Their Majesties' Bucketeers by L. Neil Smith Page A

counter, I amused myself watching the telephonic operators shouting numbers out and dancing back and forth before the huge display of switches and connections. There might have been a thousand filaments woven in some arcane pattern across the great board at any given time, and I recall thinking that, were it not for proper Fodduan ethics, this might be an excellent place to overhear the sort of conversation that might be of use to a detective. The operators had to listen, at least part of the time, so that they might introduce speakers to one another, disconnect the wires at conversation’s end, and plug them in again where they were next wanted. I made a mental note to speak of this to Mav.
    That thought, in turn, led me to another, so that, before I paid the clerk his usurious deposit, I insisted upon a demonstration with the instrument reserved for convincing balky potential subscribers. It took me quite two-thirds of an hour to locate Mav, by which time the several operators were hopelessly entangled in a weaving of arms and legs and electrical connections, the sales clerk’s impatience held in check only by frequent mention of my father’s patronymic.
    “Ahoy, Mav! Is it really you?”
    “ Ahoy, yourself, good paracauterist. There isn’t really any need to shout. I can hear you as plainly as if you were in the next room .”
    It was awkward manipulating the instrument so that its receiver was next to the ear on my shoulder and the speaking tube properly before a nostril. My bag kept slipping off onto the floor, which made the clerk suppress a snigger. Additionally, I found I was embarrassed even speaking to the place of Mav’s whereabouts, for it seemed that he was at Vyssu’s…establishment, and who knows what went on there at this hour of the afternoon?
    “ Now that you have found me, Mymy, what was it you wished to tell me? ”
    “Well, I…that is, I have some information, which I can’t imagine passing along in this manner, since I am standing in the post office with at least a dozen persons listening. Where was it you wished to meet me later?” I twined my arms in a childish wishing gesture, but his next words disappointed me:
    “ Why, here at Vyssu’s, if you do not find it inconvenient. I’ve been discussing matters with her, and I believe you’ll find she has some fascinating notions to share with us .”
    “With us ?” Merciful Pah, a male like Mav, a surmale like myself, and that person , Vyssu, alone together in the Kiiden? This career of mine was beginning to demand too much. However, we are strongly constituted in my family, so I continued, “Very well, I believe I’ll take a cab, as it is getting dark, and—”
    “ And the Kiiden isn’t any place to be alone on hand? I quite agree, my dear, but…what’s that? A capital idea! Mymy, Vyssu will send her carriage. Did you say you were at the post office? What on Sodde Lydfe are you doing there? ”
    “Speaking to you by telephone. The Royal Mail office in Empire Point. Shall we say good-bye, then?”
    “ Say good-bye. We’ll see you in a third of an hour, not more. ”
    I handed the instrument back to the clerk, paid the deposit, and went out to stand at the curbing. Shortly a stylish rig drew up and an imposing, darkly furred fellow with a scar cut deeply in his carapace and a patch over one eye asked if I were not Missur Mymysiir, to which I replied (not without some thought of denying it) in the affirmative. He assisted me aboard the machine, and it was, if you’ll believe it, only then that I noticed there were no watun fastened to the front!
    “Wull jiss bee a meenut, Missur,” he said in a sinister and unknown accent; I began to think about the many warnings my mother had taken pains to convey before I knew what sex I’d be. “Gotta drann th’ rotor houseeng.” He reached beneath the chassis of the contraption, manipulated something, and stepped back abruptly. There was a hissss , and as I watched, confused and