"I think this whole thing is crazy," Rene said, "but since he's a
talking bird, you might ask him a few questions. Maybe he's trained to
say something else."
"Where is Uncle Izzy's fortune?" I asked, when I had tugged at the
dodo's feathers until he opened one eye.
He closed it.
"Do you have a message for me?"
He drew away from me irritably and closed the eye again, ruffling down
into his feathers.
"He may be keyed to respond to certain phrases. Try your uncle's
name--he obviously knows that," Rene suggested coldly, wanting no part
of this but unable to hold down the suggestion.
"My name," I screamed at the somnolent dodo, "is Isadore Summers."
He reared back and pecked the hell out of me.
I picked the book up off the floor and flipped through the bent pages
until I found "The Dodo." Maybe there'd be something in _that_.
"Listen to this, Rene," I said, "and see if you catch anything I might
have missed."
Rene looked discomfited, but he didn't stop up his ears.
When I came to the part, "'Tell me what thy lordly name is/On the
Night's Plutonian shore....'" the dodo looked up and said, "Isadore."
Clearly, this was it, although I couldn't recall that any of the
questions in the poem were to the point.
I got to, "'On the morrow he will leave me/As my hopes have flown
before.'/Then the bird said...."
"Ask me more," said the dodo without missing a beat.
I read on, getting excited. "'Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe,/And
forget this lost Lenore.'/Quoth the Dodo...."
"Give me more," he supplied, pointing his beak at the alcohol tap.
I gave him another cup and continued, sure that he must be going to say
_something_ relevant to Uncle Izzy's fortune.
"'Is there--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--Tell me, tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the Dodo...."
"Probably not," the dodo said, breaking the Grilch Hop rhythm at last,
"but there are perfume trees on Alvarla."
"Perfume trees!" Rene shouted. "That bird's lying. It's impossible."
"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "The poem's not over."
* * * * *
I read on, somewhat ashamed of having to say such inhospitable words to
a dodo who had been, after all, cooperating with me.
"'Take thy beak from out my heart,/And take thy form from off my
door!'/Quoth the Dodo...."
"I was just leaving," the bird said, and struggled to his feet and went
and stood by the door expectantly.
I got up. "Wait!" I commanded the bird, who couldn't do much else
because the door was closed. "Do you know what perfume trees are, Rene?"
"Yeah, I know what they are, and they don't grow on this planet. You
can take my word for it. They need a warm, moist soil to germinate in.
They need to have their soil cultivated every day for a year. They
die fast on contact with any sort of industrial fumes. They die in
captivity, like some wild animals. They die if you sweat on them. They
die if you breathe on them. They need to start off warm and get colder
every month until they form their flowers. Then they need a frost for
the pods to fill with the perfume, along with the seeds."
"There aren't any industrial fumes here," I pointed out, "and they
could get plenty of frost."
"That's all they'd get. Where's the warm, moist climate to germinate
in? Where's the parasitical Rhns to cultivate their soil? The Rhns
couldn't exist without their Gleees and the Gleees can't exist
without--never mind. The only place perfume trees can grow is on Odoria
and that's why the perfume is worth two thousand dollars an ounce."
"I have never heard of anything," I informed him, "that spelled 'Uncle
Isadore' so exactly. He always said, 'If it can't be done, I can do
it.' Well, there's only one way to find out. Surely there's something
on the ship I can wear."
"You mean you're going out into that frozen inkpot after that idiotic
bird?"
"That's exactly what I mean."
"For Pete's sake! You're as brainless as the bird is!" But I think, for
all his attitude, he was curious, too.
* * * * *
He began to spray me with something. "Close your eyes and mouth. If you
don't wash this off with soap and water in twenty-four hours, you'll
die. But it sure keeps in the body heat."
I stuck the book in my pocket for good luck, and Rene handed me a gun,
some lunch packages, an antibiotic kit and a water purification kit.
"All right," I said, pocketing them, "but it can't be far. Uncle Izzy
wouldn't have gone more than a day's journey."
"Then why haven't we smelled the perfume? And why would he have gone
through all this rigmarole when he must have known you'd search that
far?"