bone fashion inside, with the paddles operated by the foremost sets of pincer-equipped arms.
The Bree’s leeward flame throwers were manned, though Barlennan doubted that they would be useful under these conditions. Krendoranic, the munitions officer, was working furiously at one of his storage bins, but no one knew what he was up to; there was no standard procedure for his department in such a situation. Actually, the entire defense routine of the ship was being upset by the lack of wind, something that almost never occurred on the open sea.
Any chance there might have been to make effective use of the flame dust vanished as the fleet of canoes opened out to surround the Bree. Two or three yards from her on all sides, they glided to a stop, and for a minute or two there was silence. To Lackland’s intense annoyance, the sun set at this point and he was no longer able to see what went on. The next eight minutes he had to spend trying to attach meaning to the weird sounds that came over the set, which was not a very profitable effort since none of them formed words in any language he knew. There was nothing that denoted any violent activity; apparently the two crews were simply speaking to each other in experimental fashion. He judged, however, that they could find no’cdmmon language, since there appeared to be nothing like a sustained conversation.
With sunrise, however, he discovered that the night had not been wholly uneventful. By rights, the Bree should have drifted some distance downstream during the darkness; actually, she was still opposite the village. Furthermore she was no longer far out in the river, but only a few yards from the bank. Lackland was about to ask Barlennan what he meant by taking such a risk, and also how he had managed to maneuver the Bree, when it became evident that the captain was just as surprised as he at this turn of events.
Wearing a slightly annoyed expression, Lackland turned to one of the men sitting beside him, with the remark:
„Barl has let himself get into trouble already. I know he’s a smart fellow, but with over thirty thousand miles to go I don’t like to see him getting held up in the first hundred.”
„Aren’t you going to help him? There’s a couple of billion dollars, not to mention a lot of reputations, riding with him.”
„What can I do? All I could give would be advice, and he can size up the situation better than I can. He can see it better, and is dealing with his own sort of people.”
„From what I can see, they’re about as much his sort as the South Sea Islanders were Captain Cook’s. I grant they appear to be the same species, but if they’re, say, cannibals your friend may really be in hot water.”
„I still couldn’t help him, could I? How do you talk a cannibal out of a square meal when you don’t know his language and aren’t even facing him in person? What attention would he pay to a little square box that talked to him in a strange language?” The other raised his eyebrows a trifle.
„While I’m not mind reader enough to predict that one in detail, I would suggest that in such a case he might just possibly be scared enough to do almost anything. As aa ethnologist I can assure you that there are primitive races on a lot of planets, including our own Earth, who would bow down, hold square dances, and even make sacrifices to a box that talked to them.”
Lackland digested that remark in silence for a few moments, nodded thoughtfully, and turned back to the screens.
A number of sailors had seized spare masts and were trying to pole back toward the center of the river, but were having no success. Dondragmer, after a brief investigation around the outer rafts, reported that they were in a cage formed of piles driven into the river bed; only the upstream side was open. It might or might not be coincidence that the cage was just large enough to accommodate the Bree. As this report was made, the canoes drifted away from the three closed sides of the cage and congregated on the fourth; and the sailors, who had heard the mate’s report and prepared to pole in the upstream direction, looked to Barlennan for instructions. After a moment’s thought, he motioned the crew to the far end of the ship and crawled alone to the end facing the assembled canoes. He had long since figured out how his ship had been moved; with the coming of darkness some of the paddlers must have gone quietly overboard, swum beneath the Bree, and pushed her where they wanted. There was nothing too surprising in that; he himself could exist for some time beneath the surface of river or ocean, which normally carried a good deal of dissolved hydrogen. What bothered him was just why these people wanted the ship.
As he passed one of the provision lockers he pulled back its cover and extracted a piece of meat. This he carried to the edge of the ship and held out toward the crowd of now silent captors. Presently some unintelligible gabbling sounded among them; then this ceased, as one of the canoes eased slowly forward and a native in the bow reared up and forward toward the offering. Barlennan let him take it. It was tested and commented upon; then the chief, if that was his position, tore off a generous fragment, passed the rest back to his companions, and thoughtfully consumed what he had kept. Barlennan was encouraged; the fact that he hadn’t kept it all suggested that these people had some degree of social development. Obtaining another piece, the captain held it out as before; but this time, when the other reached for it, it was withheld. Barlennan put it firmly behind him, crawled to the nearest of the piles that were imprisoning his ship, indicated it, gestured to the Bree, and pointed out into the river. He was sure his meaning was plain, as undoubtedly it was; certainly the human watchers far above understood him, though no word of their language had been used. The chief, however, made no move. Barlennan repeated the gestures, and finished by holding out the meat once more.
Any social consciousness the chief possessed must have been strictly in connection with his own society; for as the captain held out the meat a second time a spear licked out like the tongue of a chameleon, impaled the food, jerked it
out of Barlennan’s grasp, and was withdrawn before any one of the startled sailors could move. An instant later the chief gave a single barking order; and as he did so half the crew of each of the canoes behind him leaped forward.
The sailors were completely unused to aerial assault, and had also relaxed a trifle when their captain began his negotiation; in consequence, there was nothing resembling a fight. The Bree was captured in something less than five seconds. A committee headed by the chief began at once to investigate the food lockers, and their satisfaction was evident even through the language barrier. Barlennan watched with dismay as the meat was dragged out on deck in obvious preparation for transferral to a canoe, and for the first time it occurred to him that there was a possible source of advice which he had not yet used.
„Charles!” he called, speaking English for the first time since the incident had begun. „Have you been watching?” Lackland, with mixed anxiety and amusement, answered at once.
„Yes, Barl; I know what’s been going on.” He watched the Bree’s captors for reaction as he spoke, and had no reason to feel disappointed. The chief, who had been facing away from the point where the radios were lashed, switched ends like a startled rattlesnake and then began looking around for the source of the voice with an unbelievably human air of bewilderment. One of his men who had been facing the radios indicated to him the one whose speaker Lackland had used, but after poking around the impenetrable box with knife and lance the chief obviously rejected this suggestion. This was the moment the Earthman chose for speaking again.
„Do you think there’s any chance of getting them scared of the radios, Barl?”
The chief’s head was about two inches from the speaker this time, and Lackland had made no effort to reduce the volume. Consequently there was no question where the sound had come from; and the chief began backing away from the noisy box. He was evidently trying to go slowly enough to satisfy his self-respect and fast enough to suit his other emotions, and once again Lackland had trouble in not laughing aloud.
Before Barlennan had a chance to reply Dondragmer moved over to the pile of meat, selected a choice piece, and laid it in front of the radio set with every indication of humility. He had taken a chance on having a pair of knives meet in his body, and knew it; but his guards were too absorbed by the new situation to take offense at his motion. Lackland, understanding how the mate had interpreted his own lead, followed on; he reduced the volume in the hope that his next utterance would seem less like anger to the canoeists, and heartily approved the mate’s action.
„Good work, Don. Every time one of you does something like that I’ll try to show approval; and I’ll bark like nobody’s business at anything I don’t want our new acquaintances to be doing. You know the appropriate actions better than I, so just do everything in your power to make „em think these radio boxes are high-powered beings who’ll deliver lightning if properly annoyed.”
„I understand; we can hold our end,” replied the mate. „I thought that was what you had in mind.”
The chief, gathering his courage once more, suddenly lunged at the nearest radio with his spear. Lackland remained silent, feeling that the natural result on the wooden point would be impressive enough; the sailors entered with a will into the game outlined by the Flyer. With what Lackland supposed were the equivalent of gasps of pious horror, they turned away from the scene and covered their eyes with their pincers. After a moment, seeing that nothing further was happening, Barlennan offered another piece of meat, at the same time gesturing in a way meant to convey the impression that he was begging for the Me of the ignorant stranger. The river people were quite evidently impressed, and the chief drew back a little, gathered his committee, and began to discuss the whole situation with them. Finally one of the chief’s counselors, in what was evidently an experiment, picked up a piece of meat and gave it to the nearest radio. Lackland was about to express gentle thanks when Don-dragmer’s voice came, „Refuse it!” Not knowing why but willing to trust the mate’s judgment, Lackland turned up the volume and emitted a lionlike roar. The donor leaped back in genuine and unmistakable terror; then, at a sharp order from the chief, he crawled forward, retrieved the offending bit of food, selected another from the pile on the deck, and presented that.
„All right.” It was the mate’s voice again, and the Earthman lowered the volume of the speaker.
„What was wrong the other time?” he asked quietly.
„I wouldn’t have given that piece to a ternee belonging to my worst enemy,” replied Dondragmer.
„I keep finding resemblances between your people and mine in the darnedest situations,” Lackland remarked. „I hope this business is suspended for the night; I can’t see what’s going on in the dark. If anything happens that I should react to, for heaven’s sake tell me.” This remark was prompted by the arrival of sunset once more, and Barlennan assured him that he would be kept informed. The captain had recovered his poise, and was once again more or less in control of the situation — as far as a prisoner could be.
The night was spent by the chief in discussion; his voice, interrupted occasionally by others’ which must belong to his counselors, came clearly to the Earthmen far above. By dawn he had apparently reached a decision. He had drawn a little apart from his counselors and laid down his weapons; now, as sunlight slanted once more across the deck, he advanced toward Barlennan, waving the latter’s guards away as he approached. The captain, already fairly sure in his mind what the other wanted, waited calmly. The chief halted with his head a few inches from Barlennan’s, paused impressively for a moment, and began to speak.
His words were still unintelligible to the sailors, naturally enough; but the gestures accompanying them were clear enough to give the speech meaning even to the distant human watchers.
Quite plainly, he wanted a radio. Lackland found himself speculating idly on just what supernatural powers the chief supposed the device to possess. Perhaps he wanted it to protect the village from enemies, or to bring luck to his hunters. That was not really an important question, however; what mattered would be his attitude when the request was refused. That might possibly be rather anti-social, and Lackland was still worrying a trifle.
Barlennan, showing what his human friend felt was rather more courage than sense, answered the speech briefly; a single word and a gesture which Lackland had long since come to recognize comprised the reply. „No” was the first Mesklinite word which Lackland learned beyond doubt, and he learned it for the first time now. Barlennan was very definite.
The chief, to the relief of at least one watcher, did not take „a belligerent attitude. Instead, he gave a brief order to his men. Several of these at once laid aside their weapons and began restoring the looted food to the lockers from which it had been taken. If freedom were not enough for one of the magic boxes, he was willing to pay more. Both Barlennan and Lackland more than suspected that the fellow was now afraid to use force, badly as his possessive instincts were aroused.
With half the food returned, the chief repeated his request; when it was refused as before, he gave an amazingly human gesture of resignation and ordered his men to restore.the rest. Lackland was getting uneasy.
„What do you think hell do when you refuse him now, Barl?” he asked softly. The chief looked at the box hopefully; perhaps it was arguing with its owner, ordering him to give his captor what he wanted.
„I’m not sure enough to venture a prediction,’’ the Mesklinite replied. „With luck, hell bring us more stuff from the village to add to the price; but I’m not sure luck goes that! far. If the radio were less important, I’d give it to him now.” — ”For heaven’s sake!” The ethnologist sitting beside Lackland practically exploded at this point. „Have you been going through all this rigmarole and risking your life and: those of your men just to hang onto a cheap vision set?”
„Hardly cheap,” muttered Lackland. „They were designed to hold up at Mesklin’s poles, under Mesklinite atmosphere, and through the handling of Mesklinite natives.”
„Don’t quibble!” snapped the student of cultures. „What are those sets down there for if not to get information? Give one to that savage! Where could it be better placed? And how could we observe the everyday life of a completely strange race better than through that eye? Charles, sometimes I wonder at you!”
„That will leave three in Barlennan’s possession, of which one absolutely must get to the south pole. I see your point, but I think we’d better get Rosten’s approval before we actually leave one this early on the way.”
