“You see no alternative to attack?” Orne asked.
“In the jungle, the strong slay the weak until only the strong remain,” Tanub said.
“Then the strong prey upon each other,” Orne said.
“That is a quibble for weaklings!”
“Or for those who have seen this kind of thinking make entire worlds uninhabitable for any form of life—nothing left for the strong or the weak.”
“Within one of your years, Orne, we will be ready. Then we shall see which of us is correct.”
“It’s too bad you feel that way,” Orne said. “When two cultures meet as ours are meeting they tend to help each other. Each gains. What have you done with the crew from the Delphinus?”
“They are slaves,” Tanub said. “Those of them who still live. Some resisted. Others objected to teaching us what it is we must know.” He pointed the Mark XX at Orne’s head. “You will not be foolish enough to object, will you, Orne?”
“No need for me to be foolish,” Orne said. “We of the I-A are also teachers. We teach lessons to people who make mistakes. You have made a mistake, Tanub. You have told me where you have hidden the Delphinus.”
“Go, boy!” Stetson shouted on the hissing carrier wave. “Where is it?”
“Impossible!” Tanub snarled. The gun muzzle remained centered on Orne’s head.
“It’s on your moon,” Orne said. “Dark side. It’s on a mountain on the dark side of your moon.”
Tanub’s eyes dilated, contracted. “You read minds?”
“No need for the I-A to read minds,” Orne said. “We rely on superior mental prowess and the mistakes of others.”
“Two attack monitors are on their way,” Stetson’s voice hissed. “We’re coming in to get you. I’ll want to know how you figured this one out.”
“You are a weak fool like the others,” Tanub gritted.
“It’s too bad you formed your opinion of us by observing the low grades of R&R,” Orne said.
“Easy, easy,” Stetson cautioned. “Don’t pick a fight now. Remember he’s arboreal, probably as strong as an ape.”
“You ground-crawling slave,” Tanub grated. “I could kill you where you sit.”
“You kill your entire planet if you do,” Orne said. “I’m not alone, Tanub. Others listen to every word we say. There’s a ship above us that could split open your planet with one bomb—wash everything with molten rock. Your planet would run like the glass of your buildings. Your entire planet would be one big piece of ceramic.”
“You lie!”
“I’ll make you an offer,” Orne said. “We don’t want to exterminate you. We won’t unless you force our hand. We’ll give you limited membership in the Galactic Federation until you’ve proven you’re no menace to other…”
“You dare insult me,” Tanub growled.
“You’d better believe me,” Orne said. “We—”
Stetson’s voice interrupted: “Got it, Orne! They caught the Delphinus in a tight little mountain valley right where you said it’d be! Blew the tubes off it. We’re mopping up now.”
“It’s like this, Tanub,” Orne said. “We’ve already recaptured the Delphinus.”
Tanub’s gaze darted skyward. He returned his attention to Orne. “Impossible. We have your communications equipment and there has been no signal. The lights of our city still glow and you will not…”
“You’ve only the inferior R&R equipment,” Orne said, “not what we use in the I-A. Your people kept silent up there until it was too late. It’s their way, not that…”
Stetson demanded: “How’d you know that?”
Orne ignored Stetson, said: “Except for the captured armament you still hold, you obviously don’t have the weapons to meet us, Tanub. Otherwise you wouldn’t be carrying that rifle off the Delphinus.”
“If this is truth, then we shall die bravely,” Tanub said.
“No need,” Orne said. “We don’t—”
“I cannot take the chance that you lie,” Tanub said. “I must kill you.”
Orne’s foot on the air sled control pedal kicked downward. The sled shot upward, heavy G’s pressing its occupants into their seats. The gun was slammed into Tanub’s lap. He struggled to raise it.
For Orne, the weight still remained only about twice that of his native Chargon. He reached over, removed the rifle from Tanub’s grasp, found safety belts, bound the Gienahn with them. Then Orne eased off on the acceleration.
Tanub stared at him in teeth-bared fear.
“We don’t need slaves,” Orne said. “We have machines to do most of our work. We’ll send experts in here, teach you how to get into better balance with your planet, how to build good transportation, how to mine your minerals, how to…”
“And what do we do in return?” Tanub whispered. He appeared cowed by Orne’s strength.
“You could start by teaching us to make superior ceramics,” Orne said. As he spoke, a series of formative thoughts fled through his awareness—the peace-keeping function of the marketplace, the deliberate despecialization of manufacture with one village making the head of the hoe and the next village making the handle, the psychological security of guilds and castes…
Almost as an afterthought, he said: “I hope you see things our way. We truly don’t want to have to come down here and clean you out—although now we see that we could. But it’d be profoundly disturbing to us if we had to blast your city and send you back into the jungle for places to bear your young.”
Tanub wilted. “The city,” he whispered. Presently, he said: “Send me to my people. I will discuss what I have learned with… our… council.” He stared at Orne and there was respect in his manner. “You I-As are too strong… too strong. We did not suspect this.”
Chapter Seven
Because the earliest Psi sensations came upon mankind from the unknown, primitive emotional associations with Psi were those of fear and the maya projection of false realities, of incubi and witches and warlocks and sabbats. These associations are bred into us and our kind has a strong tendency to recapitulate the old mistakes.
In the wardroom of Stetson’s scout cruiser, the lights were low, the chairs comfortable and close to a green-beige table set with crystalate glasses and a decanter of dark Hochar brandy.
Orne lifted his glass, sipped the liquor. He said: “For a while there I thought I’d never again be tasting anything as lovely as this.”
Stetson poured a glass of the brandy for himself, said: “ComGo heard the whole thing over the monitor net. D’you know you’ve been breveted to senior fieldman?”
“They’ve recognized my sterling worth at last,” Orne said. As he spoke, he found the bantering lightness of his own words disturbing. He tried to recapture an elusive memory—something about primitive gardening, about tools…
A wolfish grin spread over Stetson’s big features. “Senior fieldmen last about half as long as the juniors,” he said. “Very high mortality.”
“I might’ve known,” Orne said. He took another sip of the brandy, his thoughts going to the fate of the Gienahns, of the Hamalites: military occupation. Call it I-A necessity, call it preventative surveillance—it still spelled control-by-force.
Stetson flicked the switch of his cruiser’s master recorder system, said: “Let’s get it on record.”