“Fine,” said Mal, beginning to revive. Then a thought struck him. “Why did Gentle Maiden go after Iron Bender just now, then? I thought—”
“Wait until you hear,” said One Punch. “Clan Water Gap’s come up with a decision to warm that slippery little Shorty heart of yours. You see, everyone decided, since we were going to elect a Grandfather ahead of time, that it all ought to be done in reverse.”
“In reverse?”
“Why, certainly,” said One Punch. “Instead of having a trial, then having the Grandfather give a decision to let you and Iron Bender hassle it out to see whether the Shorties go with you or stay with Gentle Maiden, the Clan decided to work it exactly backward.”
Mal shook his head dizzily.
“I still don’t understand,” he said.
“I’m surprised—a Shorty like you,” said One Punch, reprovingly. “I’d think backward and upside down’d be second nature to a Law-Twister. Why, what’s going to happen is you and Bender’ll have it out first, then the best decision by a grandpa’ll be picked, then the grandpa whose decision’s been picked will be up for election, and the Clan will elect him Grandfather.”
Mal blinked.
“Decision…” he began feebly.
“Now, my decision,” said a voice behind him, and he turned around to see that the Clan’s other two elderly members had come up, “is that Iron Bender ought to win. But if he doesn’t, it’ll be because of some Shorty trick.”
“Playing it safe, eh, Forty Winks?” said the other grandpa who had just joined them. “Well, my decision is that with all his tricks, and tough as we’ve been hearing Shorties are, that the Law-Twister can’t lose. He’ll chew Iron Bender up.”
The two of them turned and looked expectantly at One Punch.
“Hmm,” said One Punch, closing one eye and squinting thoughtfully with the other at Mal. “My decision is that the Law-Twister’s even more clever and sneaky than we think. My decision says Twister’ll come up with something that’ll fix things his way so that they never will tangle. In short, Twister’s going to win the fight before it starts.”
One Punch had turned toward the seated crowd as he said this, and there was another low mutter of appreciation from the seated Clan members.
“That One Punch,” said Grandpa Tricky to Forty Winks, “never did lay back and play it safe. He just swings right in there twice as hard as anyone else, without winking.”
“Well,” said One Punch himself, turning to Mal, “there’s Gentle Maiden and her orphans coming up from the village now with Iron Bender. You all set, Law-Twister?”
Mal was anything but set. It was good to hear that all three grandpas of Clan Water Gap expected him to come out on top; but he would have felt a lot better if it had been Iron Bender who had been expressing that opinion. He looked over the heads of the seated crowd to see Iron Bender coming, just as One Punch had said, with Gentle Maiden and three, small, human figures in tow.
His thoughts spun furiously. This whole business was crazy. It simply could not be that in a few minutes he would be expected to engage in a hand-to-hand battle with an individual more than one and a half times his height and five times his weight, any more than it could be that the wise men of the local Clan could be betting on him to win. One Punch’s prediction, in particular, was so farfetched…
Understanding suddenly exploded in him. At once, it all fitted together: the Dilbian habit of circumventing any outright lie by pretending to be after just the opposite of what an individual was really after; the odd reaction of the three captured humans who had not been concerned about the Human-Hemnoid Treaty of noninterference on Dilbia when they came into Clan Water Gap territory, but were willing to pass up a chance of escape by letting Mal summon armed human help to rescue them, now that they were here. Just suppose—Mal thought to himself feverishly—just suppose everything is just the opposite of what it seems…
There was only one missing part to this whole jigsaw puzzle, one bit to which he did not have the answer. He turned to One Punch.
“Tell me something,” he said, in a low voice. “Suppose Gentle Maiden and Iron Bender had to marry each other. Do you think they’d be very upset?”
“Upset? Well, no,” said One Punch, thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, now you mention it, Law-Twister—those two are just about made for each other. Particularly seeing there’s no one else made big enough or tough enough for either one of them, if you look around. In fact, if it wasn’t for how they go around saying they can’t stand each other, you might think they really liked each other quite a bit. Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering,” said Mal, grimly. “Let me ask you another question. Do you think a Shorty like me could carry the stone of Mighty Grappler ten paces?”
One Punch gazed at him.
“Well, you know,” he said, “when it comes right down to it, I wouldn’t put anything past a Shorty like you.”
“Thanks,” said Mal. “I’ll return the compliment. Believe me, from now on, I’ll never put anything past a real person like you, or Gentle Maiden, or Iron Bender, or anyone else. And I’ll tell the other Shorties that when I get back among them!”
“Why thank you, Law-Twister,” said One Punch. “That’s mighty kind of you—but, come to think of it, maybe you better turn around now. Because Iron Bender’s here.”
Mal turned—just in time to see the towering figure of the village harnessmaker striding toward him, accompanied by a rising murmur of excitement from the crowd.
“All right, let’s get this over with!” boomed Iron Bender, opening and closing his massive hands hungrily. “Just take me a few minutes, and then—”
“Stop!” shouted Mal, holding up his hand.
Iron Bender stopped, still some twenty feet from Mal. The crowd fell silent, abruptly.
“I’m sorry!” said Mal, addressing them all. “I tried every way I could to keep it from coming to this. But I see now there’s no other way to do it. Now, I’m nowhere near as sure as your three grandpas that I could handle Iron Bender, here, with one hand tied behind my back. Iron Bender might well handle me, with no trouble. I mean, he just might be the one real man who can tangle with a Shorty like me, and win. But, what if I’m wrong?”
Mal paused, both to see how they were reacting and to get his nerve up for his next statement. If I was trying something like this any place else, he thought, they’d cart me off to a psychiatrist. But the Dilbians in front of him were all quiet and attentive, listening. Even Iron Bender and Gentle Maiden were showing no indications of wanting to interrupt.
“As I say,” went on Mal, a little hoarsely as a result of working to make his voice carry to the whole assemblage, “what if I’m wrong? What if this terrific hassling ability that all we Shorties have gets the best of me when I tangle with Iron Bender? Not that Iron Bender would want me to hold back any, I know that—”
Iron Bender snorted affirmatively and worked his massive hands in the air.
“—But,” said Mal, “think what the results would be. Think of Clan Water Gap without a harnessmaker. Think of Gentle Maiden here without the one real man she can’t push around. I’ve thought about those things, and it seems to me there’s just one way out. The Clan laws have to be changed so that a Shorty like me doesn’t have to tangle with a Clan Gapper over this problem.”
He turned to the stone of Mighty Grappler.
“So—” he wound up, his voice cracking a little on the word in spite of himself, “I’m just going to have to carry this stone ten steps so the laws can be changed.”