The Lovers   ::   Фармер Филип Хосе

When the liquor had receded halfway down the stein,Hal heard Fobo, dimly and far-off as if he were at the end of a long tunnel, ask him if he cared to see where the alcohol was made.

'Shib,' Hal said.

He rose but had to put a hand on the table to steady himself. The wog told him to put his mask back on.

'Earthmen are still objects of curiosity. We don't want to waste all evening answering questions. Or drinking drinks that'll be forced on us.'

They threaded through the noisy crowd to a back room. There Fobo gestured and said, 'Behold! The kesarubu! '

Hal looked. If he had not had some of his inhibitions washed away in the liquorish flood, he might have been overwhelmingly repulsed. As it was, he was curious.

The thing sitting on a chair by the table might, at first glance, have been taken for a wogglebug. It had the blond fuzz, the bald pate, the nose, and the V-shaped mouth. It also had the round body and enormous paunch of some of the Ozagens.

But a second look in the bright light from the unshaded bulb overhead showed a creature whose body was sheathed in a hard and light green tinted chitin. And, though it wore a long cloak, the legs and arms were naked. They were not smooth-skinned but were ring segmented with the edges of armor-sections, like stove pipes.

Fobo spoke to it. Yarrow understood some of th words; the others, he was able to fill in.

'Ducko, this is Mr. Yarrow. Say hello to Mr. Yarrow Ducko.'

The big blue eyes looked at Hal. There was nothin about them to distinguish them from a wog's, yet the seemed inhuman, thoroughly arthropodal.

'Hello, Mr. Yarrow,' Ducko said in a parrot's voice.

'Tell Mr. Yarrow what a fine night it is.'

'It's a fine night, Mr. Yarrow.'

'Tell him Ducko is happy to see him.'

'Ducko is happy to see you.'

'And serve him.'

'And serve you.'

'Show Mr. Yarrow how you make beetlejuice.'

A wog standing by the table glanced at his wristwatch. He spoke in rapid Ozagen. Fobo translated.

'He says Ducko ate a half hour ago. He should be read to serve. These creatures eat a big meal every half hou and then they – watch!'

Duroku set on the table a huge earthenware bowl. Ducko leaned over it until a half-inch-long tube projecting from his chest was poised above the edge of the bowl. The projection, thought Hal, was probably a modified tracheal opening. From the tube a clear liquid shot into the bowl until it was filled to the brim. Duroku grabbed the bowl and carried it off.