CHAPTER 45

“It’s all going to blow over,” said Nate as he slowly picked at his food. It was cafeteria style, pretty much second rate, and it had to be one of the best meals he had ever eaten. Every last scrap came from Earth, was cooked by humans, and had a name he could pronounce. It was also free! That was a combination that could not be beaten at this place and time!

His dinner company, a marine corps captain by the name of Twitchily, was not so impressed. Why should the guy be? He was stationed here at the embassy and was quite used to their food. He complained about it and, Nate kind of got the impression, the guy complained about most things no matter what.

When Nate was not bitching, Twitchily was doing it for him, “where’s that little chickie poo of yours. I was kind of hoping for some company of the non male variety.” As an afterthought he added, “no offense Nate. I mean I think you’re swell and all.”

Nate winced, “swell?”

“Whatever,” the guy went back to shoveling in food and talked with his mouth half open, “you know what I mean.”

“Well Twitch,” Nate picked his words carefully, “that chickie poo is a Sergeant in the US Army. I was her company commander and…”

“So,” Twitch replied, “you’re not anymore are you? What you been bitching about the last few days? They took your company away so you could go play poster child for the Special Olympics or something?”

“Um,” Nate still picked his words carefully, “not exactly.”

“Did you see her out by the pool,” Twitch nodded back in that direction. “I mean she’s kind of skinny for my tastes but, right now, my tastes aren’t that particular.”

Nate sighed, “I most certainly believe you there.” Nate looked down at his nearly empty tray and decided he wanted to go take a walk. He decided he wanted to get as far away from Twitchily as he could. That was why he asked the guy, as he walked off, “is everything off limits right now?”

Being that the Marine was on the security force, he generally knew more about that stuff than Nate did. Things seemed to be kosher enough because Twitch only shrugged, “why would it be? Just go by the front desk and the State Department has got these little flyers. Tell you everything you need to know.”

The fact that they had the flyers was correct. Nate found them a little lacking in useful information but, at least they did point out places he could visit. He had not only missed seeing everything in Cheau-Gan, since he arrived in country but, Nate had not even been allowed to visit the place. For his first six weeks he had been stationed not twenty five kilometers from here and they wouldn’t even let him come visit. Apparently, the elves had a stick up their ass about it. Nate never bothered to ask why. He just knew he had a ticket this time and he figured, why not use it?

The little sight seeing tour was rather limited. Since he was not allowed to drive here, and did not have a car anyway, Nate was stuck to doing what the army is most famous for, he was walking. They were a long way from the distant sky scrapers of down town, although the Elves sure lit up their palace pretty good. It was easy to pick out from any suburb of the city. Nate stopped two blocks down from the embassy, where he had a good shot of the distant palace. He really wanted to get down there and see it up close.

That made Nate wonder about calling a cab. Then he realized he did not know how. He checked the little flyer and it did have a paragraph on the subject. It confirmed that the elves did have cab companies. They also would not give rides to humans. Why did that figure? Nate decided to walk on and forget that idea since it was pretty much useless. He saw some stores down the way and wanted to know what elves shopped for. As it turned out, there was no way to find out here. Most of these shops had signs that spelled out in several languages, even in English, “humans only.”

Nate decided to try one of the stores, just on a lark. He picked the only one that had stuff in the windows that he did not recognize. He was apparently not alone, in that assessment, because the place was almost empty except for this one old human woman that was sitting behind the counter reading. She gave Nate a quick glance and went right back to her newspaper with all the funny chicken scratches on it.

Nate looked around the shelves, pulled a few of the little jars down, and realized he could not read a single label. He finally had to ask the woman, “excuse me, do you speak English by any chance?”

The woman did not bother to look up from her paper, “you’re an American.”

Why was that embarrassing? Nate just shrugged and told the woman, “guilty. Um, can I ask you? What is this place?”

She found that amusing, “you came in here and you don’t know. That’s how I know.”

“How,” Nate was a bit careful about asking that question, “do you know that I… screw that, how do you know what?”

“Only an American would walk into a place and not know what it is,” the woman replied before laughing. Then she sat the paper down, “I get a stream of you people coming in here from the embassy.”
“I see,” Nate got it now, “that’s why you speak English so good.”

“No,” the woman grunted, “I’ve been speaking English since I was a little girl. I just meant you people always come in here bugging the shit out of me, asking me what my goods are, and you never buy squat.”

“Um,” Nate remained careful, “is this stuff what the elves use or something?”

The woman rolled her eyes, “I wrote my sign in English moron. This is a human only store. No elf would ever walk in here.” She then thought about it and said, “course if one did I’m sure he’d be polite enough to buy something.”

Nate pulled the local script from his pocket and showed the woman, “is this enough to get something?” The woman smiled at him and Nate asked, “you’d have to recommend it. I mean, I don’t even know what any of this stuff is.”

The closest thing that Nate could equate this store too was, a cosmetics store. Never having used any he was at a complete loss but, strangely enough, as this woman showed him her products he found it interesting. He had to clarify one point, “so the elves think we stink?”

“Mostly just the females,” the old lady told him. “They’re the ones with the sensitive honkers.” Nate found it even more interesting that this woman knew the term, “honker.” She also went on to say, “course this stuff does a lot more than just mask your smell.”

After some explaining, Nate suddenly realized, “it’s an aphrodisiac?”

It was strange that this local human did not know the long word but, the slang was obviously something she used a lot, “it makes you horny, if that’s what you mean.”

After Nate got over the word thing he suddenly realized that this jar of jelly like stuff was not an aphrodisiac after all. If what the woman was saying was right, it didn’t make others want you, it made you want everybody else. Nate shrugged, “huh, love potion number nine. Is there a lot of this stuff here?”

“Depends on what you mean by that,” the woman replied, “I got all kinds of fairy brews here.”

Nate stumbled over his next words, “fairy brews?”

“That’s the English term for it,” the woman replied. “I also got scent maskers, blushers, darkeners, light blockers, rash medicine, two different kinds of edible spices, and just plane old incense. You looked kind of lonely so I figured you might need a pick me up.”

Nate used the same kind of straight up sarcasm, of the variety that Twitch never seemed to get, on this woman, “well thank you for noticing. I think I might just take this one.”

As the woman bagged it she said, “two Americans in one day, can you imagine that.” Nate became curious and the woman told her, “some little girl. She bought some incense and I told her how to find the local Temple of Mjolnir.”

That definitely caught Nate’s attention. He delicately phrased his next question, “how do you spell that?”

The woman was not impressed, “would directions do you?”

As it turned out, the directions were as simple as recognizing the place. It was only a few streets over from the shop and, Nate had remembered seeing the roof of the building and wondering what it was. It was hard to ignore since the back part of the building looked sort of like a giant pipe organ and, as it turned out, that was not the case. It was actually a giant wind chime instead. Nate got a good taste of it with the first breeze that came along. It was actually quite pleasant to begin with but, he could see it getting really old, really fast, once the novelty wore off. It made Nate wonder and he mumbled to himself, “I wonder if these guys are related to the Baptists somehow.”

When he saw the big statue of a hammer in the front courtyard, it kind of dispelled any notion. Then he also saw the gift shop, off to the side of the main building, and it was being manned by a guy in dark robes that looked as if he came right out of a medieval movie. There were a few more strolling the grounds, tending to the all of the plant life, and from the looks of that, they were doing a pretty good job of it.

There were a few people coming and going who were not all ‘monked out.’ Nate wondered if they were patrons, tourists, or worshipers. Then he realized he had no idea how this religion worked, looked back at the hammer, and wondered if she would really even be here. Then he figured, if they had a gift shop, and even had a sign in English that said as much, then he was at least welcomed there. After all, he still had money in his pocket. He wandered in and found that, for the most part, this place would have looked right at home on a beach in Florida. They had t-Shirts, mugs, and Nate was even fascinated to note they had bumper stickers? Then he realized, “yeah I guess they do have cars here, don’t they.”

There was also a wall with little glass jars, not unlike the shop that Nate had just come from. They did not have as many nor anywhere near the selection but, Nate suspected, if there was one custom that would probably hold true between the universes, he would bet money that the ones in the temple gift shop cost a hell of a lot more. He stayed away from them and got down to business. He asked the Monk behind the counter, “excuse me, um, do you speak English by any chance?”

It was a safe bet that if anybody in this pace did, they would be working this counter and, as it turned out, Nate had guessed right. They guy was not as proficient as the woman in the shop but, he could make himself understood well enough. He also told Nate, “good English man off today. Camelonian?” The last word sounded like it was phrased as a question but, since Nate had no idea what he meant by it, Nate just kind of let it go.

Nate asked his own question, “um, no I’m trying to quit. Um, have you seen a little girl walking around here? She’ll sound a lot like me and…”

The guy pointed towards the door. Nate stopped talking and wondered if he had just broken some sacred religious taboo and was being asked to leave. Then the monk guy told him, “Jeg har ingen anelse om det de holder på med under treet hele dagen.”