Black Steel by Steve Perry Page B

the ship she wanted was not much more difficult. It was up there, all right, circling at the outer limits of the atmosphere, as regular as a pulse timer. Getting to it was another matter.
    Wu sat in a booth at a theme restaurant, working her way through a meal of Lagomustardorian waterfowl. Supposedly it was fresh and supposedly it was steeped in a genuine mchele and namna ya tunda sauce, but Wu had trouble believing that either was true. The bird was tough and the sauce awfully bland for the normally fiery rice-and-strawberry liquor.
    The restaurant, on the edge of the tourist quarter, was somewhat better appointed. It had as its focus the early history of the Wild South on the neighboring world of Mwanamamke, complete with holographic representations of a vast struthio ranch. The large and ungainly flightless birds, half again the size of a tall man, most of the height being legs and neck, padded back and forth across the grasslands of the high plateau with appropriate sound effects, squawks, trills, mating whistles and the thud of splay-feet.
    To Wu's left, where a gilded rope prevented the unwary from smacking nose first into the wall hidden by the holoproj, a pair of struthio went through an arcane mating dance, bobbing and stretching, doing small leaps back and forth, singing in raspy tones to each other. The female was the aggressor in this ritual, nature's balance on the plain having produced fewer of them than of the male birds; too, the female was the bearer of the brighter plumage.
    The female, having excited the male so that a small and glistening purple penis now peeped from his downy feathers, turned and presented to him in a half squat. The male mounted her, having to rise up onto his toes to accomplish the insertion. As he began to thrust, the female beat her vestigial wings in time to his movements. The act of copulation itself lasted no more than a few seconds. The male withdrew, shook himself into a fluffy state, smoothed his feathers, then turned and padded off. The female straightened from her crouch and went in the opposite direction. Neither bird looked back at the other.
    Seemed like a lot of dancing for such a short climax, Wu thought. Must be particularly intense for the birds. Whatever, it was more interesting than the meal.
    Wu did not think that Cierto had come all the way to this world merely to fly round and round it; likely he would come down sooner or later, had he not done so already. She had begun discreet inquiries, hiring a local private investigative firm to that end. As long as his ship was still up there, she guessed that Cierto would be here. True, this was not an appropriate assumption, any more than the one that Cierto hadn't come here simply to circle in orbit. One was not supposed to assume anything; Master Ven had always been quite explicit about that. Still, sometimes it was hard to be in the moment and not jump to that juicy conclusion just ahead in the path.
    Wu sighed and pushed away the remains of her supper. There was nothing wrong with personal ambition-Master Ven had taught her that, too-unless it got in the way of spiritual progress. The paths of power and magic were seductive; a seeker must stay on guard to avoid being lured into a dead-end road.
    It was all too easy to become rich or famous or influential, were such things all that one wished to accomplish. The growth of spirit required much more than these and they could easily stunt that growth, did not one tread with great care. Master Ven himself had been the most powerful man Wu had ever known, yet only a handful of people had ever seen it, for he was careful to keep it hidden unless there was a great need for demonstration. She had never seen him walk on water, but there was a part of her past her rational mind that would have believed him had he ever said he could.
    This thing with Cierto was a personal goal, an ambition, and Wu must take care that she not allow it to block her way. Easier thought than done,