“Don’t use any facial contortions,” Maarten warned Croswell.
Slowly they advanced until they were ten feet from the leading Durellan. Then Maarten said in a low voice, “We come in peace.”
Chedka translated, then listened to the answer, which was so soft as to be almost undecipherable.
“Chief says welcome,” Chedka reported in his economical English.
“Good, good,” Maarten said. He took a few more steps forward and began to speak, pausing every now and then for translation. Earnestly, and with extreme conviction, he intoned Primary Speech BB-32 (for humanoid, primitive-pastoral, tentatively nonaggressive aliens).
Even Croswell, who was impressed by very little, had to admit it was a fine speech. Maarten said they were wanderers from afar, come out of the Great Nothingness to engage in friendly discourse with the gentle people of Durell. He spoke of green and distant Earth, so like this planet, and of the fine and humble people of Earth who stretched out hands in greeting. He told of the great spirit of peace and cooperation that emanated from Earth, of universal friendship, and many other excellent things.
Finally he was done. There was a long silence.
“Did he understand it all?” Maarten whispered to Chedka.
The Eborian nodded, waiting for the chief’s reply. Maarten was perspiring from the exertion, and Croswell couldn’t stop nervously fingering his newly shaven upper lip.
The chief opened his mouth, gasped, made a little half turn, and collapsed to the ground.
It was an embarrassing moment and one uncovered by any amount of theory.
The chief didn’t rise; apparently it was not a ceremonial fall. As a matter of fact, his breathing seemed labored, like that of a man in a coma.
Under the circumstances, the Contact team could only retreat to their ship and await further developments.
Half an hour later, a native approached the ship and conversed with Chedka, keeping a wary eye on the Earthmen and departing immediately.
“What did he say?” Croswell asked.
“Chief Moréri apologizes for fainting,” Chedka told them. “He said it was inexcusably bad manners.”
“Ah!” Maarten exclaimed. “His fainting might help us, after all—make him eager to repair his ‘impoliteness.’ Just as long as it was a fortuitous circumstance, unrelated to us—”
“Not,” Chedka said.
“Not what?”
“Not unrelated,” the Eborian said, curling up and going to sleep.
Maarten shook the little linguist awake. “What else did the chief say? How was his fainting related to us?”
Chedka yawned copiously. “The chief was very embarrassed. He faced the wind from your mouth as long as he could, but the alien odor—”
“My breath?” Maarten asked. “My breath knocked him out?”
Chedka nodded, giggled unexpectedly, and went to sleep.
Evening came, and the long dim twilight of Durell merged imperceptibly into night. In the village, cooking fires glinted through the surrounding forest and winked out one by one. But lights burned within the spaceship until dawn. And when the sun rose, Chedka slipped out of the ship on a mission into the village. Croswell brooded over his morning coffee, while Maarten rummaged through the ship’s medicine chest.
“It’s purely a temporary setback,” Croswell was saying hopefully. “Little things like this are bound to happen. Remember that time on Dingoforeaba VI—”
“It’s little things that close planets forever,” Maarten said.
“But how could anyone possibly guess—”
“I should have foreseen it,” Maarten growled angrily. “Just because our breath hasn’t been offensive anywhere else—here it is!”
Triumphantly he held up a bottle of pink tablets. “Absolutely guaranteed to neutralize any breath, even that of a hyena. Have a couple.”
Croswell accepted the pills. “Now what?”
“Now we wait until—aha! What did he say?”
Chedka slipped through the entry port, rubbing his eves. “The chief apologizes for fainting.”
“We know that. What else?”
“He welcomes you to the village of Lannit at your convenience. The chief feels that this incident shouldn’t alter the course of friendship between two peace-loving courteous peoples.”
Maarten sighed with relief. He cleared his throat and asked hesitantly, “Did you mention to him about the forthcoming—ah—improvement in our breaths?”
“I assured him it would be corrected,” Chedka said, “although it never bothered me.”
“Fine, fine. We will leave for the village now. Perhaps you should take one of these pills?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my breath,” the Eborian said complacently.
They set out at once for the village of Lannit.
When one deals with a primitive-pastoral people, one looks for simple but highly symbolic gestures, since that is what they understand best. Imagery! Clear-cut and decisive parallels! Few words but many gestures! Those were the rules in dealing with primitive-pastorals.
As Maarten approached the village, a natural and highly symbolic ceremony presented itself. The natives were waiting in their village, which was in a clearing in the forest. Separating forest from village was a dry stream bed, and across that bed was a small stone bridge.
Maarten advanced to the center of the bridge and stopped, beaming benignly on the Durellans. When he saw several of them shudder and turn away, he smoothed out his features, remembering his own injunction on facial contortions. He paused for a long moment.
“What’s up?” Croswell asked, stopping in front of the bridge.
In a loud voice, Maarten cried, “Let this bridge symbolize the link, now eternally forged, that joins this beautiful planet with—” Croswell called out a warning, but Maarten didn’t know what was wrong. He stared at the villagers; they had made no movement.
“Get off the bridge!” Croswell shouted. But before Maarten could move, the entire structure had collapsed under him and he fell bone-shakingly into the dry stream.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” Croswell said, helping him to his feet. “As soon as you raised your voice, that stone began to pulverize. Sympathetic vibration, I imagine.”
Now Maarten understood why the Durellans spoke in whispers. He struggled to his feet, then groaned and sat down again.
“What’s wrong?” Croswell asked.
“I seem to have wrenched my ankle,” Maarten said miserably.
Chief Moréri came up, followed by twenty or so villagers, made a short speech and presented Maarten with a walking stick of carved and polished black wood.
“Thanks,” Maarten muttered, standing up and leaning gingerly on the cane. “What did he say?” he asked Chedka.
“The chief said that the bridge was only a hundred years old and in good repair,” Chedka translated. “He apologizes that his ancestors didn’t build it better.”
“Hmm,” Maarten said.
“And the chief says that you are probably an unlucky man.”
He might be right, Maarten thought. Or perhaps Earthmen were just a fumbling race. For all their good intentions, population after population feared them, hated them, envied them, mainly on the basis of unfavorable first impressions.
Still, there seemed to be a chance here. What else could go wrong?
Forcing a smile, then quickly erasing it, Maarten limped into the village beside Moréri.
Technologically, the Durellan civilization was of a low order. A limited use had been made of wheel and lever, but the concept of mechanical advantage had been carried no further. There was evidence of a rudimentary knowledge of plane geometry and a fair idea of astronomy.
Artistically, however, the Durellans were adept and surprisingly sophisticated, particularly in wood carving. Even the simplest huts had bas-relief panels, beautifully conceived and executed.