IGMS Issue 49 (20 page)

"There he is, Conroy. The fish poet. His name is Rhine."

I nodded. The oldster was tall for a Bwiller. His burnt orange skin had achieved the clear complexion of the elderly. He wore only a dirty overall, patched and mended beyond its years, and possessed a full beard, which on Bwill generally denoted poverty or at a minimum a healthy disregard for money. Wielding a knife in each hand he balanced, juggled, flipped, and methodically sliced away bits of an enormous, marinated stonefish, all while intoning sonnets with a voice like sandpaper. Fish poetry. Beautiful to watch and painful to hear. I don't get it, and I probably never will.

"Dug, you could have sent me a vid," I raised a hand to pinch my nose shut as a wave of fish art wafted my way, breaking through the other odors that I was becoming inured to. "What's so special about this guy?"

"He's Nery," said Dugli, his face lighting up like he'd just tasted the best Eggs Montrachet on four planets, and for good reason if he wasn't wrong.

"Why are you so sure he's not dead?" I turned away, my head ringing from phonemes and tones that I couldn't begin to parse, as a smell thick enough to elbow its way down my throat threatened to push my gorge back along the way it had come. The crowd of art-loving Bwillers parted as I pressed through. I kept walking.

Dugli followed. "The Bwill government doesn't permit physical death as punishment, not since the transpersonal faction took power. Instead, they wiped away the man he was and sent him back into society. Nery became Rhine. Rhine the fish poet was once Nery the master chef. The man who invented the legendary seven cheese cribble puff is still alive, and I've found him."

We were nearly to the limo with its promise of scentless silence. I faced Dugli and shook him by his shoulders. "He was also Nery the master spy. When he wasn't cooking, he was stealing industrial secrets and selling them to the highest bidder, right up until he was caught, convicted, and killed. The body may be the same, but the mind is gone. Nery doesn't live in that man's head any more. The only person home is Rhine. All I saw on the pier was a broken-down fish poet."

"Well, sure," said Dugli, grinning like a young otter caught with one hand in a fishy cookie jar. "Why do you think I brought you here, Conroy? Because your buffalo dog business has made you rich? Nonsense! I know plenty of people richer than you. But you're the best hypnotist I know."

"I'm the only one you know. What do you expect me to do?"

"Regress him."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't be coy. You've done this for me before. Remember that woman on Kaftan's World? You hypnotically regressed her back to childhood until she remembered a day when she watched her grandmother preparing fireweed kreplach. We recovered the recipe."

"Dugli, she hadn't been on the wrong end of transpersonification. It's not the same!"

"You don't know that. The Bwill medical establishment has never heard of hypnosis. The techniques they employ here may not be proof against your own methods. Just imagine it, Conroy, by this time tomorrow we could be enjoying seven cheese cribble puffs!"

The mere idea of the possibility set my mouth to watering like an old Russian dog. Dugli had rung my bell. "I'll try, but I make no promises."

Dugli hurried off to 'make arrangements'. I picked up my buffalito and wondered if anyone would bother to ask the fish poet what he wanted.

Reggie and I spent the rest of the day in our hotel suite with the windows sealed tight and the air controls turned up to full. It wasn't just to give us a reprieve from Bwill's aromas. A buffalito's unique ability to eat any and all matter is eclipsed only by its talent for converting whatever it consumes into flatulence of pure oxygen. I could have kept Reggie from farting by limiting his intake, but there were so many new things for him to taste on Bwill it didn't seem fair. Instead I'd ordered a variety of small plates from the extensive room service menu, and a steward who could have been the twin of my limo driver delivered them, along with a special bottle of stonefish liquor sent compliments of the manager. 

I scattered the small plates across the floor, pausing just long enough to transfer a small portion of each onto a platter for my own enjoyment. Reggie wound his way through the culinary slalom, sampling a bit before moving on, repeating the circuit several times until he'd consumed every morsel. I finished my own meal before he was halfway through and turned my attention to the unexpected booze.

It takes months to make stonefish edible, but it takes decades to make it drinkable, and then just barely. The good stuff -- and I had to assume the bottle in my hands represented such -- could take centuries. The rumors I'd heard back in Human Space spoke of a smoky elixir that put the best single malt scotch to shame, but I'd never been able to verify them. The government of Bwill refused to allow even so much as a single drop of their precious liqueur offworld. A visiting diplomat from the Gilman colonies had tried to export a flask in a diplomatic pouch and the ruckus had cost them their embassy. She'd also been relieved of the flask. 

And here I was with a full bottle. 

I cracked the seal and wafted the opening under my nose. The smell was... primal. Antediluvian. It made me think of the sea and things that might be found in its deepest depths. Of darkness and tastes predating history.

Reggie pranced over, happy and proud for having licked every plate clean. He climbed onto my chair, crossed onto my lap, and navigated up my chest to shove his face next to mine for a sniff of the bottle. I don't know if it brought primordial oceans to his mind, but he yipped in interest. I reached for one of his freshly cleaned plates.

"Dugli's dreams of cribble puffs will probably never materialize, but at least we get to sample the mysteries of liquid stonefish." I poured a portion onto the plate and set it on the floor. It resembled a miniature oil slick, viscous, with a sickly, greenish tinge. Reggie gave it a tentative lick. He barked, jumped back from the plate, and barked again. 

"Not to your liking, boy?" He advanced on the plate, gave it another lick, and backed off again. Weird. I considered taking a swig right from the bottle, then got up to fetch a glass instead, the better to appreciate it. 

That's about the time the remains of the oil slick exploded! 

Reggie went flying, horns over tail, and landed on the other side of the suite. The blast knocked me off my feet, but I managed to hold onto the bottle. It sloshed a bit but not enough for anything to splash its way up and out of the neck, let alone mingle with the air or whatever else had produced such volatile fumes. I scrambled back to where I'd left the stopper, jamming it into place. To do this I'd had to maneuver around a crater in the floor that looked down into the suite on the level below. 

Reggie scampered back, none the worse for being a cannonball. He peered into the hole and barked at the Bwill couple that were now looking up, twin expressions of confusion on their orange faces. My own expression didn't look half so calm.

Someone from the hotel took the bottle away. Then someone else escorted Reggie and me out, and not into custody as I'd feared but into an even nicer suite. A third someone must have contacted Dugli because he arrived soon after in the company of the hotel manager who assured me nothing like that had ever happened before and couldn't apologize enough. 

After the manager had groveled sufficiently to allow him to exit I confronted Dugli.

"Someone just tried to kill me."

"Don't be absurd. You probably had some residue on your clothes that interacted with the liqueur. Something you brought in from offworld. I understand if you're a little on edge after the accident, but that's all it was. Flukes happen."

"Maybe. Or maybe someone doesn't want Nery brought back."

"Conroy, there are probably a hundred people on Bwill who don't want Nery back. Do you have any idea how many he betrayed? The man was a legend. He had the culinary powers of a god, the athletic prowess of a planetary champion, and a list of romantic conquests that included every Bwill female with any real political power, wealth, or beauty. He used his talents to worm his way into people's confidences and then robbed them blind!"

"So you're saying someone did try to kill me?"

"Not at all. Only that someone might, if he knew what we're attempting. But nobody does. I told you, I'm the only one who knows that Rhine was Nery. If I thought otherwise, I'd be shoving you and your pet back onto that shuttle, and climbing in right behind you, and getting offworld before the fireworks started."

Reggie chose that moment to bump against my leg for some attention. I scooped him up and stroked the fur on his hump. He closed his eyes and pressed his head against my chest. I said nothing, content to glare at the Caliopoean.

Dugli sighed. "Look, if it will make you feel any better, I'll shift some other people around and make it look like you're still staying here. Meanwhile, I'll secretly move you to a different hotel, and in the morning send Rhine to you so you can do the regression there. Okay?"

"If you don't believe there's a threat, why are you so quick to humor me?"

"What I believe doesn't matter, Conroy. If you think you're in danger, you're not going to be focused on the task at hand. I need you at the top of your game. We'll probably only get one chance at this."

"Why's that? You said no one knows Rhine was once Nery."

"No, but people are going to start asking questions soon enough, and if I could figure it out, once they know where to look, others will too. Before that happens, I want us both on my shuttle halfway back home."

"With a big basket of seven cheese cribble puffs, I assume?"

Dugli smiled. "Two baskets. One for each of us."

Dugli's driver took us to a different hotel on the opposite side of town. The driver went in and registered a room in the name of the Bwill equivalent of John Smith, and Reggie and I moved in as unobtrusively as the only human and a buffalo dog on a planet full of ruddy, smelly, craggy people can manage. My buffalito has a long history of being able to curl up and sleep anywhere. Somehow, I followed his example, because I was awakened hours later by Dugli pounding on the door to my room. Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I had the room's security console visually confirm the person who had yet to stop knocking, and let him in. He entered, escorting the familiar figure of an aging fish poet.

"Why are you here so early?" I double-locked the door and followed my 'guests' into the room. 

"Early? Don't be insulting, Conroy. We've been up for hours. Fish poets wake before dawn to meet the new catch at the docks. They find it inspirational. Now, let's get started. Where do you want us?" Rhine had changed into clean overalls since yesterday's performance at the pier. He moved with a limp. Dugli seated the Bwiller on a low couch, securing him all around with throw pillows.

"I want you gone. This isn't a stage performance, so I don't need an audience. Besides, you've got some misdirection to be managing. Leave me and, uh, Rhine here. We'll be fine. Come back later, and bring brunch."

The food critic glowered but left. I dropped into a chair across from Rhine and Reggie took it as his cue to leap into my lap. We both looked at the fish poet who sat staring at his bare feet.