Inside he found himself in a common room both much larger and much cleaner than he had been in before. The customers here at Sour Ford Inn also seemed to be quieter and less drunk than those he had encountered in other Dilbian inns, Brittle Rock for example. Gazing around for some explanation of the reason behind this difference, John caught sight of a raised dais at the far end of the room, where in a huge chair was seated a truly enormous Dilbian, grizzled with age and heavy with fat.
Staring at this Dilbian as he walked behind the Bluffer, John ran into a table, recovered himself, and was admonished by the Hill Bluffer.
“Don’t go starting any trouble now, Half-Pint.”
“Me?” said John, so overwhelmed at the suggestion that someone his size could start trouble with lumbering Dilbians—even if he was crazy enough to want to—that he found himself at a loss for words to protest properly that he had no such intention.
“That’s right,” said the Bluffer, some moments later, after they had been seated and ordered beer and food (beer only, still, for John). “This here’s treaty ground, belonging to a clanless man. Nobody starts trouble here.”
“Treaty ground?”
“Yep,” said the Hill Bluffer. “One Man, he—” the food, arriving just then, put a cork in the postman’s flow of words. He devoted himself to bread, cheese and beer, merely grunting when John tried to continue the conversation.
John sat back, and sipped on his beer. He was cautious with it, this evening. He tried to catch a glimpse of the big Dilbian at the room’s end, through the shifting bodies passing in and about the tables in the room, but the way was never clear long enough for him to get a good look.
Suddenly, however, John dropped his mug with a bang on the table and sat bolt upright.
“Hey!” he said, punching the Bluffer.
The Bluffer took another large bite of meat.
“Hey!” said John, punching harder.
The Bluffer growled something unintelligible with his mouth full.
“Look up!” said John. “Look over there! Quick!”
The Hill Bluffer looked up, in the direction John was pointing. He did not seem disturbed to see a Hemnoid accompanied by a relatively short, plump Dilbian female, threading their way between the tables toward the enormous patriarch in the chair on the dais.
The Bluffer swallowed.
“Sure,” he said casually. “That’s that Fatty, Tark-ay. The one I was telling you about claims to be quite a scrapper back on his home world?” The Bluffer discovered he needed to dispose of one more swallow, and did so. He pointed with a large finger, while picking up a large chunk of bread with his other hand. “That’s Boy Is She Built with him.”
“Boy Is She Built?” John stared.
“That’s what they all say,” muttered the Bluffer through a mouthful of bread. “Like ‘em a little skinnier, myself.”
“I mean—” said John. “What’s she doing here? Let’s go get her and make her tell us about Greasy Face, and if Greasy Face is all right—”
“Now, there you go,” said the Bluffer.
“Go?” John turned to blink at him.
“Starting trouble.”
“Starting trouble?”
“Didn’t,” said the Bluffer, “I just finish telling you this here’s treaty ground? Man’s got to be polite on treaty ground. Everybody, even Shorties got to respect the rules.”
John fell silent. The Bluffer went back to his eating. John watched the Hemnoid, Tark-ay, and Boy Is She Built who proceeded up to the dais, sat down; and evidently fell into a friendly conversation with the oversize patriarch seated there.
John wished he could hear what they were saying.
He looked over at the Bluffer, eating away; and began to try to evolve some kind of scheme which would inveigle the Bluffer into taking him over to meet the giant Dilbian, in turn. And as soon as the Bluffer was finished, John took a cautious sip of beer and went to work.
“Who did you say is that man down in the chair at the end?” he asked.
“Why, don’t you know? No, I guess you don’t,” said the Bluffer. “Why, that’s One Man, Half-Pint. This here’s all his, at Sour Ford.”
“Quite a man,” said John.
“You can say that,” replied the Bluffer judiciously, draining the last drops from his beer mug.
“I’d like to meet a man like that,” said John. “Now, back home—”
“That’s good,” said the Bluffer, standing up. “Because the waitress passed word I was to bring you over, soon as we were through eating. Come on, Half-Pint.”
He headed off between the tables. John shook his head ruefully and followed. The next time, he though, I’ll ask first and scheme afterwards.
When they got close to the individual in the chair, John discovered that sometime during their passage across the room, the Hemnoid and Boy Is She Built had disappeared. He did not have much opportunity to wonder about this, however; because his attention was immediately completely taken up by the Dilbian he was about to meet. One Man was that sort of a being.
It was definitely disconcerting, after John had spent a couple of days adjusting to the idea of Dilbian size, to have that adjustment knocked for a fresh row of pins. He was rather like a man who having gotten used to measuring with a yardstick instead of a foot-rule, suddenly finds the yardstick replaced by a fathom line. And he, himself as a fraction of that measurement getting smaller and smaller.
John had accustomed himself to standing about armpit high on the ordinary male Dilbian. Now, here along came a specimen on which John could hardly hope to stand more than midrib height. John’s reaction was rather like Gulliver’s with the Brobdingnagians. He felt like standing on tiptoe and shouting to make himself heard.
One Man overflowed the massive chair in which he sat; and the greying hair on the top of his head almost brushed against a polished, six-foot staff of hardwood laid crosswise on pegs driven into the wall six feet above the floor, behind him. His massive forearms and great pawlike hands were laid out on the small table in front of him, like swollen clubs of bone and muscle. Attendant Dilbians stood respectfully about him. He looked like some overstuffed, barbaric potentate. Yet his large, grey eyes, meeting John’s suddenly and sharply as John and the Bluffer came to stand before him, were alight with an unusual quality of penetrating intelligence.
It was the look John had noticed back home on earth, in the eyes of human politicians of statesman level.
“This here’s the Half-Pint Posted, One Man,” said the Hill Bluffer, as the Dilbians around passed forth a bench for him and John to sit on. The Bluffer sat down. John climbed up to sit beside him.
“Welcome, Half-Pint,” rumbled One Man. His voice was so deep with its chest tones that it sounded like a great drum sounding somewhere off in the forest. “This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.”
CHAPTER 10
“You’ve been waiting for me?” John stared at the big Dilbian.
“To be sure,” said One Man. “No Shorty has ever been a guest under this roof before.” He bent his head with solemn dignity in John’s direction. It was all very pompous and empty-sounding; but John got the sudden clear conviction that One Man’s first words had been plainly intended to give a double meaning. What was it? A warning? John flicked his eyes about as much as he could without actually turning his head away to look; but he saw nothing but unusually well-mannered Dilbian faces. Tark-ay and Boy Is She Built were still not in evidence.
“It’s a pleasure to be here,” John was saying, meanwhile, automatically.
“You’re my guest under this roof,” said One Man. “For now and at any time in the future, if you come back.”