We went back to our own pavilion for the midday meal, and Tammad insisted that we eat inside. It was cooler and darker out of the bright sun, and once my eyes had adjusted to the difference, I saw that the sleeping furs had been moved to the back of the pavilion, and pillows had been scattered near the front. The drapery that had bisected Miggan’s pavilion was available in ours, too, but our drapery was drawn to one side, leaving the pavilion whole. Tammad sat himself on one of the pillows, then gestured me down near him.
“I do not understand the way of your power;” he said when I was seated. “You read those men easily and well, yet their thoughts should not have been open to you. Are you able to explain this to me?”
“Maybe so, but I don’t think you’ll like the explanation,” I answered, leaning back a little to study him. “The advice I gave you was pure guesswork educated guesswork, true, but still only guesswork. Do you still feel that sure about me?”
“I would be a fool to doubt you now” He grinned, taking a mouthful from his bowl of stew “In what manner do you `guess’?”
“When I read a man, I see only his emotions.” I explained, after taking a deep breath. “Then I have to interpret the emotions, and that’s where the guesswork comes in. Miggan’s feeling of standoffish superiority might have stemmed from a deeply buried inferiority complex just as easily as from never having been beaten. I had no way of knowing which it was, and therefore had to guess. Just as I guessed that that gonadal gargantua was frustrated through lack of vocal expression. His frustration could have come from general disbelief on the part of others, too—or any one of another half dozen reasons. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Perhaps in part; he answered slowly, chewing over what I’d said as carefully as he chewed the stew “Were you taught this—interpretation?”
“For many years.” I nodded. “I thought I was infallible until the first time I made a mistake. Then I had to admit I was only human.”
He ate quietly for a while, then he looked at me as he never had before. “This power of Prime,” he mused. “Is it something to be handed from father to son and mother to daughter?”
“It—doesn’t often happen,” I said weakly putting my bowl of stew aside untasted. I didn’t want him to know that my gift was a dominant trait and showed up in every generation after the first. He couldn’t give me children! He couldn’t!
“Once would be enough,” he commented, going back to his stew with a satisfied feeling. I sat and fretted until he noticed that I wasn’t eating, then I stuffed down what I could. It was a relief to get back to visiting dendayy. The hours went by and we made conquest after conquest. I’d been lucky enough to guess right in every case, and Tammad followed my directions without a murmur, although he always added a personal touch that never failed to make a good situation better. He and I made a very effective team, and each time we left a pavilion his hug or caress was warmer. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that he’d given his word to let me go back to the embassy.
There’s very little excuse I can make. That we’d walked all over the camp to the very outskirts of the camtahh was true. That it was nearly sundown and I was tired both mentally and physically is also true. That still doesn’t excuse the fact that I almost missed them. If I had, few of us might be alive today.
We stood just within the last line of camtahh, talking to our latest convert. He was a man who disliked everything, but who perversely felt guilt about his dislikes. Tammad had discussed nothing but the dislikes of the majority of the dendayy, making the man feel less alone. The man still disliked him, but if he ever supported anyone, it would be Tammad.
I let my mind and eyes wander over the remainder of field just past the camtahh. The sun was setting in that direction, which made one want to look away but it was so empty and peaceful that it drew me. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander alone—and then I felt it. I snapped back and double checked, but there was no mistake. That empty, lifeless field held dozens of human mind patterns, patiently waiting to be allowed to explode, which was going to happen soon.
My eyes flew open, and I knew I had very little time. Desperately I groaned and doubled over, holding myself with one arm and clutching for Tammad with the other. He broke off in the middle of a sentence and turned to me immediately his emotional control rippling.
“What ails you?” he asked, reaching for me with anxious hands. As he bent down, I put my arm around his neck, pulling his ear close to my lips.
“I’m all right, but there are men hidden in the field beyond,” I whispered raggedly. “I think they’re going to attack.”
Only his eyes moved, and he looked at the field through attentive slits. With no perceptible hesitation he picked me up, then turned back to the denday.
“My wenda has taken ill,” he announced in normal tones. “I must return her to my camtah.” Then his voice dropped and he whispered, “Savages in the field beyond. Alert your l’lendaa.”
The other man barely blinked before answering, “I shall accompany you,” then added low, “This is our attack signal.”
He pursed his lips and whistled a calm tune, and it was barely in time. Just as the l’lendaa in the area started over at a run, the savages attacked. They were on their feet and racing in, screaming their challenge and swinging their swords, almost before it was possible to accept the fact of their presence. They went from invisible to visible in the blink of an eye, and were very hard to see in any event with the setting sun at their backs. The l’lendaa shouted their defiance and ran to close with them.
Tammad put me down fast near a camtah, growled, “Remain here unless they approach,” then turned away to join the battle, drawing his sword as he ran. I stood near the side of the camtah and watched what was going on, never having seen anything like it in my life.
The savages crowed with delight as they fought, the delight unfading even when they fell with mortal wounds. They had their entire bodies and faces dyed a deep orange, thick white lines painted here and there over the orange. The l’lendaa within earshot had come, but the camp was spread out too far for others to notice the battle.
Swords rang and thudded, men cursed and laughed, savages went down happily, l’lendaa died reluctantly. It was a bedlam beyond description, and I found the savages’ emotions worse than any I’d yet come across, because they made no sense. Their reactions were almost insane, and I felt repelled by them as well as fascinated. The professional side of me probed deep for explanation, and found the possibility of one: an odd numbness at the back of their minds suggesting the likelihood of drugs.
Many of the savages were down sooner than it takes to tell about it, as they made no attempt to defend themselves, relying only on all-out attack.
The tactic would have been a good one with anyone else, but l’lendaa were too sure of themselves in battle. They parried the attacks and followed with attacks of their own, and the savages went happily to what they were looking forward to. Some few of the l’lendaa died also, but most were just wounded here or there, some worse than others.
The battle was nearly done when I saw what Tammad had gotten himself into. He had been fighting two of the savages, and had been doing better than all right when Faddan, who had been fighting near him, slipped in his own blood and went down. Before the savages could end Faddan, Tammad sprang to his defense, standing over him and fighting not two but four, while the other man tried to stop the flow of blood from his thigh quickly enough to help. Another two of the savages yipped their glee and joined the others, sure that six of them could down the lone l’lenda.
Tammad’s sword was metallic lightning, flickering here and there without stop, flashing at the savages and keeping them at a distance. There was grim battle joy in him all the while, a release from tensions and conventions that civilized men never experience. But it was a deadly purification, one that could end him as quickly as it could end his opponents.