The Smoke Ring

“We want vegetables, lots, all kinds. Couple of kigrams of moby too, not too rare.”

“Moby’s ready now. Vegetables soon. You, Debby, you cooked in that tree?”

“Some.”

Half Hand beckoned her in.

Rather could feel the eyes. With a conscious effort he looked. Of the forty or so diners, only a dozen or so were watching what was happening at the kitchen entrance. Even those concentrated more on eating; their right hands kept pale wooden sticks in constant motion. The eye-pressure still made him flinch.

Grag Maglicco rejoined them. He passed out pairs of sticks of pale wood, no bigger than the branchlets a tree dweller was used to.

A woman brought them a two-kigram slab of meat, black on one side, pink on the other. John Lockheed took it on his knife. He flapped toward the wall, pushing the meat ahead of him. Diners edged aside to give him room or to avoid getting grease on their clothing.

Nurse had to urge them. “Come on.”

There were too many people.

But Clave followed Nurse, and Rather followed him.

There was room. Nurse talked to some of the locals around them. John carved chunks from the meat and passed them, knife to sticks. Moby meat was good. Tenderer than swordbird, richer than turkey.

Grag’s own sticks — like every Clump citizen’s — were ornately carved. Some were wood, more were bone. Grag caught Rather looking. He showed Rather his own bone sticks. “You carve them yourself. Circle would mean I’m married. Spiral means I’m looking. A bird would say who I work for. Outline around the bird would mean I own the company. What I’ve got is the rocket, ’cause I’m Navy. You’d want a honey hornet, for Serjent Logging. Change life style, start new sticks.”

John Lockheed pointed out a clump of customers to Clave. Tall men and women, a dozen or so, and a few infants; isolated, clustered close as if for protection. Peculiar footgear, thick-heeled sandals with toes protruding.

“They’re happyfeet. Half Hand should make them check those shoes at the door,” John said. “They’re for fighting, for kicking.”

“Lupoffs?”

“Yes. Why?”

“No reason,” Clave said.

Gourds of red liquid passed among the diners. One came within reach, and John took it. He drank, then passed it to Clave. “Fringe tea. Don’t take too much.”

It went from Clave to Rather. Its taste was bitter and sweet, not unpleasant. John stopped Rather from passing the gourd to Raym. “Too much in his blood already.”

Raym gri

Debby and Half Hand joined them; they made room.

Debby said, “He’s got four citizens doing the cooking, all women. There’’s a major fire against the back wall, held in by sikenwire. The kitchen’s got maybe twenty windows in it, and Half Hand closes some of them to get the breeze he wants, keep the fire going and the smoke out. He’s.roasting a slab of moby the size of two men. It’s black on one side and raw on the other, and he slices off the charred side.

“There’s also…” She waved a hand and a foot as if trying to describe without words. “I thought it was a ball of hard stuff like the Vivarium. Inside, a froth of water and live steam, and cut-up plants.”

“It’s a bag,” Half Hand said. “Keep it turning, the vegetables cook even. Draining the water is the tricky part.”

“I saw them do that. They open the bag and throw the whole glob of cookwater at the lee windows and catch the vegetables in a net.”

“Ho! Vegetables are ready then.” In fact three junglegiant women were already flying around the dome’s curvature, passing out what they carried.

“We use an open pot,” Debby told Half Hand. “Tide keeps it in, whatever you’re cooking. We cook meat and vegetables together. If you don’t keep stirring it, it all bubbles out.”

“M’shell!” Half Hand waved one long-toed foot in a half circle, and the nearest of the kitchen women came toward them. She served red and yellow and green vegetables into small-mouthed bowls. Half Hand said, “We only serve earthlife plants. A man wants foliage, he gets it at home. Meat’s different. We take what we get. Nothing turns up, Sanchiss has a turkey farm Darkward.”

The vegetables: some were good and some were not, and some you couldn’t decide right away. Clave was making notes as he ate. Food that wasn’t eaten went into a wooden barrel. From time to time one of the woman replaced the barrel.

Grag Maglicco was asking Debby, “Has Booce been wondering where his house is?”

“He hasn’t done anything about it yet.”

“Well, we saw Serjent House a few days ago. It was twenty degrees spinward of the Market and maybe fifteen klomters skyward. Doesn’t look like anyone’s disturbed it. Can you remember to tell him?”

“Stet. Tell me something else?”

“Sure.”

Debby waved around her. “I’m surrounded by teeth. How can so many of you keep most of your teeth?”

Grag fished in his tunic and produced a stick like a third eating stick, carved in the same way, with a tuft of bristly vegetable matter at the end. “Scrape your teeth after you eat,” he said, and gri

Another gourd of fringe tea came past. Rather was thirsty; but nobody was taking more than a mouthful, and he didn’t either. He passed it to Grag, who drank deeply and sent it on.

“Why do they call you Half Hand?” Debby asked.

“My great-square grandfather was Half Hand. Stuff that moved the old CARM sprang a leak, froze his hand. Grandfather was Half Hand too. Got bit while he was Dark hunting. Now me. Soon or late, I lose it.” The idea didn’t seem to bother him. “Raym, sell me some walnutcushion?”

“Not this trip. Next time.”

“I need it. Goes good with potatoes. Green beans too.”

“Next time for sure,” Raym promised.

Nurse Lockheed laughed and said, “He can’t. He doesn’t have a ship.”

Carlot was shocked. “Raym? You lost your ship?”

Raym nodded without looking at her.

Half Hand quietly moved off toward the kitchen. Nurse reached out and lifted Raym’s chin. “Tell them the story, Raym!”

It was the last thing Raym Wilby wanted. Some of the locals were looking embarrassed. Clave was quick enough to catch it. “If it’s story time, I’ll tell you about the breakup of Dalton-Qui

Raym’s ship was forgotten as Clave talked.

Rather knew the tale too well. What he noticed was the rise in the noise level. Half Hand’s was turning boisterous. Clave’s words were just perceptibly slurred, as if he were sleepy; yet he was animated, frenetic, as he relived what had been the end of the world for him and for Rather’s parents. Rather himself was feeling strange.

Half Hand was back. “Look out the window or go outside,” he said. “See something.”

“Water,” Rather said clearly.

“What?”

“Water, not fringe tea. Does something to my head.”

“Oh. Get you water, stet. M’shell! I’ll fix it. Tree dwellers shouldn’t drink too much fringe. Get to a window, boy. Thank me later.”

The nearest window was crowded, but Rather managed to get his head into the grouping. He watched three kitchen women carry garbage barrels outside and fling their contents across the sky. Nothing happened for a time. Rather continued to watch. He felt as if he were dreaming. Fringe?

He dreamed that triunes abruptly converged from all directions, splitting into individuals as they came. Rather shouted: not a warning, just an incoherent yell.

The women heard. They looked at him in the window and laughed. Slender blue-and-orange torpedos dove among them. The wind of their passage sent them tumbling. In twenty breaths it was over. The triunes moved away, regathering their families. The garbage had vanished. The women kicked to stop their spi

All the strangers around Rather were laughing at him.

The only good thing about it (he decided as he returned to his pole) was that nobody else had gone to a window. Grag and Debby seemed mostly interested in each other, but the rest were held spellbound by Clave’s storytelling. He spoke of the foray into the Carther States jungle—