"Not even for an hour?
It's time for a proper nap; we've exerted ourselves enough for one day."
"I'm not tired."
Kirdy spoke with finality: "I must rest for a bit and I am going to my room."
"Pleasant dreams," said Glawen.
Kirdy stalked off across the lobby, but Glawen noticed that he went only a few steps, then flung himself angrily down into a chair. When Glawen turned to leave, Kirdy jumped to his feet and followed. He caught up with Glawen just outside the main portal.
"Aha!" said Glawen.
"You weren't able to sleep?"
"Something like that," said Kirdy grimly.
The two walked around the plaza. Kirdy compared the area unfavorably with the central square at Soumjiana.
"Look!
Right and left, in all directions! You will find not a single sausage grill!"
"Sausages are not in style this season."
"That must be the answer. Ugh! What a dreary place! I have never liked Tassadero. Zonk's Star is a sorry excuse for a sun!" Kirdy squinted contemptuously up toward Zonk's Star.
"It is infested with mildew. Such light cannot be healthy."
"It's just light. Not much of it, of course."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. I have had it on good authority that Zonklight includes ^peculiar vibration found nowhere else.
It rots the teeth and does odd things to the fingernails."
"Where did you hear this?"
"Floreste learned this and much more from a scientist who had studied the subject in depth."
"I saw no such information in the tourist brochure. They said:
"Zonk's Star floats through the sky like an enormous pearl, shimmering and wavering through a hundred subtle colors. The distances at Tassadero are particularly charming' or words to that effect."
"That's pure bosh! They are howling liars, these tourist blokes."
Glawen had no comment to make. The two arrived at the IPCC offices. Upon entering, they found themselves in a large room furnished with four desks and a line of heavy settees, durable if lacking in style. At the moment the room was empty of staff except for a young woman working at a desk.
She was tall, slender, with short ash-blond hair, and a look of easy competence. She wore the regulation uniform which made no concessions to gender save in cut: dark blue blouse with red piping, dark blue breeches and black ankle boots
Two white stars at each shoulder indicated her rank. She measured Glawen and Kirdy with two swift glances and spoke in a crisp neutral voice: impersonal but far from unpleasant.
"Sirs? Do you have business with us?"
"Nothing urgent," said Glawen.
"I am Captain Clattuc and this is Sergeant Wook; we are affiliates from Araminta Station on Cadwal; we thought it proper to let you know that we were in the neighborhood."
"A very good idea! I'll turn you over to Commander Plock, who will want to meet you. Will you come this way? There is no great formality around here."
She took the two to a side office and spoke through the doorway.
"Off-world visitors, Commander: Captain Clattuc and Sergeant Wook, from Cadwal."
Commander Plock jumped to his feet: a tall man, broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, with short thick black hair, glowing hazel eyes and features of jutting bone and corded cartilage. Odd! thought Glawen;
Plock looked anything but a slave to regulation.
Plock pointed to chairs.
"Be seated, if you will. You are Captain Clattuc and this is Sergeant Wook, correct?"
"Correct, sir."
"This is your first time on Tassadero?"
"For me it is," said Glawen.
"Kirdy has been here before, with Floreste's Mummers."
