The Venom Trees of Sunga

VI – The Hermit Seisen

Beneath a brilliant morning sun, the retired philosopher's hut of fieldstone and bamboolike canes stood on the barren slope above the nanshin belt. Adjacent rose another building, from the look of which Salazar took to be a barn. Around the buildings grew a scanty cover of herbs, patches of grassoid, and a few stunted trees. The mountain breeze whistled; Kirk Salazar pulled his bush jacket out of his pack.

One of the big, predatory zutas of the heights, two meters in wingspan, swooped over the hut, veered away, and flapped off around the curve of the mountain. Noting the pattern of black spots on the pale yellow wings, Salazar automatically thought: Nycteraetus romeroi.

To one side of the hut a pair of neat, precise rectangles of cultivated ground stood out from the waste. One showed bare, turned earth; the other bore a crop of some edible Kukulcanian vegetable.

Salazar saw no signs of life outside the hut. He warily circled the structure with a hand on his pistol. He felt a little foolish, as if he were acting the part of a hero in a Terran entertainment strip dealing with one of Terra's wilder historical periods, such as the western United States in the nineteenth century. But, he told himself, he would feel even sillier if he walked into an ambush unaware.

Still finding no sign of life, Salazar stopped before the door, a rough but solid piece of homemade carpentry. When he pushed, the door creaked open. Within, a voice spoke in Feënzuo:

"Do you aliens invade each other's houses uninvited?"

"I b-beg your pardon," said Salazar, mortified and flustered.

"I am not a judge about to sentence you for an offense and so have no authority to pardon you," said the voice. "If you wish to enter, simply say so."

"May I please come in?"

"You may."

Entering, Salazar took in the scanty furnishings. The walls were lined with sagging shelves on which stood rows and rows of books. One wall bore books of the Terran codex type. On the other stood rows of Kukulcanian books: boxed, glass-fronted scrolls on a pair of spindles, with little cranks for reeling the scroll past the window. The Terran book of the codex type had only begun to be accepted by the Kooks.

More books rose in piles like stalagmites from the floor. On the far side stood an aged male Kook holding a book in his claws so that the daylight through the window illuminated it.

This Kook differed from most in that he wore eyeglasses strapped over his reptilian, turtle-beaked muzzle. Kukulcanians did not suffer the progressive presbyopia that afflicted middle-aged and elderly Terrans, but extreme age nevertheless reduced their visual acuity. Kooks were wearing spectacles when Terrans first landed on the planet, but only a handful out of a thousand used them. Salazar said:

"Are you the philosopher Doctor Seisen?"

"Seisen is the name whereby I am known. As to whether I merit the term 'philosopher,' that depends on which of my colleagues you ask. And you, alien sir?"

Salazar noted that Seisen used the grammatical forms proper for addressing a person of lower social status.

Salazar identified himself and explained his reason for being on Mount Sungara. "But I understand that you require a book as a consulting fee. May I give you this?"

He held out the paperback copy of O'Sullivan. Seisen took it, turned it over, and handed it back, saying:

"I already have a copy hereof. If, however, you will promise to send me a copy of your doctoral thesis when completed, I will essay to answer your questions. I guarantee naught."

"I promise."

"Let us hope that your promise is more valid than those of most of your conspecifics. What is your problem?"

Salazar had been on his feet for two hours, but when he looked around, he saw no chair. Remembering the Kooks' indifference to what a Terran would deem comfort, he asked:

"May I sit on the floor?"

"By all means," said Seisen, squatting with his back against the wall.

Salazar then gave an account of his difficulties with George Cantemir and the Adriana Company. "And so," he concluded, "Cantemir has given me—" He glanced at his poignet "—until six hours hence, or four jakin by your system. If I am still there at the end of that time, he will shoot me dead unless I am lucky enough to shoot him first."

"And what would you of me, alien?" grated Seisen.

"I wish to know: Should I flee or fight?" Salazar felt as if he were taking the orals for his doctorate before a peculiarly hostile faculty committee.

Seisen spoke in the rhythmic, rhyming speech that Kooks used for oratory, their most advanced art. "How can I answer that? If you flee, you will run a minor risk, at the cost of completion of your thesis. If you remain, you will run a much larger risk for the sake of making sure of your thesis. I cannot evaluate those risks from the scanty information I have.

"Were I a meteorologist, belike I could tell you that there was a chance, let us say one in nine, that it will rain here tomorrow. But such a statement would be based upon data gathered on this site over years or, better yet, on the reports of a network of weather observers scattered over southern Sunga. I am told that you Terrans have such networks on your home planet, but we do not. For one thing, the metaphysical beliefs of us human beings forbid the use of electrical communications."

Salazar: "No offense intended, Doctor, but do you really believe that such technology destroys ancestral spirits?"

"I lack many beliefs that to my fellow human beings are self-evident. Whereas we human beings are far less given to imposing our beliefs on others under threat of torture and death than your peculiar species, I often deem it inexpedient to disclose my incredulity." Seisen's neck spines signaled amusement. He continued:

"As to your particular problem, all I can say is that your chances of major disaster were greater if you stayed; how much greater I have no grounds for estimating. The question of whether the added risk be worth the goal of completing your work, you alone can answer. Are you willing to retreat and write your thesis on the basis of what you have already learned?"

"Nay," said Salazar. "I have what we Terrans call a phobia against leaving a task only partly done. Those who admire this quality call it 'determination'; those who dislike it term it 'obstinacy'. Moreover, I suspect that the committee that reviews my thesis will be especially tough to avoid the appearance of letting the son of an eminent scientist get away with sloppy work.

"Can you not think of any other course to avoid both horns of this—this ..." Salazar fumbled for the Kukulcanian equivalent of "dilemma."

"Of this diremma, you mean to say," Seisen interpolated. "That is a Terran term which civilized human tongues have adopted because it fills a semantic need hitherto unmet. But as to your last question, unfortunately nay. If it be any consolation, know that in the long run it makes little difference. Whichever course you choose, you and Mr. Cantemir will somehow manage to ruin your respective prospects. I believe your English tongue has a colloquialism that translates as 'to copulate up' or 'to fertilize up' the situation."

"Why take you so pessimistic a view of Terran activities?" asked Salazar.

"I do so because you are Terrans, and I have some knowledge of Terran history." Seisen waved a claw at the shelves of books. "For example, are you familiar with a work beginning—" He dropped into English, "—thus: 'In ze second century of ze Christian Era, ze Empire of Rome comprehended ze fairest part of ze eart', and ze most civirized portion of mankind'?"

"Nay, sir. But the literature of Terran history is so vast that no one Terran, even with our extended life span, could master it even if he spent all his waking hours reading. What is the answer, pray?"

Seisen returned to Feënzuo. "The quotation is from a work entitled Ze Decrine and Fawr of ze Roman Empire by one Edward Gibbon. It teems with examples of the amazing Terran aptitude for 'copulating up' even the most rational and beneficent plans out of personal egotism and lust for immediate gratification."

"Do you Kukulcanians do better?"

"Indeed we do. When you know our history as well as I know yours, you will be able to compare them. Our wars are trivial affairs compared to yours, which on several occasions embroiled half the planet. The first, in fact, occurred during the lifetime of this Edward Gibbon; it was called the Seven Years' War."

"From all I have read," said Salazar, "you Kukulcanians are not so peaceful as all that. My own father fought against the Chosha nomads when they tried to conquer the Feënzuo Empire."

"Ah, but Chief Kampai had not bothered anybody, save perhaps some of his rival nomad chiefs, until one of those Terran busy bodies called 'missionaries' converted him to a set of widespread Terran supernatural beliefs, a creed about as factually based as our idea that electricity destroys ancestral spirits. Kampai forthwith adapted this dogma to a justification for his own self-aggrandizement.

"One of our advantages resides in the fact that when one group of us human beings venerates a particular spirit, either local or ancestral, that group feels no compulsion to force others to revere the same entity. The same applies to theories of politics or economics. Our view is: If our neighbors wish not to embrace our superior beliefs, so much the worse for them! Belief in spirits other than the ancestral ones, like the planetary spirit Metasu, has largely disappeared from the mainland. Whether this will in the long run prove favorable or otherwise to social order remains to be seen."

"You make your kind sound wholly rational, like thinking machines," said Salazar.

"That was an exaggeration. Amongst us, also, individuals display less socially useful traits, such as caprice, mischief, egomania, and sahides—"

"Excuse me, sir, but what was that last word?"

"I said sahides, for which I believe the English equivalent would be something like 'cratomania'—an obsessive passion for ruling others. The female Terran who leads the Kashanite community is an example.

"The frequency and extent of these deviations are far less than amongst Terrans, as far as I can judge from your records. In fact, I have heard Terrans refer to us human beings as 'all alike' and 'an insufferably dull, stodgy lot'. If that be the price of being a reasoning being, it is one that I am glad to pay."

"Well," said Salazar, "our flightiness, as you call it, has put us far ahead of you technologically in only a fraction of the time it took you to reach your present level from hunting-gathering primitivism. That is how we Terrans took to space and discovered you long before you were ready to discover us."

"And what practical good has that done you on your native planet?"

"We have learned much, which the more enlightened amongst us think a worthy end in itself. We have eliminated many diseases and lengthened the life span."

"And have thus," said Seisen, "painfully overcrowded your planet. We are more realistic, preferring slower but surer and less destructive progress."

"What, think you, accounts for these differences between our respective species?" asked Salazar.

"For one thing," said Seisen, "until recent advances in your medical science lengthened your lives, your natural life spans were much shorter than ours. Since your primitive ancestors—those which survived the perils of infancy, that is—had lifetimes of a mere thirty or forty of your years to look forward to, they were under no evolutionary pressure to develop longer outlooks. Hence the troubles caused by unchecked population growth, beyond the carrying capacity of the planet, and the consequent degradation of the environment. If a Terran was warned of the catastrophic consequences of some policy an octoquadrate of years later, his response was: 'What of it? I shall be dead then, anyway!'

"Another difference arises from the very quality that has put you so far ahead technologically: your fondness for tinkering and experimenting. The result was that having mastered fire and simple toolmaking and learned to survive in inhospitable climates, you went on and on, from one technological triumph to another, since each invention opened the way to others. So invention became a self-propelled social engine, ever accelerating.

"Hence your species crossed the border into civilization whilst most of you were still ruled by the same primitive instincts and drives that propelled you when you first came down from the trees and became terrestrial, pack-hunting omnivores. I refer to your persistent tribalism, feuding, rapacity, competitiveness, and vindictiveness. One might say that you reached civilization millions of years before you had evolved to the point of making good use thereof. Imagine a crew of kusis of one of the larger species in charge of one of our railroads and you will grasp the idea!

"In fact, even the allegedly civilized members of your species retain many traits and habits that we deem barbaric. Such, for instance, is the hunting of wild animals to eat their flesh, like that group of hunters who came through lately, killing some animals to collect their heads as trophies and others to devour. We human beings confine our meat eating to the flesh of domesticated species. Only the barbarous, nomadic Choshas gather heads to demonstrate their virility.

"I understand that Terrans were outraged some years ago when the Choshas' high chief, Kampai, hung heads of Terrans as well as those of human beings from the trophy pole before his tent. But I learn from my reading that this was once a common practice amongst some Terran tribes, such as the Celts.

"Finally, having through your science eliminated most of the natural checks on population growth, you failed to control your increase until recently, when the population of your world became so packed as to be insupportable, even by the most advanced methods of food production. This failure aggravated all your other difficulties and made some insoluble; hence millions died of starvation. You seem never to have grasped the fact that a system that works well for a hundred individuals will probably work badly for a thousand and break down completely for a million.

"Your philosophers long ago warned of this threat, but one of them said something like 'We learn from history that people do not learn from history.' Most of you still obeyed the ancient drive to increase the group at all costs to enable you to defeat any hostile neighboring tribe."

Salazar said: "I gather that you do not much like Terrans."

Seisen gave a reptilian hiss, and his forked tongue flicked pinkly out and back. "What has 'liking' to do with it? We human beings like what is good for us and dislike the reverse. You aliens, contrarywise, form a multitude of likes and dislikes on what appear to us frivolous bases, such as another's clothes, expression, or general appearance.

"Methinks I understand how this came about. In the course of evolution you Terrans developed highly mobile facial features, capable of expressing emotions, as the movement of our neck spines functions with us. To assist the integration of primitive Terrans into bands and tribes, you developed amongst yourselves an acute sensitivity to nonverbal signals, especially facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice. Whereas the movement of our cervical spines is largely independent of conscious control, a Terran can learn to send deceptive signals to a conspecific, as by smiling when really angry or hostile. Hence, you are much abler deceivers than we."

It occurred to Salazar that he had suffered all his life from inability to read other Terrans' nonverbal signals. He had once been told that he was "blind to body language." Now all he said was: "Pray continue."

"This facility," said Seisen as if he were addressing a class at a Kookish institution of higher learning, "while it speeds intraspecies communication, also makes you vulnerable to deception. I know something of your religious or occult fads and crazes, like that which your con-specific Ritter is now managing in place of the defunct Rostam Kashani. From our point of view you are an incredibly credulous lot. I have read accounts of Terran leaders who led their peoples in attempts to conquer the entire planet. The result was the death of millions and the downfall of the leader and his faction, but they never seem to learn. They have not matured mentally since the days when a primitive chief sent his tribesmen against a foe by assuring them that by a magical spell he had made them invulnerable to the enemy's arrows or bullets.

"The would-be leader need only master the complexities of Terran voice tone, expression, gesture, and so on, and he can persuade your masses that their planet is flat, or hollow with them on the inside. When the masses are free to choose a leader by an honest secret vote, they may pick a murderous maniac, provided that he can control their emotions by these artifices of voice and gesture. Or they may elect a blockhead of a public entertainer with no qualifications but a superficial charm.

"But to return to your remark about liking Terrans, to me you are all merely exotic organisms, like intelligent jutens or kudzais. I daresay that if one of you served me for years as a faithful servant or an affectionate pet, I might develop a certain fondness therefor. For the species as a whole, however, I entertain adverse feelings because of the threat that it poses to our civilization. If you would keep to other planets, I could contemplate your existence with equanimity."

"There may be truth in what you say," Salazar admitted. "What would you suggest to ameliorate this situation?"

Seisen's neck spines signaled a shrug. "From my human point of view, the only effective cure is for all you aliens to board your spaceships and return to Terra—or at least to other planets with a viable atmosphere and no intelligent other species. I am quite sure that you will not do that. In fact, I shall be pleasantly surprised if those of your United Settlements, in consequence of your growth in numbers, do not soon begin to seize lands outside those granted to you by the Empress Datsimuju. This happened repeatedly on Terra when a society with better weapons encountered another less advanced in the destructive arts. The latest manifestation of the Terran compulsion to conquer and subdue is unfolding right now near the Kashanite community."

"You mean Cantemir's lumbering project?"

"Cantemir is but a servant of the Terran Dumfries, who remains in Sungecho but governs the enterprise through subordinates. Know you this alien?"

"I have met him," said Salazar. "I came from Oõi on the same ship with him."

"What can you tell me of him?"

"He is very fat—"

"Nay, nay, not his physical characteristics but his plans and motivations."

"As to that, I can only tell you what I have guessed from many small bits of information and rumor. He is what we Terrans used to call a 'natalist,' convinced that Terrans should multiply as fast as nature allows. Since Terra has no space for any more people, Terrans should conquer and exploit other planets to give the species room for indefinite expansion."

"He will not find the conquest of our world easy," said Seisen with a flick of his forked tongue.

"Do you foresee an interspecies war?" asked Salazar with a sinking feeling. "On Terra, international relations have been brought under fair control. We have not had a real war for a century. How do you Kukulcanians propose to ward off the attacks of Dumfries's followers and others of that kind?"

"Our governments—at least, all the more civilized ones in this hemisphere—worry about this. For centuries we have discouraged inventive progress in weapons. Now, as you see, our governments reward the human being who can design a gun to shoot faster. We do not yet have your zappers, but if superstitious objections to electrical machinery can be overcome, we shall doubtless attain ray weapons, too. If the situation demands, we shall eventually get to atomic explosives, of which Terrans have told us."

"Many Terrans would be glad to leave well enough alone," said Salazar, "even if it meant curbing their drive to reproduce."

"Some, perhaps, but with a species as variable as yours, 'some' never means 'all'. The rest, by and large, are still motivated by the instincts and urges that drove you millions of years ago, when your forebears, then on a level with the larger members of our kusi order, began to tame fire and chip stones for tools. So I look forward with foreboding. Ask any of the peoples conquered during the great European expansion, from years fifteen hundred to nineteen hundred of your common era, such as the natives of the American continents.

"Another matter. Besides Terrans' obvious motivations for wishing to snatch our world from us—tribal loyalty, personal gain, and lust for power—there is another, which I understand not. To many Terrans the mere sight of a human being provokes revulsion and horror. They call us by the term 'repti',' as if a repti' were a peculiarly loathsome creature. I am told that they use it to one another as a term of opprobrium. Why is this? What is a repti'?"

Salazar said: "The word is 'reptile'. The Terran animal kingdom includes a class called Reptilia. Some reptiles, called 'snakes,' resemble your boshiya but without legs, and some of these snakes are venomous. Hence, the species evolved a susceptibility as infants to a phobia against snakes. They likewise easily develop phobias against other things that in primitive times were sources of danger: high places, dark enclosures, torrents, thunderstorms, and strangers.

"Not all reptiles are dangerous; in fact, only a small fraction of the kinds of snakes are venomous. But our primitive ancestors made no fine distinctions amongst them, and fear of snakes is often extended to other reptiles. Since your species resembles Terran reptiles, they inherit some of that irrational fear."

"Thank you," said Seisen. "You have clarified a mystery. I need not belabor my point about Terrans' primitive minds."

Salazar rose stiffly. "And I thank you, honorable sir. I must return to my base to prepare defenses."

Seisen also rose. "I regret that I could not advise you more precisely." Salazar noted that the philosopher now used the forms due a social equal. "That is the fault not of my failing mental powers but of the amorphous nature of the problem. May your health remain good, and forget not to send me a copy of your thesis!"

Back at camp, as the sun sank in golden and crimson glory, Salazar returned. He had picked up the armful of canes he had dropped the day before. Choku asked:

"Honorable boss, what was the upshot? Stay we or flee we?"

"I could not get a firm answer. Seisen would like all Terrans off the planet. Since he cannot bring that about, he is not unhappy to see us shooting each other. It means that our army will be weaker if war breaks about between your species and mine."

"That is a most unwelcome thought, sir. I enjoy Terrans, ever up to something new and interesting. One never knows what crazy thing they will do next."

"Perhaps, but that solves our problem not. Has there been any sign of Cantemir? Our time was up an hour ago."

"Nay, sir; no sign."

"Perhaps he was bluffing, though I should not care to wager my life on the chance. Anyway, it is too late to set out for Amoen tonight. We must go wait and watch. With two guns, we should be a match for him. How good are you with the rifle?"

"Terran guns are awkward for us human beings, being designed to fit your arms and shoulders. But I can hit an alien-sized target with one nine times out of ten at fifty rokuu."

Not having completely mastered Kukulcanian measures, Salazar was not sure what degree of accuracy those words implied, but they sounded impressive. "Very well, you shall take the first watch. There is no cover nearby for him to sneak up on us—except the nanshins, and they have their own security system."

The next morning there was still no sign of Cantemir. Salazar's confidence mounted; it must have been a bluff, after all. He should, of course, keep his guard up.

Midmorning saw Salazar sitting before his tent, holding a large clasp knife and carving whistles out of lengths of cane. On his lap lay a copy of Vladovich's Elements of Physics, open to the section on sound. He carved whistles of various lengths. As he finished each, he blew it at the phonometer and noted the frequency recorded by the instrument. He wrote the figure on a tag, attached the tag to the whistle, and compared the length of the whistle with that given on the table in Vladovich for a vibrating air column of that frequency, corrected for barometric pressure.

At last he blew a faint, shrill toot on whistle number 23, which sounded rather like the sounds made by the kusis.

"Mr. Sarasara!" said Choku. "Look about you!"

Salazar was startled to discover that he was sitting in a semicircle of nine kusis, staring up. As he looked up, they thrust out their forelimbs in begging gestures.

"They want mittas," said Choku. "Shall I give?"

"Get one and throw it as far as you can."

Choku ducked into the tent, came out with a mitta nut, and threw. But missile throwing was not a native Kukulcanian skill—perhaps, Terran biologists speculated, because their fingers ended in claws. The nut flew up and landed in Salazar's lap.

At once a rush of kusis swarmed up Salazar's trouser legs in a scramble for the nut. Their talons pierced the fabric and the skin beneath it. The two who reached his lap first both tried to grab the nut and ended by clawing and biting each other.

With thirty-odd kilos of kusi clinging to him and more contesting for a hold, Salazar struggled to his feet, knocking off one scaly tormentor after another and yelling:

"Get out, you little sons of bitches!"

Choku dashed forward, shouting "Katai! Katai!" With one clawed reptilian foot doubled into a fist, he kicked a kusi aside. Another he picked up and threw a dozen meters away.

As Salazar rose, the mitta nut fell to the ground. A kusi snatched it and ran. All the others abandoned Salazar to run after it; the whole troop vanished into the nanshins.

"Whew!" said Salazar. "You are better at throwing kusis, Choku, than at throwing nuts. Did they get aught else?"

"I think not, sir. But you bleed! You must needs care for your wounds."

"You bleed, also."

"The animal I kicked snapped at me. It is naught. But you aliens are such delicate creatures that you had better nurse your injuries at once."

"Mere scratches, but you are right."

The next day Salazar set out with a pocketful of whistles in his bush jacket. The nearby kusis, noting his purposeful approach, fled with barks and whistles. Choku followed with the rifle.

Salazar stopped close to the nearest nanshin and fumbled for a whistle. Its tag read "19,800 Hz," meaning 19,800 hertz, or cycles per second. He blew a thin, high note. The nanshin did not respond.

He tried another at 18,700, another at 21,500, and another at 22,100. The last of those he could not hear at all, but in any case none affected the nanshin.

When he came to whistle number 23, rated at 20,200, which was 20.2 kilohertz, the tree seemed to shiver. All the nearer needles bent away from him as if the whistle, instead of sending out a shrill sound, was blowing a mighty blast of air at the tree.

"O Choku!" he called. "Methinks we have it!"

"That is good," said the Kook. "What now?"

"I will see if the sound really protects me as I move through these trees. Have you the baking soda where we can quickly get at it in case this fails to work?"

"Aye, honorable sir. It is with the salt and the cleaning powder. But perhaps you were well advised to don your goggles lest you get the venom in your eyes."

Goggled and blowing whistle number 23, Salazar plunged in between the nearest nanshin and its neighbors. As he brushed through the interlacing branches, each tree's needles bent away and none sprayed any liquid. When he emerged triumphant, Choku said to him:

"Sir, permit me to point out that you got a drop of venom on your right trouser leg."

"Careless tree," growled Salazar.

"You had better give me those trousers to wash at once, ere the venom eat a hole in them."

"They will hold until we reach the tent." Salazar strode out feeling, for almost the first time in his life, something of a hero.

"Sir!" cried Choku. "Behold yonder!"

Before the tent a pair of kusis appeared, dragging the bag of mitta nuts. Each grasped a corner of the bag with one forelimb and hopped along on the remaining three limbs.

"Get out of here!" yelled Salazar, breaking into a run. Behind him he heard the snick of the bolt as Choku armed the rifle. He shouted back: "Shoot not! If you do, we shall never see them again!"

Choku did not shoot. The sight of the rifle raised and pointed sent the two kusis on a mad dash for shelter. They made wide sweeps about Salazar and his assistant and took off in grand parabolic leaps to the lower branches of the nanshins.

"Damn it!" said Salazar. "That venom begins to hurt! Where is the baking soda?"

He ran to the tent. Choku snatched up the half-empty bag of nuts and followed.

"Hell's bells!" shouted Salazar in English; then in Sungao: "How shall we find anything?"

The interior of the tent looked as if a tornado had passed through it. All the smaller equipment was scattered about. Choku said:

"I am sure, sir, that the kusis threw things around in seeking the bag of mittas. I do not believe that much is broken. If you will permit me to return the objects to their previous order—"

"Metasu, damn it, get the baking soda! This is painful!"

A frantic search turned up the can of baking soda. Salazar shed his pants, in the right leg of which a hole the diameter of a finger now appeared.

An hour later Salazar, now wearing shorts, sat before his tent with a baking-soda poultice strapped to his leg. He examined the bag of mittas, now less than half-full.

"The little bastards," he grumbled, "ate all they could. When they were stuffed full, they started to haul the bag away for future use.

"The bright side is that if you Kukulcanians were to disappear, the kusis might evolve into a civilized species in a few million years. They are clever enough."

"That is a comforting thought, sir, in case we human beings commit the same errors as, I am told, Terrans have done. I hear that they once came close to blowing themselves clean off their planet. Whither go you, sir?"

Salazar had risen. "This damned leg hurts too much for me to keep my mind on studies. I think I will stroll over to the nanshins to see if our kusi friends are about. Could you get me some mittas?"

Choku produced a fistful of nuts, which Salazar pocketed. He sauntered toward the nanshin forest, looking sharply into the shadowy branches.

A kusi appeared, clutching a branch with three prehensile limbs while making begging gestures with the fourth. It chirped at Salazar, who tossed it a mitta. The kusi caught the nut in flight and devoured it.

"Good!" mused Salazar. "You could evolve into a ball player. But if you evolve along the lines of the Kooks, you won't want to play games, save as infants. They look upon Terran golf and tennis as childish. An admirable species in many ways, but not much fun—a deadly dull lot when you get to know them."

The afternoon calm was shattered by the thunderous boom of a fourteen-millimeter big-game rifle. A severed branch over Salazar's head fell past him. The kusi fled with a shriek.

Salazar spun. In front of his tent stood George Cantemir with the rifle at his shoulder. Behind him Choku was locked in a struggle with Cantemir's Kook retainer, Fetutsi. Salazar realized that with all the events of the past two days, he had forgotten to go armed at all times. Rifle and pistol were both in the tent.

Panic seized him. He could not shoot back at Cantemir; he had nothing to throw but mittas. To charge Cantemir would be suicide. He was furious with himself for letting his guard down; that was just the sort of unworldly behavior for which "practical businessmen" like Cantemir scorned intellectuals like Kirk Salazar.

Cantemir had not given up; he was merely late. If Salazar plunged into the nanshin forest, he would be sprayed unless he used his neutralizing whistle, which hung on a string around his neck. It took him but seconds to snatch it out, blow, and plunge into the long-needled foliage.

"Hey!" yelled Cantemir; then came another gunshot. Salazar did not know where the bullet went; he was too busy whistling the deadly needles away from himself. Cantemir shouted:

"That won't do you no good!"

Salazar plunged on. The heavy rifle boomed again. At least, thought Salazar, the gun was not one of those military firearms, with a clip holding scores of rounds, that sprayed bullets as a hose does water.

As he plunged on, sounds implied that Cantemir was pursuing him into the nanshins. He must, thought Salazar, believe that because I can do it, he can, too. Again the gun banged. When Salazar looked back, he could not discern a human form. In full daylight, he thought, he might be able to see Cantemir outlined against the open area between the forest and the tent, but now the sun was low and obscured by clouds.

He pushed on away from the camp, then halted to listen, still blowing his whistle. He could faintly hear Cantemir's thrashing progress through the vegetation. He heard a distant cry: "Where the hell are you, Kirk? Come out where I can see you!"

He must think me even stupider than I am, thought Salazar. Then came another cry:

"Hey, Tootsie! The goddamn trees are pissing on me! Ouch! That hurts! Yeow! Help! I'm burning up! Help!"

Still more faintly came the voice of Fetutsi: "Close eyes! Close eyes! I get you!" There were crashings, with Fetutsi crying: "No worry! Hold hand! Forrow me!"

The sounds diminished to silence. Salazar, still playing his whistle, cautiously felt his way back towards the camp. The sun was just setting.

At length he saw light through the trees. Step by step he approached, determined not to give Cantemir another free shot at him. A metallic gleam caught his eye; it was Cantemir's rifle. Salazar stooped to pick it up, then reflected that it must be smeared with venom. He wiped the barrel near the muzzle with paper handkerchiefs, wrapped more around the barrel, and picked up the gun where he had wrapped it.

When he could discern the terrain between the forest and the tent, he saw no sign of his visitors. Choku had resumed his preparation of dinner as if nothing had happened. At the edge of the wood Salazar called: "O Choku!"

The Kook looked up. "Yea, honorable boss?"

"Have they gone?"

"Aye, sir. When Mr. Cantemir called for help, Fetutsi let go of me and ran to the woods. As soon as she released me, I got your rifle from the tent. Then she came out of the woods leading Mr. Cantemir. His clothes were spotted with drops of venom, and he was shouting in pain."

"Were there any more words between you and them?"

"The onnifa asked if I had any baking soda. I told her no, I did not. She knew from the movement of my spines that I lied to her, but I had the gun and they did not. Mr. Cantemir had lost his, which I see you have recovered.

"Meseemed we should reserve our baking soda for ourselves. She appealed to me as a fellow human being, so at last I gave her a worn-out towel to wipe the venom from her scales. It was beginning to pain her, even though we human beings have tougher hides than you fragile aliens.

"All the time Mr. Cantemir kept shouting for her to get him back to the lumber camp. The last I saw, she was trotting back towards the Amoen trail with Mr. Cantemir bouncing on her shoulder and screaming curses."

"You didn't think to shoot them?"

Choku's spines registered amazement. "Nay indeed, sir. Why, that would have been illegal!"

"You mean it is legal for Cantemir to shoot me but not for you to shoot him?"

"You are entirely correct, sir. The Chiefly Council enacts the laws that govern the actions of us human beings toward one another. High Chief Yaamo's covenants with you aliens have the force of law. These laws forbid us to slay an alien save to prevent a crime against oneself or another human being. It dictates not the acts of Terrans with one another, any more than your Terran laws, upon your native planet, regulate the number of kills that one of your beasts of prey may take in a given time.

"That is doubtless why Fetutsi was given the task of preventing me from interfering while Mr. Cantemir undertook to shoot you. He could not hand her the gun and command her to slay you while he essayed to stop me from interfering. She would have refused to perform an illegal act, since you were not threatening her with any crime. On the other hand, it would have been lawful for me to slay him to stop his destroying my source of income—namely you, sir. Of course, I could bring a charge of assault against Fetutsi, albeit I doubt that such litigation were worthwhile."

Salazar grumbled. "You Kukulcanians are all born lawyers. How about dinner?"