Frederik Pohl - Jem

“Certainly not! Not either!”

“I really don’t think that’s quite fair, do you? We’ve certainly cooperated in providing food, for instance—”

“Such food! For your people, not for ours: all flour, hardly any rice.”

Dalehouse said placatingly, “We’ll turn up some rice for you if that’s what you like.”

“How gracious of you!” Dulla sneered.

“Now, wait a minute, Dulla. We’ve done our best for you — and we have a couple of complaints of our own, if you want to know. Like shooting at me!”

Dulla grimaced. “That was only Hua-tse’s foolishness with fireworks. The People’s Republics have already expressed their regrets.”

“To whom? The dead balloonists?”

“Yes,” sneered Dulla with exaggerated humility, “of course, it is so; we do apologize to your close friends, the comic gasbags. And to yours too, sir, the vermin who dig in the earth and whom you find so useful!”

“If you mean the Creeps,” said Pontrefact, his control of his temper wearing thin, “at least we don’t use them as litter bearers.”

“No! You use them to help you exploit the mineral riches! Is it not true that there has been radiation disease among them?”

“No, it isn’t! At least, not here. We did use a few to dig samples for us in other areas, and yes, they did encounter some radiation, but I must say that I resent the imputation that we are exploiting the natives.”

“Oh, I am sure you would not do that, Marshal Pontrefact, especially as your own ancestors must have experienced so much of that from the other side, as it were.”

“Now, look here, Dulla!”

But Pontrefact was interrupted by the Saudi woman, who said: “I think we should recess for lunch. We have much to discuss, and shouting at each other will not help. Let’s resolve to try to do better in the afternoon.”

But the afternoon session, if quieter, did not seem very productive to Danny Dalehouse. “At least we got a decent meal out of it,” he said to Kappelyushnikov outside the long- house where they had met.

“Is as ashes in my mouth,” growled the Russian. “Oh, how many nice things they have here. Not just food.”

That was not to be argued. Across from the meetinghouse a new building was going up. A tracked dumpster deposited a scoop of earth into a hopper; the man running it shoved a lever forward, there was a high-pitched whine, and moments later, the sides fell away and the operator lifted out a finished panel of hard brick. The trick was in adding something to the compacted earth as a stabilizer.

“And have you seen what’s up on the hill?” asked Harriet with jealousy in her tone. On the slopes above the colony there were terraced rows of green seedlings. Green! The Greasies were using banks of incandescent plant lights to grow Terrestrial food!

“Feel like time when I was seventeen years,” said Kappelyushnikov. “Kid sailplane pilot, winner of All-Region Height and Endurance Contest, fresh from Nizhniy Tagil, walking down Kalinin-Prospekt first time in life, and oh, my God, how overwhelming was Moscow! Trams, skyscrapers, bookstores, restaurants.” He pointed to the plasma column of the solar generator, with its rosette of reflectors around it. “Is daunting, dear friends. No wonder Greasies call us here to issue orders of day. They have muscle to enforce!” He shrugged, then grinned as they rounded the last barracks and saw the little landing field. “Hoy! Boyne!” he shouted. “Come say good-bye to country cousins!”

The Irish pilot hesitated, then came toward them. “Hello,” he said noncommittally. “I’ve just been putting our friend Dulla on a jeep on his way home.”

“He didn’t seem in a very good mood,” Dalehouse observed.

The pilot grinned. “His feelings were hurt, I’d say. He didn’t want us to see that he was using Krinpit transportation to get here. You didn’t know that? They came up the river by boat, and then the Krips carried him up eight or ten kilometers until we picked him up.”

Harriet said spitefully, “He might have been in a better mood if you hadn’t gone out of your way to insult him, Dalehouse.”

“Me? How?”

“He thought you were making a joke about the fact that so few of the Peeps have survived. His face went all tight.”

Dalehouse protested. “I didn’t mean anything like that. He’s such a thorny son of a bitch.”

“Forget,” advised Kappelyushnikov. “He is such close friend of cockroaches, let them worry about his feelings.”

“Well, I don’t understand that either, Gappy. The Krinpit almost killed him.”

“Then how is possible they become native bearers for fine Pakistani sahib as he daringly marches through jungle?”

“I can explain that,” Boyne said gloomily, “although I can’t say I like it. That first Krinpit you and I carried here, Dalehouse, the one that calls itself Sharn-igon? It’s mad at all human beings. Apparently its girlfriend, or actually I think it was a boyfriend, died from the first contact with the Peeps, and it just wants to get even. Only its idea of getting even seems to be to make as much trouble for as many human beings as it can. It’s raised a hell of a fuss with the Krips near here; we can’t make any contact with them at all. I guess it thinks the Peeps are pretty well screwed, so it’s willing to help them screw the rest of us. Looks damn bad for the future, if you ask me.”

He was walking along with them toward the airstrip, but his manner seemed reserved; he made no eye contact with any of them, and what he said was more of a monologue than a conversation.

Kappelyushnikov said placatingly, “Hey, Boyne, you pissed about something?”

“Me? Why should I be?” But Boyne still did not look at him.

Kappelyushnikov glanced at the others, then back to the pilot. “Hey, Boyne,” he wheedled. “We two are members of great interstellar brotherhood of pilotry, should not be pissed at each other.”

“Look, it’s not you personally,” said Boyne angrily. “I got my ass eaten out for lending you chaps the backhoe, not to mention talking a little more openly than I was supposed to about what we were doing here.”

“But we’re all in this together,” Dalehouse put in. “It’s like Pontrefact said at the meeting. We’re supposed to share information.”

“Oh, Ponty’s got the right idea, but that’s supposed to go both ways. You didn’t see fit to mention some of your own little deeds, did you? Like arming the balloonists against the Krinpit?”

“We didn’t! I mean, that’s my own department, Boyne. We’ve given them a few simple weapons to protect themselves against the ha’aye’i, that’s all.”

“Well, they’ve been using them against everything they can catch. Not to mention that business with the Peeps’ supply ship.”

“That was an accident!” Dalehouse said.

“Sure it was. Same as it’s an accident that your plane—” He hesitated, then closed his mouth.

“Come on, Boyne, what are you trying to say?” Dalehouse demanded.

“Nothing. Forget it.” Boyne glanced back toward the camp, then said rapidly, “Look, this peace conference was a bust, right? Nothing got settled. And the way things are going — well, I’ve got a bad feeling. The local Krips are gassing our Creepies in their burrows every once in awhile — that’s Peeps’ doing, I suppose. The Peep ship gets blown up; you say it’s an accident, but the gen says CIA. You’re giving the Loonies weapons. And your plane — well, shit, man,” he said, glaring at Kappelyushnikov. “I’ve got eyes. So right now I don’t feel like having a heart-to-heart, all right? Maybe some other time. So, so long, and have a nice flight home.” He nodded briskly and turned back to the Greasy base.