“Upon consideration,” it went on before Prilicla could reply, “it would be better if you didn’t show yourselves now. The young are excited enough as it is, and if they were to see you we would have difficulty making them return to the dormitories, much less getting them to sleep. If you are to stay with us for a time, it would be more convenient for us and safer for you if we introduced you during class.”
“You do not understand, Tawsar,” said Prilicla carefully. “The beings who described themselves were Orligians and Earth-humans. We have five Earth-humans, they are the ones with head fur, on board, and four others who will appear even stranger to you. One is a Tralthan, a being with six legs and with a body mass at least three times greater than an adult Wem. Another is a Kelgian, who is half your size and weight, has twenty sets of walking limbs and is covered by silver, mobile fur. There is a shape-changer who can make itself appear as ferocious or friendly as the situation requires. And lastly there is a large, flying insect, myself. If the thought of meeting one of these beings distresses you, then that person will remain out of sight on the ship.”
“Your shape-changer is, is …” began Tawsar, then went on firmly, “It is a creature out of a story told to children, to very young children. Adults are not gullible enough to believe in such things.”
The empath, plainly hoping to minimize Tawsar’s future embarrassment, did not reply. And on the deck below the hovering Prilicla, Danalta writhed and flowed briefly into the shape of a scaled-down, aged Wem female and said quietly, “No comment.”
CHAPTER 20
Early on the following morning, when only the east-facing upper slopes of the valley were lit by the rising sun and the mine entrance was still in twilight, Tawsar presented itself beyond the shimmering curtain of the meteor shield. Several groups of twenty to thirty young Wem, each with an adult in charge, had already left the mine and were dispersing to their various places of work or learning on the valley floor and lower slopes.
It had been decided that the function of the Wem settlement fell somewhere between a teaching establishment and a safe refuge for children whose hunter parents were either absent for long periods or dead. The decision was provisional and, following the coming meeting with Tawsar, would no doubt be subject to major modification.
Remembering Tawsar’s slow and obviously painful progress down to the meteor shield, it came as no surprise to Gurronsevas when Prilicla ordered out the anti-gravity litter. The equipment carried by the medical team was light and portable enough to make the vehicle redundant, but it was obvious that it was hoping that Tawsar could be persuaded to ride in comfort instead of subjecting itself to the self-inflicted pain of walking, a suffering which the empath would not be anxious to share.
Prilicla was first to exit the lock, and hovered above them as Murchison, Naydrad, Danalta and Gurronsevas followed it down the telescoping ramp to the ground and through the meteor shield, which offered no resistance to objects moving away from the ship. Gurronsevas had not been invited to accompany the medical team, but neither had he been forbidden, and he needed exercise more vigorous than was possible within the confines of the casualty deck.
Tawsar stared at them one by one without speaking as they approached and gathered around it in a semicircle which, according to Prilicla’s reading of the Wem’s emotional radiation, was wide enough not to cause unease and reassuring in that it left open the other’s line of retreat to the mine. Prilicla’s iridescent wings beat slowly in a stable hover, Naydrad’s fur rippled like waves on a silver sea, Murchison smiled and Gurronsevas stood motionless. Danalta changed its shape in turn from that of a furless Kelgian to a not very complimentary copy of Pathologist Murchison before returning to a shapeless green lump topped by a single eye, ear and mouth. Finally Tawsar broke the silence.
“I see you and I still do not believe you exist,” it said, its eyes on Danalta. Then it looked up at Prilicla and went on, “I do not like insects, whether they crawl or fly, but, but you are beautiful!”
“Why thank you, friend Tawsar,” said Prilicla with a gentle shiver of pleasure. “You have reacted well to your first sight of off-worlders, and I have the feeling that you yourself are not afraid of us. But what of the other adults and the children?”
Tawsar made a short, untranslatable sound and said, “They were told about your strange and horrendous or puny and ridiculous appearance. They already know that your friends wanted to interfere with our customs and beliefs, and tried to tell us what we should eat, and what we should do about the Light That Rots All Things. They even asked to look inside our living bodies and do things that only a life-mate is allowed to do. Prilicla you, perhaps not you personally but your people who have come uninvited to our world, do not frighten us. They shock and repel and infuriate us. More than anything else we want them to go away quickly, but we know that it is not your wish deliberately to harm us.
“Having told you how we feel,” it added, “do you still wish to call me friend?”
“Yes,” said Prilicla. “But you need not call me friend until you yourself wish it.”
Tawsar made a wheezing sound and said, “I do not expect to live that long. But we have much to see and many questions and answers for each other. Would you like to begin with the valley or the mine?”
“The mine is closer,” said Prilicla, “and will involve less walking for you. And if you were to mount this litter, there would be no effort required at all.”
“It, it doesn’t rest on the ground,” said Tawsar in an uncertain voice. Plainly there was a battle going on in the Wem’s mind between the submission to a totally new and perhaps dangerous activity and the pain of its age-stiffened limbs. “Yet it feels solid enough and strongly supported …”
They had to wait for a few minutes while Tawsar talked itself into boarding the litter, then Naydrad angled the repulsion units to set the vehicle moving towards the mine entrance at the medical team’s walking pace.
“I–I’m flying!” said Tawsar.
At an altitude, Gurronsevas estimated, of a few inches.
On their headsets Fletcher was reporting continuously on its observations of the widely-scattered groups of young Wem in the valley. Under the direction of a single adult, several parties were tilling the soil and gathering what seemed to be wild-growing vegetation from the lower slopes. But there were three groups of the larger children whose activities gave cause for concern because there could be no doubt that they were practicing with slingshots, crossbows and weighted nets used in conjunction with spears. The spears were blunt, crudely formed from wood, with roughened hand-grips at the middle and blunt end so that they could be used either for throwing or as two-handed stabbing weapons, and they were slightly large for the hands and muscles of the users.
“They are not playing with wooden swords and spears as many children do,” the Captain insisted, “because neither they nor their instructor are treating the exercise as a game. It is much too serious. They are the oldest of the children and they might have real, metal-tipped weapons among the farming implements out there. At this range my sensors can’t tell the difference. But if anything goes sour with the Tawsar contact your retreat to the ship could be cut off.”
Prilicla did not reply until they were within a few minutes of reaching the mine entrance, and when it spoke Gurronsevas had the feeling that its words were aimed at reassuring the medical team as well as the Captain. It said, “The emotional radiation of the adults and children who surrounded us yesterday bore no trace of hostility, especially the concealed hostility of beings who are pretending to be friendly. Although they are decidedly not our friends, their feelings towards us are not antagonistic enough to make them want to commit acts of physical violence. Tawsar is controlling or at least trying to ignore its dislike for us, but it is feeling much more than a simple curiosity regarding strangers. I cannot be more precise, but I have the feeling that it wants something from us and, until we discover what it is, we are quite safe here.