“And what is the child’s name?” asked Miss Dechantagne.

“My name is Senta Bly,” said the girl, realizing a moment later that this was the first time she had spoken to the woman she had watched so many times before.

Two waiters served dinner beginning with steamed shrimps on a bed of fresh lettuce with tart vinaigrette, and a light, crisp white wine. Chilled asparagus soup and a bubbly pink wine followed this. The main course was toad-in-the-hole: savory sausages, potatoes, broccoli, and small sweet onions baked in a savory pudding batter. This was served with a dark red wine from Mirsanna. Senta tucked in and ate quite a lot. Even so, by the time she took the first sip of her Mirsannan wine, she already felt her head wobbling from side to side.

“Do you think the child should be drinking wine?” said Mrs. Marjoram, clicking her tongue.

“Pish posh,” said Zurfina. “Wine is good for the soul.”

“I am sure that Father Ian would not agree with you,” said Mrs. Marjoram

“You would know better than me,” said the sorceress.

“Better than I,” corrected Mrs. Marjoram.

“Better than either of us then.”

“I am sorry to see that Captain Dechantagne is not dining with us this evening,” said Dr. Kelloran.

“He indicated to me that he wasn’t feeling quite himself this evening,” said Miss Dechantagne.

“Yes, poor fellow,” said Augustus Dechantagne, draining his wine glass, and waving for the waiter to refill it. “He’s been under the weather quite a lot. I don’t think the tropical air agrees with him.”

“Well I’m very glad to see you again, Lieutenant Dechantagne,” continued the doctor. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for your part in my rescue.”

“Just doing my bit. Officer and a gentleman, and all that.” Gesturing with his wineglass, he sloshed some of it out onto the table. “And please, call me Augie. In fact, everyone here should call me Augie. And you should call me often.”

He laughed. Then Senta laughed. No one else did.

“Well I for one would like to see something done,” said Mrs. Marjoram. “Imagine, women being kidnapped off the street. And it’s not even an unusual occurrence!   I mean, what do we have a military for? They should send in a battalion of marines and clear these cultists out.”

“Enclep is a big place,” said Lieutenant Baxter. “Over two hundred thousand square miles of mostly jungle and this is our only base. Our navy is stretched as far as it can be already—patrolling colonies on twelve continents as well as protecting the home front.”

“And I understand,” said Augie, pausing to take another drink, “that this ape cult is spread out over the entire region.”

“Well, I still think it is abhorrent,” said Mrs. Marjoram.

“Quite right. Quite right,” agreed Augie. “Still, we gave them the old what for.”

“Yes,” said Miss Dechantagne. “Thanks to my brothers there have been no attacks for the last three days reported in Nutooka or any of the outlying villages.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll be showing their faces in these parts any time soon,” said Augie. “Not that they showed their faces before, what with those hoods and all. Bit cowardly, that.”

Dessert was served and it looked wonderful. It was trifle, and Senta had seen but never tasted it before. Fresh fruit from the local market made it even more extravagant than similar preparations at Café Carlo. Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, and kiwi were layered with sweet custard, whipped cream, and pound cake soaked in fortified wine. Even over the aroma of the wine, the smell of vanilla—which Senta had only learned existed two days before—rose up from the decadent dish. Each mouthful thrilled the girl to her core as she scooped it in and let the foison of flavor delight every taste bud. And when she finished, a waiter brought her another piece! Along with this wonderful dessert, they served tiny little glasses of blackberry liqueur.

“So, we will be able to leave tomorrow?” asked Miss Lusk.

“Tomorrow evening,” said Miss Dechantagne. “Our restocking has generally been a success, but I wanted to acquire some seeds of the local plants and some saplings of the fruit trees. These will be arriving, hopefully, in the morning.”

“To a successful voyage!” said Augie, raising his glass in a toast.

“To a successful voyage,” repeated most everyone at the table.

“I don’t feel good,” said Senta.

“Too much wine?” asked Mrs. Marjoram, pointedly.

“I think I’m going to overflow.”

“Not in here,” said Miss Dechantagne, sternly.

“Why don’t you go up on deck and get some air, Pet,” said Zurfina.

It was mid-afternoon when Terrence stepped back out of the tent and back into the marketplace of Nutooka. He paid no attention to words of goodbye from Oyunbileg. As it always did afterwards, the color seemed to have drained out of the world and it now looked as monochrome as a picture from a photographic plate. And just as they always did afterwards, sounds seemed far more intense than usual, and he felt as though he could pick out individual voices from among the crowd of native merchants and their customers. He pulled off his slouch hat to mop the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and then started as two women brushed past him. They were two women from the Minotaur, and seemed too engrossed in their conversation to notice him.

He recognized both of them. One was Professor Calliere’s red-haired assistant. The other was a dark-haired woman, about two inches taller and thirty pounds heavier, who was a female medical doctor. Her name was something that started with a ‘k’ sound—Cleves or Keeves or something. Terrence stood and admired both women as they walked near the edge of the stall selling bolts of cloth in many colors. Both were women of class: dynamic, intelligent, determined. They were both the kind of women that he could have seen himself courting, in another life.

He was still watching the two women when the sounds of a great kafuffle somewhere on the other side of the market reached his ears. No sooner had this registered than seven or eight mounted men rode into the market near the two women from the Minotaur. These riders were dressed in various clothing of tan, brown, and white, but each had a red sash wrapped around his waist, and each wore a red hood completely covering his face, with only two holes cut out through which to see. The most remarkable thing about these mounted men though, wasn’t the men themselves, but their mounts. Terrence knew that horses were unavailable on Enclep, but it was still a shock to see riders upon huge, ferocious-looking birds. The birds were as tall as a horse, though unlike that noble steed, they ran on only two massive legs, and had tiny useless wings. Their clawed feet were almost two feet across and the massive beaks upon their mammoth heads looked as though it could easily clip off a man’s arm, or disembowel him in a moment. They were mostly covered with brown feathers, though there were black and white details on some of them. The men had them saddled, and though they squawked incessantly, they seemed to be under firm control.

One of the men on bird-back, reached down and scooped up Professor Calliere’s assistant as though she were a shapely bag of wheat. Another grabbed the female medical doctor. Still another grabbed a native woman from nearby. Two or three had already appropriated women from somewhere else in the market and two more tried to grab nearby native women only to be thwarted by their intended victims diving behind market stalls. The entire flock of riders raced to escape the market and the city, which led them down the path directly toward Terrence Dechantagne.

With one deft motion, Terrence pulled both his nickel-plated .45 revolvers from their shoulder holsters. He fired first one and then the other in rapid succession emptying all twelve cylinders. The first rider fell to the ground, hit several times, as did the great bird that he had ridden. The second rider, shot through the neck, tumbled to the ground. The woman that had been his captive plopped unceremoniously onto the dirt. The rest of the riders turned their birds, in a way that would have been impossible in the confined area had they been riding horses, and headed for the far side of the pathway between stalls, leaving their dead fellows and a single noisy giant bird behind.

Quickly popping the cylinders of his revolvers open and reloading them, Terrence barely noticed the short redhead at his side. He tasted the metallic cloud of gunpowder smoke that hung in the humid air. By the time he had finished reloading the guns though, the mounted men had turned the corner and vanished, and he had time to take notice that it was the professor’s assistant whom he had rescued from the second rider.

“Are you all right, Miss?

“Lusk, Egeria Lusk. You’re going after them,” she said. It was more a command than a question.

As they left the port authority office, Lieutenant Staff slowed his military gate, and offered his arm to Iolanthe. She took it and they turned down a cobblestone path beneath a bamboo cover and through a small garden. Red roses surrounded a small patch of grass. In the center of this lawn was a small fountain: an abstract shape spraying water into the air and then down into a pool about three feet across. Arranged around the little pool were carefully set rows of tiny yellow flowers of a type that Iolanthe had never seen before.

“What are those?” she wondered.

“I believe that they are called ‘bird feet’,” said Staff. “I don’t know why. They don’t look like bird’s feet to me.”

“If anything, they look like little faces,” said Iolanthe. “They’re quite pretty, don’t you think?”

“You know that garden represents the last bit of civilization that we’re likely to see for some time,” he said. “I know you are a strong woman, but you are a woman. I thought you should see something pretty before we get where we are going. There’s going to be very little to see there that’s pretty.”

“I think you may turn out to be wrong there,” she said.

“Oh?”

Iolanthe took off her pith helmet, holding it in her right hand and primping the bun in which her auburn hair had been arranged, with her left hand. She looked into Lieutenant Staff’s eyes and felt a pressure in her chest that she had never felt before. It spread downward into her loins and out into her arms and legs. Her voice caught for just a moment.

“I like pretty things as much as any other woman,” she said finally. “But pretty things are just that—pretty things. Flowers in a vase will wilt in a few days. Those flowers by the fountain will be gone in a few weeks or months. The important things are the things that last. We’ll always be able to find a few pretties to place on a shelf or to plant by our door—but the shelf and the door, and the house and the city, and Kafiradom and Greater Brechalon—those are the important things we have to make sure we have.”

She watched his face to see what, if any, impact her words had on him. Then, when his eyes met hers again, she reached out with her right hand to grasp him by his shirt collar. Then pulling his face to hers, she kissed him firmly on the lips.