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the truth, but an epiphyte, a real plant. If I don’t trim it regularly, one day it will burst into spectacular bloom, seed, and die.” She swirled it across her shoulders, clasped it, then pointed the direction Maggy indicated. “That way—and go on with your tale. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
    Alfvaen continued as they walked, “I s-short-hopped my way here, taking whatever transport I could find when I could find it. While I was on Jannisett, waiting for someone headed this way”—she grinned with embarrassment—“would you believe somebody s-stole my boots and I was arrested for indecent exposure?”
    Tocohl laughed. “I believe it. A Jannisetti friend of mine once invited me to her private club, where all the members went barefoot and thought themselves very wicked!”
    “Yes,” said Alfvaen with a smile, then more seriously, “but if Judge Darragh hadn’t happened along, I’d still be in jail.”
    They came to a broad avenue, lined with torches and bustling with people. The air was smoky and pungent; pottery shards crunched beneath their feet at each step.
    They pushed through a knot of people, past a woman in the uniform of the local police, and Alfvaen shivered. “Perhaps you could explain something?” she said, over the noise. “I did read the standard tourist guide before I got here—and the captain of my last survey was Sheveschkem, so I was chamfered for Sheveschke, as well.” It was a chamfer’s job to teach one the basics of someone else’s culture, to avoid any embarrassing or potentially fatal incidents.
    “He must not have done a very good job: I honestly thought theft was legal during the festival.”
    “In a way. If you’re caught, you have to return what you’ve taken. But there’s no punishment, aside from the razzing for clumsiness your friends hand you for the next six months.—Of course, taking more than someone can afford to lose is considered bad form.”
    “Then why did the police—” Unable to express her distaste, Alfvaen finished with a gesture.
    “You’re confused by a mistranslation,” Tocohl said. “Veschke protects those who steal by verbal artistry or legerdemain. Skill is all. Anyone who uses brute force—violence or the threat of violence—is no thief by Sheveschkem standards.”
    “So those three weren’t under Veschke’s protection? I see, dastagh
    ”—now that she had sobered, she came remarkably close to duplicating the Sheveschkem word—“means something like ‘thug’?”
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    “No, the woman who attacked you was beaten for being an Inheritor of God. Among other things, they believe that their god gave them dominance over all the other species, and that they’re entitled to use them, even wipe them out, as they choose. As a philosophy, it’s enough to give an ecologist high-gold fever.
    Dastagh is the current derogatory word for a member of the sect; it means ‘waster’.”
    The avenue opened onto a great hexagonal plaza, edged with torches and ablaze with the light of a dozen ritual fires, each attended by a glory-robed priest and her acolytes. Alfvaen stopped short and gave a wordless exclamation of delight.
    (Wait here,) said Maggy, (Geremy’s coming.)
    Tocohl was content to wait and, like Alfvaen, drink in the scene. Although she often attended the Festival of Ste. Veschke, the solemn joy around the fires in Veschke Plaza still elated her.
    Despite the crowd’s chatter and the crunch of broken pottery, here it was always quiet enough to speak in a normal tone of voice, so the traders, both Sheveschkem and Hellspark, gathered to exchange tales and songs.
    A ripple of Apsanti water-music drifted through the smoky air and the laughter, to be picked up by someone around another fire and tossed back as dolphin song. A black-haired priest threw a double handful of keshri bark into the central fire and the air grew pungent.
    A handful of Sheveschkem youngsters watched Tocohl and Alfvaen for a moment. After much giggling and