“In that case he didn’t need me,” said John. “Ty Lamorc being kidnapped by the Terror was trouble enough.”
“Ah, yes, but you see, he found he had misplayed his hand in the case of Ty. That young female was sent out here by a different branch of your government. One which would be only too glad to pin something on the Diplomatic Service. If anything happened to Ty, it began to look as if Joshua might face not merely retirement, but trial for manslaughter, or worse. On the other, by throwing you to the Terror, he could more or less ransom Ty. And an obscure young biochemist with no connections could be spared with only the routine amount of reprimand and investigation.”
“Very interesting,” said John. “And you undertook to mess up Guy’s plans just out of your natural, healthy instinct for cruelty? Tell me another fairy tale.”
“You misjudge me!” said Gulark-ay sharply. “I have my personal pride and pleasures; but first and foremost, I am a servant and representative of my people. It’s as important to our plans as to the plans of you humans, to get the inside track on friendship with the Dilbians. A bad and an unwilling human ambassador such as Guy is just what we’re pleased to see on Dilbia. It was my duty to back up Guy’s superiors in this matter and see that he failed in trying to arrange for his own retirement.”
“Well, then,” said John. “Since we’re all working together in this, why don’t you just cut these ropes off; and we can all go back to Sour Ford Inn for breakfast.”
Gulark-ay quivered and shook with sudden laughter. His laughing was so infectious that shortly Tark-ay and Boy Is She Built had joined in the humor. And John, to his own surprise, had to fight back the beginnings of a smile.
“Well, now!” chortled Gulark-ay, running down at last. “If that doesn’t—! Let you go! We couldn’t do that, Mr. Tardy. You see, you’re the price of Boy Is She Built’s assistance. She wants you out of the way, permanently. We promised this; and she promised to talk the Terror into giving Miss Lamorc up without argument, when his clan grandfathers order him to do so.” He looked at John. “Which,” he said, delicately, “they will undoubtedly do when you are found dead within their clan territory of the Hollows, just over the river.”
John looked at Gulark-ay, gave a short incredulous laugh and looked away.
“Good! Very good, Mr. Tardy!” cried Gulark-ay bursting into a fresh gallon-jug’s worth of laughter. “Oh, it’s going to be a pleasure to work on you, Mr. Tardy, when we get down to actual business. Well—” he heaved himself erect and went over to sit down by Tark-ay and Boy Is She Built at the fire.
“Well!” he said again, clapping his big hands together, briskly. “I don’t believe in being a hog about these things. All good suggestions are welcome. How’ll we do it?”
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Ambassador,” said Tark-ay, with polite eagerness. “There’s a new technique my cousin was reading about recently. He wrote me about it in his last letter. A sort of peeling-back of the fingernails.”
“Well now, that sounds interesting,” said Gulark-ay. “I’m no expert, more’s the pity on human nerve-endings, particularly in the fingertip areas; but we can assume a basic similarity. We’ll put that on the list. Now, I myself, have a small specialty involving the inside of the mouth, if no one objects?” He looked at the other two.
“Why don’t we just hit him over the head?” said Boy Is She Built.
Tark-ay gave her a look or scorn.
“We aren’t barbarians!” he said.
CHAPTER 14
The discussion went on in lively fashion for some time. And an amazing thing happened to John. He dozed off. The subject matter might have been enough to keep him awake; but the two Hemnoids had become unintelligibly technical; and the tone had become the tone of in-group discussions the universe over. Half the wrangling was over authorities and precedents, rather than about the actual performance contemplated. Moreover, John had had two rough nights and days in a row. His body made up his mind for him. It went to sleep.
When he reawakened, the sun was well up over the trees, and he found that he was not the only one who had become tired of the discussion. Boy Is She Built was reading the two Hemnoids the riot act.
“—and I think you’re disgusting, both of you!” she was informing them, in anything but well-modulated tones. “And crazy! And stupid! I keep telling you why don’t you just hit him over the head? But, oh no! Not you! It’s got to be first we’ll do this. And then we’ll do that. And then—oh, no, we can’t do that, because it’d finish him off too quick—or somebody else tried it and it didn’t work out too well.”
“Little lady,” began Tark-ay.
“You give me a pain!” cried Boy Is She Built. “And you aren’t even mad at him, that’s what gets me! If it wasn’t for Streamside, I don’t think I’d even let you have him! You’re just—just—you’re disgusting, both of you!”
“You don’t understand,” said Gulark-ay. “The point is—”
“Well, I’m glad I don’t. If this is the way you Hemnoids are, I’m not sure I don’t like Shorties better, after all. I’ll bet if it was him helping me and you two tied up over there, he’d tell me to go right ahead and hit you over the head. He wouldn’t go on arguing about doing this first, and doing that second.” Boy Is She Built made an unsuccessful effort to imitate the deep liquidity of the Hemnoid voices gloating over a particularly attractive idea. ” ‘and we moost try thees. Oh, wee surleee moost!’ You both give me a pain!”
Tark-ay, glancing helplessly away from her, found his glance meeting that of John’s; and shrugged helplessly at the human.
“Well,” said Gulark-ay, shaking his head and getting to his feet, “there’s no help for it. We’d just be wasting him to go to work now. I have to get on to see the grandfathers of the Hollows clan; and I can’t get back until late afternoon, now. Let’s put it all off until this evening. I’ll bring some supplies from my stuff, when I get back, something good in the way of food and drink, and we can make a bang-up night of it. How does that strike you, Tark-ay?”
“Mr. Ambassador,” said Tark-ay, his voice full of deep emotion, “you are a gentleman!”
“Thank you, thank you indeed,” said Gulark-ay. “Well, I’m on my way, then. Traveling in my direction, Boy Is She Built?”
“I should think so!” Boy Is She Built jumped to her feet. “I was supposed to meet Streamside just two hours after the sun was up, and I forgot all about it. He gets awfully impatient. Maybe he went off and left that Shorty female alone.”
And without even waiting for Gulark-ay, Boy Is She Built hurried off.
“Mr. Ambassador,” said Tark-ay, looking after her. “You don’t know. You just don’t know.”
“Cheer up,” said Gulark-ay. “It’ll be all remembered to your advantage in my reports.” He rearranged his robes. “I’ll be back this evening, then.”
“May the hours fly until then, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Indeed,” said Gulark-ay; and departed in his turn.