Gordon Dickson - The Right to Arm Bears

“It was just a thought—that I might get one of you to help me,” Bill said rapidly. “I’m a member of the Residency, myself, you know.”

The Dilbian was now on his feet and others were rising. Alarm rang as clearly in Bill as the clanging of a fire bell.

“What’s the matter with you?” he shouted at the oncoming Dilbian. “Don’t you know we Shorties have a treaty with the Muddy Nosers? According to that treaty, you all owe me protection and assistance!”

The male Dilbians, still rising from the table, froze and stared once again for a long second before suddenly bursting out into wild whoops of laughter, wilder and louder than Bill had yet heard from them.

Bill stared at them, amazed.

“Why, you crazy little Shorty!” cried the voice of Thing-or-Two furiously behind him. “Can’t you tell the differences between people, when you see them? These aren’t honest folk like us here around the village! They’re those thieves and plunderers and no-goods from the Outlaw Valley! They’re outlaws —and they never signed any kind of treaty with anybody !”

Thing-or-Two’s shouted warning explained matters, but it came, if anything, a little late. By the time she had finished speaking, the leading outlaw was almost upon Bill, and Bill was already in motion.

He dropped his luggage case and ducked desperately as the big Dilbian hands made a grab for him. They missed, and he spun about only to find himself running in the wrong direction. With whoops and yells the whole crew of outlaws was after him. Every way he turned, he found a towering, nine-foot figure barring his escape.

Not that an immediate attempt to escape would do him any good at the moment, he realized almost at once. Bill’s first reaction had been that of any small animal being chased by larger ones—to duck and dodge and take advantage of his reflexes, which were faster simply because he was smaller. The Dilbian outlaws, being all nearly twice Bill’s size and several times his weight, were by that very fact slower and clumsier than he was. In fact, after the first leap to escape, he found himself evading their clutches with relative ease.

But even as he realized he could do this, he saw the spot he was in. At first he had been dodging about only in order to find a clear space in which he could make a run for the forest. Now he realized that simply running away was no solution. The reflexes of the Dilbians might be slower than his, but their huge strides could cover the same among of ground at double his speed. They could catch him in no time if he simply tried to outrun them in a straight-away chase.

His only hope, he realized now, still dodging desperately about the farmyard, was to keep evading them in this small area until they began to grow winded, and then take his chances on outrunning them. If he could only keep this up, he thought—ducking under a flailing dark-furred arm as thick as a man’s thigh—for just a few minutes more…

“Hold it!” the outlaw leader was shouting. “Don’t let him run you ragged. Circle him! Circle him! Herd him into a corner!”

Bill’s hopes took a nose dive. He dodged and spun about, but without finding an opening. Already the outlaws were forming a semicircle, long arms extended sideways, that was herding him back against the front wall of the house. They were closing in, now…

Bill made a feint toward the right end of the semicircle, and then made a dash toward the left end, with the wild thought of diving between the legs of the outlaw leader, standing at the corner of the house. But at the last second the outlaw stepped forward and whooped in a powerful voice Bill had come to recognize.

“ Got you, Shorty !”

Bill braked to a frantic halt. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the rest of the semicircle closing rapidly on him. He looked back at the outlaw leader, standing crouched now and ready by the interlaced butt ends of the logs at the corner of the house. The leader spread his arms and reached forward—

—And went suddenly flat on his face with a furry figure atop him, as a wild war cry split the air.

“ I’m a Muddy Noser and proud of it!” roared the still-drunken voice of Tin Ear, in triumph. “ Run , Shorty!”

But there was no place to which Bill could run. Other outlaws had rushed over to bar the escape route opened up by the fallen leader. Glancing wildly about, Bill looked up and saw that where the roof of the house joined the wall there was an opening leading to some dark interior, probably a loft or attic. The alternating ends of the logs in the front and side walls of the house were notched and interlocked together so that they stuck out like the tips of the fingers of two hands, interlaced at right angles to each other. They were as good as a ladder to someone Bill’s size. He had not won a climbing medal in Survival School, back on Earth, for nothing. He went up the log ends like a squirrel.

A second later he had dived into the dark, loftlike area to which the opening he had seen gave entrance. For a moment he simply lay there, panting, on what seemed to be a rough bed of poles, which was probably a roof to the room or rooms below. Then, as he began to breathe easily once more, he squirmed about, crawled back to the entrance, and looked down and out.

Tin Ear was slumbering or unconscious on the ground at the spot where he had jumped the outlaw leader. The leader himself was on his feet with the other outlaws clustered around the corner of the house, and one of their number was trying to climb the sixteen or eighteen feet up the same ladder of log ends Bill had used.

However, the log ends were too small for the big feet and hands of the Dilbians. The climber was finding fairly good support for his toes, but he was able to hang on to the log ends higher up only by his fingertips. His attention was all on those fingertips, and Bill had a sudden inspiration. Leaning out and reaching down the short couple of feet that separated the climber’s head from the entrance, he put his hand on the top of the hard, furry skull and shoved outward with all his strength.

The head went back, and the climber’s fingertips lost their precarious grip. There was a yell and a thud, and the climber landed on his back in the farmyard dirt. Roaring with rage, he scrambled to his feet as if he would climb again, but checked himself at the foot of the log corner, and dropped his upreaching arms.

“It’s no use!” he growled, turning away toward the outlaw leader. “There’s nothing you can really get a grip on. You see what he did to me?”

“Go get some fire from the stove inside,” said the outlaw leader, struck by a happy thought. “We’ll burn him out of there!”

“No, you don’t!” trumpeted the voice of Thing-or-Two in the background. “Paying outlaw-tax is one thing, but you’re not burning down our house! You try it and you’ll see how fast I get to Outlaw Valley and tell Bone Breaker on you! You just try!”

Her words stopped a concerted move toward the front door of the house. The outlaws muttered among themselves, occasionally glancing up to the opening from which Bill was looking down. Finally, the leader looked up at Bill’s observing face.

“All right, Shorty!” he said, sternly. “You come down out of there!”

Bill laughed grimly.

“What’s so funny?” glowered the outlaw leader.

Bill had a sudden, desperate inspiration. His hypnoed information had just reminded him of a double fact. One, that preserving face—in the human, Oriental sense—meant a great deal to the Dilbians, since an individual Dilbian had no more status in the community than his wit or his muscles could earn for him. Two, that in Dilbian conversation the more outrageous statement you could get away with, the more face-destroying points you were able to score on an opponent. Maybe he could bluff his way out of this situation by making it so humiliating for the outlaws that they would go off and leave him alone.