"Well, first I want it clearly understood that as soon as we got the radio we told the men at the other camps not to bring us weapons and not to try any airlift or rescue attempts, and reprisals were strictly out of order—"
"That was prudent. What next?"
Colonel Dongh began an angry retort, then stopped; he turned very pale. "Isn't there anything to sit down on," he said.
Selver went around the yumen group, up the slope, into the empty two-room bungalow, and took the folding desk-chair. Before he left the silent room he leaned down and laid his cheek on the scarred, raw wood of the desk, where Lyubov had always sat when he worked with Selver or alone; some of his papers were lying there now; Selver touched them lightly. He carried the chair out and set it in the rainwet dirt for Dongh. The
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old man sat down, biting his lips, his almond-shaped eyes narrow with pain.
"Mr. Gosse, perhaps you can speak for the Colonel/' Selver said. "He isn't well."
"I'll do the talking/* Benton said, stepping forward, but Dongh shook his head and muttered, "Gosse."
With the Colonel as auditor rather than speaker it went more easily. The yumens were accepting Selver's terms. With a mutual promise of peace, they would withdraw all their outposts and live in one area, the region they had forested in Middle Sornoclass="underline" about 1700 square miles of rolling land, well watered. They undertook not to enter the forest; the forest people undertook not to trespass on the Cut Lands.
The four remaining airships were the cause of some argument. The yumens insisted they needed them to bring their people from the other islands to Sornol. Since the machines carried only four men and would take several hours for each trip, it appeared to Selver that the yumens could get to Eshsen rather sooner by walking, and he offered them ferry service actoss the straits; but it appeared that yumens never walked far. Very well, they could keep the hoppers for what they called the 'Airlift Operation/ After that, they were to destroy them. Refusal. Anger. They were more protective of their machines than of their bodies. Selver gave in, saying they could keep the hoppers if they flew them only over the Cut Lands and if the weapons in them were destroyed. Over
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mis they argued, but with one another, while Selver waited, occasionally repeating the terms of his demand, for he was not giving in on mis point.
"What's the difference, Benton," the old Colonel said at last, furious and shaky, "can't you see that we can't use the damned weapons? There's three million of these aliens all scattered out all over every damned island, an covered with trees and undergrowth, no cities, no vital network, no centralised control. You can't disable a guerrilla type structure with bombs, it's been proved, in fact my own part of the world where I was bora proved it for about thirty years fighting off major super-powers one after the other in the twentieth century. And we're not in a position until a ship comes to prove our superiority. Let die big stuff go, if we can hold on to the sidearms for hunting and self-defense!"
He was their Old Man, and his opinion prevailed in the end, as it might have done in a Men's Lodge. Benton sulked. Gosse started to talk about what would happen if the truce was broken, but Selver stopped him. "These are possibilities, we aren't yet done with certainties. Your Great Ship is to return in three years, that is three and a half years of your count. Until that time you are free here. It Will not be very hard for you. Nothing more will be taken away from Centralville, except some of Lyubov's work that I wish to keep. You still have most of your tools of tree-cutting and ground-moving; if you need more tools, the iron-mines of Peldel are in your territory. I think all
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this is clear. What remains to be known is this: When that ship comes, what will they seek to do with you, and with us?"
"We don't know," Gosse said. Dongh amplified: "If you hadn't destroyed the ansible communicator first thing off, we might be receiving some current information on these matters, and our reports would of course influence the decisions that may be made concerning a finalised decision on the status of this planet, which we might then expect to begin to implement before the ship returns from Prestno. But due to wanton destruction due to your ignorance of your own interests, we haven't even got a radio left that will transmit over a few hundred miles."
* *What is the ansible ?'' The word had come up before in this talk; it was a new one to Selver. "ICD," the Colonel said, morose.
"A kind of radio," Gosse said, arrogant. "It put us in instant touch with our home-world."
"Without the 27-year waiting?"
Gosse stared down at Selver. "Right. Quite right. You learned a great deal from Lyubov, didn't you?"
"Didn't he just," said Benton. "He was Lyu-bov's little green buddyboy. He picked up everything worth knowing and a bit more besides. Like all the vital points to sabotage, and where the guards would be posted, and how to get into the weapon stockpile. They must have been in touch right up to the moment the massacre started.*1 Gosse looked uneasy. "Raj is dead. All that's
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irrelevant now, Benton. We've got to establish—"
"Are you trying to infer in some way that Captain Lyubov was involved in some activity that could be called treachery to the Colony, Ben-ton?" said Dongh, glaring and pressing his hands against his belly. "There were no spies or treachers on my staff, it was absolutely hand-picked before we ever left Terra and I know the' kind of men I have to deal with."
*Tm not inferring anything, Colonel. I'm saying straight out that it was Lyubov stirred up the creechies, and if orders hadn't been changed on us after that Fleet ship was here, it never would have happened."
Gosse and Dongh both started to speak at once. "You are all very ill," Selver observed, getting up and dusting himself off, for the damp brown oak-leaves clung to his short body-fur as to silk.
"I'm sorry we've had to hold.you in the creechie-pen, it is not a good place for the mind. Please send for your men from the camps. When all are here and the large weapons have been destroyed, and the promise has been spoken by all of us, then we shall leave you alone. The gates of the compound will be opened when I leave here today. Is there more to be said?"
None of them said anything. They looked down at him. Seven big men, with tan or brown hairless skin, cloth-covered, dark-eyed, grim-faced; twelve small men, green or brownish-green, fur-covered, with the large eyes of the seminocturnal
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creature, with dreamy faces; between the two groups, Selver, the translator, frail, disfigured, holding all their destinies in his empty hands. Rain fell softly on the brown earth about them. "Farewell then,'* Selver said, and led his people away.
"They're not so stupid," said the headwoman of Berre as she accompanied Selver back to Endtor.' 'I thought such giants must be stupid, but they saw that you're a god, I saw it in their faces at the end of the talking. How well you talk that gobble-gubble. Ugly they are, do you think even their children are hairless?"
"That we shall never know, I hope."
"Ugh, think of nursing a child that wasn't furry. Like trying to suckle a fish."
"They are all insane," said old Tubab, looking deeply distressed. "Lyubov wasn't like that, when he used to come to Tunlar. He was ignorant, but sensible. But these ones, they argue, and sneer at the old man, and hate each other, like this," and he contorted his grey-furred face to imitate the expressions of the Terr an s, whose words of course he had not been able to follow. "Was that what you said to them, Selver, that they're mad?"
"I told them that they were ill. But then, they've been defeated, and hurt, and locked*in that stone cage. After that anyone might be ill and need healing."