Bzya's told me about you. Have a petal."
Bzya pushed past Farr and into the little home. "Let the poor lad in first, woman," he grumbled
good-naturedly.
"All right, all right."
The woman withdrew, clutching her petal-globe and still grinning. Bzya wrapped a huge hand around
Farr's forearm and dragged him into the room, away from the door, then closed the door behind them.
The three of them hovered in a rough circle. The woman dropped the petal-globe in the Air and thrust
out a hand. "I'm Jool. Bzya's my husband. You are welcome here."
Farr took her hand. It was almost the size of Bzya's, and as strong. "Bzya told me about you, too."
Bzya kissed Jool. Then, sighing and stretching, he drifted away to the dim rear of the little home, leaving
Farr with his wife.
Jool's body was square, a compact if misshapen mass of muscles. She wore what looked like the
all-purpose coverall of the Harbor, much patched. One side of her body was quite damaged her hair
was missing down one side of her scalp in wide swathes, and her arm on that side was twisted,
atrophied. Her leg was missing, below the knee.
He was staring at the stump of the leg, the tied-off trouser leg below the knee. Suddenly unbearably
self-conscious, he lifted his eyes to Jool's face.
She clapped him on the shoulder. "Not much point looking for that leg; you'll never find it." She smiled
kindly. "Here. Have a petal. I meant it."
He dug his hand into the globe, pulled out a fistful of the little leaves, and jammed them into his mouth.
They were insubstantial, like all leaf-matter, and strongly flavored so strong that his head seemed to fill
up with their sweet aroma. He coughed, spluttering leaf fragments all over his hostess.
Jool tilted back her head and laughed. "Your upfluxer friend hasn't got very sophisticated tastes, Bzya."
Bzya had gone to work in one corner of the cramped little room, beneath two crumpled
sleeping-cocoons; his arms were immersed in a large globe-barrel full of fragments chips of some
substance which crunched and ground against each other as he closed his fists around pieces of cloth.
"Neither have we, Jool, so stop teasing the boy."
Farr picked up a petal. "Is it a leaf?"
"Yes." Jool popped one in her mouth and chewed noisily. "Yes, and no. It's from a flower... a small,
ornamental plant. They've been bred, here in Parz. You don't get them in the wild, do you?"
"They grow in the Palace, don't they? In their Garden. Is that where you work?" He studied her. From
the way Cris had described the Committee Palace to him, Jool seemed a little rough to be acceptable
there.
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"No, not the Palace. There are other parts of the Skin, a little further Downside, where flowers, and
bonsai trees, are cultivated. But not really for show, like in the Garden."
"Why, then?"
She crunched on another leaf. "For food. And not for humans. For pigs. I wait on Air-pigs, young Farr."
Her eyes were bright and amused.
Farr was puzzled. "But these leaves petals can't be very nutritious."
"They don't make the pigs as strong as they could be, no," she said. "But they have other advantages."
"Oh, stop teasing the lad," Bzya called again. "You know, she used to work in the Harbor."
"We met there. I was his supervisor, before that cretin Hosch was promoted. At the expense of this
huge dolt Bzya, I'm afraid. Farr, do you want some beercake?"
"No. Yes. I mean, no thank you. I don't think I'd better."
"Oh, try a little." Jool turned to a cupboard set in the wall and opened its door. The door was ill-fitting,
but the food store within was well stocked and clean. "I'll bet you've never tried it. Well, see what it's
like. What the hell. We won't let you get drunk, don't worry." She withdrew a slab of thick,
sticky-looking cake wrapped in thin cloth; she broke off a handful and passed it to Farr.
Bzya called, "Cake is fine as long as you chew it slowly, and know when to stop."
Farr bit into the cake cautiously. After the pungency of the petals it tasted sour, thick, almost indigestible.
He chewed it carefully the taste didn't improve and swallowed.
Nothing happened.
Jool hung in the Air before him, huge arms folded. "Just wait," she said.
"Funny thing," Bzya called, still working at his globe of crunching chips. "Beercake is an invention of the
deep Downside. I guess we evolved it to stave off boredom, lack of variety, lack of stimulation. The
poor man's flower garden, eh, Jool?"
"But now it's a delicacy," Jool said. "They take it in the Palace, from globes of clearwood. Can you
believe it?"
Warmth exploded in the pit of Farr's stomach. It spread out like an opening hand, suffusing his torso and
racing along his limbs like currents induced by some new Magfield; his fingers and toes tingled, and he felt
his pores ache deliciously as they opened.
"Wow," he said.
"Well put." Jool reached out and took the beercake from his numb fingers. "I think that's enough for
now." She wrapped the cake in a fragment of cloth and stowed it away in its cupboard.
Farr, still tingling, drifted across the room to join Bzya. The big Fisherman's arms were still buried in the
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barrel of chips, and his broad hands were working at a garment an outsize tunic inside the chips,
rubbing surfaces together and scraping the cloth through the chips. Bzya hauled the tunic out of the globe
and added it to a rough sphere of clothes, wadded together, which orbited close to his wide back. Bzya [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]