"Sure. I don't know nothing, I ain't seen nothing, I ain't heard nothing." With frank simplicity he added, "I never did know much."
"Good. You've never laid eyes on Joe-Jim, you've never heard of the stars. You're just my messenger, a knife I took along to help me. Now here's what you are to tell him." He gave Alan the message for Narby, couched in simple but provocative terms, then made sure that Alan had it all straight. "All right, on your way! Good eating."
Alan slapped the grip of his knife, answered, "Good eating!" and sped away.
It is not possible for a peasant to burst precipitously into the presence of the Captain's Executive; Alan found that out. He was halted by the master-at-arms on watch outside Narby's suite, cuffed around a bit for his insistence on entering, referred to a boredly unsympathetic clerk who took his name and told him to return to his village and wait to be summoned. He held his ground and insisted that he had a message of immediate importance from the Chief Engineer to Commander Narby. The clerk looked up again. "Give me the writing."
"There is no writing."
"What? That's ridiculous. There is always a writing. Regulations."
"He had no time to make a writing. He gave me a word message."
"What is it?"
Alan shook his head. "It is private, for Commander Narby only. I have orders."
The clerk looked his exasperation.
But, being only a probationer, he forewent the satisfaction of direct and immediate disciplining of the recalcitrant churl in favor of the safer course of passing the buck higher up.
The chief clerk was brief. "Give me the message."
Alan braced himself and spoke to a scientist in a fashion be had never used in his life, even to one as junior, as this passed clerk. "Sir, all I ask is for you to tell Commrnder Narby that I have a message for him from Chief Engineer Ertz. If the message is not delivered, I won't be the one to go to the Converter! But I don't dare give the message to anyone else."
The under official pulled at his lip, and decided to take a chance on disturbing his superior.
Alan delivered his message to Narby in a low voice in order that the orderly standing just outside the door might not overhear. Narby stared at him. "Ertz wants me to come along with you up to mutie country?"
"Not all the way up to mutie country, sir. To a point in between, where Hugh Hoyland can meet you."
Narby exhaled noisily. "It's preposterous. I'll send a squad of knives up to fetch him down to me."
Alan delivered the balance of his message. This time he carefully raised his voice to ensure that the orderly, and, if possible, others might hear his words. "Ertz said to tell you that if you were afraid to go, just to forget the whole matter. He will take it up with the Council himself."
Alan owed his continued existence thereafter to the fact that Narby was the sort of man who lived by shrewdness rather than by direct force. Narby's knife was at his belt; Alan was painfully aware that he had been required to deposit his own with the master-at-arms.
Narby controlled his expression. He was too intelligent to attribute the insult to the oaf before him, though he promised himself to give said oaf a little special attention at a more convenient time. Pique, curiosity, and potential loss of face all entered into his decision. "I'm coming with you," he said savagely. "I want to ask him if you got his message straight."
Narby considered having a major guard called out to accompany him, but he discarded the idea. Not only would it make the affair extremely public before he had an opportunity to judge its political aspects, but also it would cost him almost as much face as simply refusing to go. But he inquired nervously of Alan as Alan retrieved his weapon from the master-at-arms, "You're a good knife?"
"None better," Alan agreed cheerfully.
Narby hoped that the man was not simply boasting. Muties! Narby wished that he himself had found more time lately for practice in the manly arts.
Narby gradually regained his composure as he followed Alan up toward low-weight. In the first place nothing happened, no alarms; in the second place Alan was obviously a cautious and competent scout, one who moved alert and noiselessly and never entered a deck without pausing to peer cautiously around before letting his body follow his eye. Narby might have been more nervous had be hearing what Alan did hear: little noises from the depths of the great dim passageways, rustlings which told him that their progress was flanked on all sides. This worried Alan subconsciously, although he had expected something of the sort; he knew that both Hugh and Joe-Jim were careful captains who would not neglect to cover an approach. He would have worried more if he had not been able detect a reconnaissance which should have been present.
When he approached the rendezvous some twenty decks above the highest civilized level, he stopped and whistled. A whistle answered him. "It's Alan," he called out.
"Come up and show yourself?" Alan did so, without neglecting his usual caution. When be saw no one but his friends: Ertz, Hugh, Joe-Jim, and Bobo, be motioned for Narby to foflow him.
The sight of Joe-Jim and Bobo broke Narby's unsteady calm with a sudden feeling that he had been trapped. He snatched at his knife and backed clumsily down the stair then turned. Bobo's knife was out even faster. For a split moment the outcome hung balanced, ready to fall either way. But Joe-Jim slapped Bobo across the face, took his knife from him and let it clatter to the deck, then relieved him of his slingshot.
Narby was in full flight, with Hugh and Ertz calling vainly after him. "Fetch him, Bobo!" Jim commanded, "and do not hurt him." Bobo lumbered away.
He was back in fairly short order. "Run fast," be commented. He dropped Narby to the deck where the officer lay almost quiet while he fought to catch his breath. Bobo took Narby's knife from his own belt and tried it by shaving coarse black hairs from his left forearm. "Good blade," he approved.
"Give it back to him," Jim ordered. Bobo looked extremely startled but complied wistfully. Joe-Jim returned Bobo's own weapons to him.
Narby matched Bobo's surprise at regaining his sidearm, but he concealed it better. He even managed to accept it with dignity.
"Look," Ertz began in worried tones, "I'm sorry you got your wind up, Fin. Bobo's not a bad sort. It was the only way to get you back."
Narby fought with himself to regain the cool self-discipline with which he habitually met the world. Damn! he told himself, this situation is preposterous. Well... "Forget it," he said shortly. "I was expecting to meet you; I didn't expect a bunch of armed muties. You have an odd taste in playmates, Ertz."
"Sorry," Bill Ertz replied, "I guess I should have warned you." a piece of mendacious diplomacy. "But they're all right. Bobo you've met. This is Joe-Jim. He's a... a sort of a Ship's officer among the muties."
"Good eating," Joe acknowledged politely.
"Good eating," Narby replied mechanically.
"Hugh you know, I think." Narby agreed that he did.
An embarrassed pause followed. Narby broke it.
"Well," he said, "you must have had some reason to send word for me to come up here. Or was it just to play games?"
"I did," Ertz agreed. "I -- Shucks, I hardly know where to start. See here, Narby, you won't believe this, but I've seen. Everything Hugh told us was true. I've been in the Control Room. I've seen the stars. I know?"
Narby stared at him. "Ertz," he said slowly, "you've gone out of your mind."