Bet glanced over at Sten for possible help, then cursed to herself. He was pointedly staying out of it. drunkenly babbling to the chief.
"... And in the year of the rains, the Trader's champion..."
Bet came wide awake.
"Traders?" she asked. "What traders? And when?"
Acauzlay was delighted at her sudden display of interest. He had at one point begun to suspect his guest was bored, but on reflection dismissed the thought for the silliness it was.
"Just traders." he said. "Beings like you. It was—perhaps five hundred combats ago. Our champion defeated theirs. We exchanged many presents, and they left.
"Let me see now. I think their champion's name was—"
"Never mind that." Bet broke in. "Do the traders still come?"
"Of course," Acauzlay said with some surprise. "They come very regularly. Are we not friends? Do friends not wish to visit often and exchange gifts?"
"How often do they visit?"
"About every thirty days. In fact, they were here not long ago."
Acauzlay took a slurp from the gourd. "We thought you were their rivals."
Bet jabbed Sten.
"These... traders," Sten asked carefully. "Different, you say." He hiccuped. "Are you sure they aren't just from another part of this world?"
"Could I, Nemli. chief of all the Stralbo"—he belched— "become that confused?"
"Drinkin' this yak-pee," Bet said, "easily." Acauzlay had already passed out beside her.
"Do herdsmen have gray rafts that float in the air instead of the water? Do herdsmen have their huts shaped like fish, that can also fly through the air?"
"Offworlders," Sten said with satisfaction.
"And will you take us to these traders'?" Bet asked. She sounded almost sober.
"For my new friends, who have been blooded by the rites of the Stralbo...tomorrow or the next feast day I will send you, accompanied by my best warriors."
"We thank you, chief," Sten said, realizing he was starting to sound about as formally drunk as Nemli.
"It is, I must say," the old chief wheezed, "a long and hard journey of some thirty risings and settings of the sun."
"Nemli, what're the hazards that..."
Bet stopped. Nemli had sagged gently against Sten and started snoring. Sten and Bet looked at each other. Bet shrugged and picked up another gourd.
"Well," Bet said, "I guess we'll be able to get off this... charming world and not have to spend the rest of our days drinking blood and pushing calcium critters around. So shall we follow the example of the noble Nemli'?"
"Why not," Sten said, and took the gourd. It seemed as good an idea as any other.
CHAPTER FIVE
STEN CAME AWAKE to the glare of an evil, yellow sun that was hurling spears through the cracks of the hut. He moaned gently and shut his eyes.
His head felt like a thousand—no, two thousand—ungulates had hooved through his brain, then paused to graze and defecate on his tongue.
Someone stirred next to him.
"I think I'm gonna die." he said, holding his eyes tightly shut.
"You are," Ida answered.
"Shut up. Ida. I'm not kidding."
"Neither am I. We're all gonna die."
Sten came fully awake. Sat up and stared through bloody eyes at the rest of the group already up and glooming around the sleeping hut.
"For once." Bet said, "Ida isn't exaggerating. We've got some kind of bug. And it's gonna kill us in about..."
"Twenty days," Ida said.
"Clot on that." Alex said. "At the moment Ah need a wee bit of the dog that gnawed the dirty Campbell if Ah'm gonna see the end of this day."
Sten ignored this. "Would you mind explaining what's going on?"
Ida flicked her hand scanner on Medic-probe and gave it to Sten. He peered at the tiny screen. And found another creature staring back at him with DNA hate in its single-glowing protein eye.
The Bug, as Bet had called it, was a rippling blue ribbon with the thinnest of green edges to mark the boundaries of its form. Spotted about its perimeter were tiny, bright red dots, like so many gun nests.
"What the clot is is?"
"Some kind of a mycoplasm," Ida said. "Note, it is a cell, but it has no cell walls. It's probably the oldest life-form in the Galaxy. It's mean, lean, and hungry. And we've been breathing in millions of them since we landed. Interesting that mycoplasms do occur in areas of volcanic activity."
"I'm not interested in its lifestyle, Ida. What about our own?"
"Like I said, Sten, twenty days."
"No prophylaxis?"
"None—except getting offworld."
"Twenty days," Bet mused. "Which puts us ten days short of the traders' post."
Sten rubbed his head, which was moving from the gong solo to the tympani section of the program, then looked back up at his equally gloomy friends.
"Fine news. Now what else can go wrong?"
And above them the air split open with a blinding shriek. The hut shook, and a cloud of insects from the thatched roof floated down about them.
Sten and the others ran outside, to see the Jann ship scuttling across the sky.
Alex turned to Sten, smiling oddly. "Y'beit tha luckiest lad Ah'm knowit," he said, then pointed up at the Turnmaa as it climbed, then banked back toward the Stralbo village, braked, and settled for a landing.
"If die we mus', tha wee beastie'll hae to stan' in line."
CHAPTER SIX
"IN THE NAME OF TALAMEIN WE DEMAND THAT YOU DELIVER UP THE OFFWORLDERS."
The Jannisar captain's voice boomed across the savannah, drowning out even the chants of a thousand warriors drawn up before his ship.
A forest of spears shook back in defiance.
"It's bloody foolishness," Alex said.
Sten, Alex, and the others were hiding in a small grove of trees watching the confrontation.
Sten had to admire the Janns' efficiency. They were very well trained soldiers. The ship had landed. Before the dust of the ship's landing had a chance to settle, the Janns had swarmed out, dug in, sandbagged, and set up their squad automatic projectile weapons.
On the ship itself, the top-turret chain-gun moved back and forth, tracing the line of warriors.
It reminded Sten of the volcanic mycoplasm hunting in their veins. The mycoplasm with its hateful DNA swinging back and forth, waiting for the pounce.
"IN THE NAME OF TALAMEIN..."
"We can't let this happen." Bet said, rising to her feet. The others—even Doc—rose with her. Sten started out of the trees first.
And then they heard Acauzlay's cry for combat.
"Arilcia!"
"Arilcia!"
Acauzlay stepped away from the crowd and stalked toward the ship. He was carrying the bundle of weapons—a gift for the enemy he would slay with love in the grove.
"Arilcia!" He cried again. Coming to a stop in front of the waving turret of the chain-gun.
"S'BE'T," the Jann captain's voice boomed back.
Acauzlay hurled the bundle of weapons down on the ground. Drew back, pointing at the grove of trees and urging the ritual combat.
"Arilcia!"
"Aril..."
And the chain-gun boomed out. Cutting off Acauzlay's final cry to fight. The projectiles stitched across him, literally cutting him in half.
As one body, the warriors hurled themselves forward, and all the Jann guns opened up instantly, cutting and spewing fire. Before the Mantis team could move, a hundred Stralbo were dying on the ground and the others were fleeing.
In a crazy moment. Bet remembered Acauzlay telling her of the Stralbo pride. In their two-million-year history they had never broke and run.