Murray Leinster - The Duplicators

Harl said cagily, “Then what?”

“They’ll have adjourned away from any place near your Household, and you and your forty or fifty unicorns can go guesting and come back with your food. And,” said Link, “meanwhile the uffts will be talking. And talking is thirsty work. That will be an urge toward negotiations by which the uffts can get themselves some beer.”

Harl continued to frown, but not as deeply. After a time he said heavily, “It might fix things for now. But things are bad, Link, an’ they keep gettin’ worse. This’d be only for right now.”

“Ah!” said Link briskly. “Just what I was coming to! In your guesting, Harl, you will talk to your hosts about the good old days. You’ll point out how superior they were to now. You’ll propose an assembly of Householders to organize for the bringing back of the Good Old Days. That, all by itself, is a complete program for a political party of wide and popular appeal!”

“Mmmmmmh!” said Harl slowly. “It’s about time somebody started that!”

“Just so,” said Link. “So if Thana will fix me up a light lunch—the uffts had no food for Thistlethwaite to eat—I’ll go out and try a little silver-tongued oratory. With all due modesty, I think I can sway a crowd. Of uffts.”

Harl’s frown was not wholly gone, yet. But he said:

“I like that idea of goin’ back to the good old days!”

“If you’re allowed to define them,” agreed Link. “But in the meantime we’ll let the uffts talk themselves thirsty so they’ll have to bring in greenstuff to get beer to lubricate more talk.”

Harl said, very heavily indeed, “We’ll try it. You got words, Link. I’ll get you a unicorn ready. That’s a good idea about the good old days.”

He disappeared. Thana said, “You didn’t finish telling me about Imogene.”

“Oh, she must be married to somebody else by now,” Link told her. “I’d wonder if she wasn’t. Anyhow—”

“I’ll fix you a lunch,” said Thana. “I think you’re going to accomplish a lot on Sord Three, Link!”

He looked startled.

“Why?”

“You,” said Thana, “look at things in such a practical way!”

She vanished, in her turn. Link spread out his hands in a gesture there was nobody around to see. He heard a faint, faint noise. He pricked up his ears. He went to an open door and listened. A shrill ululation came from somewhere beyond the village. It was the high-pitched voices of uffts. A rhythm established itself. The uffts were chanting:

“Death… to… men! Death to men! Death to men!”

An hour later, Link went streaking away from the Household, urging his unicorn to the utmost, while Harl led shouts of anger and irritation among the houses. Another rider came after Link. His mount had been carefully selected, and it had no chance at all of overtaking Link. Then came two other riders, one shortly after another, and then a knot of nearly a dozen, as if pursuit of Link had begun as fast as men could get unicorns saddled for the chase. They rushed after Link with seeming fury. But he had a faster mount, a distinctly, prearrangedly faster animal.

But it was not the most comfortable of all animals to ride. Unicorns jolted. They put down their large and tender feet with lavish and ungainly motions, the object of which seemed to be to shake their riders’ livers loose. The faster they traveled, the more lavish the leg-motions and the more violent the jarring of the man riding them. The drooping fleshy appendages which dangled from their foreheads flapped and bumped as they ran.

Link’s pursuers seemed to strive desperately to overtake him. They shook fists and spears at him as he increased his lead. He topped a hillside half a mile from the Household, went down its farther slope, and squealed insults from uffts’ throats seemed to give the Household posse pause. When Link was out of sight the voices of invisible uffts hurled epithets at his pursuers. The chase-party slackened speed and finally halted. They seemed to confer. Uffts shouted at them. “ Murderers!” was a mild word. “ Assassins!” was more frequent. “ Shame! Shame! Shame!” was commonplace.

The men from the Household, as if reluctantly, turned their mounts homeward, and uffts came scuttling across the uneven ground to shout, “ Cowards!” after them, and more elaborately, “ Scared to fight! Yah! Yah! Yah!” As the riders pressed their mounts, the uffts became more daring. Rotund small animals almost caught up with the retreating spear bearers, yapping at their unicorns’ heels and shouting every insult an ufftish mind could conceive.

When the mounted men reentered the village, however, the uffts went racing and bounding to see what had happened to Link. The painted message on the Glamorgan ’s fin had represented him as pro-ufft, while Thistlethwaite was represented as having villainous intentions toward them. And Link had made them a noble speech, presenting a problem that could be argued about indefinitely. The important thing, though, was that he had fled from the Household, with pursuers hot on his trail. If the humans of the Household disliked him enough to chase him, uffts were practically ready to make him an honorary member of their race.

He kept up his headlong flight for a full mile. Then he gradually slackened speed, as repeated glances to the rear showed no sign of his pursuers. Presently he ceased altogether to urge the unicorn he rode, and proceeded at a leisurely, bumpy walk.

He became aware that uffts trotted or galloped on parallel courses to see what he would do. At first they did not show themselves, and he only caught fugitive glimpses of one or two at a time. But there were evidently some hundreds of them, staying out of sight but keeping pace with him on either side.

He reined in and waited.

Uffts’ voices murmured. There were even squabblings in low tones, as if uffts behind boulders and just behind hilltops were arguing with each other over who should go out into plain view and open a conversation. The buzzing voices became almost angry. Then Link let his unicorn move very slowly to one side while voices mumbled indignantly. “ Who’s afraid of him?” “You are, that’s who.” “That’s a lie! You’re the scared one!” “… Then if you aren’t scared, go out and talk to him!” “You do it!… Huh! I dare you to go out and talk to him!” “But I double-dare you!” “I triple-dare you… I quadruple-dare—”

Then Link’s head appeared above a hilltop, and the uffts knew that he could see a close-packed mass of them trying to insult each other into making the first contact with him.

“My friends!” said Link in a carrying voice. “I put myself in your hands! I ask political asylum from the Householders and tyrants who are your enemies no less than the enemies of every person in favor of your being favored!”

Every ufft gazed at him. Those nearest him tended to look scared. But Link waved his arms.

“On a previous occasion,” he said splendidly, “I spoke to you of the galaxy-wide admiration of your intellect, and presented to you a problem the logicians and metaphysicians of other worlds have found unsolvable, though some solution must exist. At that time I did not realize that the sociological-economic conditions of your life had driven you to revolt. I was not aware that you were actually and unthinkably expected to earn the beer so necessary to the higher functions of the intellect. I did not know that you, the most brilliant race in the galaxy, were frustrated by a caste system of which you were less than the highest grade. But I began to suspect it last night, when you made a political demonstration in the Household streets. I confirmed it this morning. And when I expressed my indignation that uffts, here—uffts, my friends!—were not gladly supported by the humans who should listen to them with reverence, when I learned of the unbelievable withholding of the subservience due you—”