"Remember," Cyril said sternly, "we must not establish undue rapport with the native females. It tends to detract from true objectivity."
Cyril assumed a more cheerful aspect "I should like to give this chap something for old times' sake. What do you suppose is the medium of exchange here?"
_Money_, Skkiru said to himself, but he didn't dare contribute this piece of information, helpful though it would be.
"Empathize. Get in there, old chap, and start batting."
"Why not give him a bar of chocolate, then?" Raoul suggested grumpily. "The language of the stomach, like the language of love, is said to be a universal one."
"Splendid idea! I always knew you had it in you, Raoul!"
Skkiru accepted the candy with suitable--and entirely genuine--murmurs of gratitude. Chocolate was found only in the most expensive of the planet's delicacy shops--and now neither delicacy shops nor chocolate were to be found, so, if Bbulas thought he was going to save the gift to contribute it later to the Treasury, the "high priest" was off his rocker.
To make sure there would be no subsequent dispute about possession, Skkiru ate the candy then and there. Chocolate increased the body's resistance to weather, and never before had he had to endure so much weather all at once.
On Earth, he had heard, where people lived exposed to weather, they often sickened of it and passed on--which helped to solve the problem of birth control on so vulgarly fecund a planet. Snaddra, alas, needed no such measures, for its population--like its natural resources--was dwindling rapidly. Still, Skkiru thought, as he moodily munched on the chocolate, it would have been better to flicker out on their own than to descend to a subterfuge like this for nothing more than survival.
Being a beggar, Skkiru discovered, did give him certain small, momentary advantages over those who had been alloted higher ranks. For one thing, it was quite in character for him to tread curiously upon the strangers' heels all the way to the temple--a ramshackle affair, but then it had been run up in only three days--where the official reception was to be held. The principal difficulty was that, because of his equipment, he had a little trouble keeping himself from overshooting the strangers. And though Bbulas might frown menacingly at him--and not only for his forwardness--that was in character on both sides, too.