Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (13 page)

Then, almost before they knew it, Amarok was standing before them in a loose-fitting groundsuit, announcing that they were about to make planetfall on Way 'Long, a dry, temperate place as comfortable to
Homo sapiens
as it was to its inhabitants. The natives' name for the place was immune to pronunciation. The locals called themselves the Croi.

It was an old, complacent planet ellipsing an aged main-sequence star. Way 'Long—or at least that part of it near the spacefield—smelled a little like the inside of an old sock, but aside from that it was actually quite pleasant. Even airlessness and volcanic upheavals would've been welcome after the confinement of the cuddy.

The Croi were reasonably peaceful, complacent and pre-technological. Blessed with a benign ecosystem, they'd taken a slow, unhurried climb toward sentience.

Their spacefield wasn't very impressive: a few bunkers containing sealed automatics—guidance and commo systems, mostly—fronting about two hectares of glue-fused soil. Their nearby village put Floyt in mind of a jumble of terra-cotta acorns. The Croi were gregarious creatures but not prolific; their small communities were scattered widely across Way 'Long.

Alacrity and Floyt were looking around, blinking at the local star, enjoying the opportunity to stretch and do little loosening-up moves. Floyt had originally chafed at the news that there would be a brief detour en route to the Grapple, but right then the idea seemed brilliant.

Amarok had set down to trade data, technical instruments and tools, and an array of seeds, cuttings, and plants. In return, he was to receive some novaseeds, extraordinary gemstones that accumulated in the gut of a creature native to Way 'Long's wastelands.

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The trading had taken place so straightforwardly, been so devoid of red tape and formality, that Floyt, who'd grown up under Earthservice, was scandalized. The Croi expected Amarok's arrival and had his payment waiting. Offloading the appropriate cargo took only a few minutes, no bureaucracy involved.

("No quarantine either," Alacrity had pointed out in an aside to Floyt. "The Croi are safe for now; Rok's the careful type. But that'll have to change. I hope somebody tells 'em.")

"Where is everybody else, Rok?" Alacrity said, looking around. "What is this, election day?" Spaceship landings were very rare occurrences there; he couldn't believe the natives were so blase'.

The
Pihoquiaq's
skipper had been talking to the little gaggle of locals who'd come out to treat with him.

"It seems we've been upstaged by a funeral, Alacrity. A very important status-being has gone on to glory, so to say."

"What's it about us, Ho, that we're so good at coming across big-time funerals?"

Floyt shrugged, scrutinizing the Croi, loose-limbed creatures who stood three and four meters or more, all reedy limbs and angular sensory appendages, meeting in leathery hassock torsos. Their fantastic coloring ran the spectrum, combined in swirls and zebra patterns, dots and mottling. Their hides gleamed as if powerbuffed.

The Croi had no central organ display that could rightly be called a face, and their various extremities were in almost constant, if leisurely, movement. It made talking to them a bit like a conversation with a very large floral arrangement.

"So the ceremony is that important to them, Rok?" Floyt asked. He was fascinated despite the fact that he'd kept a cautious distance from the creatures, a very few of whom spoke a measured, surprisingly good Terranglish, though they were given to redundancy.

That probably makes sense,
he thought.
Certainly their limbs and other appendages seem to provide for
redundancy-in-depth.

Amarok nodded. "That's the way Someone understands it. Death is the culmination of life; an individual is judged by his or her or its funeral, and the Croi spend a good deal of thought and time arranging for their own. They even hire mourners, as a matter of prestige."

"Professional mourners, like the old-time Chinese," Floyt said.

"One supposes. The final rite, locally, consists of taking the remains of the departed to that cliff up there and casting them into the sea." He pointed to a summit above the spacefield.

"Right now they're getting ready to heave some august old chappy after eight solid days of memorial file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (66 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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drinking, testimonial orgies, inheritance soirees, and commemorative gluttony."

"Not too different from Frostpile." Alacrity pondered. "Can we go look? Just for a few minutes? I know we're short of time and all, but—"

"This One isn't sure that would be such a good idea. These are very amiable beings, but still, we haven't been invited."

Alacrity
tched.
Floyt, to his own surprise, found himself disappointed as well. Way 'Long was only the second XT world he'd ever been on, not counting the sealed environment of Luna. Even his terran aversion to nonhumans didn't make it any easier to pass up on a chance to get some exercise. And he was, though he tried to minimize it to himself, curious.

Alacrity and Floyt had done what looking around they could from the immediate vicinity of the ship, using Amarok's electroimager. It only whetted their curiosity and reminded them that the confinement of the cuddy was right behind them.

"Best we were going," Amarok decided.

"Hey, hang on a minute; what's that?" Alacrity asked, squinting.

A local was approaching across the field, having just come up from town. The Croi moved with a speed they hadn't seen from the creatures before.

"Trouble?" Floyt wondered at once, missing the feel of the Webley against his midsection. There'd been an unfortunate incident earlier on in human-Croi contact, entirely the fault of
Homo sapiens.
As a result, these peaceful giants forbade their visitors any weapons.

"This One doesn't think so," Amarok said slowly.

The Croi drew to a stop before them, fluttering and swaying. It was one of the largest they'd seen, with more appendages and a thicker growth of sense nodules and substructures than most.

"People-persons of the human race species!" the thing began eagerly in the register of a bass fiddle being bowed. "How pleasantly fun it is that you didn't exit into departure prior to the start of my arrival!"

"
Interpreter
!" Alacrity yelled playfully over his shoulder to a nonexistent diplomatic corps. Croi sensory apparatus tilted and swiveled toward him, and Floyt gave him a disapproving frown.

"I have the identity of being Caut'Karr," the thing resumed to Amarok. "I am very nice to meet your acquaintance."

"And what can This One do for you, Caut'Karr?"

"Well, we are about to funeralize the last rites of our bereaving leader, the High Meddler, with the file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (67 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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solemnly dolesome flinging-forth of his extinct corpse," the Croi explained. "Such observances are about to begin on the dot of now."

"Yes, we'd heard. Our deepest sympathies are with you."

"Too bad you missed the sadly forlorn gorge-cramming of the epigastria-cavity stomachs. It was an admirably fed meal.

"At anyhow, the reason I have come is to ask you if you'll do us the overpowering thrill of walking the last final steps in the funeral cortege procession. Status rank is evaluated on the basis of mourners: their number, prestige, and hysterical unreservedness."

"See, now," Amarok began, not wishing to offend a customer, "it deeply grieves Someone to tell you this, but there are pressing demands on our time and—"

"Compensatory money payments would of course be of generous largesse, in keeping with our customs," Caut'Karr interjected anxiously.

"
Money
?" Alacrity jumped in.

"Affirmatively yes! Your presence would be so gratefully appreciated!" gushed the Croi. "To have the first offworld aliens in a funeral train—think of it!"

They did.

"Paid mourners, hmm?" Amarok said, rubbing the skin of his throat thoughtfully. "May Someone ask the amount of the, um, compensatory money payments?"

"As to that, for this great innovative modernism, our Botherers of the Privy have agreed that honor demands the sum of novaseeds be not less than one amber Perfect and four azure Primes per each apiece.

"Of course, common sense demands that it be no more," he added.

"Per each apiece
what
!" Floyt inquired.

"Per every inconsolably sad human mourner, per capita all," Caut'Karr clarified.

Alacrity worked it out in his head. An amber Perfect and four azure Primes was a tidy sum—several thousand ovals, or nearly a thousand ducats, depending on current prices.

Amarok turned to the two companions. "What about it? Would you two boys like to earn a little pocket money?"

"For a few minutes' work?" Alacrity said slyly, glancing to Floyt.

Floyt's conditioning was giving him only a mild tussle, in view of the need for money with which to file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (68 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:29

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carry out his mission.

"Do we caper, or roll in the gutter, or what're we supposed to do?" Floyt asked laconically.

"Isn't there a custom of lachrymose weeping and wailing?" Caut'Karr asked anxiously. "A completely bizarre bodily function like that should serve with altogether nicely admirability. Er, just what does it look like in any chance?"

The funeral procession was a long one, the three were told, even for the teeming megalopolis of the spacefield, which comprised some thousand or so Croi.

It came out of town a few minutes behind Caut'Karr. Musicians were playing, with a sound like kilometers of catgut being drawn through assorted holes. Croi lamentations reminded Alacrity of the noises he'd once heard in a warship's SIGINT section.

Hundreds of the creatures approached in a sloppily organized column. At the front was a large Croi borne along on a platform.

After a few moments the humans figured out that it wasn't some leader striking a noble pose, or a statue, but the late High Meddler himself, propped up by inobtrusive supports and gleaming with what looked like a generous application of shellac.

Gathered around him on his platform were flowers and food and drink, works of art, and memorabilia.

Caut'Karr explained that the swag would all be recycled to heirs and mourners after the ceremony, making everything that much merrier.

Directly around the departed were his heirs and various Very Important Croi. After them came family, then close friends of same, then employees, associates,
their
friends and relations, and other amateurs.

Behind these came the pros.

It was the biggest funeral bash in memory, so Caut'Karr claimed, and the only unfortunate aspect was that virtually the entire town was involved, leaving very few spectators.

The professional mourners were receiving a pittance compared to the humans, but they put on a show that was beyond reproach.

They ululated like banshees and swayed like willows in the wind. They flayed themselves and one another with their various extremities, and whipped the ground. They twirled and flung debris in the air.

Many appeared to have damaged themselves; as the humans watched, one Croi broke off a whiplike limb against a stone.

"Going a bit far, isn't it, Rok?" Floyt said.

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"He or she or it will regenerate in no time," Amarok answered. "The Croi are good at that. And if they're really short of something, other appendages change specialties to fill in."

"This could be a tough act to follow," Floyt said dubiously.

"Are you kidding, Ho? Just do what I do; we'll have 'em fainting in the back rows." For the excursion, Alacrity had strapped on a chest-pack and stuffed into it three cold bottles of champagne from Haj. As the strange procession drew near, on its way up the mountain, he popped the cork on one and took a deep chug, foam squirting out of his mouth around the bottle.

Caut'Karr swung in Alacrity's direction an optical organ like a sundial. "And what is the identifying name of this act, will you please?" the Croi inquired.

"Ancient time-honored human customary habit," Alacrity responded, champagne running down his chin.

"We'd offer you some, Caut'Karr, but—biochemistry, y'know … "

"Tradition?" The Croi marveled. "A traditional habitude? Oh, well; that's more than all right, then! But, ah, would your repertoire include anything perhaps by any chance a maybe-bit trifling smidgeon more
demonstrative
?"

"Like what? Name it."

"Well … we of the Croi-type sort of person are most preoccupied with your customary practice of the elegy. This
poetry
stuff is quite beautifully attractive, though for some obscurely hidden reason it seems to be apparently difficult for us to formulate things like rhyme and scansion."

"Yeah?" Alacrity took another sip. "You bet; we'll do what we can!"

"How very excellently fine! Now, if you'll just accompany me into coming along … "

He led the way toward the front of the procession. The other Croi were paying them a lot of attention by then.

Amarok warned Alacrity and Floyt
sotto voce,
"Now, this may be a lark to you, but these creatures are good customers and Someone doesn't want to see them offended or shortchanged. Fair is fair."

"Hey!" Alacrity protested as Floyt took a cautious sip of the champagne. "We never stiffed anybody yet, Rok! But if you don't trust us, just say the word and we'll stay behind."