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hair,” said Tad.

Chapter 9
    The building hung out over the dark waters of the river, supported by bowlegged stilts. It was pocked with round windows of multicolored glaz, had roofs of slanting slate. The large wooden sign over the doorway proclaimed it as the Belles Lettres Cafe & Boarding House. Noise, smoke and harsh fumes were spilling out of the open window ovals. And as Tad and Electro approached the entrance the double doors popped open to allow two husky catmen waiters to heave a protesting owlman out into the foggy night.
    “We don’t go for no fanatic existential humanists in here, bud!” growled one of the waiters while the flung owlman was rolling over on the slippery flagstones.
    “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” said the moderately intoxicated customer. “My stand is not the traditional philosophic pose of—”
    “Ar, stuff it in your feathery nork, mate!” suggested the other waiter, making a threatening gesture with one fisted paw.
    His associate was eyeing Tad. “You ain’t planning to start some kind of tasteless debate, are you?”
    “Not at all, sir,” answered Electro for him. “We merely seek shelter and a warm meal.”
    The waiter grunted, stood aside so they might enter. “Go on in, cobbers, but keep your blinking noses clean,” he advised. “Don’t refute the boss too much, he’s in a fair foul mood this blinking night.”
    “We appreciate your advice,” said Electro, urging Tad into the crowded main room of the cafe.
    “This seems like a place where we’re going to get trouble, not help.” Tad stood surveying the blurred room.
    There were fifteen or so round tables on the raw wood floor. The light, dim and fuzzy, came from floating amber globes up near the low, beamed ceiling. A bar covered one wall and standing behind it, swaying from left to right, was a lanky lizard man in the purple robes of a bishop of the Church of Aggressive Beatitude.
    “The wavering gent would be the proprietor,” explained Electro out of the side of his now-green mouth. “Defrocked cleric who calls himself Bish. Fancies himself a man of letters, hence the name of this bistro and the frequent philosophical and literary skirmishes which take place herein.”
    “See anyone who can help us?” Tad moved toward a vacant table.
    “As I mentioned previously,” said the disguised robot, “your cousin used to allow me to accompany him to Fetid Landing now and again. Thus I came to know some of his local friends. If I can contact certain of them I’ll be able to arrange passage out for us. Otherwise, we’ll take potluck and approach the least rascally appearing riverman.”
    “Over here, you two promising-looking chaps.”
    Bish was flapping a green inviting hand at them from behind the bar.
    “We’d prefer a table if you—”
    “Boss wants a friendly discourse with you two blokes.” Another large waiter, human this one, appeared at Electro’s side. “Don’t antagonize him.”
    “We’ve been traveling a full weary day,” said the robot. “Couldn’t we dine and—”
    “Discourse first, then food.” The waiter hustled them up to the bar.
    Bish gave a pleased chuckle when he noticed their arrival. “Two coves of obvious intellect,” he said. “Clearly several cuts above the usual run of dimwits we get at the Belles Lettres. Take that owlish gent who just received the old heave, he didn’t know his blip from a snerg hole. And him claiming to be a professor at the University of California on Jupiter. Not bloody likely. What’ll it be, lads?”
    “What sort of ale do you have?” asked Electro, leaning an elbow on the bar and producing, at least to Tad’s ears, a metallic thunk.
    “No, no, I don’t mean what blinking kind of swill you want to slosh into your blooming gullet.” Bish’s gaunt green left hand jabbed out, pointing at a large blackboard propped against the liquor shelves behind him. “What intellectual topic do you wish to discuss?”
    Today’s Special was