The Galactic Gourmet

their hunters could be expected soon, and this seemed to be the right moment. But with the good news there should also be a strong reminder that changes for the Wem were inevitable. He opened the satchel strapped to his side and directed an eye into it, searching for Rhabwar’s reconnaissance pictures.

“Allowing for the differences in size and age,” he said, “the young and old Wem are healthy and active on their diet of vegetables. The healers on the ship, who have knowledge of such matters covering many worlds, say that your young adults, too, would live and thrive and proliferate on the same diet. The eating of meat is good for them, the healers agree, but it is not the only source of health and energy for them. We feel that the eating of meat has become a belief and a habit going back many generations, and that it is a habit that can be broken.

“But let us not start another argument,” Gurronsevas went on quickly, “because I have good news for you. At their present rate of progress, which is slow because they are heavily loaded, your hunters will be here in the late morning of the day after tomorrow. If meat is what you want then meat you shall soon have.”

Without saying how long ago the pictures had been taken he gave a simple explanation of the workings of Rhabwar’s casualty search vehicle and began spreading them out before Remrath. Enlarged and enhanced, they showed every detail of the five food animals struggling against their tethers, every fold in the sewn skins covering the litter that was being carried by six Wem and, because the day had been heavily overcast, the hunters had their sun cowls and cloaks tied back so that every face was clearly visible. Even to Gurronsevas the sharpness of the images was impressive.

“Maybe they are late arriving because they have five food animals and a heavily loaded litter,” Gurronsevas went on enthusiastically. “You can see for yourself, so clearly that you will be able to recognize your friends. I have no idea of how much they usually bring back, but I think I know a big catch when I see one.”

“You know nothing, Gurronsevas,” said Remrath in a very quiet voice. “It is not a big catch. The hunters should not be walking, they should be running and tail-hopping so that the small animal carcasses in their belly- packs will not spoil before they reach us, and dragging upwards of twenty big crellan and twasacths behind them instead of five scrawny cubs. But many of their packs are empty, and they carry a Wem on a covered litter, which means that one of the hunters has been damaged and is dead or dying.”

“I am sorry,” said Gurronsevas. “Do you know …Is it a friend of yours?”

Gurronsevas knew as soon as he spoke that it was an unnecessary question. All the faces in the pictures were so clear and sharp that the other could identify the injured Wem by the simple process of elimination.

“It is Creethar, their leader,” said Remrath in an even quieter voice. “A very brave and resourceful and well- loved hunter. Creethar is my last-born.”

CHAPTER 27

Tawsar was reluctant but sympathetic and Remrath was adamant, which meant that it was the First Cook who won the argument. Even so, it took three hours before Rhabwar with Remrath on board was able to lift off on the kind of mission that it had been expressly designed to perform.

The situation did not bear thinking about, even for a non-medical person like himself. For an emotion- sensitive like Prilicla, he thought, it must be ghastly.

Gurronsevas knew exactly how he felt about it, and he thought that he knew how Remrath and the other people on the casualty deck were feeling. In spite of the attempts they must be making to control their feelings, they must all be emoting strongly within a few yards of Prilicla. Perhaps that was why the Senior Physician had not prefixed any of their names with “friend” for more than an hour.

The Wem were so short of meat that far-ranging hunting parties were sent out to find it, and so low in technology that there was no way that the catch could be stored for long periods unless it was brought to the mine, so the only way to transport it over long distances was to keep it alive. If the casualty was not already dead, it and its fellow hunters would try to keep it alive so that the young body meat that it must give up to its people would be fresh when it arrived home.

In spite of the continuing pain it would suffer on the journey, and of the fact that its selectively cannibalistic race knew little or nothing of the practice of curative medicine, Remrath told them that Creethar would try to stay alive until the last possible moment. As a brave and honorable Wem it was Creethar’s bounden duty to do so.

Now Remrath was standing before the casualty deck’s view-screen, displaying no visible reaction as Fletcher brought Rhabwar down for a full emergency landing, which Gurronsevas felt sure was little more than a controlled crash, a few hundred yards from the Wem hunting party.

Prilicla was hovering unsteadily beside him. He spoke to hide his anxiety, realizing at once that no feelings could be hidden from an empath.

“When I spoke to Tawsar and Remrath,” Gurronsevas said quietly, in spite of the translator bypass, “together and separately as you asked, there was disagreement. Tawsar forbade us to interfere and Remrath was anxious to help us in every way possible. So if we try to help Creethar without Tawsar’s permission, our present good relations with the Wem may be jeopardized. But from what I have seen, Tawsar likes and respects its first cook and healer, and at present feels great sympathy towards it, so the risk may be a small one. Creethar is, after all, Remrath’s youngest and only surviving offspring.”

“You have already said these things to me,” the empath replied, “and then as now your attempt at reassurance is appreciated. But as the senior medical officer of an ambulance ship I have no choice. Or is your feeling of anxiety due to something else?”

“I’m not sure,” said Gurronsevas. “There seems to be a problem with communication. Against Tawsar’s wishes Remrath is flying out with us to reassure the hunting party about our good intentions, so that we can bring Creethar home quickly for treatment or to die. But it doesn’t seem to want that. Before it left the mine with me, you must have overheard it telling Tawsar that as the parent, it had the final say in what was to happen to the damaged First Hunter and that it wanted the off-worlders, rather than itself or another Wem, to take Creethar into the ship for as long as would be necessary.

“Nothing more was said to me directly,” he went on, “and I do not have your ability to read emotional radiation. But why would a parent in this terrible situation give its offspring to us, to utterly strange beings it has known for such a short time, with so little argument? I felt sure that it was saying less, much less, than it was thinking and feeling. This worries me.”

“I know your feelings, and Remrath’s,” said the empath. “Right now it is radiating the combination of uncertainty and grief characteristic of the expected loss of a loved one, the severity of whose injuries and chances of survival are unknown. And, almost submerged by these stronger feelings, there is a child-like wonder and excitement of its first experience of flying. It is an intelligent being with, in spite of the present near-barbaric situation on Wemar, a civilized and liberal mind who trusts us. That trust was won by you, friend Gurronsevas, and as a result we will be able to give Creethar the best treatment possible, with parental consent.

“You have no reason to worry,” Prilicla ended, “but still you are worrying.”

Before he could reply, the deck plating pressed gently against their feet as the gravity compensators evened out the shock of the emergency landing. Warm, outside air blew around them as the casualty deck’s boarding lock swung open. Remrath climbed stiffly onto the litter and the medical team, with the exception of Pathologist Murchison who would prepare to receive the casualty following the preliminary report on its medical condition, moved down the ramp and toward the hunting party.

Remrath took charge at that point, ordering the others to remain silent while it did the talking. Unless it was present, it had insisted, any attempt the off-worlders might make to retrieve Creethar would certainly fail, probably with many casualties on both sides, if another Wem was not present to speak to them with authority. The medical team had been forced to agree. But Gurronsevas tried to put himself in the position of a Wem hunting party who were seeing a spaceship for the first time, and an off-world menagerie that was as strange as it was frightening, who were trying to take one of their number away from them.

He wondered if his friend was suffering from the overconfidence of age.

But Remrath was talking to them as if they were still its pupils, firmly, reassuringly, and with authority. First it told them that they had nothing to fear and then telling them why. It began with a brief and very simple lesson in astronomy that covered the formation of solar systems, the intelligent life-forms that some of them must contain, and the vast interstellar distances between them, and from there it went on to an equally short discussion