And Walter Cordice stood in the wrecked lodge and the picture on the illicit spy screen belted him with dismay.
Robadurians were not symbol users. They simply couldn’t have raided the lodge. But the screen showed Martha and Willa Brumm and Allie Andries sitting bound to stakes at a forest edge. Martha’s blue dress and tight red curls were unruffled. She sat with her stumpy legs extended primly together and her hard, plump pout said she was grimly not believing what she saw either.
Near a stream, across a green meadow starred yellow with flowers, naked and bearded Robadurians dug a pit with sharp sticks. Others piled dry branches. They were tall fellows, lump-muscled under sparse fur, with low foreheads and muzzle jaws. One, in a devil mask of twigs and feathers, seemed an overseer. Beside Martha, pert, dark little Allie Andries cried quietly. Willa was straining her white arms against the cords. They knew they were in trouble, all right.
Cordice turned from the screen, avoiding the eyes of Leo Brumm and Jim Andries. In their tan coveralls against the silver and scarlet decor they seemed as out of place as the dead Robadurian youth at their feet. Leo’s chubby, pleasant face looked stricken. Jim Andries scowled. He was a big, loose-jointed man with bold angular features and black hair. They were young and junior and Cordice knew they were mutely demanding his decision.
Decision. He wouldn’t retire at stat-8 now, he’d be lucky to keep stat-7. But he’d just come out of rapport and so far he was clear and the law was clear too, very clear: you minimized culture shock at whatever cost to yourself. But abandon Martha? He looked down at the Robadurian youth. The smooth ivory skin was free of blue hair except on the crushed skull. He felt his face burn.
“Our wives bathed him and shaved him and made him a pet?” His voice shook slightly. “Leo ... Leo ...”
“My fault, sir. I built ‘em the spy screen and went to rescue the boy,” Leo said. “I didn’t want to disturb you and Jim in rapport.” He was a chunky, blond young man and he was quite pale now. “They—well, I take all the blame, sir.”
“The Institute of Man will fix blame,” Cordice said.
My fault, he thought. For bringing Martha against my better judgment. But Leo’s violation of the spy-screen ethic did lead directly to illicit contact and—this mess! Leo was young, they’d be lenient with him. All right, his fault. Cordice made his voice crisp.
“We minimize,” he said. “Slag the lodge, get over and seal up the station, capsule home to Earth and report this.”
Jim really scowled. “I love my wife, Cordice, whatever you think of yours,” he said. “I’m getting Allie out of there if I have to culture shock those blue apes to death with a flame jet.”
“You’ll do what I say, Andries! You and your wife signed a pledge and a waiver, remember?” Cordice tried to stare him down. “The law says she’s not worth risking the extinction of a whole species that may someday become human.”
“Damn the law, she’s worth it to me!” Jim said. “Cordice, those blue apes are human now. How else could they raid up here, kill this boy, carry off the women?” He spat. “We’ll drop you to seal the station, keep your hands clean. Leo and I’ll get the women.”
Cordice dropped his eyes. Damn his insolence! Still... Leo could testify Andries forced it... he’d still be clear....
“I’ll go along, to ensure minimizing,” he said. “Under protest—Leo, you’re witness to that. But slag this lodge right now!”
Minutes later Leo hovered the flyer outside while Cordice played the flame jet on the rock face. Rock steamed, spilled away, fused and sank into a bubbling, smoking cavity. Under it the dead youth, with his smooth, muscular limbs, was only a smear of carbon. Cordice felt better.
Half an hour later, lower on the same mountain, Leo hovered the flyer above the meadow. The Robadurians all ran wildly into the forest and Jim didn’t need to use the flame jet. Leo grounded and the men piled out and Cordice felt his stomach relax. They ran toward the women. Allie Andries was smiling but Martha was shouting something from an angry face. As he stooped to untie Martha the blue horde came back out of the forest. They came yelling and leaping and slashing with wet, leafy branches and the sharp smell....
Cordice came out of it sick with the awareness that he was tied to a stake like an animal and that it was his life, not his career, he had to save now. He feigned sleep and peered from eye-corners. Martha looked haggard and angry and he dreaded facing her. He couldn’t see the others, except Allie Andries and she was smiling faintly—at Jim, no doubt.
Those two kids must escape, Cordice thought.
He must have been unconscious quite a while because sunset flamed in red and gold down-valley and the pit looked finished. It was elliptical, perhaps thirty feet long and three deep. Robadurians were still mounding black earth along the sides and others were piling brush into a circumscribed thicket, roughly triangular. They chattered, but Cordice knew it was only a mood-sharing noise. That was what made it so horrible. They were asymbolic, without speech and prior to good and evil, a natural force like falling water. He couldn’t threaten, bribe or even plead. Despite his snub nose and full lips he could present an impressive face—at home on Earth. But not to such as these.
Beside the pit, the devil masker stood like a tall sentry. Abruptly he turned and strode toward Cordice, trailing his wooden spear. Cordice tensed and felt a scream shape itself in him. Then the devil towered lean and muscular-above him. He had no little finger on his spear hand. Keen gray eyes peered down through feathers and twigs.
“Cordice, you fool, why did you bring the women?” the devil asked in fluent English. “Now all your lives are forfeit.”
The scream collapsed in a grateful gasp. With speech Cordice felt armed again, almost free. But Martha spoke first. “Men need women to inspire them and give them courage!” she said. “Walto! Tell him who you are! Make him let us go!”
Walto meant she was angry. In affection she called him Wally Toes. But as usual she was right. He firmed his jowls and turned a cool stat-7 stare on the devil mask.
“Look here, if you know our speech you must know we never land on a hominid planet,” he said pleasantly. “There are plenty of other planets. For technical reasons we had to do a job here. It’s done. We have stores and tools to leave behind.” He laughed easily. ‘Take them and let us go. You’ll never see another of us.”
The devil shook his head. “It’s not what we might see, it’s what your women have already seen,” he said. “They know a holy secret and the god Robadur demands your deaths.”
Cordice paled but spoke smoothly. “I and Andries have been out of touch with the others for two months. I don’t know any secret. While we were isolated Brumm built the women a spy screen and rescued that boy—”
“Who was forfeit to Robadur. Robadur eats his children.”
“Arthur was being tortured when he broke free and ran,” Martha said. “I saw you there!”
“On your strictly unethical spy screen.”
“Why not? You’re only brute animals with your things hanging out!”
The devil pressed his spear to her throat. “Shut up or I’ll spear you now!” he said. Martha’s eyes blazed defiance.
“No! Quiet, Martha!” Cordice choked. His front collapsed. “Brumm did it all. Kill him and let us go!” He twisted in his bonds.
Leo spoke from behind. “Yes, I did it. Take me and let them go.” His voice was high and shaky too.