It was three hours after nightfall when something on the indicator-board for the robot sentries went off like a startled rattlesnake. Everybody, talking idly or concentrating on writing up the day’s observations, stiffened. Luis Gofredo, dozing in a chair, was on his feet instantly and crossing the hut to the instruments. His second-in-command, who had been playing chess with Willi Schallenmacher, rose and snatched his belt from the back of his chair, putting it on.
“Take it easy,” Gofredo said. “Probably just a cow or a horse—local equivalent—that’s strayed over from the other side.”
He sat down in front of one of the snooper screens and twisted knobs on the remote controls. The monochrome view, transformed from infra red, rotated as the snooper circled and changed course. The other screen showed the camp receding and the area around it widening as its snooper gained altitude.
“It’s not a big party,” Gofredo was saying. “I can’t see—Oh, yes I can. Only two of them.”
The humanoid figures, one larger than the other, were moving cautiously across the fields, crouching low. The snooper went down toward them, and then he recognized them. The man and woman whom the blue-robed villager had tried to shove out of the queue, that afternoon. Gofredo recognized them, too.
“Your friends, Mark. Harry,” he told his subordinate, “go out and pass the word around. Only two, and we think they’re friendly. Keep everybody out of sight; we don’t want to scare them away.”
The snooper followed closely behind them. The man was no longer wearing his apron; the woman’s tunic was even more tattered and soiled. She was leading him by the hand. Now and then, she would stop and turn her head to the rear. The snooper over the mound showed nothing but half a dozen fire-watchers dozing by their fires. Then the pair were at the edge of the camp lights. As they advanced, they seemed to realize that they had passed a point-of-no-return. They straightened and came forward steadily, the woman seeming to be guiding her companion.
“What’s happening, Mark?”
It was Lillian; she must have just come out of the soundproof speech-lab.
“You know them; the pair in the queue, this afternoon. I think we’ve annexed a couple of friendly natives.”
They all went outside. The two natives, having come into the camp, had stopped. For a moment, the man in the breechclout seemed undecided whether he was more afraid to turn and run than advance. The woman, holding his hand, led him forward. They were both bruised, and both had minor cuts, and neither of them had any of the things that had been given to them that afternoon.
“Rest of the gang beat them up and robbed them,” Gofredo began angrily.
“See what you did?” Dorver began. “According to their own customs, they had no right to be ahead of those others, and now you’ve gotten them punished for it.”
“I’d have done more to that fellow then Mark did, if I’d been there when it happened.” The Marine officer turned to Meillard. “Look, this is your show, Paul; how you run it is your job. But in your place, I’d take that pair back to the village and have them point out who beat them up, and teach the whole gang of them a lesson. If you’re going to colonize this planet, you’re going to have to establish Federation law, and Federation law says you mustn’t gang up on people and beat and rob them. We don’t have to speak Svantese to make them understand what we’ll put up with and what we won’t.”
“Later, Luis. After we’ve gotten a treaty with somebody.” Meillard broke off. “Watch this!”
The woman was making sign-talk. She pointed to the village on the mound. Then, with her hands, she shaped a bucket like the ones that had been given to them, and made a snatching gesture away from herself. She indicated the neckcloths, and the sheath knife and the other things, and snatched them away too. She made beating motions, and touched her bruises and the man’s. All the time, she was talking excitedly, in a high, shrill voice. The man made the same ghroogh-ghroogh noises that he had that afternoon.
“No; we can’t take any punitive action. Not now,” Meillard said. “But we’ll have to do something for them.”
Vengeance, it seemed, wasn’t what they wanted. The woman made vehement gestures of rejection toward the village, then bowed, placing her hands on her brow. The man imitated her obeisance, then they both straightened. The woman pointed to herself and to the man, and around the circle of huts and landing craft. She began scuttling about, picking up imaginary litter and sweeping with an imaginary broom. The man started pounding with an imaginary hammer, then chopping with an imaginary ax.
Lillian was clapping her hands softly. “Good; got it the first time. ‘You let us stay; we work for you.’ How about it, Paul?”
Meillard nodded. “Punitive action’s unadvisable, but we will show our attitude by taking them in. You tell them, Luis; these people seem to like your voice.”
Gofredo put a hand on each of their shoulders. “You … stay … with us.” He pointed around the camp. “You … stay … this … place.”
Their faces broke into that funny just-before-tears expression that meant happiness with them. The man confined his vocal expressions to his odd ghroogh-ghroogh-ing; the woman twittered joyfully. Gofredo put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, pointed to the man and from him back to her. “Unh?” he inquired.
The woman put a hand on the man’s head, then brought it down to within a foot of the ground. She picked up the imaginary infant and rocked it in
