Gordon Dickson - The Right to Arm Bears

This other was not a Dilbian. Swathed in dark, shimmering cloth, his rotund body was scarcely half a head shorter than that of the Dilbian. Standing, Bill guessed that he could be scarcely less than eight feet tall, a foot or so below the average height of a male Dilbian. His face, like his body, bulged in creases of what appeared to be fat. But Bill knew that they were nothing of the kind. Seated, talking to the black-furred Dilbian was a member of that alien race which was most strongly in competition with the humans for influence with the natives on worlds like Dilbia, and for living space in general between the stars.

The being to whom the black-furred Dilbian was speaking was a Hemnoid, and his apparent fat was the result of the powerful muscles required by a race which had evolved on a world with half again the gravity of Earth.

Abruptly and belatedly, the meaning of Sweet Thing’s obscure reference to taking the advice of Fatties became clear to Bill. A cold feeling like a cramp made itself felt at the pit of his stomach.

It was Bone Breaker, apparently, who had been taking the advice of Fatties—or of this one Fatty in particular. Unexpectedly, Bill found himself facing a Hemnoid in exactly the sort of ticklish interracial situation that the Human-Hemnoid treaty of noninterference in native Dilbian affairs had been signed to prevent. Too late now, he realized that he had intruded on the type of incident that should be dealt with by no human below the rank of a Resident in the Diplomat Service. Let alone a trainee-assistant in mechanical engineering who was like a fish out of water in being assigned to an agricultural project. And let alone a trainee-assistant who had been unable to contact his superiors by off-planet communications, and who was operating totally without authority and on his own initiative.

“Turn around!” Bill hissed frantically in the Hill Bluffer’s ear. “I’ve got to get out of here!”

“Out? What for?” said the Bluffer, surprised. “Anyway, it’s too late now.”

“Too late—?”

Bill never finished echoing the Bluffer’s words.

From just outside the door behind him there came a sound like that of a large, untuned, metal gong being struck. A voice shouted:

“ Sun’s down! Close the gates .”

There was only a second or two of pause, and then floating back from the far distance of the valley entrance with a clarity that only the lung-power of a Dilbian could provide with such pressure, came the answering cry:

“ The gates are closed !”

The long drawn-out cry from the valley gate had barely died away, before the Hill Bluffer was in motion, heading toward the short table in front of the fireplace. Bill opened his mouth to protest, then quickly shut it again. Now he saw that the room was crowded with Dilbians of all sizes, and probably of both sexes, both standing about and seated at the various benches. At first this crowd had not noticed the Bluffer and Bill, standing just inside the doorway. But as they began to move toward the small, square table at the head of the room, before the fireplace, they drew all eyes upon them, and silence spread out through the room like ripples from a stone flung into a pond. By the time the Bluffer reached the table where the Hemnoid and the black-furred Dilbian sat, that silence was absolute.

The Bluffer stopped. He looked down at the seated Hemnoid and the seated Dilbian.

“Evening, Bone Breaker,” he said to the Dilbian, and transferred his gaze to the Hemnoid. “Evening, Barrel Belly.”

“Evening to you, Postman,” replied Bone Breaker. His unbelievably deep, bass voice had an echoing, resonant quality that made it seem to ring all around them. The outlaw chief was, Bill saw, almost as outsize for a Dilbian as was the Hill Bluffer. Probably not quite as tall as the Bluffer, judged Bill, as he tried to estimate from the seated figure of the outlaw, but heavier in the body, and certainly wider in the shoulders. A shiver trickled coldly down Bill’s back. There was an air of competence and authority about this one Dilbian that was strangely at odds with the appearance of other members of that same race that Bill had met so far. The eyes looking at him now out of the midnight black of the furry face had a brilliant, penetrating quality. Could someone like this be holding prisoner a human being for such emotional and obvious reasons as Sweet Thing had attributed to him?

But he had no chance to ponder the question. Because the Hemnoid was, he found, already talking to him, gazing up at him over the Bluffer’s furry shoulder, and speaking in a voice which, while not so deep as those of the Dilbians, had the ponderous, liquid quality of some heavy oil, pouring out of an enormous jug.

“Mula- ay , at your service,” gurgled the Hemnoid with a darkly sinister sort of cheerfulness. He was speaking Dilbian, and the fact he did so, alerted Bill to answer in the same language—and not fall into the social mistake of speaking out in either human or Hemnoid, of which latter alien tongue he also owned a hypnoed knowledge.

“Or, ‘Barrel Belly,’ as our friends here call me,” went on Mula- ay . “I’m a journalist, here to do a series of articles on these delightful people. What brings you among them, my young, human friend?”

“Bill Waltham,” answered Bill cautiously. “I’m here as part of our agricultural project at Muddy Nose.” Mula- ay might indeed be a journalist, but it was almost certain he was also a Hemnoid secret agent—that was the Hemnoid way.

“Just part of it?” Mula- ay gave a syrupy chuckle as he answered, like a hogshead of molasses being emptied into a deep tank. There was a note of derision in his chuckling. A note that seemed to invite everyone else to join him in laughing over some joke at Bill’s expense. This in itself might mean something—or it might not. A love of cruelty was part of the Hemnoid character, as Bill knew. It was a racial characteristic which the Hemnoid culture praised, rather than condemned. Nonetheless, it was not pleasant to be the butt of Mula- ay ’s joke, whatever it was. Feeling suddenly ridiculous, Bill took his feet out of the back straps of the Bluffer’s harness and slid down to stand on the floor.

Now on his feet and facing both the seated Mula- ay and Bone Breaker, Bill found he could look slightly down into the face of the Hemnoid, although his eyes glanced level with the eyes of Bone Breaker.

“Have a place at my table, Pick-and-Shovel,” rumbled the outlaw chief. His tone was formal, so that the words came out very like a command. “You too, Postman.”

Without hesitation, the Bluffer dropped down on one of the unoccupied stools. Bill walked around and hoisted himself up on the other empty seat. He found himself with Bone Breaker close at his right elbow; while at his left elbow, with only a few feet between them, sat the gross form of Mula- ay , his Buddha-like face still creased in a derisive smile. Opposite, Bill’s single ally, the Hill Bluffer, seemed far away and removed from the action.

With the fire lashing its red flames into the air at one side of them, throwing ruddy gleams among the sooty shadows of the bare rafters above them and the outsize figures surrounding him, there came on Bill suddenly a feeling of having somehow stumbled into a nether world, peopled by dark giants and strange monsters. A momentary feeling of helplessness washed through him. All around him, the situation seemed too big for him—physically, emotionally, and even professionally. He broke out rashly and directly to Bone Breaker, speaking across a corner of the table.

“I understand you’ve got a Shorty here—a Shorty named Dirty Teeth!”