Captive of the Centaurianess by Poul Anderson Page B

decline and fall of the Tallantyre credit account was so depressing a subject that the pseudo-gravity, low though it was, bowed his shoulders; and, forgetting to allow for Coriolis force, he bruised a toe as he rounded a corner in the passage. Well and good to have gotten away from Earth free, he thought; but he'd hit Ganymede damn near broke, and he hadn't really considered as yet how he was going to survive there. This had simply been the sole destination in space for which he could get a ticket at exceedingly short notice. . . .
    A number identified the door assigned him. He opened it.
    "Put—me—down!"
    Ray gaped at the spectacle of a Martian struggling in the clutch of a woman two meters tall.
    "Put—me—down!" the Martian spluttered again. He had coiled his limbs snakelike around her arms and torso, and the four thick walking tentacles were formidably strong. She didn't seem to notice, but laughed and shook him a bit.
    "I beg your pardon," Ray gasped and backed away.
    "You are forgiven," the woman replied in a husky contralto with a lilting accent. She shot out one Martian-encumbered hand, grabbed him by the jacket, and hauled him inside. "You be the yudge, my friend. Is it not yustice that I have the lo'er berth?"
    "It is noting of te sort!" screamed the Martian. He fixed the newcomer with round, bulging, indignant yellow eyes. "My position, my eminence, clearly entitle me to ebery consideration, and ten tis hulking monster—"
    The Earthling's gaze traveled up and down the woman's form before he said softly, "I think you'd better accept the lady's generous offer. But, uh, I seem to have the wrong cabin."
    "Is your name Ray Tallantyre?" she asked.
    He pleaded guilty.
    "Then you belon vith us. I have asked about the passenyer list. You may have the sofa for sleepin."
    "Th-thanks." Ray sat down on it. His knees felt loose.
    The Martian gave up the struggle and allowed the woman to place him on the upper bunk. "To tink of it," he squeaked. "Tat I, Urushkidan of Ummunashektaru, should be manhandled by a sabage who does not know a logaritm from an elliptic integral!"
    Astounded, Ray stared as if this were the first of the race that he had met in his life. Urushkidan's gray-skinned cupola of a body balanced 120 centimeters tall on the walking tentacles; above them, two slim, three-fingered arms writhed bonelessly on either side of a wide, lipless mouth. Elephantine ears and flat nose supported a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, his only garb except for a poisonously green vest full of pockets with all kinds of things in them.
    "Not the Urushkidan?" Ray breathed—the mathematician acclaimed throughout the Solar System as a latter-day Gauss or Einstein.
    "Tere is only one Urushkidan," the Martian informed him.
    For a moment of total irrelevance, Ray's rocking mind wondered how different history might have been if the first probes to Mars hadn't happened to land in two of the Great Barrens—if civilizations upon that world had gone in for agriculture or architecture identifiable by instruments in orbit—if, even, the weird biochemistry of the natives had been unable to endure Terrestrial conditions—
    A Homeric shout of laughter brought him back to what he must suppose was reality. The woman uttered it where she loomed over him. "Velcome, male Tallantyre," she cried. "You are cute, I think I vill like you. I am Dyann Korlas of Kathantuma." She took his hand in a friendly grip.
    He yelped and got it back not quite crushed. "You're one of the Centaurians, then," he said feebly.
    "Yes, so you call us."
    He found himself regarding her with some pleasure, overwhelming though her presence was. Hitherto he had only seen her kind on television.
    Except for the pointed ears, which her braids concealed, she looked human enough externally, albeit not of any stock which had ever evolved on Earth. The similarities extended to all the most interesting areas, he knew. Memories came back to him of scientific arguments he had read as to