"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."
         So say the motto-masters of Hell.
         But in Chalakanesia it does not quite work like that, the government having one day passed a law removing the ownership of all fish from the public domain. Thereafter, Chalakanesians who wanted to fish were constrained to first buy quota-rights from the government. The law amounted, in effect, to a new and heavy tax upon a Chalakanesian food; and it meant that the poorer Chalakanesians found fish priced quite beyond their budgets.
         For many fishermen, the new law was a nightmare which put them out of business, since the right to take fish from the sea had to be purchased in advance, which meant that many previously debt-free fishermen were forced into the hands of usurers, and eventually into bankruptcy. Furthermore, to fish without buying quota-rights from the government, or to infringe upon the technical limits of a right so purchased, was to risk the confiscation of one's boat and one's fishing gear.
         This led to endless dramas of pursuit and arrest, of betrayal and discovery, as when for example the minions of a triumphant Officialdom discovered that some poor idiot of a fisherman had been foolish enough to fill his nets with tuna when his license restricted him to the murder of dolphins.
         Jon Proctor Mol was not such an idiot, but his cousin was. So he came to Atlanta — who had made something of a specialty out of fishing cases — and asked her if she could retrieve his cousin's boat, which had been arrested. (You might think it difficult to arrest a boat, but they mastered this art of old in Chalakanesia, where the authorities have detailed protocols for arresting, interrogating and jailing boats, and even — in extreme cases -subjecting boats to judicial torture).
         Thus, on an evening a few days after the revelations about Zinjanthrop, and the reappearance of Gorkindachina, Atlanta found herself closeted with Jon Proctor Mol, going over the details of his cousin's case.
         Atlanta was already painfully familiar with the progress of this case, since it had been running now for a full six months. Without delving into the details, which are best left to the annals of legal pathology, let us merely note that the case had been several times complicated, the latest complication being that the cousin in question, Honda Jubus Mol, had been adjudged insane by his family doctor, and had been incarcerated in the Rebus Rokroth, the leading lunatic asylum of Islam Demaxus. The cause of his mental delinquency was an overconsumption of alcohol, ever the most destructive of drugs in Chalakanesia, since it is the legal drug of choice in those regions, just as it is in Heaven and Hell.
         While Atlanta was still locked in her evening consultation with fisherman Jon, the boy Nodo intruded on her privacy, bringing with him the oppressive smell of the imported lime-scented deodorant on which he so consistently wasted his money.
        "What is it?" said Atlanta, eyeing him with disfavor.
         Tan Spanda Del Sholomok Nodo worked for Heineman Yakaskam by day, but devoted his evenings to Atlanta's service. She could not pay him, and had given him no promises of advancement, but he insisted that leisure was alien to his nature. Sometimes he spoke of venturing into the law, so Atlanta tutored him intermittently in the law's logic, though she was far too busy to school him systematically. Like most of us, her life was overcrowded, and her greatest day-to-day problem was an acute shortage of time.
         Furthermore, Atlanta did not really think Nodo was cut out for the practice of law. The profession demanded sharpness, but Nodo was inclined to succumb to fits of vacantness. His intellect was adequate, but he too often lost his focus, slipping away from his work into worlds of daydream.
         As he appeared to have done now.
        "Nodo!" said Atlanta. "What is it?"
        "Oh!" said Nodo, starting as if awakening from sleep. "I just noticed, your rubbish bin, maybe I should empty it, but there were dogs at the bins last night, it's better at morning. Anyway. Ah, Soba, Soba Lubamacasta."
        "I know the lady," said Atlanta tartly, doing her best to resist the temptation to tyrannize over Nodo.
        "She's waiting."
         This news annoyed Atlanta intensely. Glan Gleneth Soba Lubamacasta, the constant companion of her youth, was the best of all imaginable fun. But Atlanta had previously made it clear to Soba that she had reached an age where she had to put away childish things, at least during working hours.
        "If Soba is waiting down below," said Atlanta severely, "then go tell her I can't possibly see her, I'm with a client."
        "If there's someone to see you," said Jon Mol, getting to his feet, "then I'll be going."
        "Stay," said Atlanta, who had no wish to see her client displaced from his rightful place at the centre of her universe.
         But the burly fisherman would not be stayed. He excused himself, and left.
        "Ah, Lubamacasta," said Nodo. "Shall I show her in?"
        "No," said Atlanta. "Go home. Tell her I can't see her, I'm too busy. Tell her that, then go." So spoke Atlanta. Then, as Nodo lingered: "Go! Go! We're finished here. Go!"
         Upon which Tan Spanda Del Sholomok Nodo left at last, leaving behind him nothing but an olfactory ghost — a faint but oppressive hint of lime deodorant.
         To escape the smell, and to escape the oppressions of her legal office — she was entering one of those stages when she was almost physically nauseated by the sight of her law books and the smell of legal paper — Atlanta retreated to the roof to meditate. She wanted to rest, to meditate, to breathe clean air, and to escape the threat of Soba.
         Soba's friendship, unfortunately, tended toward the fanatic. When she was not doing drugs, she was all vital exuberance and extroverted enthusiasm. But Atlanta, who typically found herself shattered at the end of a long hard legal day, had less and less use for such enlivenment.
         Having cleansed her mind by meditating in the peace and quiet afforded by the roof of the Ul Den Ul, Atlanta went back to her office, locked up with a very big key (so big it had once been introduced as evidence in an assault case), then went down the stairs (yes, they were narrow, and, yes, they creaked, for Atlanta's was very much the traditional law office), then, still dressed in the legal grey of her workaday routines, ventured to the coffee shop next to the Ul Den Ul.
         She needed, she really needed, a big hot strong cup of coffee, something to pick her up so she could make the homeward walk. And the Daffodil Burk, the neighboring coffee shop, was just the place to get such a pick-me-up.
         The Daffodil Burk was additionally important to Atlanta because she had no waiting room.
         Some people might be hard put to imagine how one could run a law practice without having accommodation for waiting clients. Atlanta had wondered herself when old man Zinjanthrop had flatly refused to finance her practice, forcing her to start up on a shoestring. But necessity had engineered a prompt solution. Her clients now knew to wait in the Daffodil Burk, a never-close coffee shop where they could eat and drink at Atlanta's expense, with nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The coffee shop billed Atlanta monthly, and she wrote it all off against taxes.
         At this time of the evening, the Daffodil Burk was almost empty, for the daylight business had tapered off to next to nothing. Later, there would be drunks wandering in for hot coffee, the traditional remedy for an overdose of strong drink. Later still, there would be the fishermen coming in cold and hungry from the seas of night.
         But, for the moment, there was only Atlanta herself and one other, a hoarse-voiced man who hawked and spat repeatedly, and who carried a stout stick of bamboo which he used to beat dogs and to feel his way around the city — for he was blind. This man was Harnok Chadlin, a descendent of the once-mighty Family Chadlin, and the current owner of the Ik Mablis.
         Chadlin heard Atlanta enter, and guessed who it was. He turned his uncapped eye-sockets in her direction.
        "Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta," said Chadlin. "Give me a kiss."
        "I'll give you a kick to be gone," said Atlanta coldly, looking unflinchingly at his leering darkness, "then I'll sue you for defamation."
        "Defamation?" said Chadlin. "Since when and how have I defamed you?"
        "You've defamed me," said Atlanta, "by suggesting I might like to kiss you. Bestiality is not my suit."
         Chadlin laughed.
        "It'd never stand up in court," he said.
        "There's such a thing as a nuisance suit," said Atlanta. "Now go!"
         Chadlin allowed himself to be thus dismissed. Atlanta was one of the few people who would so much as exchange the time of day with him, and, though he enjoyed needling her, he allowed her to bully him a little.
         Just after blindman Chadlin left, Glan Gleneth Soba Lubamacasta entered the Daffodil Burk, entered with a whirl of perfume — jasmine, if Atlanta was any judge — and a gewgaw flash from fish-shaped earrings of gem-studded silver.
        "Atlanta, darling," said Soba.
        "Soba," said Atlanta, acknowledging her presence. "I'm sorry I couldn't see you tonight. I was just too tired."
        "But you're seeing me now," said Soba, settling herself across the coffee shop table from Atlanta.
         Then she made a fist and hammered the table, watching Atlanta all the while to see what response she would get to this barbarism. Atlanta feigned indifference.
         Summoned by Soba's fist, a waitress emerged from the rear of the coffee shop, and shortly served them each a cup of coffee, a glass of water, and a plate of those artificial slugs known as gyoza.
         Gyoza (which are technically fried dumplings stuffed with minced pork) are traditionally eaten in Lexis with a mix-it-yourself sauce, the optional ingredients of which are vinegar, soy sauce, black pepper, and Goblin's Red Hot Patent Oil. Atlanta, as was her custom, used all the above to make her own dunking dip, but Soba contented herself with a squirt of vinegar.
        "I had to see you," said Soba.
         Was this about money? Atlanta felt a vague sense of alarm. She knew better than to lend Soba any money whatsoever, but her necessary refusal of funds might lead to a painful scene.
        "You are seeing me," said Atlanta, doing her best to be studiously non-committal. "So?"
        "I'm in debt," said Soba.
         So she did want money.
        "If you're in debt," said Atlanta, "then I advise you to stay away from lawyers. They're fiendishly expensive. Besides, they're thieves, the lot of them. Masters of fraud and deceit."
        "I'm in debt to Gorkindachina."
         This came as news to Atlanta. She had guessed well enough that Soba was probably in debt — her lifestyle was too extravagant to be sustained by her income — but had not known that Gorkindachina was mixed up in it.
        "He's pressuring me," said Soba, as Atlanta stayed silent.
        "Well," said Atlanta.
         What could she say? Her own financial position was weak. She had to scrape and skimp just to make ends meet. She did not really mind this — she was paying her dues, serving her apprenticeship, learning her trade, building her practice — but it did mean she was in no position to materially help Soba.
        "He's threatening to bankrupt me," said Soba.
        "Well," said Atlanta, "I'm sorry to say that, really, there's not much I can do about it. You know, Soba, my law practice hasn't exactly made me rich. I make enough to pay for coffee, and I sometimes get baskets of fish on the side."
        "Your Family is mixed up in this," said Soba.
        "My Family!" said Atlanta, astonished at this accusation.
        "Gorkindachina," said Soba, "he says, he says the Family, your Family, is trying to make him bankrupt."
        "He owes us money," acknowledged Atlanta.
        "That's why he has to call in his loans," said Soba. "That's why he has to bankrupt me!"
         Atlanta picked up a gyoza with her chopsticks, but it fell apart. Without any sense of shame, she used her fingers to compress its ruination into a squishy ball. She rubbed this ball in her dunking dip, then shoveled it into her mouth. Despite the press of her problems, Soba watched this procedure with nothing short of fascinated horror.
        "So," said Atlanta, licking traces of Goblin's Red Hot Patent Oil from her lips. "So, so our good friend Gorkindachina is mixed up in this." She picked up her water and sluiced it down. "Well well well."
         A little grease from Atlanta's lips made swirling patterns in the cleanliness of the water. She studied the water, thinking about Gorkindachina and about Soba. Then she raised her eyes, and looked at Soba, hard.
        "You know," said Atlanta, "there's a lot of bitterness between Gorkindachina and my family. Gorkindachina ended up with the senate seat which used to belong to my father, Kansko Chansko."
        "I didn't know that," said Soba. "I didn't know your father was ever a senator."
         Atlanta was staggered. The senate and its politics were so much of the life of the Family Jubiladilia that Atlanta found it hard to believe that everyone else did not share her own knowledge, her own political awareness.
        "Well," said Atlanta, "now you know. My grandfather Zinjanthrop, he had that senate seat before he passed it to my father. Now Zinjanthrop wants it back. Not for himself, but for Heineman. My brother Heineman."
        "What's this got to do with me?" said Soba.
        "It means," said Atlanta, "that my Family isn't going to give Gorkindachina any mercy on your account."
        "Then how about giving me a loan?" said Soba.
        "My Family can't do that, either," said Atlanta, "because the Family finances are stretched to the limit by this war on Gorkindachina."
         That was true enough. There was no need to add that, even in the best of all imaginable circumstances, there was no conceivable possibility that the Family Jubiladilia would ever lend money to such a poor prospect as Glan Gleneth Soba Lubamacasta.
        "So," said Soba, "so what happens to me?"
        "There's only one thing you can do," said Atlanta, recognizing the ruthless demands of necessity. "You throw yourself on the mercy of the Court. Declare bankruptcy. Get yourself made a Protected Person. It's paperwork, paperwork, a day's paperwork, less. I can do it for you tomorrow."
         Though the relics of Chalakanesia's feudal past included enslavement for debt, modern laws had modified that past. A debtor could now declare bankruptcy, becoming a Protected Person under the supervision of the Court of Justice. This was humiliating, since it meant that agents of the court would supervise one's property, one's activities and one's finances. But it meant that one was safe from slavery.
        "I didn't need a lawyer to tell me that," said Soba.
        "You don't have a lawyer," said Atlanta. "You can't afford one. You have a friend who's giving you some good advice. Take it."
        "I can't!" said Soba. "It's out of the question!"
        "You have to," said Atlanta. "You've no alternative." Then, crossly: "Oh, really! Don't indulge yourself! This is no time for crying! Pull yourself together, and listen to me."
         Then Atlanta detailed the process whereby Soba could become a Protected Person, winding up by saying:
        "The Court tends to be quite reasonable. You'll probably even get to live in your own House."
        "Live in my own House!" said Soba. "I should hope so!"
        "That's a privilege, not a right," warned Atlanta. "Financially, it would be better for the Court to put you in a cheap hotel, and rent the House."
        "Well, that would be very inconvenient," said Soba, "because I'm having a party in the House, next week. Will you come?"
        "A party!" said Atlanta. "Soba, you can't!"
         Atlanta knew all about Soba's parties, and knew that the Court of Justice would take a very dim view of such reckless extravagance.
        "I can't?" said Soba. "Why not?"
        "You can't hold a party just after you throw yourself on the mercy of the Court."
        "Then," said Soba, with impeccable logic, "I'll have the party first, and throw myself on the Court afterwards."
         She grinned. Her tears were already a thing of the past. Seachange Soba — from squall to sunlight in hardly as much time as it takes to blink.
        "I think you're being most unwise," said Atlanta.
         But it was difficult to be harsh with her — it was like hurting a child. And Atlanta, despite herself, was excited at the thought of a party. Soba's parties were the only ones which were really fun — like the parties you had when you were a child. Everyone else seemed to have grown dull as they grew older, and their entertainments likewise, but not Soba.
         Atlanta was aware that Soba's gaiety was scarcely an undiluted virtue. The world was a very serious place, and, in many ways, no place at all for anyone as frivolously irresponsible as Glan Gleneth Soba Lubamacasta. But the excitement was real, nonetheless, and the anticipation.
        "All right," said Atlanta, relenting. "You can have your party. And we'll see to the paperwork the very week after."