… While the living food and fruit was still too immature and small to be seen by the cloud-walkers, Irisik went on to explain, the other strange animals that the strangers used for food had been clearly visible to them. They had observed how these creatures had been tethered to litters, how they had had their walking limbs removed to prevent them from escaping, how they had been exposed to sunlight and been periodically washed in the sea in order to remove wastes and harmful parasites and render them more fit for consumption.
While it had been speaking, Prilicla felt Murchison trying very hard to control its feelings of shock and abhorrence and its vain attempts to maintain silence. He didn’t try to stop it speaking because it was wanting to ask the questions that he badly wanted answered himself.
“Some of these are members of our own species,” Murchison said, gesturing towards the Terragar casualties. “Do you think we would eat them? Would Kritik — I mean Krititkukik — have eaten me?”
“Yes, to both questions,” Irisik replied without hesitation. “It is stupid to waste a supply of edible food, regardless of the emotional connections, if any, that one may have with the source. It is not pleasant for the immediate family or friends of the deceased, and many choose to eat only the smallest of morsels and pass the remainder to hungry or needy strangers who have no memories of or emotional ties with the meal. But it must be done if the essence of a beloved parent or siblings is to continue into the future. Plainly it is the same with you people.”
Murchison’s emotional radiation was so confused that it was unable to speak. Irisik went on. “Knowing your intentions and reason for being here, we spread the word about you and set about assembling all of the sea clans in this ocean. Some of them are little more than pirates and food robbers like you, and normally we would prefer to shoot our crossbows at them as sky-talk to their ships to ask for their cooperation, but everyone agreed to forget our differences for the present in order to kill the strangers.
“You may think me guilty of exaggeration,” it went on, “but I assure you that the Crextic ships already assembled around this island are only a small fraction of those which will arrive within the next few days. In spite of your fire throwers, your invisible weapons that hurl sand and water at us, and your magic shield, we will smother and crush you with our cloud-walkers and surface fighters. The cost to us will be extreme, but we must ensure that no more of your kind are tempted to raid our world.
“And I must correct your mistake,” it continued into the shocked silence. “Krititkukik is not a name, it is the title of the leader of our sea clan. It would have eaten your most desirable parts, as is its right, before sharing you with the rest of the crew. Being a sensitive person as well as one who was filled with scientific curiosity, and knowing that you were a strange but intelligent source of food with feelings, it would have concealed from you as long as possible the fact that you were to be eaten. Sometimes I think the Krititkukik lacks the quality of ruthlessness necessary to a leader.”
Prilicla caught a brief, complex burst of emotion whose meaning was unmistakable, composed as it was of the strange combination of yearning, tenderness, and a feeling of grief over the impending loss of someone with whom one was deeply and emotionally involved. They were the feelings, he felt sure, of and for a life-mate.
“Believe me,” said Prilicla, “you will be together again soon.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Irisik, “or anything else that you or the other meat gatherers say to me.”
“I understand,” said Prilicla, “so I shall instruct my meat gatherers, as you insist on calling them, not to speak to you at all. You and the other sources of meat may talk to each other if and when either of you wish. The charge nurse will continue to administer food, medication, and to periodically check on your condition and that of the others, but without speaking to you…”
“Good,” said Naydrad, rippling its fur. “I hate being called a liar, especially when my people don’t even know what a lie is.”
“… until, that is,” he ended, “you ask to speak to us. All other members of the medical staff including myself will leave you now.”
Irisik was radiating surprise, confusion, and uncertainty. It said, “I know you aren’t telling the truth, but your lies are interesting and I want to listen to more of them before I am killed. Please stay.”
“No,” said Prilicla firmly. “Until you believe that you are being told the truth, including the truth that we mean no harm to you, your people, or your world and the animal life here, we will not speak again. And remember, I know exactly how you are feeling about everything from moment to moment, and it is impossible to lie with the emotions. When I feel that you are ready to believeme, I shall speak with you again.”
He led Murchison and Danalta into the communications room where Fletcher, displaying the symptoms of Earth-human elevated blood pressure, was glaring at them from the viewscreen. His two assistants were bursting to speak, but the captain got its question in first.
“Doctor,” it said, “this is an unnecessary waste of time. I know the feelings of a person of your medical seniority and emotional sensitivity must be hurt at being treated as a liar. You wouldn’t be human — I’m sorry, I mean Cinrusskin — if you didn’t feel angry about that six-legged doubting Thomas. But I’m sure that with a little more patience and forbearance on your part you will be able to convince it that…”
“I know its present feelings, friend Fletcher,” Prilicla broke in, “well enough to know that I won’t be able to change them. It is a strong-minded, stubborn entity who considers itself to be one of the many victims around it who are shortly to be terminated and eaten. It won’t believe us, but hopefully our other so-called victims will be able to disabuse it and the other spider patients of that idea.”
“Very quickly, I hope,” Fletcher said, its features losing some of their high color. “If there is a sustained attack lasting more than thirty-six hours, the screen will go down. Before then we will have to make a main-drive takeoff and crisp a few hundred spiders. That is not the Federation’s idea of making friendly contact with another intelligent, if temporarily misguided, species. All our careers are on the line here, apart from the psychological trauma we’ll suffer if things go that badly wrong.”
“Yes, friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla, feeling the other’s tortured, emotional radiation all the way from the ship and trying to do something about it. “But there is a precedent. This is on a smaller, less bloody scale, but remember what happened when Sector General was caught in the middle of the Federation-Etlan War. Due to massive overcrowding the casualties from both sides were treated in the same ward. There is a close similarity to our present situation.”
“Is there,” said the captain, its mind obviously contemplating a future where all was desolation. Irritably it added, “I wasn’t there, Doctor, and it wasn’t a war. It was a large-scale police action.”
Prilicla well remembered that vicious and incredibly violent battle which had been waged around Sector General, when six of the Federation’s sector subfleets including three of its capital ships had opposed a much heavier force from the Etlan Empire, whose ruler had fed his people totally wrong information about the other side. He didn’t want to argue with the captain who, like the rest of its Monitor Corps colleagues, were touchy about the fact that their organization comprised the greatest assemblage of military might that the galaxy had ever known.
But Prilicla had been there and it had certainly felt like a war.