'No way out of it,' Briggs finally said. 'We have to go in and that door is the only way. You go first and I'll keep my eyes open.'
The difference between the two men was proven then in the most obvious manner possible. DeWitt had some natural qualms about going through the door, but he forced them down, mumbled his memory.hrough the various forms of greeting, and bent over to step inside. He had just thrust his head in through the doorway when Briggs grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him backwards onto the ground. He landed painfully on the end of his spine, the heavy box crashed into his leg, and looked up in amazement at the thick spear sticking in the ground and still vibrating with the force of impact. It had penetrated deep into the earth in the exact spot where he had been.
'Well, that shows one thing,' Briggs exulted, pulling the dazed DeWitt to his feet. 'We've found the right place. This job is going to be a lot shorter and easier than I thought.' With one heavy boot he kicked the spear out of his way, bent under the door and stalked into the building. DeWitt stumbled after him.
Blinking in the smoke-laden air they could dimly see a group of natives at the far end of the room. Without looking around Briggs stalked towards them. DeWitt followed, stopping just long enough to examine the mechanism fixed over the door. Enough light penetrated from the slit windows so that he could just make it out: a frame fixed to the wall that held a heavy wooden bow two metres long. A rope, running towards the group at the other end of the building, had released the simple trigger mechanism. No part of the trap was visible outside the door — yet Briggs had known about it.
'Get over here DeWitt,' the voice bellowed. 'I can't talk to these creeps without you! Come on!'
DeWitt hurried as fast as he could and dropped his heavy box in front of the five natives. Four of them stood in the background, hands on weapons, eyes that reflected the ruddy firelight gleamed malevolently from thinned slits. The fifth alien sat in front of them, on a box or platform of thick woven wood. A number of pendant weapons, bangles and oddly shaped containers, the local mark of high rank, were suspended from his body and limbs, and in both hands he balanced a long bladed weapon resembling a short sword with a thin blade.
Who are you?' the alien asked, and DeWitt translated. 'Tell him we want to know his name first/ Briggs said, clearing his throat noisily and spitting on the packed dirt floor.
After a short wait, during which his eyes never left Briggs, the seated alien said, 'B'deska.'
'My name is Briggs and I'm here to get a man like me who is called Zarevski. And don't pull any more tricks like that thing at the door because you're allowed just one free shot with me and you've had it. Next time I kill somebody.'
'You will eat with us.'
'What the hell is he trying to pull, DeWitt? We can't eat the local grub.'
'You can if you want to, some of the xenologists did though I never had the nerve. There is nothing in it to cause anything worse than a bad heartburn, though I'm told the taste is loathsome beyond imagining. It is also an important social custom, no business is ever transacted except over a meal.'
'Bring on the chow,' Briggs said resignedly. 'I only hope this Zarevski is worth it*
One of the other aliens put down his weapon at a hissed word and went to a darkened corner of the. building, bringing back a gourd with a wooden stopper and two cups of crudely fired clay. He placed the gourd on the ground and one of the cups before the visitor and the other in front of the seated chieftain. Briggs squatted on his haunches, and reaching out he took up both cups and raised them at arms' length.
'Great cups,' he said. 'Great workmanship. Tell him that. Tell him that these ugly pieces of mud are fine art and that I admire his taste.*
DeWitt translated this, and while he did Briggs put. the cups down again. Even DeWitt noticed that he had changed cups, so that each of them had the other's. B'deska said nothing, but pulled the plug from the gourd and filled his cup with dark liquid, then Briggs'.
'Oh God, that's horrible,' Briggs said, taking a small sip and shuddering. T hope the food is better.'
'It will be worse, but you only have to take a token mouthful or two.'
The same native who had brought the drink, now appeared with a large bowl brimming with a crumbled grey mixture whose very smell provoked nausea. B'deska tipped a handful of it into a suddenly gaping mouth slit, then pushed the bowl over to Briggs who scooped up as small a portion as was possible. DeWitt could sec a tremor shake his back as he licked it from his fingers. No amount of coaxing by the alien could force him to take a second sample. B'deska waved the bowl away and two smaller bowls of food were brought. Briggs looked down at his on the floor before him and slowly rose to his feet.
'I warned you, B'deska,' he said.
Before DeWitt had finished translating this Briggs stamped on the bowl, crushing it, then ground the contents into the floor with his heel. The alien who had served the food was running towards the door and in sudden realization DeWitt grabbed for the control unit on his belt, but this time he was too slow. Before he could touch the radio control that would prevent Briggs' gun from firing the gun went off with a booming roar and the alien fell, a gaping hole in his back.
Briggs reholstered the gun calmly and turned back to B'deska who had raised his sword so that the point rested on the box next to him, but who otherwise had not moved.
'Now that that's out of the way, tell him I'm willing to talk business. Tell him I want Zarevski.'
'Why do you want the man Zarevski?" B'deska asked, his manner as unmoved as Briggs'. The dead alien lay crumpled, bleeding slowly into the dirt, and they both ignored him.
'I want him because he is my slave and he is very expensive and he ran away. I want him back and I want to beat him.'
'I can't say that,' DeWitt protested. 'If they thought Zarevski was a slave they might kill him. . '
His words were broken off as Briggs reached out and lashed him across the back of the face with his hand. It staggered him, bringing tears of pain to his eyes.
'Do what I tell you, you idiot," Briggs shouted. 'You were the one who told me they kept slaves, and if they think Zarevski is a slave that will give them a chance to get a good price for releasing him. Don't you know that they think you are a slave too?'
De Witt had not realized it until that moment. He translated carefully. B'deska appeared to be thinking about this, though his eyes were on the box of trade goods all the time.
'How much will you pay for him? He committed a bad crime and this will cost a lot.'
'I'll pay a good price. Then I will take him and beat him, then bring him home and make him watch while I kill his son. Or maybe I will make him kill his son hin> self.'
B'deska bobbed his head in agreement when this was translated, and after that it was just a matter of bargaining. When the agreed number of brass rods and paste gems had been taken from the box B'deska climbed to his feet and left the room. The other aliens picked up the ransom payment and left after him. De Witt gaped after them.
'But — where is Zarevski?'
'In the box of course — where else did you think he would be? If he was valuable enough for us to come and get him B'deska wasn't going to allow him out of sight, or someone else would have made a deal with us. Didn't you see the way he had that pigsticker ready to stab down into the box. One wrong move of ours and he would have put paid to Zarevski.'
'But wasn't your killing one of his men a wrong move?' DeWitt asked, tearing at the strings that sealed the box.