“Don’t throw that spear!” Reatur shouted. Half an eighteen males had been ready to hurl their spears-the creatures walking on the monster made far more tempting targets than that huge thing itself. At the domain master’s cry, they all guiltily lowered their weapons, each sure that Reatur had shouted at him alone. “I think they’re people,” Reatur went on.
Had he not been clanfather, he was sure the males would have hooted him down. As it was, they respected his rank, but he knew they did not believe him. Even Ternat, who had a mind with more arms than most, said, “They’re too ugly to be people.”
“Ugly?” That had not even occurred to Reatur. The creatures were as far outside his criteria for judging such matters as was the strange thing back at the castle. “They aren’t ugly. Fralk, now, he’s ugly.” That got eyestalks wiggling with mirth and brought the males back toward his way of thinking. “These things, they’re just-different.”
Up above him, the creatures were making noise of their own. Some had voices that sounded much like his; others used deeper, more rumbling tones. None of their babble sounded like any language he knew, but it did not sound like animal noises, either.
“Quiet!” Reatur said. The crowd of excited males obeyed slowly. When at last silence settled, the domain master turned four of his eyes on the creatures above him. “I don’t want any trouble with you,” he told them, pointing first at himself and then at them. To emphasize his words, he set his spear on the ground.
As he had hoped, his speaking when the rest of the males were quiet drew the strange creatures’ attention to him. They turned their eyes his way-which brought on another thought: was that the only direction in which they could see? He decided to worry about it later-it was just one more weirdness among so many. Meanwhile, the creature that was holding the what-ever-it-was put it back in the pouch where it had come from. Reatur chose to take that as a good sign.
The creature held up an arm. Reatur did the same. The creature stuck up one finger. Reatur did the same. “One,” he said. The creatures rumbled a reply. Reatur tried to imitate the noise it made, then said, “One,” again. This time, the creature came out with a rather blurry version of the same word.
“You were fight, clanfather,” Ternat said. “They are people or they aren’t animals, anyway.”
“No, they aren’t,” Reatur said. “This reminds me of the language lessons we go through whenever a traveler comes from so far away he hasn’t picked up trade talk.”
The domain master returned his attention to the creature above him. He hoped the byplay with his eldest had not distracted the thing. Evidently not-it was getting something out of an opening in its mottled hide; something flat and square. The side Reatur could see was plain white.
The creature came to the edge of the monster’s back. It looked down at Reatur, then surprised him(as if anything about it were anything but a surprise!)by bending its legs and stooping. It reached down, holding the flat square out to him.
“Be careful, clanfather. It might be dangerous,” Ternat said. “Thank you for worrying,” Reatur said. He held up an arm just the same. A goodly gap remained between his fingerclaws and the creature’s hand. He waved in invitation, urging it to come down to join him and his males. He wondered if it understood and wondered what it meant by shaking its head back and forth.
Refusal, evidently; it did not come down. But it did let the flat square fall. The square thing flipped over and over in the air. Reatur saw that its other side was not just white. There was some kind of design on it, but the thing was turning too fast for him to tell what. He grabbed for it and missed. It fell to the ground. Naturally, it landed with the plain white side on top. He widened so that he could pick it up.
He turned it over-and almost dropped it in amazement. “The strange thing!” he exclaimed, holding it up so more males could see. It was a picture of the thing he had killed, the thing he and his males had dragged with so much labor back to the castle.
And what a picture! He had never imagined an artist could draw with such detail. With new respect, he used two eyes to look up at the creatures still standing on the monster, while he used two more to keep examining that incredible image. The creatures had more abilities than monster-riding, it seemed.
They were watching him, too. They were so peculiar, he realized, that they might not understand that he rec6gnized the strange thing. He pointed at that unbelievable picture, at himself, back to the castle, and at the picture again.
By their reaction, they understood that. They yelled, leapt about, and hugged one another so tightly Reatur wondered if they were coupling. Then he laughed at himself for his foolishness. They were all about the same size, so they surely were all males. That made sense, he thought. Mates, by their nature, were not travelers.
Travelers… His thoughts abruptly turned practical. Travelers traveled for a reason. If these-people, he made himself think-were wandering artists, he wondered how much they would want for a portrait of him. No harm trying to find out.
Tolmasov clicked off the radio with a snarl of frustrated rage. “Not first,” he growled. “That damned uncultured old American son of a pig beat us down.” Despair lay on him, heavy as gravity.
“They may have been first, Sergei Konstantinovich, but we were better,” Valery Bryusov said, trying to console him. “They are eighty kilometers east of where they should be, and across the chasm from us. They will not have an easy time returning.”
Tolmasov only grunted.
He looked through the window. Seeing out only by way of monitors was one thing for which he emphatically did not envy Athena. Television, to him, was not quite real. It could lie so easily that even the truth became untrustworthy. Glass, now, a man could trust, streaks, smears, and all.
To the eye, the country reminded him of the Siberian tundra where Tsiolkovsky’s crew had trained. It was gently rolling land, with patches of snow here and there. From a distance, the plants looked like plants; Tolmasov was no botanist. Some were dark green, some brown, some yellow.
He did not see anything moving. He had set Tsiolkovsky down well away from the buildings he saw in the landing approach. It was not that he wanted to, or could, keep the landing secret-as well keep sunrise hidden! But if the Minervans came to him, he would have an easier time meeting them on his terms.
He got out of his seat and walked over to the closet full of warm clothes. “What’s the temperature outside, Katerina Fyodorovna?” he asked.
She checked the thermometer. “One above.”
“Brr!” Shota Rustaveli gave a theatrical shiver. The five Russians, even quiet Voroshilov, laughed at him. A degree above freezing-that was weather to be enjoyed, not endured, Tolmasov thought.
“It is early afternoon, at a season that is the equivalent of May, in a southern latitude that corresponds to Havana’s,” Dr. Zakharova pointed out, and Tolmasov felt his mirth slip. Russian summer was brief, but it was there. On Minerva, the weather did not get a whole lot warmer than this.
“Thank you for coming to my defense, Katerina, in these bleak circumstances,” Rustaveli said. The doctor murmured something. So did Tolmasov, under his breath. Where had the Georgian learned to sound like a courtier from some perfumed court and, worse, to do it so well.’?
The colonel drew calf length felt valenki over his feet and put his arms through the sleeves of his quilted telogreika. The rest of the crew, except for Lopatin and Voroshilov, crowded around to do likewise.
Next to the jackets, boots, and prosaic thermal underwear hung six full-length sable coats, for bad weather. Bryusov ran a loving hand down one of them. “Here is something the Americans cannot match,” he said.
“And here is something else,” Oleg Lopatin added. He had opened a locked cabinet not far from the protective gear. He started passing out weapons and brown plastic magazines.