“Well, I don’t think you’ll raise much material out there, if you get that far,” she replied. “They’re an uncommunicative bunch. Can’t say as how I blame ’em. I can’t imagine a worse place in the civilized worlds to be stationed. I’d leave here myself if I could, but I’ve two unmated daughters working in the mines and they’re all the family I’ve got.”
Having always been surrounded by family and clanmates, Ryo found her confession particularly touching. “I am sorry.”
“We all have our place,” she said philosophically.
“So all nonmilitary visitors have to be cleared through this information station?”
“I would think so.” She preened at a badly damaged left antenna where some of the feathers were missing, then glanced around and whistled softly. “If you’re as determined as you are crazy, however, you might have a flagon of juice in the first-level public eatery and ask for an individual name of Torplublasmet.”
“Why—could he help us?” Ryo asked eagerly.
“He could if anyone could.”
Wuu made a gesture of wariness mixed with lack of comprehension. “I don’t understand. Even if this person were capable of doing so, why should he?”
The ancient one let out a delighted, wheezing whistle. “Because he’s crazy too!” And she turned and waddled off down the corridor.
“What do you think?” Ryo asked Wuu as soon as she was out of sight.
The poet considered. “I made up that story about seeking material for a poem to allay any suspicions she might have had and to answer her question as to our purpose, but why should we not continue with that? My credentials can be verified. We are traveling outside official channels because such interference would inhibit artistic inspiration.”
Ryo gestured hesitant concurrence. “I accept that, but will the authorities at the base?”
“A poet’s palate can accomplish miracles, my boy. And perhaps our friend Torplublasmet—”
“He’s not our friend yet.”
“—will have a suggestion or two.”
They ambled off uplevel and located the eatery, but two days passed before the enigmatic Torplublasmet chose to show himself. As soon as he did, Ryo found ample reason to agree with the old matriarch’s assessment of him.
Tor was a solitary trapper, one of the few Thranx courageous or foolhardy enough to brave the howling, arctic wilderness above ground. He wore the skins of dead animals instead of proper clothes, and it was some time before Ryo could face him without experiencing nausea.
Wuu, on the other hand, seemed to find something kindred in this bucolic spirit, and by promising the chance to see something “no one else even suspects may exist,” he succeeded in convincing the trapper to convey them to the distant base.
A faintly voiced hope turned out to have substance when the resourceful Tor did indeed propose a reasonable excuse for their presence. They would be fellow trappers, visitors from far-off trapping grounds, come to sound out the opportunities for peddling some merchandise among the isolated citizens of the base.