He turned his back on the shouting group and gazed off through the thin, clear air of the Dilbian mountains that made everything seem three times as close as they actually were, to a snow-laden peak thrusting up above the pinelike trees surrounding Humrog.
“At least try the unmentionable thing on!” Shaking Knees was roaring at the Hill Bluffer a dozen feet away.
Here, thought John, he had been hauled off the ship that was to take him out to his job with a government exploration team; it was work he had always wanted and just finished seven years of college-level study for. Instead he was on a citizen’s draft which left him no chance to object. Well, yes, John had to admit to himself, the Draft Law provided he could refuse if he could charge the Drafting Authority—in this case, Joshua—with incompetence or misinformation. John snorted under his breath. Fine chance he had of doing that when he couldn’t even find out what was going on. He had just stepped off his spaceship a few hours ago; and Joshua had yet to give him five minutes opportunity to formulate questions.
At the same time, thought John, there was something awfully screwy about the way things were going on. As soon as this business of the saddle had been settled, he was going to haul Joshua aside, if need be by main force, and insist on some answers before he went any further. A citizen had some rights, too…
“Arright, arright, arright!” snarled the Hill Bluffer barely six inches behind John’s ear. “Buckle me up in the obscenity thing, then!”
John turned to see Joshua pushing the system of straps up on the back of the Hill Bluffer, who was squatting down. Instinctively, he moved to give the little diplomat a hand.
“That’s better!” growled Shaking Knees. “Don’t blame you too much. But, you listen to me, pup! I happen to be your mother’s uncle’s first cousin, one generation up on you. And when I speak for a relative of mine of the second generation, he stays spoken for!”
“I’m doing it, ain’t I?” flared the Bluffer. He wiggled his shoulder experimentally. “Don’t feel too bad at that.”
“You’ll find it,” grunted Joshua, buckling a final strap, “easier to carry than your regular pouch.”
“Not the point!” growled the Bluffer. “A postman’s got dignity. He just don’t wear—” a snicker from the scar-nosed Dilbian cut through his speech. “Listen, you—Split Nose!”
“I’ll take care of him.” Shaking Knees rolled forward a couple of paces. “What’s wrong with you, Split Nose?”
“Just passing by,” rumbled Split Nose, hastily backing into the crowd as the Humrog village chief took a hand in the conversation.
“Well, then just pass on, friend. Pass on!” boomed Shaking Knees; and Split Nose trundled hastily off down the street with every indication that his hairy ears were burning.
While this was going on, John, at Joshua’s urging had seated himself in the saddle to see how it would bear his weight. The straps creaked, but held comfortably. The Hill Bluffer looked back over his shoulder.
“You’re light enough,” he said. “How is it? All right up there?”
“Fine,” said John.
“Then, so long everybody!” boomed the Hill Bluffer.
He rose to his feet in one easy movement. And before John had time to do more than grab at the straps of the harness to keep from falling off, and catch his breath, they were barrelling off down the main street at the swift pace of the Bluffer’s ground-eating stride, on their way to the forest trail, the mountains beyond which rose that distant peak John had just been watching, and the elusive and inimical Streamside Terror.
CHAPTER 3
If it had not been for the hypno training John had undergone, sitting with a large, bell-shaped helmet completely covering his head in the cramped little government scoutship, while on overdrive from the Belt Stars to Dilbia, he might instinctively have protested the Hill Bluffer’s sudden departure. As it was, his pseudomemories of Dilbian life stood him in unexpectedly good stead. As it was, he had barely opened his mouth to yell, “Hey, wait a minute” when he suddenly ‘remembered’ what consequences this might have and shut his lips firmly on the first syllable. As it was, the startled sound in his throat was enough to make the Hill Bluffer check his stride momentarily.
“Whazzat?” growled the Dilbian postman.
“Nothing,” said John, hastily. “Clearing my throat.”
“Thought you were going to say something,” grunted the Bluffer, and swung back into his regular stride.
What John had suddenly ‘remembered’ was one of the little tricks possible under Dilbian custom. He, himself, had not expected to start out after the Lamorc girl until the next morning at the earliest; and then not without a full session with Joshua Guy in which he would pin that elusive little man down about the whys and wherefores of the situation. As a citizen of the great human race it was his right to be fully briefed before being sent out on such a job.
That is, as a human citizen it was his right. As a piece of Dilbian mail, his rights were somewhat different—generally consisting of the postman’s responsibility to deliver him without undue damage in transit to his destination.
Therefore, the little trickiness of the Hill Bluffer. As John had noticed, the postman had lost a great deal of his enthusiasm for the job on discovering the nature of the harness in which he would be carrying John. The Bluffer could not, of course, refuse to carry John without loss of honor, the hypno training informed John. But if a piece of mail should try to dictate the manner in which it was being delivered, then possibly Dilbian honor would stand excused, and the Bluffer could turn back, washing his hands of the whole matter.
So John said nothing.
All the same, he added another black mark to the score he was building up in the back of his mind against Joshua Guy. The Dilbian ambassador should have forseen this. John thought of the wrist phone he was wearing and began to compose a few of the statements he intended to make to that particular gentleman, as soon as he had a moment of privacy in which to make the call.
Meanwhile, the Bluffer went away down the slope of the main street of Humrog, turned right and began to climb the trail to the first ridge above the town. He had not been altogether exaggerating in his claims for himself as someone able to swing his feet. Almost immediately, it seemed to John, they were away from the great log buildings of the approximately five thousand population town of Humrog, and between the green thicknesses of the pinelike trees that covered the mountainous part of the rocky planet.
The Bluffer’s long legs pistoned and swung in a steady rhythm, carrying himself and John up a good eight to ten degree slope at not much less than eight to ten miles an hour. John, swaying like a rider on the back of an elephant, concentrated on falling into the pattern of the Bluffer’s movements and saving his own breath. The Bluffer, himself, said nothing.
They reached the top of the ridge and dipped down the slope into the first valley crossed by the trail. Long branches whipped past John as he clung to the Bluffer’s shoulder straps and they plunged down the switchback trail as if any moment the Dilbian might miss his footing and go tumbling headlong off the trail and down the slope alongside.
Yet in spite of all this, John felt himself beginning to get used to the shifts of the big body under him. He was, in fact, responding with all the skill of an unusually talented athlete already experienced in a number of physical skills. He was meeting in stride the problems posed by being a Dilbian-rider. In fact, he was becoming good at it, as he had always become good at such things—from jai alai to wrestling—ever since he was old enough to toddle beyond the confines of his crib.