The Lunan was hugging a pile of clothes and weapons. The satyr was
helping a wasp-waisted woman carry a heavy-looking bronze chest. The
woman was wearing a short skirt and high-collared bolero jacket of
leather so dark brown it was almost black. She had a two-horned
_petsofa_ hairdress and she was boldly gilded here and there and wore
sandals and copper anklets and wristlets--one of them a copper-plated
Caller--and from her wide copper belt hung a short-handled double-headed
ax. She was dark-complexioned and her forehead and chin receded, but the
effect was anything but weak; she had a face like a beautiful
arrowhead--and a familiar one, by golly!

But before I could say, "Kabysia Labrys," Maud shrilly beat me to it
with, "It's Kaby with two friends. Break out a couple of Ghostgirls."

And then I saw it really was old-home week because I recognized my Lunan
boy friend Ilhilihis, and in the midst of all the confusion I got a nice
kick out of knowing I was getting so I could tell the personality of one
silver-furred muzzle from another.

They reached the control divan and Illy dumped his load and the others
let down the chest, and Kaby staggered but shook off the two ETs when
they started to support her, and she looked daggers at Sid when he tried
to do the same, although she's his "sweet Keftian friend" he'd mentioned
to Bruce.

* * * * *

She leaned straight-armed on the divan and took two gasping breaths so
deep that the ridges of her spine showed through her brown-skinned
waist, and then she threw up her head and commanded, "Wine!"

While Beau was rushing it, Sid tried to take her hand again, saying,
"Sweetling, I'd never heard you call before and knew not this pretty
little fist," but she ripped out, "Save your comfort for the Lunan," and
I looked and saw--Hey, Zeus!--that one of Ilhilihis' six tentacles was
lopped off halfway.

That was for me, and, going to him, I fast briefed myself: "Remember, he
only weighs fifty pounds for all he's seven feet high; he doesn't like
low sounds or to be grabbed; the two legs aren't tentacles and don't act
the same; uses them for long walks, tentacles for leaps; uses tentacles
for close vision too and for manipulation, of course; extended, they
mean he's at ease; retracted, on guard or nervous; sharply retracted,
disgusted; greeting--"

Just then, one of them swept across my face like a sweet-smelling
feather duster and I said, "Illy, man