“I see.” Chendis smiled with a touch of cruelty. “If we insisted, would you permit us to go out without this man, this warrior as you call him?”
“I could not prevent you, sir.” Sweat glistened on the Warden’s forehead. “But if anything should happen to you.…”
“Oh, leave the man alone,” snapped Velenda impatiently. “He’s only doing his job.” She ignored the Warden’s look of gratitude.
Among the rest of the party, the warrior looked like a crow in the midst of a flock of birds of paradise. Even the soft-footed attendant androids wore bright colors, usually to match the tints of their skins, but he alone wore somber black, relieved only by a simple golden insignia. He set up a small tent close to the sleeping quarters, and spent much time checking his equipment and odd-shaped weapon.
Chendis, always rather peculiar when it came to dealing with inferior races, found him a fascinating subject for study.
He waited until the others had retired and then went outside to talk to the warrior. He found him busy cleaning his weapon.
“Do you often do that?”
“Clean my gun? Sure.”
“Why?”
“So that it will work when I want it to.” The man stared at Chendis. “You aren’t a regular hunter, are you?”
“I’m a stellar aristocrat,” said Chendis. He was amused. “Do you realize what that means?”
“No.”
“It means that I and my race own almost the entire galaxy. It means that we have over two thousand subject races working solely for our benefit.”
“That’s nice.”
“You are supposed to call mc ‘sir’ when you address me,” reminded Chendis. He sighed. “Nice? Well, I suppose that it is, in a way. We don’t have to work because we can have anything we want when we want it. We have nothing to do but amuse ourselves and, because of that, we are bored all the time. Can you understand that?”
“I think so. Are the rest of you Aristocrats, too, sir?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Do all your menfolk paint their faces and hands? Sir.”
“You object?”
“Not me. We just don’t do it back home, that’s all. But you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”
“Sir,” reminded Chendis. He shrugged. “I suppose that it is in the records somewhere. Naturally, we can’t possibly remember the details of every new world we conquer.”
“Earth.”
“Earth?” Chendis frowned. “Did I hear something interesting about the conquest of that planet?” His face cleared. “Yes, I remember now. A backward world, but the resistance to our fleets was incredible. Incredibly stupid, that is. Naturally, you couldn’t possibly avoid conquest and assimilation.”
“You pretty near wiped us out,” said the warrior. “At least, so my great-Grandfather used to tell me.” There was no resentment in his voice. The conditioning he had received made it impossible for him ever to hate those with whom he came into contact. His idiom had been left as an amusing peculiarity. Chendis looked surprised.
“As long ago as that? I had the impression that the incident occurred only a short while ago. Probably you have an extremely short life span.” He yawned and moved towards his tent.
Hunting started at mid-morning and continued without a pause until mid-day. It was slaughter. The weapons used didn’t make a sound, but they killed just the same, and their silence was more than compensated for by the screams of disrupted animals.
The androids, emotionless flesh and blood robots, moved quietly about as they collected the bag. Once there was an argument between Ardella and Velenda as to who had killed a certain animal. And once Marya screamed with rage as she shot a careless android who had spattered the hem of her robe with blood. Other than that, the morning passed without incident.
Over the mid-day meal, Artrui talked about it. “This is real fun,” he said. “I never thought that killing things could be so amusing. Did you see how Bulem blew the back legs off that funny creature and it tried to run away?” He chuckled at the memory.
Chendis nodded.
“I’ve often thought that we miss a lot in not going primitive more often than we do. The feel of the wind against one’s face, the smooth precision of a weapon, the cunning needed to hit the target.” He sighed. “Our ancestors must have been great fighters to have left us such a heritage.”
“There is nothing clever about living in dirt,” snapped Marya. She had changed her robe, but the incident of the blood had annoyed her. “Surely even our ancestors knew that. They conquered other races and then made those races fight for them.” She yawned. “Must we talk of such things? History can be so tiresome.”
“History is what has made us,” reminded Chendis. He looked up as the somber figure of the warrior came towards them. “Yes? What is it?”
“I thought that I’d better warn you, sir,” said the warrior easily. “All that noise the animals have been making is going to attract some company. There are large animals in this forest, as well as small.”
“So?”
“So, I’d suggest that you give up hunting for the day, sir.”
“Insolence!” Artrui was on his feet before Chendis could reply. “How dare you address us so? I shall complain to the Warden! I.…” He broke off, his mouth still open. “What was that?”
“One of the big animals I was telling you about, sir.” The warrior unslung his weapon. “Hear it?”
They did. It was a kind of hissing roar coupled with the sound of a great body crashing through the undergrowth. All fell silent and, with the exception of the warrior, all seemed paralyzed with terror.
“No need to be scared,” said the warrior calmly. “Just get those guns of yours and shoot when you see it.” He paused, listening. “It’s getting close. You’d better hurry if you want to kill it.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Artrui, without waiting to see if anyone followed his example, turned and ran from the sound. Bulem followed him, knocking down Marya in his frantic hurry, closely followed by Ardella. Chendis stared wildly at Velenda, and Marya, who had regained her feet, screamed.
The cause was just before them. It was the largest animal they had faced, and yet it was little more than the height of a man. It had a round, furred head, glistening with fangs and, as it crouched ready to spring, its claws dug furrows in the ground. It hissed, staring at them with cold, yellow eyes, then tensed itself to charge.
The warrior shot it dead.
He lowered his weapon and stared somberly at the headless body before him. Next to him, Chendis was busy being very ill, and the two women had fainted at the sight of the beast. The others, human and android, were not to be seen.
Chendis, slowly recovering from his retching fear, knew that if it hadn’t been for the warrior the beast would have killed them all. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved our lives.”
“Nothing to it,” said the warrior calmly. “All you had to do was to stand and fire those guns of yours.” He seemed to remember something. “Sir.”
“We couldn’t.” For some reason Chendis felt it necessary to explain to this member of a conquered race why that was so. “We are a long way from the primitive,” he said, “and aren’t used to violence. The thought of death, our death, is horrible to us. We can’t help it. At the prospect of personal danger we suffer from a peculiar numbness that affects our reactions. I don’t know what it is.”
“Cowardice.”
“What?” The word was strange to Chendis. “What was that you said?”
“Nothing.” For a long moment the warrior stood and stared at Chendis. “You don’t have to explain. I understand all right…sir.” He slung his weapon and moved away from the dead beast. Chendis stared after him.