Carpenter stared. "Walk! Don't you know it's forbidden to walk more than two hundred yards in any one direction? Fomalhautians never walk."
"But they have no feet."
"That has nothing whatsoever to do with it."
Carpenter gently urged the young man into the Algedian cab ... which reeked. Michael held his nose, but his mentor shook his head. "No, no! Tpiu Number Five is the most esteemed aroma on Algedi. It would break the driver's heart if he thought you didn't like it. You wouldn't want to be had up for ego injury, would you?"
"Of course not," Michael whispered weakly.
"Brunettes are darker and blondes are fairer," the advideo informed him, "when they wash out their hair with shampoos made on Chara."
After a time, Michael got more or less used to Tpiu Number Five and was able to take some interest in the passing landscape. Portyork, the biggest spaceport in the United Universe, was, of course, the most cosmopolitan city—cosmopolitan in its architecture as well as its inhabitants. Silver domes of Earth were crowded next to the tall helical edifices of the Venusians.
"You'll notice that the current medieval revival has even reached architecture," Carpenter pointed out. "See those period houses in the Frank Lloyd Wright and Inigo Jones manner?"
"Very quaint," Michael commented.