The Man Who Counts

XXI

“It is these ideological pfuities that make the real nasty wars,” said Van Rijn. “But now I have taken off the ideology and we can sensible and friendly settle down to swindling each other, nie?”

He had not, of course, explained his hypothesis in such detail. Lannach’s philosophers had some vague idea of evolution, but were weak on astronomy; Drak’ho science was almost the reverse. Van Rijn had contented himself with very simple, repetitious words, sketching what must be the only reasonable explanation of the well-known reproductive differences.

He rubbed his hands and chortled into a tautening silence. “So! I have not made it all sweetness. Even I cannot do that overnights. For long times to come yet, you each think the others go about this in disgusting style. You make filthy jokes about each other… I know some good ones you can adapt. But you know, at least, that you are of the same race. Any of you could have been a solid member of the other nation, nie? Maybe, come changing times, you start switching around your ways to live. Why not experiment a little, ha? No, no, I see you can not like that idea yet, I say no more.”

He folded his arms and waited, bulky, shaggy, ragged, and caked with the grime of weeks. On creaking planks, under a red sun and a low sea wind, the scores of winged warriors and captains shuddered in the face of the unimagined.

Delp said at last, so slow and heavy it did not really break that drumhead silence: “Yes. This makes sense. I believe it.”

After another minute, bowing his head toward stone-rigid T’heonax: “My lord, this does change the situation. I think — it will not be as much as we hoped for, but better than I feared — We can make terms, they to have all the land and we to have the Sea of Achan. Now that I know they are not… devils… animals — Well, the normal guarantees, oaths and exchange of hostages and so on — should make the treaty firm enough.”

Tolk had been whispering in Trolwen’s ear. Lannach’s commander nodded. “That is much my own thought,” he said.

“Can we persuade the Council and the clans, Flockchief?” muttered Tolk.

“Herald, if we bring back an honorable peace, the Council will vote our ghosts godhood after we die.”

Tolk’s gaze shifted back to T’heonax, lying without movement among his courtiers. And the grizzled fur lifted along the Herald’s back.

“Let us first return to the Council alive, Flock-chief,” he said.

T’heonax rose. His wings beat the air, cracking noises like an ax going through bone. His muzzle wrinkled into a lion mask, long teeth gleamed wetly forth, and he roared:

“No! I’ve heard enough! This farce is at an end!”

Trolwen and the Lannacha escort did not need an interpreter. They clapped hands to weapons and fell into a defensive circle. Their jaws clashed shut automatically, biting the wind.

“My lord!” Delp sprang fully erect.

“Be still!” screeched T’heonax. “You’ve said far too much.” His head swung from side to side. “Captains of the Fleet, you have heard how Delp hyr Orikan advocates making peace with creatures lower than the beasts. Remember it!”

“But my lord—” An older officer stood up, hands aloft in protest. “My lord admiral, we’ve just had it shown to us, they aren’t beasts… it’s only a different—”

“Assuming the Eart’ho spoke truth, which is by no means sure, what of it?” T’heonax fleered at Van Rijn. “It only makes the matter worse. We know beasts can’t help themselves but these Lannach’honai are dirty by choice. And you would let them live? You would… would trade with them… enter their towns… let your young be seduced into their — No!”

The captains looked at each other. It was like an audible groan. Only Delp seemed to have the courage to speak again.

“I humbly beg the admiral to recall, we’ve no real choice. If we fight them to a finish, it may be our own finish too.”

“Ridiculous!” snorted T’heonax. “Either you are afraid or they’ve bribed you.”

Tolk had been translating sotto voce for Trolwen. Now, sickly, Wace heard the commander’s grim reply to his Herald: “If he takes that attitude, a treaty is out of the question. Even if he made it, he’d sacrifice his hostages to us — not to speak of ours to him — just to renew the war whenever he felt ready. Let’s get back before I myself violate the truce!”

And there, thought Wace, is the end of the world. I will die under flung stones, and Sandra will die in Glacier Land. Well… we tried.

He braced himself. The admiral might not let this embassy depart.

Delp was looking around from face to face. “Captains of the Fleet,” he cried, “I ask your opinion… 1 implore you, persuade my lord admiral that—”

“The next treasonable word uttered by anyone will cost him his wings,” shouted T’heonax. “Or do you question my authority?”

It was a bold move, thought Wace in a distant part of his thuttering brain — to stake all he had on that one challenge. But of course, T’heonax was going to get away with it; no one in this caste-ridden society would deny his absolute power, not even Delp the bold. Reluctant they might be, but the captains would obey.

The silence grew shattering.

Nicholas van Rijn broke it with a long, juicy Bronx cheer.

The whole assembly started. T’heonax leaped backward and for a moment he was like a bat-winged tomcat.

“What was that?” he blazed.

“Are you deaf?” answered Van Rijn mildly. “I said—” He repeated with tremolo.

“What do you mean?”

“It is an Earth term,” said Van Rijn. “As near as I can render it, let me see… well, it means you are a—” The rest was the most imaginative obscenity Wace had heard in his life.

The captains gasped. Some drew their weapons. The Drak’ho guards on the upper decks gripped bows and spears. “Kill him!” screamed T’heonax.

“No!” Van Rijn’s bass exploded on their ears. The sheer volume of it paralyzed them. “I am an embassy, by damn! You hurt an embassy and the Lodestar will sink you in hell’s boiling seas!”

It checked them. T’heonax did not repeat his order; the guards jerked back toward stillness; the officers remained poised, outraged past words.

“I have somethings to say you,” Van Rijn continued, only twice as loud as a large foghorn. “I speak to all the Fleet, and ask you ask yourselves, why this little pip squeaker does so stupid. He makes you carry on a war where both sides lose — he makes you risk your lives, your wives and cubs, maybe the Fleet’s own surviving — why? Because he is afraid. He knows, a few years cheek by jowl next to the Lannach’honai, and even more so trading with my company at my fantastic low prices, things begin to change. You get more into thinking by your own selves. You taste freedom. Bit by bit, his power slides from him. And he is too much a coward to live on his own selfs. Nie, he has got to have guards and slaves and all of you to make bossing over, so he proves to himself he is not just a little jellypot but a real true Leader. Rather he will have the Fleet ruined, even die himself, than lose this prop up, him!”

T’heonax said, shaking: “Get off my raft before I forget there is an armistice.”

“Oh, I go, I go,” said Van Rijn. He advanced toward the admiral. His tread reverberated in the deck. “I go back and make war again if you insist. But only one small question I ask first.” He stopped before the royal presence and prodded the royal nose with a hairy forefinger. “Why you make so much fuss about Lannacha home lifes? Could be maybe down underneath you hanker to try it yourself?”

He turned his back, then, and bowed.

Wace did not see just what happened. There were guards and captains between. He heard a screech, a bellow from Van Rijn, and then there was a hurricane of wings before him.

Something — He threw himself into the press of bodies. A tail crashed against his ribs. He hardly felt it; his fist jolted, merely to get a warrior out of the way and see -

Nicholas van Rijn stood with both hands in the air as a score of spears menaced him. “The admiral bit me!” he wailed. “I am here like an embassy, and the pig bites me! What kind of relations between countries is that, when heads of state bite foreign ambassadors, ha? Does an Earth president bite diplomats? This is uncivilized!”

T’heonax backed off, spitting, scrubbing the blood from his jaws. “Get out,” he said in a strangled voice. “Go at once.”

Van Rijn nodded. “Come, friends,” he said. “We find us places with better manners.”

“Freeman… Freeman, where did he—” Wace crowded close.

“Never mind where,” said Van Rijn huffily.

Trolwen and Tolk joined them. The Lannacha escort fell into step behind. They walked at a measured pace across the deck, away from the confusion of Drak’honai under the castle wall.

“You might have known it,” said Wace. He felt exhausted, drained of everything except a weak anger at his chief’s unbelievable folly. “This race is carnivorous. Haven’t you seen them snap when they get angry? It’s… a reflex — You might have known!”

“Well,” said Van Rijn in a most virtuous tone, holding both hands to his injury, “he did not have to bite. I am not responsible for his lack of control or any consequences of it, me. All good lawyer saints witness I am not.”

“But the ruckus — we could all have been killed!”

Van Rijn didn’t bother to argue about that.

Delp met them at the rail. His crest drooped. “I am sorry it must end thus,” he said. “We could have been friends.”

“Perhaps it does not end just so soon,” said Van Rijn.

“What do you mean?” Tired eyes regarded him without hope.

“Maybe you see pretty quick. Delp” — Van Rijn laid a paternal hand on the Drak’ho’s shoulder — “you are a good young chap. I could use a one like you, as a part-time agent for some tradings in these parts. On fat commissions, natural. But for now, remember you are the one they all like and respect. If anything happens to the admiral, there will be panic and uncertainty… they will turn to you for advice. If you act fast at such a moment, you can be admiral yourself! Then maybe we do business, ha?”

He left Delp gaping and swung himself with apish speed down into the canoe. “Now, boys,” he said, “row like hell.”

They were almost back to their own fleet when Wace saw clotted wings whirl up from the royal raft. He gulped. “Has the attack… has it begun already?” He cursed himself that his voice should be an idiotic squeak.

“Well, I am glad we are not close to them.” Van Rijn, standing up as he had done the whole trip, nodded complacently. “But I think not this is the war. I think they are just disturbed. Soon Delp will take charge and calms them down.”

“But — Delp?”

Van Rijn shrugged. “If Diomedean proteins is deadly to us,” he said, “ours should not be so good for them, ha? And our late friend T’heonax took a big mouthful of me. It all goes to show, these foul tempers only lead to trouble. Best you follow my example. When I am attacked, I turn the other cheek.”