Chapter 29
Kekketies took our bags away at the rehearsal hall, and Meretekabinnda made a little speech.
He introduced the honored guests, starting with Barak, slumping restlessly around the stage on his wobbly arms, going on to the Ptrreek, Tsposhirrisip. None of that was necessary. Nor were any of Binnda's compliments on how well we were going to perform, and how splendid it was of the Ptrreek to invite us, and how certain he was that, with our debut following so closely on the wonderful accomplishment of the launching of the Andromeda probe, the Fifteen Associated Peoples were headed for a new era of peace and goodwill and constructive cooperation for the whole galaxy.
It got interesting when he warned us to behave. "The trading regulations of the Fifteen Associated Peoples are very strict, and the Eyes of the Tlotta-Mother"—he waved at a couple of the little bedbugs, crouched at the end of the stage—"who are traveling with us will report any infractions. That means any breach of the regulations at all, my dear friends. You must not, any of you, engage in any commercial transactions of any kind with any nonhuman person for the duration of your stay on any planet. Is that understood by all of us?"
Pause. Then he raised his snaky arms and declaimed, "Now let us move on to the go-box! Our tour is beginning!"
It was one of the big go-boxes, but even so it couldn't hold the dozen of us humans and our baggage, never mind the aliens. It took two loads to get us all in. "Ladies first," cried Binnda cheerfully, shepherding Tricia and Norah Platt arid the sopranos into the first load, along with a couple of the funnies—apparently claiming honorary status as females for the purpose, though heaven alone knew what gender they really were.
The door whuffed shut. I rested a hand on it, waiting for it to come back for the rest of us.
It occurred to me that it was very like the door I'd entered to visit Henry Davidson-Jones in his office.
I thought hard about that for a while, so that I hardly noticed when it opened again and we got in and it closed on us once more. It wasn't easy to concentrate. We were all pressed together. Floyd Morcher was standing quietly, eyes closed, moving his lips in silent prayer. Canduccio was ostentatiously pushing his way as far from Malatesta as possible; and there was a residual cockroachy smell in the place. It couldn't have been from the bedbug, as it climbed into its niche high in the wall and gazed down at us. It had to be left over from our host, the Ptrreek Tsooshirrisip.
Then the door opened again.
Warm, wet air came into the go-box and smote us. Blue light came down from a dark-blue sky. Half a dozen other Ptrreeks were waiting for us, at the side of vehicles—I guessed they were vehicles, though what they looked like was giant-sized bathtubs mounted on tiny, thick wheels.
It was a wholly fascinating, absorbing, incredible spectacle—good God, actually setting foot on an alien planet!
I didn't do it justice. I was still pondering, and slowly, slowly, something had at last penetrated my poor Earth-human brain.
I turned and looked back at the space-traveling go-box we had just come out of, exactly like the one that had taken me to Davidson-Jones's office for the phone call to Marlene. And it was only then that I realized what planet I had been on when I made that telephone call.