“Travel always makes me hungry,” he replied, turning to his food. He took a long suck from the spout of the tankard.

She eyed it curiously. “What are you having?”

“Quianqua fruit juice,” he said apologetically, and then wondered why he’d used the apologetic inflection.

“Piss juice, you mean.” The female turned, gestured toward the front counter. Without being asked, she settled into the saddle opposite Ryo. Light flashed from her ommatidia. Tile thin gold bands that crossed the center of the eye were wider than most. “You don’t look like the assembly-line type.”

“I’m not,” he admitted. “I’m a raw land surveyor and have been working to the north.”

“Out of the hive, then?”

“Yes. I’m here on exploration-related business and trying to husband my credits.” She seemed to be enjoying the conversation. As was he. It was relaxing to have someone to talk to he could feel safe with. She did not strike him as a Servitor operative.

His descriptions of the jungle and wild lands to the north fascinated her. By her own admission she’d never been outside Ciccikalk. A common condition of large-hive citizens, Ryo mused. It limits their horizons.

The kitchen worker arrived with two tankards of something that smelled wonderful. The drinking spouts were slightly more elaborate than that of the tankard he’d started with, each having a single neat spiral worked into it. They were what passed for fancy utensils in the Dulinsul.

“I think you’ll like this,” she said, taking a deep suck from her own spout.

The drink lightened his thoughts and lifted his worries. The sensation was not unlike being tossed by the Southern Jhe, though the fear of drowning was absent.

“You’re right, it’s marvelous. What is it?"

“Masengail wine. I’m glad you like it, since you’re paying for it.”

“I am?”

“I introduced you to it, Isn’t that enough?” Again the trilling laugh.

“Fair enough.” He sipped more deeply. It made him feel lovely.

V

He’d been wrong about many things in his life, but never so wrong as he’d been about the wine. It had lightened his thoughts and lifted his worries, and while it couldn’t drown him like the Southern Jhe, it did help him bash his head against something. Or bash something against it.

He leaned against the wall and gingerly felt of his head with a foothand. The chiton was not cracked, for which he was grateful. However, his head did feel as if someone had unscrewed it from his b-thorax and then replaced it backward and upside down. Improper orientation seemed to afflict the street too, though the longer he stared at it the more it seemed to right itself. But the pain intensified as the view solidified.

He took a couple of steps and nearly toppled over. Eventually he succeeded in reaching a corridor corner where the standard direction plate was imbedded in the wall. He read it several times before he could understand it.

It informed him that he was on Level 40, Subannex 892. Vaguely it occurred to him that he was not where he ought to be. Squatting down on the street, he tried to order his thoughts.