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way.
"Just part of it?" Mula-aygave a syrupy chuckle as he answered, like a
hogshead of molasses being emptied into a deep tank. There was a note of
derision in his chuckling. A note that seemed to invite everyone else to join
him in laughing over some joke at Bill's expense. This in itself might mean
something or it might not. A love of cruelty was part of the Hemnoid
character, as Bill knew. It was a racial characteristic which the Hemnoid
culture praised, rather than condemned. Nonetheless, it was not pleasant to be
the butt of Mula-ay's joke, whatever it was. Feeling suddenly ridiculous, Bill
took his feet out of the back straps of the Bluffer's harness and slid down to
stand on the floor.
Now on his feet and facing both the seated Mula-ayand Bone Breaker, Bill
found he could look slightly down into the face of the Hemnoid, although his
eyes glanced level with the eyes of Bone Breaker.
"Have a place at my table, Pick-and-Shovel," rumbled the outlaw chief. His
tone was formal, so that the words came out very like a command. "You too,
Postman."
Without hesitation, the Bluffer dropped down on one of the unoccupied stools.
Bill walked around and hoisted himself up on the other empty seat. He found
himself with Bone Breaker close at his right elbow; while at his left elbow,
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with only a few feet between them, sat the gross form of Mula-ay, his
Buddha-like face still creased in a derisive smile. Opposite, Bill's single
ally, the Hill Bluffer, seemed far away and removed from the action.
With the fire lashing its red flames into the air at one side of them,
throwing ruddy gleams among the sooty shadows of the bare rafters above them
and the outsize figures surrounding him, there came on Bill suddenly a feeling
of having somehow stumbled into a nether world, peopled by dark giants and
strange monsters. A momentary feeling of helplessness washed through him. All
around him, the situation seemed too big for him physically, emotionally, and
even professionally. He broke out rashly and directly to Bone Breaker,
speaking across a corner of the table.
"I understand you've got a Shorty here a Shorty named Dirty Teeth!"
For a long second, the outlaw merely looked at him.
"Why, yes," answered Bone Breaker. Then, with strange mildness, "She did
wander in here the other day and I believe she's still around. Seems I
remember she told me yesterday she didn't plan to leave for a while whether I
liked it or not."
He continued to gaze at Bill, as Bill sat, momentarily shaken both by his own
lack of caution and by Bone Breaker's astonishing answer. Now, while Bill was
still trying to collect his scattered wits, Bone Breaker spoke again.
"But let's not get into that now, Pick-and-Shovel," said the outlaw chief,
still in that tone of surprising mildness. "It's just time for the food and
drink. Sit back and make yourself comfortable. We'll have dinner first. Then
we can talk."
Mula-ay, Bill saw, was still grinning at him, evidently hugely enjoying
Bill's confusion and discomfiture.
"Well . . . thanks," said Bill to Bone Breaker.
A couple of Dilbian females were just at this moment coming to the table with
huge platters of what appeared to be either boiled or roasted meat, enormous
irregular chunks of brown material that seemed to be some kind of bread, and
large wooden drinking containers.
"What's the matter, Pick-and-Shovel?" Bone Breaker inquired mildly, as the
wooden vessels were being poured full of a dark brown liquid, which Bill's
nose told him was probably some form of native beer. "Nothing wrong with the
food and drink, is there? Dig in."
"Quite right," Mula-ayechoed the Dilbian with an oily chuckle, cramming his
own large mouth full of bread and meat and lifting the wooden tankard to wash
the mouthful down. "Best food for miles around."
"Not quite, Barrel Belly," replied Bone Breaker, turning his deceptive
mildness this time upon the Hemnoid. "I thought I told you. Sweet Thing is the
best cook in these parts."
"Oh yes yes," agreed the Hemnoid hastily, swallowing with a gulp, and beaming
hugely at the outlaw, "of course. How could it have slipped my mind? Good as
this is, it isn't a patch on what Sweet Thing could cook. Why, sure!"
Bone Breaker, Bill thought, must possess an iron fist within the velvet glove
of this apparent mildness of his, judging by the reaction of the Hemnoid. Now
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the black-furred outlaw's eyes were coming back to Bill. Bill hastily picked
up a chunk of meat and began gnawing on it. Oh well, he thought, nothing
ventured, nothing gained.
Conversation in general had ceased, not merely at their own head table, but
about the hall, as the Dilbians present settled down to the serious business
of eating. Their industry in performing that task was awesome enough from a
human's point of view. Bill had never thought of himself as a particularly
light eater in fact, at Survival School, he had been accused of just the
opposite. But compared to these Dilbians, and to the Hemnoid at his left
elbow, his performance as a trencherman was so insignificant as to seem
ridiculous.
To begin with, somewhere between six and eight pounds of boiled meat had been
dumped upon his wooden plate, along with what looked like about the equivalent
of two loaves of bread. The wooden flagon alongside his plate looked as if it
could hold at least a quart or two of liquid, and it had been generously
filled.
After a first attempt at trying to keep up with the oversized appetites and
capacities of those around him, Bill gave up. He scattered the food around on
his plate as much as possible to make it look as if he had eaten, and resigned
himself to pretending to be busy with the drinking flagon, which, as it became
more and more empty, got easier to handle.
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