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1
The Innocent Voyage

For once the Honorable Athelstan Pomfrey, Plenipotentiary of the Interbeing League to the Kingdom of Talyina and (in theory) the planet of New Lemuria, had met somebody more pompous than himself.

"But," he sputtered, "but I am not convinced you understand, yes, comprehend the situation. The, ah, exigencies. Underdeveloped autochthons of warlike thought patterns, having lately undergone political upheaval—"

"Quite," interrupted Bertram Cecil Featherstone Smyth-Cholmondoley.

So far he had replied to Pomfrey's booming pronouncements, admonitions, and citations with fourteen "quites" and eight "indeeds." As he stood aside, Charlie Stuart found himself enjoying the spectacle. He began to feel hopes of getting some fun, as well as instruction, out of his daily sessions with Bertram.

Not that he wasn't fond of his tutor. But why had bad luck decreed that the Hoka would seize on the one particular model he did? Surely the cosmos held more colorful possibilities than an Oxford don.

Now his father was chuckling, too. That made Charlie happier still. Dad had seemed glum for quite a while, and Charlie knew the reason. Malcolm Stuart, captain of the space freighter Highland Lass, was worried about his only son. Charlie felt it but didn't know what to do about it. Somehow, in the last few years, an invisible wall had risen between them. Each realized how much the other wanted to break through, but neither was able.

"You will be well beyond the treaty zone where League police may travel," Pomfrey was saying for about the twentieth time. "If you get into trouble, we can't send a rescue party after you. Can try to negotiate, but if that fails, my hands are tied."

"Quite," said Bertram Smyth-Cholmondoley.

The two of them were worth traveling far to watch, Charlie thought. They stood with their rotund stomachs almost touching; the paunch of the human Plenipotentiary overhung the middle bulge of the Hoka. Pomfrey was balding and jowly. He gained little from his fashionable purple jacket, lacy white shirt, yellow bell-bottom trousers, and red slippers. They simply added to his respectability.

Bertram's quieter garb gave a wild contrast. For one thing, it was hundreds of years out of date, belonging to the nineteenth or early twentieth century on Earth. Faultless morning coat, old school tie over starched linen, striped trousers, spats, top hat, and monocle in one eye—which didn't actually need any help—would have been suitable in a museum. They most certainly were not suitable on a living teddy bear whose round head reached to the chest of an adult human.

"Oh, your persons should be safe," Pomfrey intoned. "I wouldn't let you go at all if they weren't used to visitors in Grushka and if the local baron didn't keep this entire island well pacified."

"Indeed," said Bertram in his shrill voice and clipped accent. He waved a languid hand which, except for the stubbiness of the fingers, was very humanlike. The rest of him was less so. His moon face, crowned by upstanding semicircular ears, consisted of two beady black eyes and a blunt muzzle with a moist black nose. Though he walked erect on two legs, those were short and thick, even in proportion to his tubby body. Soft golden fur covered his skin.

"My apprehensions principally concern unpredictable effects you yourselves may have on the citizenry," Pomfrey declared. "Remember, they underwent a revolution a few years ago. Unrest is prevalent. Banditry is on the increase through most of the kingdom. It is not inconceivable that some random influence may touch a nerve, spark an explosion."

"Quite," said Bertram.

"Should adverse effects ensue, you would be liable to punishment," Pomfrey continued. "We, the fully civilized, are responsible for the welfare of our underdeveloped brothers, or at a minimum for not provoking unnecessary trouble among them. Indeed—"

Bertram gave him a mildly indignant look, as if to accuse him of stealing that word.

Charlie's gaze wandered. How long must this argument go on?

The Commission dwelled in a walled compound. The buildings were prefabricated on Earth, therefore uninteresting to a visitor who had spent most of his eighteen years on that planet. The flower beds between them did hold gorgeous, strangely colored and shaped native blossoms, whose perfumes blended with the sea salt in a gentle breeze. Above one side of the compound towered the spaceship he had come in. But his eyes went from that metal spear to treetops glimpsed across the stockade. Their green was subtly different from any he had ever seen back home. They rustled and shimmered beneath a few white clouds which walked through a dazzling day.

How he longed to be off!

"I frankly wish you and young Mr. Stuart had not taken an electronic cram in the Talyinan language," Pomfrey was droning. "A number of islanders, including your guide, speak English. If you, with only the sketchiest knowledge of the psychopolitical situation, of this entire culture and its mores, if you should ignorantly say something which disturbs one of those turbulent warriors—"

Bertram must have been getting impatient too, for he was finally stirred to a new reply. "Tut-tut!" he said, and tapped Pomfrey in the stomach.

"What?" The Plenipotentiary gaped at him.

Bertram reached up, hooked Pomfrey's elbow, and pulled the human down toward him till their heads were at a confidential distance. He did this without effort. In spite of being short and chubby, Bertram, like any Hoka, had astounding strength and speed. He would have been more than a match for three or four full-grown men in good shape, let alone an aging and overweight diplomat. Casually, he yanked the other down so that the chief representative of the Interbeing League was forced to stand on one foot and flail his free arm to keep balance.

"Yonder lad," said Bertram kindly, "is, as you have observed, my pupil. I've been engaged to tutor him during his travels. He must be prepared to enter college when we return. Ergo, in the absence of his father, Captain Stuart, I stand in loco parentis to Master Charles Edward. On this little jaunt of ours into the hinterland, I myself shall be responsible. Hence you may set your mind at rest. Quod erat demonstrandum." After a second he added, "Your mind is at rest, isn't it?"

"Guk!" gargled Pomfrey, striving to escape from the iron grip upon him, regain his lost balance, and reassert his dignity. "It is! It is!"

Bertram released him. He gasped and wiped sweaty brow.

"Then pip-pip, old chap." The Hoka beamed. "Best we be off now, if we're to make Grushka by nightfall, eh, what? I've studied those jolly old maps of yours." He bowed to the space skipper. "Sir, I feel confident our junket will prove must educational for my charge." In a whisper that could be heard for meters: "Enlightening. Psychologically salutary. Right?" To Charlie: "Come, my young friend, say your farewells in proper style and let's be gone. We've already kept our chauffeur waiting an unconscionable time. Mustn't abuse the lower classes."

Charlie first offered Pomfrey a polite, formal, good-bye. The Plenipotentiary wasn't a bad man. He seemed too fussy and rule-bound, perhaps not the ideal choice for a medievallike country. But he had been hospitable enough and had actually raised no serious objection to the proposed tour. To shake his father's hand was more difficult for Charlie. Except for red hair, blue eyes, and freckled, sharply cut features, they hadn't a great deal in common. Both wished it were otherwise. Captain Stuart was tall and rawboned, hearty of manner, as intelligent as a space officer must be, but fonder of sports than study. Charlie would never match his father's height. In plain blue tunic and trousers, his frame showed wiry rather than muscular.

"So long, Dad," he said, in a low voice.

"Take care," Captain Stuart answered softly. Louder: "A good orbit to you! Enjoy yourself!"

"Th-thanks." Charlie turned about fast and hurried off with Bertram.

Captain Stuart stared after them till they were out of sight. Pomfrey cleared his throat. "Ah-hum!" said the Plenipotentiary. "I hope my cautionings don't have you worried. Simply my duty, to reinforce proper procedures in their minds. They should encounter no hazard whatsoever. And it's merely for a week."

In fact, the jaunt was scheduled for less than that, since New Lemuria rotates in twenty hours.

The tall man shook himself. "Oh. Sure," he said.

"Merely a trip to Grushka, to inspect native architecture, folkways, historic sites, et cetera," Pomfrey continued. "Scores of people have made it, mostly spacehands but not infrequently passengers, when a vessel which called there has had to layover like yours. The inhabitants are used to tourists."

Stuart nodded absently. He had reviewed the situation in detail before he gave his own permission.

His ship had brought a consignment of off-planet wares and was supposed to pick up local products in exchange—dried seafood, vegetable oils, exotic furs, and handicrafts. Because of the current troubles, these goods were not waiting for him, but delivery was promised soon. In such cases, the rule was that a freighter delayed liftoff. Native merchandise was seldom especially valuable to a far-flung civilization. But the encouragement of those natives to deal with that civilization was important.

The Kingdom of Talyina occupied no continent, but rather a group of islands. Shverkadi was neither the greatest nor the least of these. It lay near the western edge of the archipelago. The League Commission wanted to remain a little off side, so as not to get too closely involved with a monarchy that was often oppressive. It established its base at the thinly populated north end of Shverkadi. The harbor town of Grushka was at the south end.

"I would have avoided the lecturing altogether," Pomfrey said—Stuart privately doubted that—"except for the recent political unrest, which may not be finished yet. But given reasonable discretion, no outsiders should meet serious problems."

"Anyhow," the captain replied in a rough tone, "you can't keep a young fellow tied down forever. You've got to let him try his wings, never mind the risk."

Pomfrey stroked a double chin. "The, ah, circumstances do appear a trifle unusual," he remarked.

Stuart couldn't help blurting, "Maybe not. Spacemen spend long stretches away from home. It makes for strains in the family."

"You wish to, ah, become closer to your son, and therefore took him along on this trip?"

"Yes. He's always been . . . well, bookish. Too much by himself, I think; living too much in his imagination, not the real universe. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm all for learning. If Charlie becomes an artist or a scientist or whatever, that's fine. But hang it, he ought to live more. Finally my wife and I agreed he should come on a voyage with me. A swing through the frontier worlds might stimulate him to be more active, more sociable. That's why I haven't opposed, have even pushed, his idea of visiting Grushka. And I'm deliberately sending no one along except Bertram. Let's start Charlie coping with things by himself, instead of daydreaming while somebody else manages for him."

Pomfrey raised his eyebrows. "I must say, Captain, that sophont who accompanies him is, mmm, unique."

Stuart relaxed a bit and laughed. "Isn't he!"

Pomfrey grimaced. "A Hoka, did you call him?"

"Yes. Native of the planet Toka. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it. It's still under guidance, but moving fast toward full status. A good many individuals of that race already have jobs or scholarships that keep them on other worlds. Bertram studied in Great Britain. It's affected him."

"It certainly has!" Pomfrey huffed. "Though why he should imitate a classical rather than a modern Englishman is beyond me."

Stuart laughed again. "That's the Hoka character. They're extremely bright and quick to learn. But they have absolutely overriding imaginations. Any role that strikes a Hoka's fancy he'll play to the hilt, till he hits on a different one that he likes better." He paused. "Or is `play' the right word? `Live' might be more accurate. Oh, a Hoka doesn't get confused about identity or anything like that. But apparently he's so single-minded, so thoroughgoing, that his new personality becomes the true one, for him or for his entire society. I've been on Toka myself and seen complete replicas of the Wild West, Camelot, the French Foreign Legion—things Earth forgot long ago, but the Hokas found in books or tapes. Somehow, our Bertram decided to be an old-time Oxford don."

"And still you hired him for a tutor?" Pomfrey asked.

"By and large, I'm well pleased. Bertram may slouch about smoking a foul old pipe and quoting tag ends of Latin. But he knows what he's supposed to know, and he gets the information into Charlie's head. I can't even guess how much miscellaneous learning he carries around besides. And then he's physically powerful. We might someday be glad he is."

Pomfrey winced at that reminder. Stuart saw, and decided to be gentle to his host. "Why not come aboard ship?" he invited. "I've stuff you haven't seen yet, from any number of planets, that ought to interest you. Frankly, I admire you for sticking it out in this backwater where nothing important ever happens."

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