"She won't believe anything," he says, sour, "except only that man is
vile. Is that true about a Moklin who looks like me?"
I nod.
"Funny his folks never showed him to me for a compliment-present!" Then
he stares at me, hard. "How good is the likeness?"
"If he is wearing your clothes," I tell him, truthful, "I'd swear he is
you."
Then Brooks--slow, very slow--turns white. "Remember the time you went
off with Deeth and his folks, hunting? That was the time a Moklin got
killed. You were wearing guest garments, weren't you?"
I feel queer inside, but I nod. Guest garments, for Moklins, are like
the best bedroom and the drumstick of the chicken among humans. And a
Moklin hunting party is something. They go hunting _garlikthos_, which
you might as well call dragons, because they've got scales and they fly
and they are tough babies.
The way to hunt them is you take along some cacklebirds that ain't
nesting--they are no good for anything while they're honeymooning--and
the cacklebirds go flapping around until a _garlikthos_ comes after
them, and then they go jet-streaking to where the hunters are, cackling
a blue streak to say, "Here I come, boys! Hold everything until I get
past!" Then the _garlikthos_ dives after them and the hunters get it
as it dives.
You give the cacklebirds its innards, and they sit around and eat,
cackling to each other, zestful, like they're bragging about the other
times they done the same thing, only better.
"You were wearing guest garments?" repeats Brooks, grim.
I feel very queer inside, but I nod again. Moklin guest garments are
mighty easy on the skin and feel mighty good. They ain't exactly
practical hunting clothes, but the Moklins feel bad if a human that's
their guest don't wear them. And of course he has to shed his human
clothes to wear them.
"What's the idea?" I want to know. But I feel pretty unhappy inside.
"You didn't come back for one day, in the middle of the hunt, after
tobacco and a bath?"
"No," I says, beginning to get rattled. "We were way over at the
Thunlib Hills. We buried the dead Moklin over there and had a hell of a
time building a tomb over him. Why?"
"During that week," says Brooks, grim, "and while you were off wearing
Moklin guest garments, somebody came back wearing your clothes--and got
some tobacco and passed the time of day and went off again. Joe, just
like there's a Moklin you say could pass for me, there's one that could
pass for you. In fact, he did. Nobody suspected either."
I get panicky. "But what'd he do that for?" I want to know. "He didn't
steal anything! Would he have done it just to brag to the other Moklins
that he fooled you?"
"He might," says Brooks, "have been checking to see if he could fool
me. Or Captain Haney of the _Palmyra_. Or--"
He looks at me. I feel myself going numb. This can mean one hell of a
mess!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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