"And why, my dear governor, should I undertake this mad scheme?"
"Because until you get Euphemia back here I won't sign your exit permit. That's final."
"Give me a day to think about it," said Brisson. Mentally he cursed the surplus of males in Sveho, which resulted in the fact that those who did have women would go to extraordinary lengths to keep them.
NEXT morning Amaury Brisson and Iflatun Faruq chugged out on motor-scooters for a look at Ozymandias. The statue stood near the lower end of Sveho Valley, which was more or less congruent with the Sveho Purchase. The valley narrowed here: a flat alluvial plain through which the Sveho River wound its way, surrounded by steep black cliffs of intrusive basalt. The pedestal towered over the heads of the earth-men, the red of its sandstone contrasting with the black of the statue.
Faruq said: "Now we have two madmen: Holm for proposiny this project and you for falling in with it."
"Be of good heart, my friend. It is an intolerable delay on one hand, against a small display of courage on the other. Besides, I have an idea that may make the venture a little less desperate. This statue was evidently not carved where it now is. Does one know from whence it came originally?"
Faruq pointed."That recess in the hills is supposed to be the quarry from which it was taken, though nobody knows how these unknown builders hauled it up on to its pedestal. It would be quite a feat even with modern construction-machinery, and as far as is known the Kteremians have never mastered any such engineering technics."
"Unless the Doznyi did it," said Brisson, frowning. He referred to the race of prehistoric demigods that lurked at the back of the Kteremian myths."But that is also improbable, for the material evidence of their existence shows a cultural level no higher than that of the historical Kteremian peoples."
They walked around the high narrow mesa on which stood the statue. On the far side they came upon a group of tame Kteremians eating a picnic lunch of bark. The two parties glanced at one another before turning back to their own affairs. Like most earthmen who had had to do directly with wild Kteremians, uncontaminated by earthly influence, Brisson had a poor opinion of the half-terrafied product of trader and missionary influence, wearing pants over its feathery pelt and sedulously imitating the aliens' vices. Unlike most, he pitied rather than scorned these deracinated barbarians who had lost most of their own culture without mastering that of the earth-men.
Brisson walked away from Ozymandias to snap a few photographs, then went back to the base of the pedestal, shed his burdens, and began to climb up the furrows that erosion had cut into the sandstone.
"Take care that you do not break the head," said Faruq.
"Don't worry, my old, I have climbed higher mountains than this."
Despite his plumpness Brisson expertly wormed his way up to the base of the statue proper. Ozymandias was in the form of a figure seated on a throne, sitter and throne chiselled from the same huge block. At least it looked as much like that as anything, for time had so weathered and worn it away that no small details, such as facial features or inscriptions, remained. One could not even be sure that the sitter was one of the present species of semi-civilized Kteremians, though Brisson felt fairly sure that it at least did not represent an earthman. His head barely topped the sitter's feet.
He took out a small petrographic analyzer and ran a series of quick tests on the rock: hardness, gonio-photometric, and so forth. He picked up a couple of small pieces of rock that had spilled off and lay around the base, climbed back down, and joined Faruq, who asked:
"Have you made up your mind yet?"
"I think so. Of course," Brisson made a deprecating gesture, "this isn't the science. This is the tactics of a lawyer: make the most of everything that supports your side, and suppress or distort everything to the contrary. Ah, well."
AMAURY Brisson flew to the outpost of Severak, whose factor had a helicopter which he rented out on a drive-yourself basis. Brisson rented this machine on Holm's expense-account, and with one tame Kteremian helper to carry his food (as he could not live on bark like the natives) and flew to the small plateau overlooking the Valley of Plashce. This is the only practical landing-place near the ruins of Gdoz. Then he had an arduous three-day scramble over ledges and through swamps to reach the ruin itself.
The chiefs' conference was already going. Armed guards pounced on Brisson as soon as he approached the city. As he was well-known among the tribes represented at this pow-wow, he was treated less roughly than a strange earthman would have been.
The meeting was held in the ruined amphitheater of Gdoz. There was a commotion among the chiefs and their retainers as the guards led Brisson forward. Chief Horko, who had the floor at the moment, stopped his speech to stare, his great incisors showing pink. Behind the huddle of chiefs, on one of the stone benches that had seen enacted the great but forgotten dramatic compositions of the Hrata Empire, sat Euphemia Holm, a dark well-developed wench with the remnants of her clothes pinned together with thorns.
Horko said: "What are you doing here, Biso?"
Brisson replied in fluent Znaci: "Chief Holm heard that there was to be a conference of chiefs and sent me as his deputy. His feelings are much hurt that you did not invite him."
The chiefs grunted and whistled at one another. This was motivation that they could understand. Brisson continued:
"So, hearing that matters concerning him were to be discussed, he thought it beneath his honor that he should not be represented. Have you come to these matters yet?"
"We were just beginning," said Horko."If you wish me to repeat my preamble—"
"Thank you, that will not be necessary," said Brisson, who knew something of Kteremian oratory."Pray continue."
"As I was saying, the blood of our ancestors cries out from the ground: give us back our land! Who are these arrogant creatures from other worlds, to claim a single foot of sacred Kteremian soil? Any sale to them is automatically invalid, and the punishment lately inflicted upon the Tshimvi was surely visited by the gods for their sin in alienating the Sveho Tract, which did not even belong to them—"
"Excuse me," said Brisson, "but why did it not?"
"Because under the immemorial customs of the Kteremian peoples, a tribe does not get firm title to a tract until it has occupied it in adverse possession for a hundred and ninety-six years!"
Brisson recognized the square of fourteen, the base of the Kteremian number-system, as they had that total number of digits each—three on each birdlike foot and four on each hand.
"But," continued Horko, "we, the Znaci, possessed the Sveho Tract up to two hundred and fifty-eight years ago, at which time we were ejected from it by the Tshimvi, as a result of an unjust and aggressive war."
"You never did own the tract!" shouted one whom Brisson recognized as Zhewha, the Tshimvi chieftain."Moreover the war to which you allude was forced upon us by the refusal of the Znaci to surrender the murderers of Yesil to justice—"
"What kind of justice could an accused Znaci expect of the Tshimvi?" shrieked Horko."Coward and liar—"
All the chiefs yelled to sit down and shut up. At length, unable to make themselves heard over the din, the disputants did so. After mugs of native wine were passed to cool tempers all around, Horko was allowed to resume:
"At any rate, the Tshimvi occupied this tract for only a hundred and twenty-three years, when the first earthmen arrived on Kterem with their vices and their insolence." Horko glanced at Brisson."I do not mean you, Biso. You are not like an earthman; you are quite decent. But these creatures at once contrived the so-called Sveho Purchase. As they have been in possession only a hundred and seventy-five years, obviously neither Tshimvi nor earthmen have complied with the requirements for title."