“No! In public? Professor Olvfing?”

“With th’ dean of th’ College of frigging Nutrition, no less.”

Gailet let out a sharp sound. She turned aside, hand to her breast. She seemed to suffer a sudden bout of hiccups.

“Of course, Olvfing’s pair-bond wife forgave him later. It was that or’lose him to a ten-group that said they liked his style.”

Gailet slapped her chest, coughing. She turned further away from Fiben, shaking her head vigorously.

“Poor Igor Patterson,” Fiben continued. “He had problems of his own, of course. Some of th’ guys from the football team had been drafted as bouncers. When it started getting out of hand, they tried using fire extinguishers. That made things slippery, but it didn’t slow ’em down much.”

Gailet coughed louder. “Fiben …”

“It was too bad, really,” he mused aloud. “Igor was getting into a great blues riff, really pounding those skins, packin’ in a backbeat you couldn’t believe. I was groovin’ on it … until this forty-year-old chimmie, naked and slick as a dolphin, dropped straight onto him from th’ rafters.”

Gailet doubled over clutching her belly. She held up a hand, pleading for mercy. “Stop, please. …” she whimpered, weakly.

“Thank heavens it was the snare drum she fell through. Took her long enough gettin’ untangled for poor Igor to escape out the back way, just barely ahead of the mob.”

She toppled over sideways. For a moment Fiben felt concern, her face was so flushed and red. She hooted, slapping the floor, and tears streamed from her eyes. Gailet rolled over onto her back, rocking with peals of laughter.

Fiben shrugged. “And all that was just from playin’ the first number — Patterson’s special version of the bloody national anthem! What a pity. I never did get to hear his variation on Tnagadda Da Vita.’ ”

“Now that I think about it, though,” he sighed once more, “maybe it’s just as well.”

Power curfew came at 2000 hours, and no exception was made for prisons. A wind had risen before sunset and soon was rattling the shutters of their small window. It came in off the ocean, carrying a heavy salt smell. In the distance could be heard the faint rumblings of an early summer storm.

They slept curled in their blankets as close to each other as their chains allowed, head to head so they could hear each other breathing in the darkness. They slumbered inhaling the soft tang of stone and the mustiness of straw, and exhaled the soft mutterings of their dreams.

Gailet’s hands moved in tiny jerks, as if trying to follow the rhythms of some illusory escape. Her chains tinkled faintly.

Fiben lay motionless, but now and then he blinked, his eyes occasionally opening and closing without the light of consciousness in them. Sometimes a breath caught and held for a long moment before releasing, at last.

They did not notice the low humming sound that penetrated from the hallway outside, nor the light which speared into their cell through cracks in the wooden door. Feet shuffled and claws clicked on flagstones.

When keys rattled in the lock, Fiben jerked, rolled to one side, and sat up. He knuckled his eyes as the hinges creaked. Gailet lifted her head. She used her hand to block the sharp glare of two lamps, held high on poles.

Fiben sneezed, smelling lavender and feathers. When he and Gailet were hauled to their feet by several of the zipsuited chims, he recognized the gruff voice of their head captor, Irongrip.

“You two better behave yourselves. You’ve got important visitors.”

Fiben blinked, trying to adjust to the light. At last he made out a small crowd of feathered quadrupeds, large balls of white fluff bedecked in ribbons and sashes. Two of them held staffs from which the bright lanterns hung. The rest twittered around what looked like a short pole ending in a narrow platform. On that perch stood a most singular-looking bird.

It, too, was arrayed in bright ribbons. The large, bipedal Gubru shifted its weight from one leg to another, nervously. It might have been the way the light struck the alien’s plumage, but the coloration seemed richer, more luminous than the normal off-white shade. It reminded Fiben of something, as if he had seen this invader or one like it before, somewhere.

What the hell is the thing doing, moving around at night? Fiben wondered. I thought they hated to do that.

“Pay proper respect to honored elders, members of the high clan Gooksyu-Gubru!” Irongrip said, sharply, nudging Fiben.

“I’ll show th’ damn thing my respect.” Fiben made a rude sound in his throat and gathered phlegm.

“No!” Gailet cried. She grabbed his arm and whispered urgently. “Fiben, don’t! Please. Do this for me. Act exactly as I do!”

Her brown eyes were pleading. Fiben swallowed. “Aw hell, Gailet.” She turned back toward the Gubru and folded her arms across her chest. Fiben imitated her, even as she bowed low.

The Galactic peered at them, first with one large, unblinking eye, then another. It shuffled-te-one-end of the^ perch, forcing its holders to adjust their balance. Finally, it began chirping in a_series of sharp, clipped squawks.

From the quadrupeds there emerged a strange, swooping accompaniment, rising and falling, sounding something like “Zoooon.”

One of the Kwackoo servitors ambled forward. A bright, metallic disk hung from a chain around its neck. The vodor gave forth a low, jerky Anglic translation. 

 There it finished as abruptly as it had begun.

“Bow again!” Gailet urged in a whisper. He bent over with arms crossed, as she demonstrated. When Fiben looked up again, the small crowd of alien avians had swiveled and moved toward the doorway. The perch was lowered, but still the tall Gubru had to duck down, feathered arms splayed apart for balance, in order to pass through. Irongrip followed behind. The Probationer’s parting glare at them was one of pure loathing.

Fiben’s head rang. He had given up trying to follow the bird’s queer, formal dialect of Galactic Three after the first phrase. Even the Anglic translation had been well nigh impossible to understand.

The sharp lighting faded as the procession moved away down the hallway in a babble of clucking gabble. In the remaining dimness, Fiben and Gailet turned and looked at each other.

“Now who th’ hell was that?” he asked.