The Right to Arm Bears (dilbia)

by Gordon R. Dickson

  Answer: No, I wouldn’t dare. Too close an association with anyone else would destroy the illusion of supernormality which was my best protection.

  Ergo, thought John, One Man could not be on Joshua’s side. Or on the Terror’s. In which case, it was just barely possible to persuade him to be on John’s.

  John put on his shoes and got quietly to his feet. It would not be a bad idea, he thought, to hunt up One Man right now and see if they could not have a further, and more private, chat about things.

  He went softly down the long length of the dormitory and out through the hide curtain into the common room.

  There were few Dilbians left at the tables; and One Man’s chair was empty. He had not taken one of the branch-mounds in the dormitory; so either he had separate quarters elsewhere, or perhaps he did not sleep here at the inn. John stood a moment, irresolutely. The few Dilbians in the room were ignoring him, by reason of that particular blindness to someone his size that he had encountered before. They simply were not expecting to see anyone built that close to the ground. In a literal sense, they were all looking over his head.

  It occurred to John that One Man might still be around, but have stepped outside, or retired to one of the smaller houses or whatever they were behind the inn. Quietly—after his experience at Brittle Rock Inn he had no wish to call attention to himself—he crossed the room, pushed the heavy hide curtain aside and slipped out.

  Outside, he paused to accustom his eyes to the night, moving a little way off from the inn to get away from the door and window light. Slowly, the starlit scene took shape around him, solidifying out of obscurity. The wide face of the river ran silver-dark in the faint light, and the distant woods loomed like the tidal wave of some black sea. The clearing where the Inn and the outbuildings behind it stood, lay pooled in silence.

  He turned and found his way cautiously around the main building to its back. Unlike the Brittle Rock establishment, the backyard area here, sloping gradually to the river, was clear of rubbish; and the outbuildings themselves were neatly in good repair. Between them, when the way was close, the shadows were deeper and John had almost to feel his way.

  It occurred to him then—and he wondered why he had not thought of it before—that a good share of these were probably private living quarters, not only for One Man, but for the rest of his staff, as well as any female visitors. Females seemed to have little to do with Dilbian inns, except in a service capacity. Now, as he groped among the close dark shapes of these buildings he found himself wondering how he could check on whoever might be in them, without raising some kind of alarm.

  Just then he caught sight of a thin blade of yellow light between two hide curtains of a building around the corner from one he had just passed. He turned and went toward the light; but as he passed by a little patch of deeper shadow a hand reached out and took him by the arms.

  “Do you want to get killed?” hissed a voice.

  And of course, it spoke Basic. For both the hand and voice were human.

  CHAPTER 11

  The grip on John’s arm drew him away, deeper into the shadow and around behind a building that blocked him off from the window light. They came on a door of this building and John felt himself led through its hide curtain. In the utter blackness of the interior, the hand left his arm. John stopped, instinctively; completely lost in the leather-smelling obscurity. Then there was a scratch, a sputter, and a candle burst into light only a few feet from him, blinding him.

  John blinked helplessly for several seconds against the sudden illumination. Gradually he became able to see again, and when he did, he found himself looking down—for the first time in two days—into the face of one of the prettiest young women he had seen in a long time.

  She was perhaps a foot shorter than he was, but at first glance looked taller by reason of her slimness and the tailored coveralls she wore. To John’s Dilbian-accustomed eyes, she looked tiny, not to say fragile. Her chestnut hair swept in two wide wings back on each side of her head. Her eyes were green-blue above marked cheekbones that gave her a sculptured look. Her nose was thin, her lips firm rather than full, and her small chin had a determined shape.

  John blinked again.

  “Who—?” he managed, after a minute.

  “I’m Ty Lamorc,” she said. “Keep your voice down!”

  “Ty Lamorc?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?” stammered John. “I mean, you—”

  “Who were you expecting to run into away out here in the center of—oh, I know!” she glared at him. “It’s that Greasy Face name the Dilbians gave me. You were expecting some sort of witch.”

  “Certainly not,” said John.

  “Well, for your information, they just happened to see me putting on makeup one day.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s where the name came from.”

  “Oh, of course. I never thought—”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t.”

  “Really,” said John.

  “Anyway, never mind that now. The point is, what on Earth are you doing out here? Do you want to get knocked on the head?”

  “I was trying to find One Man—” John suddenly stiffened and lowered his voice. “Is the Terror back here?”

  “No, but Boy Is She Built is. She’s been guarding me. And she’ll kill you if she gets her hands on you. She hasn’t even told the Terror you’re after him.”

  John stared.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “The Terror wouldn’t run from a fight. He’d run toward it. He thinks it’s just the Hill Bluffer after him with a demand from the Humrog mayor that he bring me back. Boy Is She Built doesn’t want the Terror to get into trouble by killing you.”

  “But she’s willing to do it, herself.”

  “She’s in love with the Terror. That’s the way she thinks. And she doesn’t know—well, how essentially harmless your mission is. Now, what we’ve got to do is smuggle you back into the dormitory before she catches you. She won’t go in there after you. It’s treaty ground inside, anyway.”

  “Hold on a minute,” said John, as Ty took hold of his arm again. He did not move. “Aren’t we getting this a little mixed up? I mean—who’s rescuing who? I came along here to find you and bring you back to Humrog. Well, I’ve found you. Come along back to the main inn building with me and I’ll wake up the Hill Bluffer and explain things—”

  “You don’t,” interrupted Ty with feeling, “understand a blasted thing about these Dilbians, Half-Pint—I mean, Mr. Tardy.”

  “Call me John,” said John.

  “John, you don’t understand the situation. The Terror left me here because he knew Boy Is She Built would stay on watch. And she will. She’ll be back looking for me in ten more minutes; and if I’m not where she left me, she’ll be right after us. So even if we did try to get away, she’d catch us. Also, the Bluffer’s honor bound to deliver you to the Terror. The Terror’s honor bound to fight you when that happens, or any time he finds out you’re after him to take me away. So he’d be after us, too. And if she couldn’t catch us, he certainly could.”

  “But—”

  “Will you listen to me?” hissed Ty. “I’m a sociologist. I’ve put in six months studying these people. What we’ve got to do is keep you out of danger until the Terror takes me into the Hollows, his own clan territory. Once he does that, it’ll be up to the grandfathers of his clan to decide what happens to me, and you and the Terror, and all. I can demand a hearing and explain that I’ve got no connection by blood or anything like that with Joshua, and then they’ll rule that the Terror wasn’t within his rights to steal me in retaliation for Joshua’s insult; I’m sure they will. Then, there’ll be no reason for the Terror to fight you and we can both go back, safely.”

  “If you’re so sure of that,” said John, “how come I was sent out here in the first place?”

  “Oh, Joshua doesn’t understand these people much better than you do.”

/>   “I can believe that,” said John.

  “So, you go back to the main inn building now. And be careful!”

  “Well…” John hesitated. “I still think I ought to play safe and try to take you away, tonight. With a good start and by wrecking the Knobby Gorge bridge—” He paused and considered her. She was remarkably small and fragile-looking. The thought of the Terror grabbing her up and running off with her made him growl a little bit inside, at that. “I just don’t think we should take any chances with your safety,” he wound up.

  Ty Lamorc stood perfectly still for a long second, looking at him. The expression on her face was one he could not fathom.

  “Well, John!” she said, finally, and suddenly her eyes were quite soft. She reached out and touched his arm. “That was very nice of you,” she said, in a low voice. “Thank you, John.”

  Then, suddenly, before he could move, she blew out the candle. In the sudden darkness he heard the hide curtain flap and sway.

  “Ty?” he said.

  But there was no answer. She had gone.

  He felt his way out of the hut, and emerged into the dimness of the starlit night outside. He squinted around himself, located the main building and headed through the darkness toward it.

  Something large and leathery descended out of nowhere, wrapping around him. A couple of powerful arms lifted him off the ground. He fought, but it was useless. He felt himself being carried off.

  Inside the tight folds of the leather enfolding him he began to suffocate. Very shortly, he lost consciousness. Things became soft and pillowy about him. He seemed to swim off into blackness.

  Then, there was nothing.

  CHAPTER 12

  John awoke with the vague impression that he had overslept on a work day and was due on the job. Opening his eyes, he was puzzled and surprised to see the intricate branches of treetops black against the paling grey of a predawn sky.

  How did he get here? he wondered.

  His next vague impression was that he had been someplace and drunk too much the night before. He had the ugly taste in his mouth and dull skullcap of a headache that goes with a hangover. Then everything to do with Dilbia came back to his mind with a rush, up to and including the memory of being carried off after leaving his talk with Ty Lamorc.

  He sat up to look around him, achieving this with a difficulty that led him to discover that his forearms and ankles were bound and tied with thick rope.

  He found he was seated on damp leaves over damp forest earth, in a little clearing. A small fire was burning about fifteen feet from him. At the fire sat Boy Is She Built and the short, broad Hemnoid, Tark-ay.

  Boy Is She Built jerked up her head to look as John raised himself into a sitting position, and Tark-ay’s glance followed in a more leisurely manner. In the wild woods, sitting over the pale fire just as dawn was breaking in the sky, they looked like a scene out of some oriental books of legends, the wise man and the beast. Just then Boy Is She Built opened her mouth and blew the illusion to smithereens.

  “He’s conscious!” she said. The tone of her voice was accusing.

  “To be sure, little lady,” responded Tark-ay. His voice, like the voice of all Hemnoids, had a heavy, liquid quality. It was somewhat higher in tone than that of a male Dilbian would have been. In fact, he and Boy Is She Built operated in about the same vocal range. “He’s been merely asleep for several hours now. I was very careful.”

  “In the old days,” said Boy Is She Built, hopefully, “they used to break the legs of prisoners to keep them from getting away.”

  “We aren’t barbarians, after all though, little lady,” protested Tark-ay mildly.

  “Oh, you’re all so stubborn!” said Boy Is She Built, huffily. “It isn’t good enough just to hit him over the head. Oh, no! We have to carry him here, and carry him there. My Terror’s not like that.”

  “That,” pointed out Tark-ay, “is exactly why we don’t want your Terror to know this little fellow is after him. If I might remind you—”

  “Well, I’m getting tired of waiting, that’s all!” said Boy Is She Built. “If the Beer-Guts Bouncer isn’t here by an hour after sunrise, I’m going to hit him on the head, and that’s that.”

  “I would have to stop you from doing anything like that, little lady.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” She glared at him. “I’d tell the Terror!”

  “That would be too bad, little lady. But,” said Tark-ay almost apologetically, “you ought to understand that I would still have to stop you. It would be my duty. And you should also understand that in the regrettable instance of the Terror and I coming to blows, I would have no doubt of emerging the winner.”

  “You! I can just see you beating up the Terror!” said Boy Is She Built and laughed nastily. “He’s twice as big as you are.”

  “Not twice. Somewhat taller, it’s true. But our weights aren’t so far apart as most of your people might think. And besides, it would make no real difference—even if Streamside was, in truth, twice my size.”

  “Why not, smarty?” said Boy Is She Built.

  “Because of the high skills and arts of unarmed combat, developed on my world, in which I am an expert. Now, suppose Streamside should rush at me with intent to do me harm.”

  “He’d swarm all over you.”

  “Not at all.” Tark-ay got to his feet in one quick motion. “He comes rushing at me. I meet him, so—!” Suddenly the short Hemnoid twisted, half bent over, and lashed out with a foot. “Then, before he can recover, I am all over him!” Tark-ay straightened up and bounded forward. His open hands made slashing cutting motions in the air.

  “You aren’t going to stop the Terror by slapping him,” said Boy Is She Built. “Oh yes, I can just see you slapping my Terror!”

  “Slapping?” said Tark-ay. There was a fair-sized length of log near the fire. Tark-ay picked it up and leaned it against a close tree. His open hand cut at it, and the log broke loudly into two sections. “You will be happier, little lady,” said Tark-ay sitting down once more by the fire, “if your Terror never has anything to do with me in an unfriendly way.”

  He bent to put one of the broken log-pieces on the fire. And John, watching, saw a peculiar glitter in the eyes of Boy Is She Built, as she gazed at the Hemnoid. One furry hand of the young Dilbian female reached for a large rock nearby, hesitated, and then returned to her lap. It occurred to John that Tark-ay might be an expert in the high skills and arts of unarmed combat developed on his world; but he was pretty much of a numbskull when it came to female psychology. Boy Is She Built had been going to a good deal of trouble to dispose of John because she thought of him as a threat to Streamside. And now Tark-ay had just incautiously revealed that he was also a threat, not only to the Terror’s honor, but to his very life and limb.

  Of course, a loyal female should perhaps have laughed the matter off, scorning to doubt her husband-to-be. But Boy Is She Built, while loyal enough to suit almost anybody, appeared to have a strong practical streak in her nature as well.

  John licked his lips, which were very dry.

  “I could use a drink of water,” he said out loud.

  Boy Is She Built looked up the slope at him.

  “Hmph!” said Boy Is She Built. She did not stir.

  “Are we barbarians?” cried Tark-ay, bouncing to his feet. He went to a canteen hanging from a nearby tree, brought it to John, unscrewed the top, peeled off a sterile cup, filled it and held it to John’s lips while he drank.

  “How about loosening these ropes?” asked John, after he had gulped a couple of cups of the water.

  “I’m sorry. Very sorry,” said Tark-ay and returned to the fireside.

  They all sat in silence, for some little while during which the sky turned pink and the local sun shoved his upper rim into sight behind the surrounding trees. Tark-ay got to his feet and began to bounce up and down, clapping his hands over his head. John stared. So did Boy Is She Built.

  “What’s wrong?” cried Boy Is
She Built.

  “Nothing, little lady,” replied Tark-ay, “merely my exercises which I do periodically during the morning hours.”

  “Well, I thought you’d eaten something!” said Boy Is She Built. She relaxed again. “Or sat on a splinter. Or something.”

  Tark-ay abandoned his initial exercise. He began one in which he leaped up from the ground, clicked his heels, clasped his hands, and winked. As soon as he hit the ground, he bounced up and went through the whole process all over again.

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever saw,” said Boy Is She Built. “What do you do something like that for?”

  “It is part of my training, little lady,” gasped Tark-ay. “A true master of the skills and arts does it once each time before he says anything. It builds character.”

  “Well, I think it’s utterly ridiculous,” said Boy Is She Built. She lay down and curled up on her side. “Call me when the Beer-Guts Bouncer gets here. I’m going to take a little nap.”

  She closed her eyes. Tark-ay continued bouncing. He ran through several more exercises before he ran down. Then, wiping his forehead, he waddled over and sat down by John.

  “She is a trial, that little lady,” he said, nodding at Boy Is She Built.

  “Oh?” said John, wondering if this was leading up to something.

  “Yes. Irrepressible youth. The eternal juvenile young female whose world is completely oriented to her own parochial ego. Anything that does not fit her own image of the universe is dismissed as unworthy of consideration.”

  “Is that so?” said John.

  “Only too truly so. You come from a civilized race the way I do. You understand me. She is driving me crazy.”

  “How?”

  “She’s just so—impossible. She knows nothing. And she thinks she knows everything. I was trying to explain a chance remark I made the other day about psychological pressure. Now, you know as well as I do she knows nothing about psychology.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” said John.

  “How could she? On this barbaric world? I started to explain what psychology was, to explain my remark. Well, first she got angry and said she knew as much about it as I did.”