Read Online And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon - Free Book Online Page B

law has been repealed for over half a century, the custom persists.
    â€œAnd it’s the same way with their attitude toward banks. The Chinese shopkeepers particularly were suspicious of banks in the old days, and many of them still have their caches around, in, or under the shops where they make their money.”
    â€œYes, you told me about that right after I arrived.”
    â€œSo I did,” said Cotrell, deftly avoiding a barefoot girl who walked along the road weaving a basket, singing, and carrying a tremendous tray of fruit on her head. “Well, they’re learning, I think. Yem Ching, though—he was an educated man. Too intelligent, really, to have followed the old customs the way he did. Well, he’s dead. Perhaps a few of his colleagues will profit by the poor chap’s murder. Somebody should, besides the brute who did him in.”
    â€œOh—so you believe in basic justice?” smiled Brunhilde. “For every loss, a profit somewhere?”
    â€œIn a sense I do,” said Cotrell, glancing at her. “For every crime, a punishment, in any case.”
    She laughed. “I
love
policemen!” She leaned back, taking in the whisking scenery—the bamboo, the rows of mangoes. “I’m hungry.”
    â€œYem Foong will take care of that, and well.”
    â€œYou seem to mean that. The only thing I’ve seen the natives eating is rice and beans and that horrible crawly-looking yampi.”
    â€œYou’re in for a surprise. Don’t underestimate the culture of these people. It’s a culture which isn’t measured by telephones and plumbing. Or savings banks, unfortunately.”
    â€œYou still intrigue me. What do you suppose they’ll have for lunch?”
    â€œCouldn’t say. Whatever it is will be delicious and—exotic.”
    â€œWonderful, wonderful,” she said.
    â€œThough I hope,” he said, “that it won’t be salt fish and ackey.”
    â€œI beg your pardon?”
    â€œSalt fish and ackey. Quite a delicacy.”
    â€œAnd you don’t like it?”
    â€œOh, I do, but I don’t eat it.”
    â€œWhat’s ‘ackey’?”
    â€œI’ll show you. There’s lots of it growing along here—See? See there?”
    He pointed to a line of trees growing across the deep ditch which imperils all Jamaican traffic. They were shade trees with dark glossy leaves, among which their brilliant orange-yellow fruit showed. Cotrell pulled up.
    â€œI’ll show you one,” he said.
    He vaulted over the low door and leaped the ditch, to come back in a moment with one of the bright fruit in his hand. He gave it to Brunhilde. It was about the size of a large orange, and had a hard black encrustation, like ebony, protruding from its side.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œThe seed,” said Cotrell, smoothly shifting gears. “It grows half in and half out.”
    â€œI’ve never seen anything like it. And is it good?”
    â€œDelicious,” said Cotrell. “I avoid it because, when it’s out of season, and even in season when it isn’t prepared exactly right, it’s deadly poison. Really. We have deaths every year from it. I prefer to be on the safe side.”
    Brunhilde brooded over the fruit for a moment, turning it over and over, and then suddenly tossed it out of the car. “If there is adifference between the way our minds work,” she said, “you can see it here. I’ve never tasted ackey. Just because of that, I want to. If I had tasted it, as you have, and knew it to be delicious, I’d want it again.
    â€œI think that this is one of the biggest things in being alive. If my host is cultured, as you say, and if he trusts his cook, then I am quite willing to trust him. As to the risk—why, one is quite likely to die from a bad cold. One might as well get some pleasure from the process.”
    Cotrell smiled, glancing briefly at