“Enough!” Still gripping the alien’s shoulder with his left hand, Toller lowered his sword slightly. “You will do as I command? You will take us to Dussarra?”
You leave me no choice. We will go immediately.
“This is more to my liking.” Toller released his grip on Divivvidiv’s shoulder, then tightened his fingers again, so fiercely that the alien winced. “Or is it less to my liking?”
I do not understand you! What has happened?
“You ceased your shivering, greyface. You ceased being afraid.”
But that was a natural reaction to your new proposal.
“Was it? I don’t trust you, greyface.” Toller produced a cold smile. “This is the way we Primitives conduct ourselves when negotiating with an enemy. We rely to a great extent on our brute instincts—the instincts which are so despised by an advanced being like you—and mine are telling me that you would like us to proceed to Dussarra by way of your magical machine. I suspect that were we to do so I would be immediately overwhelmed, or rendered unconscious, or disadvantaged in some other way which would put me at your mercy.”
There would be no point in my pitting reason against your wild and uninformed imaginings. A note of challenge had begun to insinuate itself into Divivvidiv’s manner. May I therefore be informed as to what fresh proposals you are going to put forward under the aegis of your treasured primitive instincts?
“Certainly!” Toller thought of his grandfather and smiled again. “I am taking you to Dussarra as my hostage—exactly as planned—but the journey will be completed without resort to geometrical sorceries. Two good Kolcorronian spaceships—built of the finest wood and fully provisioned—are waiting close by.
“One of them will carry the three of us to Dussarra.”
Chapter 11
The Primitive’s words, coming at Divivvidiv out of shifting and formless blurs of emotional activity, were so unexpected—so ludicrous in their content—that at first he felt little sense of shock or alarm. It had been disconcerting to find that the Primitives were capable of coordinated, purposeful action while their neural systems were emitting no coherent signals, but he had put that down as a transient condition brought about by rage or fear. Surely an accidental sequence of words, with only a superficial resemblance to a rational sentence, would be abandoned by the larger Primitive as soon as the storms subsided in his mind.
“What do you think of that idea?” the Primitive said, his disgustingly pink and thick-lipped mouth widening.
Divivvidiv gazed at him for a moment and felt the beginnings of terror as he observed alien mental processes slowly taking place. The Primitive had heard his own words as if they were being uttered by another being. He had been almost as surprised as Divivvidiv by their content, but now he was returning to what passed for his rational mode of cerebration and was actually assuming responsibility for the words and the preposterous notion they embodied.
The idea is insane, Divivvidiv projected. You do not have to try putting it into practice merely because you verbalized it in a moment of stress. Be sensible, Toller Maraquine—protect your modern self from your ancient self!
Divivvidiv forced an understanding of his thoughts into the Primitive’s mind, fully expecting the odiferous giant to modify his mental stance. To Divivvidiv’s dismay the Primitive reacted with a blend of contempt, amusement, pride and sheerest blind obstinacy.
“Stiffen your backbone, greyface,” he boomed. “And try to show proper gratitude to me! You have tested my patience with your boasts about your kind’s space-faring prowess—if that word can be applied to your geometrical sorceries—but now I am going to acquaint you with the realities of going into the black.
“My paternal grandfather—whose name I am proud to bear—was the first man to take one of our spaceships to another world, and I feel privileged that destiny has called upon me to emulate his exploits. Get back into your silver fineries, greyface—we have work ahead of us.”
But this is suicidal! It is madness! Divivvidiv felt himself begin to quiver at the prospect of having to risk his life in one of the barbaric wooden shells he had examined so briefly in the preliminary phase of the Xa’s development. He had preserved the flimsy artifacts on the chance that the Director might show some interest in their origins. Why had he not had the foresight to destroy them? And why had the designers of the station—those autocrats in the high levels of the Palace of Numbers—not allowed for the possibility of alien intruders?
“Suicidal, you say? Not as suicidal as allowing you to… teleport … me into the center of one of your cities.” The larger Primitive slackened his grip on Divivvidiv’s shoulder a little, lessening the pain.
The giant was swelling in confidence with every second, but Divivvidiv was aware of a growing disquiet in the mind of his companion. He could not analyze the feeling for the present, because too much of his mental capacity was being taken up in dealing with his predicament, but he hoped that Steenameert was going to put forward a rational argument against using one of the wooden spaceships. At the low-brain level of communication, Divivvidiv could hear the Xa calling to him, a distracting undertone which added to an already dangerous degree of stress.
You have no astrogational instruments of any kind, therefore the journey you contemplate is impossible. A new thought occurred to Divivvidiv. I know you actually believe that your grandfather flew one of your ships to another world, but without-a precise knowledge of the vessel’s speed and…
“He had help with the various computations.” The giant pressed harder with the tip of his sword, the weapon with which he appeared to compensate for his mental inadequacies. “You will provide me with the same assistance. You are equal to the task, aren’t you, greyface? I mean, you have already spoken at length about your immeasurable superiority in all the sciences.”
I still say the risks are unjustifiable. Your so-called spaceship could have deteriorated beyond… Divivvidiv left the thought uncompleted as the second barbarian suddenly gave voice to his anxieties.
“Can I have a word, sir?” His worried gaze was fixed on the giant’s face. “Just a brief word?”
“What is it, Baten?”
Divivvidiv gained access to what was coming and was disappointed when he realized that Steenameert’s concern was less with immediate practicalities than with the cosmological overview he had been given earlier. Nevertheless, his intervention diverted most of the giant’s crude mindforce away from Divivvidiv and gave him a welcome opportunity to take stock of his situation.
What is happening, Beloved Creator? The Xa found its way into Divivvidiv’s mind on the instant. I have repaired the damage to my body, but I still feel some pain. I wish I had sense organs capable of seeing and hearing within the station. Are the Primitives with you?
That is no concern of yours.
But there has been talk of ropes, Beloved Creator! From you? Are you capable of issuing words which do not correspond to reality?
No ethical being has that capability, Divivvidiv replied irritably. Be calm!
Are you an ethical being, Beloved Creator?