"I also could warn him of the plot, which, all in all, seems a trifle unfair."
"I never quite understood this plot," said Kirdy.
"Still, on the whole, the controversy seems none of our concern, one way or the other."
Glawen heaved a sigh.
"I must agree with you there. In fact, the longer I think on the matter, the more I agree."
"Then let's go aboard the ship."
The stars along Mircea's Wisp, for all the drama of their glittering flow, were themselves of average size and luminosity. No exception was Vergaz, the pink-white sun in the sky of Soum.
The Sagittarian Ray slanted down upon Vergaz, oriented itself first to the orbit of Soum, then to its plane of diurnal rotation, and finally landed at the Soumjiana spaceport. Cargo and passengers, including Glawen and Kirdy, were discharged, and the Sagittarian Ray went its way down the Wisp toward the terminus at Andromeda 6011IV.
At the space terminal Glawen inquired regarding connections to Tassadero by Zonk's Star, a lonely and isolated system to the side of the Wisp. He learned that a pair of small packets serviced the route:
the Camuike, leaving in four days' time, and the Kersnade, scheduled to depart in something over a month. Neither date was altogether convenient, if it became necessary to travel to Tassadero--unless the inquiries on Soum could be completed within four days. This possibility did not seem utterly remote, and Glawen reserved passage aboard the Camuike, to Kirdy's instant dissatisfaction.
"Why in blazes do you insist on this frantic haste? Do you never consider the wishes of anyone else? I say, let's work at leisure and enjoy our stay! The sausages are specially good at Soumjiana."
Glawen politely rejected Kirdy's protest.
"For all we know, time may be a critical factor in the case. If so, Bodwyn Wook would not take kindly to our loitering and eating sausages, especially at Bureau expense."
"Bah," muttered Kirdy.
"When Bodwyn Wook and I go off together, he must learn to trot along at my pace."
Glawen laughed.
"Surely you don't intend me to take you seriously."
Kirdy only grunted and watched from the corner of his eye while Glawen completed his business at the reservation counter.
While they awaited the vouchers, Kirdy asked in a silken voice:
"What if we can't finish the work in four days?"
"We'll worry about that when the time comes."
"But just suppose."
"Much would depend on circumstances."
"I see."
The time was midmorning. Glawen and Kirdy rode into Soumjiana by elevated transit car, through a district of industrial facilities and small workshops, uniformly fabricated of foamed glass, stained pale blue, watery green, pink or occasionally a pallid lemon yellow. To right and left the city spread away across a flat plain, accented only by lines of slim black trees which marked the routes of important boulevards.
In geological terms, Soum was an old world. The mountains had long been worn down to nubbins; innumerable small rivers wandered this way and that across the land; the seven seas knew only the most lackadaisical storms.
The Soumians, like their world, were of a mild and equable temperament. A certain school of sociologists, calling themselves the Circumstantial Determinists maintained that the placid environment had shaped the psyche of the Soumians. Another group, who called themselves merely sociologists, pronounced the theory "arrant mysticism and total nonsense." They pointed out that over the centuries folk of a hundred different racial stocks had come as immigrants of Soum, each necessarily adapting to the customs of all the others and in the process learning tolerance and compromise: faculties now integral with the Soumian personality. Women and men enjoyed equal status and tended to dress alike; there was little mystery or glamour to sexuality. Such being the case, sex crimes were uncommon, along with fits of
murderous jealousy, while grand amours and romantic adventures were little more than the subject of wistful speculation unless one could afford services like those offered by Ogmo Enterprises in the Perfection of Joy brochures.
Arriving at the center of Soumjiana, Glawen and Kirdy took lodging at the Travelers Inn, overlooking the Octacle, as the great eight-sided central plaza was known.
Kirdy seemed restless and somewhat out of sorts. Glawen took time to explain his plans in detail.
"We have a list of the travel agencies used by the Soumians who were taken on Thurben Island. We'll visit these places and try to identify the connecting link with Ogmo Enterprises. Perhaps we can turn up an address or a bank account or even a person with a name and a face."
"Possibly."
"If we work briskly, we should easily be able to finish here inside of four days assuming, of course, that we find it necessary to go on to Tassadero, which I hope will not be so."
Kirdy was still not reconciled to the schedule.
"Four days may not be enough. Of all the places the Mummers played, this was our favorite. Everyone liked the sausages from the little sausage grills. You'll see them everywhere around town and especially out on the Octacle. At one of these grills, the sausages were particularly tasty, and I am anxious to discover its location. Floreste never allowed us more than two apiece, which everyone considered extremely unkind and avaricious of him. Two sausages were just enough to tantalize a person. I am determined to locate the best and my most favorite sausage grill. It may well take more than four days. If so, what of that? At last I will get my fill of those wonderful sausages!"
Glawen opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. What was there to say? He started over again.
"Kirdy, do you hear me?"
"Of course I hear you."
"We are not here to search out sausages, not even if they were nectar and ambrosia and attar of roses, all mixed together. If you must look for sausages, I cannot stop you, but I will not join you."
Kirdy's eyes gleamed blue.
