Again, there was that impression of a double meaning. John was completely baffled as to what there was in what One Man said, or possibly in the way he said it, that was giving him the hint of some undercover message. Also, why would the giant Dilbian be doing such a thing? He undoubtedly did not know John from Adam, or any other Shorty.
“Has the Bluffer told you about me?” One Man was asking.
“Well, not much—”
It’s probably just as well.” The enormous head nodded mildly. “The past is the past; and I’m an old man dreaming in my chair, here…”
John just bet he was. From what he had seen of Dilbians, they did not accord the sort of respect he was witnessing to any ancient hulk, no matter how venerable.
“They call him One Man, Half-Pint,” put in the Bluffer, “because he once held blood feud all alone—being an orphan—with a whole clan. And won!”
“Ah, yes. The old days,” rumbled One Man, with a faraway look in his eyes.
“One time,” said the Bluffer, “five of them caught him on a trail where there wasn’t any chance to get away. He killed them all.”
“Luck was with me, of course,” said One Man modestly. “Well, well, I don’t want to bring up past exploits. It’ll be more polite to talk about my guest. Tell me, Half-Pint,” the grey eyes suddenly became penetrating, zeroing in on John, “what are you Shorties doing here, anyway?”
John blinked.
“Well,” he said, “I’m here looking for—er—Greasy Face, myself.”
“Of course.” One Man nodded benignly. “But what brought her, and the others?” His eyes went dreamily away from John out over the room. “There must be some plan, you’d think.” He looked quizzically back at John. “Nobody asked you all to come here, you know.”
“Well, no,” said John. He felt definitely at a loss. The Diplomatic Service had people like Joshua Guy trained to explain the reasons for human expansion into space. He summoned up what he could remember of his high school civics; and tried to present this to One Man in Dilbian terms. One Man nodded agreeably; but John had a hunch he was not making many points. What, for example, could population pressure mean to a Dilbian to whom a community of five thousand was a big city? And what could “the automatic spread of civilization” convey, other than the sound of some large and complicated words?
“That’s very interesting now, Half-Pint,” said One Man, when John had finally run down. “But you know what kind of puzzles me about you Shorties,” he leaned forward confidentially, “is why you figure people ought to like you.”
“Why, we don’t—” began John, and then suddenly realized that humans did. It was one of the outstanding—if not the most outstanding—human characteristics. “I guess we do. All right, what’s wrong with that? We’re prepared to like other people.”
One Man nodded sagely.
“I hadn’t thought of that, Half-Pint,” he said solemnly. “Of course, that explains it.” He looked around at the other Dilbians. “Naturally, they expect people to like them, if they like people. Maybe we should have realized that.”
The other Dilbians looked back at him in apparent puzzlement. But evidently they were used to being puzzled by this oversize patriarch because nobody objected. John, on his part, frowned; not sure whether he was being made fun of or not.
“I just can’t make up my mind about you Shorties,” said One Man, with a sigh. It was like a mountain sighing. “Well, well, I’m not being much of a host, making my guest here dig around for the reasons behind things; when I ought to be thinking only of entertaining him. Let’s see now, what would be instructive and pleasant…” He lifted a big finger suddenly. “I’ve got it. Its been a long time since I broke my stick for anyone. Will one of you, there, hand it down to me?”
A young Dilbian at one side got up, lifted down the staff from the pegs above One Man’s head; and gave it to One Man, who took the six-foot, three-inch-thick young post in both hands. He held it crosswise before him with his hands about three feet apart and his wrists flat on the table before him.
“A little trick of mine,” he said confidentially to John. “You might get a kick out of it.” He closed his fists firmly about the pole. Then, without moving his arms in any way or lifting his wrists from the table, he twisted both fists to the outside.
The thick hardwood curved up in the center like a strung bow—and snapped.
One Man leaned forward and handed the pieces to John. They were heavy and awkward enough so that John preferred to tuck them under one arm.
“Souvenir for you,” said One Man, quietly.
John nodded his thanks, a little numbly. What he had just witnessed was impossible. Even for a Dilbian. Even for a Dilbian like One Man. The lack of leverage forced by the requirement of keeping wrists flat with the table, made it impossible.
“No man except me ever was able to do that,” said One Man, closing his eyes dreamily. “Good luck with the Terror, Half-Pint.”
John still sat where he was, staring at the broken ends of the wood pieces under his arm, until the Bluffer tapped him on the shoulder and led him off through the room, through another hide curtain and into a long room furnished with two rows of springy branches from the conifer-type trees of the forest outside the inn. The mounds made effective natural springs and mattresses for sleepers. A number of male Dilbians were already slumbering along the room. The Bluffer led John to a mound of branches in the far corner.
“You can turn in here, Half-Pint,” he said. “Nobody’ll bother you here.” He pointed toward the entrance. “I’ll be out there, if you want to find me.”
The mound of branches suddenly looked very good to John. He was bone-weary. He laid the pieces of broken staff that One Man had given him, down beside the mound and sat down on it to take off his shoes.
Five minutes later, he was asleep.
At some indeterminate time after that, he awoke suddenly and with all senses alert. For a long moment he merely lay tense and waiting, ears straining, as if for the warning of an instant attack.
But no attack came. After a moment, he sat up cautiously and looked around him.
In the light of the single thick candle burning by the entrance he saw that the dormitory was now full of sleepers. The Dilbians all slumbered with a silence that was amazing, considering their size and their boisterousness during waking hours. Beside John the Hill Bluffer was now asleep on a neighboring mound, lying on his side with one great hairy arm outflung, palm up. But it was hardly possible to tell that the postman was breathing.
John sat looking around the dormitory, trying to imagine what had wakened him. But there was nothing to see. He was isolated and undisturbed. Even his shoes, and One Man’s broken staff lay just where John had laid them, beside the mound of branches.
Yet, John’s tenseness continued.
The more he thought of it now, the more convinced he was that One Man had been trying to convey some message or other to him under the mask of casual conversation. The giant Dilbian was without a doubt vastly more intelligent than those around him. Also he seemed to occupy a unique position.
John swore softly to himself.
He had just remembered something that had been niggling at the back of his mind ever since he had walked into the Sour Ford Inn and seen the seated shape of its proprietor. One of the reasons One Man had attracted John’s attention was that he had looked familiar. And he had looked familiar because John had seen him before—or at least his image.
One Man had been the oversize Dilbian in the cube of the three-dimensional on Joshua Guy’s desk in Humrog.