Star quest

capital and Tarnilee.
    "Meals are at seven in the evening and five-thirty in the morning. Ye makes yer own lunches when ye have a chance."
    "Sounds perfect."
    "Ain't bad." He lingered at the doorway, shuffling his huge, bucket feet.
    "Thank ye, Jake," Tohm said, reclining wearily on the bunk.
    Still Jake did not move. He wiped his left foot back and forth through the thin coat of dust that covered the floor plates.
    "Is there something on your mind?" Tohm asked at length.
    "Now that ye ask," Jake said, a dinnerplate-sized grin on his face, "there is something I wanted to ask ye."
    "Well?"
    "Ye see, I know what kinda conkeebine they's going to pick, them others. She's going to be tiny and delicate— awful pretty, mind ye—but awful tiny and terrible awful delicate. I was wondering if—"
    "Ya, Jake?"
    "Well, I got a hunnert creds saved up, and I was wondering whether yer father could maybe have a tall… hell, a sorta large… a girl with… well…"
    "An Amazon?"
    He grinned, flushed. "I know a hunnert ain't much—"
    "I'm sure my father can find ye someone, Jake. Someone ye'd be just crazy about. And at yer price."
    "Gee, Tohm," the ox said, blushing even brighter, "really?"
    "Really."
    "Jake!" Hazabob called.
    "I gotta go," he said. "Thanks, Tohm."
    "Yer welcome, Jake."
    The shadow that had been flooding the room was gone.
    Tohm stretched back on the bed and found it to be more comfortable than it had looked. Trying to untense every muscle and nerve, he took a moment to think about the events of the last day or so. What were the Muties trying to do? What exactly were the Muties? What was the Fringe? What was the quasi-reality? The Realities? What had the Muties been attempting with Basa II's capital city, and why had they failed? His nerves grew tenser than before as the confusion boiled in his mind. He never had liked to be confused. His curiosity had always driven-him to find the answers to things that confused him in the village of his people. This world, however, was far more complex than anything he had ever found in that tiny settlement of dark people. Yet all of the things that perplexed him here were taken as common knowledge by the people who lived in this insane universe. But to him, coming barefoot from a land of thatched huts, it was a riddle. The library material took a basic understanding for granted too, and thus they were only more confusing, not clarifying.
    He closed his eyes, blotting out the stained, gray ceiling and the grease-streaked blue walls. Better to think. But his thinking was interrupted by a low moaning. A slap, like leather hitting leather. This moaning increased. It seemed to seep through the near wall. He got up and walked to the partition. The noise was definitely louder.
Slap-crack
!
    Moaning…
    Slap…
    Slappity-crackity-slap!
    Now it was growing fainter. Bending, he found the sound was clearer next to the floor. He got down on his hands and knees, his ears alert as an animal's ears. The slapping had stopped, but the moaning was still there. It had sounded almost—but not quite—human.
    "Did ye lose something, Mr. Tohm?" a voice asked from behind.

Chapter Six
    HE LOOKED OVER his shoulder, his heart having slipped up next to his molars.
    "Ye lose something?" Jake asked.
    "Uh… yeah, a pearl fell from my cape clasp."
    "I'll help."
    "No, no. That's okay. Imitation anyway."
    "I come back just to say that I'd like her to have blue eyes, Mr. Tohm."
    "Who?"
    "The Amazon. Yer father's Amazon."
    He stood and brushed his leotards off. "Blue eyes it is."
    "Gee thanks, Mr. Tohm. I gotta go. See ye later."
    "Ya, Jake. Later."
    The giant thudded away again.
    He closed the door before going back to listen for the noise. But there was nothing. He went back to -his bunk after a few minutes and stretched out. And now a new question: what was in the cargo compartment? His cabin was right next to it. He was certain that spices, no matter how delicate, did not moan. Why had Hazabob lied to him? What was really in there?
    His eyes were growing heavy, and it took him a few minutes to figure out what the trouble was. Sleep. He had been without sleep since being placed into the Jumbo, and he had nearly forgotten about it. Pulling the tattered blanket up around his waist, he surrendered himself to the blackness, for he had pleasant memories of it
    When he woke, there was a fuzz in his mouth like a live thing trying to crawl down his throat and into his stomach. He wrinkled his face, wiped the