'Your people need you,' he said. 'Now. Every hand available should be carrying the meat and the tusks of the beasts.'
'You are a very strong man,' Thammash said. 'You could carry much meat.'
Gribardsun smiled and said, 'True. But it is more important that I convince the Wotagrub that they should leave us alone.'
Von Billmann said, 'I can see the necessity of ensuring that our subjects are protected so we can study them. But you shouldn't go alone.'
'But I am,' Gribardsun said. He ran off down the hillside and was soon lost to sight as he made his way back up the hill to the top.
The two tribesmen poked around the camp for anything of value the enemy might have left behind. And then the three departed.
Three
Rachel Silverstein was very disturbed by the account of the hunt, Gribardsun's narrow escape, and the killings and mutilations. But she was most upset by the report of his lone expedition.
'Why did you let him go?'
Von Billmann shrugged and said, 'I'm not strong enough to force him to return. Besides, he is the leader.'
'But he's out alone in that savage wilderness! Anything could happen to him! We might never see him again, not even know what happened!'
'That's true,' von Billmann said. 'And he knows it. But I'm not worried. Not much, anyway. He can take care of himself. If anybody can, he can. Would you like to see the films of the hunt? You'll see what I mean then.'
Drummond Silverstein said, 'Rachel, if I had gone, would you be as concerned?'
Von Billmann, embarrassed, walked away. He looked back a moment later and saw them face to face, their skins flushed and their mouths writhing.
The last of the carcasses was brought in after dusk. Everybody except the babies went to bed very late that night. They cooked a great quantity of the meat and ate with good appetite, despite the wails and tears of the mourning women and children. Some of these ate greedily between fits of grief. And racks of wood were prepared and meat placed over them to be smoked. The meat was scraped off the rhino skulls, which were then broken open so that the brains could be cut out. The skulls were later placed in holes in the ground and filled with water. Heated stones were dropped in, and the pieces of meat left on the skulls were boiled free to make soup. Rachel talked to some of the widows. Their lot was not to be a happy one, not that it had been enviable when their mates were still alive. They would become the secondary wives of the most important men in the community, if they were still of childbearing age. They would be under the authority of the first wives. They and their children would always get what was left over in the way of food or attention. This would be more than enough when times were good. The tribe did not want widows and orphans to suffer needlessly. But when meat was scarce, the first wives and their children would get first choice.
On the other hand, the high death rate among females of childbearing age gave the secondary wives a chance to become first. Life was hard and insecure for everybody.
Four days went by. The three fretted. Rachel and Drummond hardly spoke to each other until the morning of the fourth. Then they became civil and kissed each other good morning. Apparently they had had some form of reconciliation that night, though probably not until after some verbal violence.
Von Billmann said, 'Too much time has gone by. I'm going out to look for him tomorrow. Would you two want to come along?'
'Of course we will,' Rachel said.
'He should have taken along a radio,' Drummond said. 'His idea of going native was stupid. He could at least have taken a radio and we'd know where he was and if he was all right.'
'It was stupid of us not to think of it,' von Billmann said. 'But I was too excited, and he just doesn't think about such things as keeping people informed of his whereabouts. He's a strange man, no doubt of that. There's something very peculiar about his being picked to go on this expedition, you know. Almost sinister, though I hate to say that about Gribardsun.'
'I would think so!' Rachel said. She made no attempt to hide her anger. 'How can you say anything bad about him? What's he done? Let's hear it!'
'Your emotions are showing,' Drummond said in a dull voice.
'Why shouldn't they?' she said. 'Isn't it natural for me to get upset if any one of us should be missing? Isn't it right?'
'I'm sorry I said anything,' he replied.
'What did you mean, almost sinister?' Rachel said to von Billmann. 'And why is there anything strange about his being chosen? He's certainly qualified, isn't he?'
'I don't think there's any doubt about that now,' von Billmann said. 'But when the expedition was first proposed, de Longnors was the outstanding candidate as the leader. He was a brilliant medical doctor, both as diagnostician and researcher. He also had written many outstanding - some of them classic - works on physical anthropology, and he had done brilliant work as an archeologist and botanist. He was just the type of man needed, one who could carry out superb research in a number of fields.'
'I had heard that he was considered,' Drummond said. 'But I thought that he was finally rejected because he was too hard to get along with.'
'That did go against him, but nobody else had his brilliance. John Gribardsun was one of the other candidates considered. He had the same versatile background as de Longnors but he had not been famous in any of them. He had published very little, and his medical practice was limited to taking care of the natives on the Inner Kenyan Sanctuary, where he lived so many years. But then the name of Gribardsun was heard more and more often in the news media and the guests shows. And he appeared on various guest panels, you know, and charmed his audience.'
'Hypnotized them, you mean,' Drummond said.
'In a way perhaps; he does have some curiously magnetic quality,' von Billmann said. 'Anyway,' he went on, 'we people interested in the project, in the know about the scene behind the curtains, you might say, soon found out that he was being considered as de Longnors' backup. There were other men even more qualified who had been bypassed.'
'How do you know they were more qualified?' Rachel said.
'The project executives thought so,' von Billmann said. 'At first, anyway. I was told that the test ratings indicated Gribardsun was about sixth on the list. But, suddenly, he was second. There was a good deal of talk about that. Some people thought Gribardsun must have found out something about some of the top executives, or some of the politicians connected with the project, and was blackmailing them.'
'That's a terrible thing to say!' Rachel said. 'How could anybody believe it?'
'You know how people are,' von Billmann said. 'You'll have to admit that it was mysterious. It's still mysterious. Though there's no doubt in my mind that the right man was chosen. The question is, were the right methods used to pick him? Or, rather, did he use the proper channels and procedures to get chosen?'
'Did he?' Rachel said.
Von Billmann shrugged and said, 'I do not know. It was all so odd and so sudden. De Longnors disappears...'
'We knew about that, of course,' Drummond said.
'And after a while the executives announce that John Gribardsun has been chosen to take his place. Then, a week later, de Longnors is found wandering on the seventh level of Center Paris. He is incoherent and suffering from amnesia. He recovers somewhat in that he remembers everything except the period of his disappearance. That is a blank. By then, the vessel was scheduled for launch. De Longnors had missed too much of the necessary training. Besides, he might be mentally unstable. So he was left behind.'