A tradition equally as old but far more annoying held that such notes had to be sticky, so that in zero gee they would adhere to the nearest surface. Consequently it was many minutes before Norbert managed to untangle the tiny, delicate sheet without ripping it.
ZOLASTO ZO, an entrepreneur of many fortuitous licenses
Member in Good Standing of the Entertainment and Procurers Guild
Avers he will Astound! Delight! Astonish!
With Many and Varied displays and representations
THE WONDERS OF EARTH
Your long lost Mother!
Who does not adore the Home World?
PRIMAL ABODE OF MAN!!—NEVER BEEN TERRAFORMED!!!
——
SEE the dancing nymphs of ancient Arcadia!
HEAR mellifluous sonograms from extinct man-eating Whales!
THRILL to a military display of ancient weapon forms
by Feroccio our Master-At-Arms!
Including the discharge of an authentic black-powder caterpillar-gun!
——
BEHOLD Fruits, nuts and berries FIT FOR HUMAN MASTICATION
grown without intervention from the NATIVE SOIL OF MANKIND!
(Certificate on file to confirm that these are UNMODIFIED by any process,
exactly as savage hunter-gatherers of primordial agribusinesses
found them in the WILD!)
——
TOUCH the parchments of the Bible written by
King James, an avatar of divine Crishna!
WRITTEN IN THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH!
(The Quill Pen and Inkstand used by Mr. King to indite his famous work
is available for view for an extra charge of one grote.)
——
ADMIRE as the delicate and nubile Mademoiselle Pelisse Roquelaure
performs the traditional native dance of long-submerged New Orleans,
city famed in myth! The dance forms have been reconstructed
With Painstaking Archeological Accuracy from postures and displays
found in LURID advertisements of the Anteposthuman period!
CERTAIN TO BE OF INTEREST TO THE GENTLEMEN
——
As an added courtesy to those of sober and scholarly attainments,
ZOLASTO ZO
Welcomes the curious Hieronymus to our noble troupe;
and this Most Interesting and Convivial Sacerdote is available to
REMOVE CURSES, and perform MIRACLE CURES,
while making a series of interesting remarks on the mysteries of the
calendar system, or other matters CURRENTLY FASCINATING
the Attention of the Public
of All Ranks and Species of Humanity.
——
Subject matters not fitting for ladies of elevation or gentle birth are so noted;
scholars and antiquarians are acknowledged as equals!
——
(Concubinage Contracts available for Negotiation by Certified Eugenicists.
Guaranteed Clean and Bio-compatible bloodlines. Fit for Breeding.)
5. The Best Interest of the Guild
Norbert smiled grimly. The effrontery of offering to earthmen to taste or see the fruits or views of the Earth seemed noteworthy only in its absurdity.
The purpose of such spectacles was to give gentlemen an opportunity to see nymphs and breeding girls posing and gyrating before purchasing their contracts; then as if by some accident, the slavegirls would be sent, drunk on aphrodisiacs, to the gentleman’s privy suite instead of to his kennels. No one older than a child ever stopped to gape at the pasteboard and tinfoil and holograms of the sideshows.
Rectifiers and other local magistrates could not easily shut down any wandering showman who pretended to act under the academic latitude guaranteed by ancient right to lectures, reenactments, and edifying displays. For just such a reason, no doubt, Zolasto Zo tolerated this oddly named Hieronymus to travel with his band.
A sour note entered his mind. As he pondered, wondering why this notice had been sent him, Norbert realized that to discuss the calendar while the Earth was under fire might be considered an act of sedition, and not keeping in the best interest of the Starfarers.
He thought longer, seeking an escape from this conclusion, any escape.
While it was Guild policy in theory not to interfere with terrestrials’ affairs, it was also Guild policy in practice to minimize local disturbances in the cliometric calculus, to tamp down spikes or disburse strange attractors in the matrix of history, lest some revolution in technology or social continuity interfere with the smooth launching and landfall of the great ships.
Was this such an event? Even a few hundred thousand parallel calculations of six billion variables in his head showed that it must be an attractor basin, if not a vortex.
Norbert felt a suffocating moment, almost claustrophobic, when he realized that the decision was his. It could not be palmed off on any local or current authority, or any other member of the Guild, nor could he hire a bravo or roughneck to do the work. The verdict and its consequences would have his name affixed to it, and forever. He must find Zolasto, find Hieronymus, question the man, under torment if need be, run the calculations, weigh the dangers to the Guild, and spare or slay a human life. The ship ghosts were as unhelpful on the question of Zolasto Zo’s whereabouts as they were about the manual for the desk and its printing slot.
Fieldwork was needed. He rang for his adjutant.
The wrong man came.
6. Ar Thurp End Ragon
His adjutant was supposed to be Nochzreniye of Nocturne of Epsilon Eridani, a star famed for its theonecromancers, and haunted by the still-speaking fragments of a long dead Power. Nochzreniye’s people, the Zarya, were from the longitude of globe called First Hour, parallel to the motionless twilight terminator bisecting his world, and so their sun was always no more than a red-orange reflection against distant clouds and mountains. As their name implied, the Nocturnals were nocturnal, and Norbert appreciated being able to keep his cabin lights dimmed to a tolerable level.
Nochzreniye was also derived from a gene stock far removed from mankind’s monkeylike origins. Ironically for a tree-dwelling species, it was remnants and echoes of man’s monkey ancestors which made him prone to vertigo and fear of heights. When this gene-line had been removed from certain spacetraveling subspecies in order to correct for inner ear maladaptation to zero gee, it accidentally rendered certain lineages immune to fear of falling, Nocturnals and Rosicrucians among them.
Partly as a joke and partly out of the sheer bloody-mindedness for which the Brash archetype was famous, Norbert had removed the outer wall leading to his office and narrowed the resulting unrailed balcony to half a standard gangway width, leaving a windy ledge overlooking the Village rooftops so far below. It amused him to see earthmen, so proud of their base-stock genes, when summoned to his office, to come down the gangway, gripping the wall and taking baby steps, trying not to look down.
But this new adjutant was different. When he stepped out on the unexpectedly narrow and railless ledge, like an earthman he touched the wall and measured the depth of the fall with his eyes. His first step was tentative. But by his second step, he was gliding along with the goat-footed grace of a non-orthogonal biopsychological type like a Nocturne or Rosicrucian. But everything else about him, facial hair, number of teeth, vestigial tissue linking thumb and hand, even (if Norbert was any judge of footwear) separate toes, indicated a very conservative gene profile ergo an orthogonal brain structure.
The new adjutant gave a crisp salute, holding up his glove to his eyes, palm out, and had his orders flicker across his palm, along with his name and rank, duty station and other general data, licenses, qualifications, tolerances and immunizations. Norbert did not rise, but returned the ceremonial salute casually, holding his shining palm toward the data so that his uniform would have a record of the new man’s files and preferences. Both men lowered their hands when the gloves showed transmission sent and received, the new man sharply, Norbert by covering his mouth in a yawn.