Still, the standard division into photosynthetic vegetable and oxygen-breathing animal had occurred, and the larger animals were structurally familiar with their interior skeletons, four limbs, paired eyes and ears. Set beside many sophonts, the Domrath would have looked homelike.
They were bipeds with four-fingered hands, their outline roughly anthropoid except for the proportionately longer legs and huge, clawed, thickly soled feet necessary to negotiate springtime swamps and summer hardpan. The skin was glabrous, bluish, with brown and black mottlings that were beginning to turn gaudy colors as mating season approached. The heads were faintly suggestive of elephants’, round, with beady eyes, large erect ears that doubled as cooling surfaces, a short trunk that was a chemosensor and a floodtime snorkel, small down-curving tusks on the males. The people wore only loincloths, loosely woven straw cloaks to help keep off “insects,” necklaces and other ornaments of bone, shell, horn, teeth, tinted clay. Some of their tools and weapons were bronze, some—incongruously—paleolithic.
That much was easily grasped. And while their size was considerable, adult males standing over two meters and massing a hundred or more kilos, females even larger, it was not overwhelming. They were bisexual and viviparous. Granted, they were not mammals. A mother fed her infants by régurgitation. Bodies were poikilothermic, though now functioning at a higher rate than any Terran reptile. That was not unheard of either.
Nonetheless, Flandry thought, it marked the foundation of their uniqueness. For when your energy, your very intelligence was a function of temperature; when you not only slept at night, but spent two-thirds of your life among the ghostly half-dreams of hibernation—
About a score had come to meet the xenologists, with numerous young tagging after. The grownups walked in ponderous stateliness. But several had burdens strapped on their backs; and behind them Flandry saw others continue work, packing, loading bundles onto carrier poles, sweeping and garnishing soon-to-be-deserted houses.
The greeting committee stopped a few meters off. Its leader elevated his trunk while dipping his ax. Sounds that a human palate could not reproduce came from his mouth. Flandry heard the computer’s voice in his radio unit. “Here is Seething Springs. I am”—no translation available, but the name sounded like “G’ung”—“who speaks this year for our tribe.” An intonation noted, in effect, that “tribe” (Eriau “maddeuth,” itself not too close an equivalent of the Anglic word by which Flandry rendered it) was a debatable interpretation of the sound G’ung made, but must serve until further studies had deepened comprehension of his society. “Why have you come?”
The question was not hostile, nor was the omission of a spoken welcome. The Domrath were gregarious, unwarlike although valiant fighters at need, accustomed to organizing themselves in nomadic bands. And, while omnivorous, they didn’t make hunting a major occupation. Their near ancestors had doubtless lived entirely off the superabundant plant life of summer. Accordingly, they had no special territorial instincts. Except for their winter dens, it did not occur to them that anyone might not have a perfect right to be anywhere.
The Seething Springs folk were unusual in returning annually to permanent buildings, instead of constructing temporary shelters wherever they chanced to be. And this custom had grown up among them only because their hibernation site was not too far from this village. No one had challenged their occupation of it.
Quite simply and amiably, G’ung wondered what had brought the Merseians.
“We explained our reasons when last we visited you…with gifts,” their leader reminded. His colleagues bore trade goods, metal tools and the like, which had hitherto delighted all recipients. “We wish to learn about your tribe.”
“Is understood.” Neither G’ung nor his group acted wildly enthusiastic.
No Domrath had shown fear of the Merseians. Being formidable animals, they had never developed either timidity or undue aggressiveness; being at an early prescientific stage, they lived among too many marvels and mysteries to see anything terrifyingly strange about spaceships bearing extraplanetarians; and Yowyr had enforced strict correctness in every dealing with them. So why did these hesitate?
The answer was manifest as G’ung continued: “But you came before in high summer. Fastbreaking Festival was past, the tribes had dispersed, food was ample and wit was keen. Now we labor to bring the season’s gatherings to our hibernation place. When we are there, we shall feast and mate until we drowse off. We have no time or desire for sharing self with outsiders.”
“Is understood, G’ung,” the Merseian said. “We do not wish to hamper or interfere. We do wish to observe. Other tribes have we watched as fall drew nigh, but not yours, and we know your ways differ from the Towlanders’ in more than one regard. For this privilege we bid gifts and, can happen, the help of our flying house to transport your stores.”
The Domrath snorted among themselves. They must be tempted but unsure. Against assistance in the hard job of moving stuff up toward Mt. Thunderbelow must be balanced a change in immemorial practice, a possible angering of gods…yes, it was known the Domrath were a religious race…
“Your words shall be shared and chewed on,” G’ung decided. “We shall assemble tonight. Meanwhile is much to do while light remains.” The darkness of Talwin’s clouded summer was pitchy; and in this dry period, fires were restricted and torches tabooed: He issued no spoken invitation, that not being the custom of his folk, but headed back. The Merseians followed with Flandry.
The village was carefully laid out in a spiderweb pattern of streets—for defense? Buildings varied in size and function, from hut to storage shed, but were all of stone, beautifully dressed, dry-laid, and chinked. Massive wooden beams supported steeply pitched sod roots. Both workmanship and dimensions—low ceilings, narrow doorways, slit windows with heavy shutters—showed that, while the Domrath used this place, they had not erected it.
They boiled about, a hundred or so of every age; doubtless more were on the trail to the dens. Voices and footfalls surged around. In spite of obvious curiosity, no one halted work above a minute to stare at the visitors. Autumn was too close.
At a central plaza, where the old cooked a communal meal over a firepit, G’ung showed the Merseians some benches. “I will speak among the people,” he said. “Come day’s end, you shall receive us here and we shall share self on the matter you broach. Tell me first: would the Ruadrath hold with your plan?”
“I assure you the Ruadrath have nothing against it,” Cnif said.
From what I’ve studied, Flandry thought, I’m not quite sure that’s true, once they find out.
“I have glimpsed a Ruad—I think—when I was small and spring came early,” said an aged female. “That you see them each year—” She wandered off, shaking her head.
With Cnif’s assent, Flandry peeked into a house fronting on the square. He saw a clay floor, a hearth and smokehole, daises along two sides with shelves above. Bright unhuman patterns glowed on walls and intricately carved timbers. In one corner stood a loaded rack, ready to go. But from the rafters, with ingenious guards against animals, hung dried fruits and cured meat—though the Domrath were rarely eaters of flesh. A male sat carefully cleaning and greasing bronze utensils, knifes, bowls, an ax, a saw. His female directed her young in tidying the single room while she spread the daises with new straw mats.
Flandry greeted the family. “Is this to be left?” he asked. It seemed like quite a bit for these impoverished savages.