to any of these. Their rage is a screen between them and the world, behind which they huddle over their egos, like a caveman over his fire, unable to see out through the smoke.
“Even some apes display this characteristic. Such fury may begin as a matter of status, as resentment against the dominant male. It may begin out of frustration of desires. It may begin with an unhappy nature that is born depressed and uses anger to fuel itself into action. It may begin in mystery, and it may end in tragedy. However or whyever it begins, it is essential that your patroness be protected from it. Your duty to your patroness is to give her joy and keep her from harm. She selected you. She places her happiness and her trust in you. She is your responsibility. If you injure a husband in protecting your patroness, you are exempt from any damages or judgments, even if the entire Executive Council of the Men of Business rises in wrath. This is one of the reasons you are taught hand-to-hand combat.
“Anger is our most destructive emotion. The most difficult part of your job is to deal with anger, your own or others’. We need anger to defend ourselves, so we cannot breed it out or teach ourselves not to feel it, but when we let the anger well up without a proper object, it floods our minds and renders us helpless. We all know men who are angry at everything, simply because they prefer to be angry at everything. Often, they self-destruct, and sometimes they take other people with them.”
10
Three Angry Men
Settlers had spread outward from Naibah along the shores of the Jellied Sea, so called for the semi-annual hatch of Purse fish whose translucent egg sacs rose from the pelagic ooze in uncounted millions, turning the sea for that brief period into an oceanic aspic. There were good-sized communities as far as several days’ sail east or west, and small struggling settlements more distant than that. These places were supplied by ships from Gilesmarsh, the port at the mouth of the river, a place well equipped with doss houses, gambling dens, taverns, and stews built on tall pilings above the tidal ooze. Naibah was actually a bit inland from the delta, away from the stink of the mud flats and on high enough land to avoid both five-moon tides and the occasional tsunami resulting from sub-oceanic seisms.
Most boats docking at Gilesmarsh tried to do so at middle high tide, so their passengers could take one of the wind taxis upstream to Naibah and Water Street. There the transvestites were younger, prettier, and more agile than the old swabs at the port; the drink was of less lethal quality; and a man in his cups was less likely to end up dead, providing he kept his veils straight. Though there were few women of good repute to be offended on Water Street, there were alert Haggers everywhere.
One of the Water Street taverns was called the Septo-pod’s Eye, and in addition to more-regular customers the place was patronized quarterly, more or less, by a group of odd fellows who came into Naibah from different directions, looked considerably different from the usual run, and smelled different from (and worse than) any living thing. One of them was called the Machinist, and another went by the name of Ashes, and the third one called himself Mooly. Whenever the barman (who despite his profession was a respected family man, entitled to a g’ and a cockade) caught sight of any of the three, he summoned several bulky Haggers to sit about and look menacing and made sure his wife and daughters were up in the family quarters behind locked doors.
The three odd fellows never seemed to notice these arrangements. Each time they came, they sat at the same table and they drank the same brew, and they left at the same hour—-just before the night boat sailed for Nehbe. Every time they came, any patron they spoke to was offended, and every man who got close enough to smell them was offended, and all in all, the barman was thankful they only showed up three or four times a year.
“So,” said the one called Mooly to the one called Ashes, “you got your vengeance all underway, have you?”
“All moving along nicely.” Ashes grinned ferociously and dipped his snout into his glass. “Machinist kind of helped me out. Now I’m waitin’ for matters to ripen.”