Frederik Pohl - O Pioneer!

All the Kalkaboos around Giyt were looking at him with expressions that might have been respect, or equally well could have been loathing; He glanced uneasily toward their waiting cart, but Rina firmly shook her head; it wasn’t time to leave yet. After a moment the mourners began chattering among themselves, turning toward the tank that held the late High Champion.

The Kalkaboos standing by the pots had the covers off now, and one by one they raised their pots and dumped the contents into the tank. Giyt had a confused impression of something moving about in the fall of water from the pots, and then he saw what it was. Each pot had been filled with a dozen or more eel-like things, each a few centimeters long, and as soon as they were in the tank they went about the business of feeding on the stewed carcass of the recent High Champion.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see the female who was his guide, and she was speaking to him. He had to turn up his earpiece to hear her say, “They eat. We eat. You eat,” demonstrating the translation program’s skill at declining at least the simplest verb forms, as she urged him toward the buffet tables.

Weil, Rina and Giyt didn’t eat there, exactly, although they did nibble. The Kalkaboos were knowledgeable enough to have provided some human-edible cheeseburgers, bought frozen from the human store; not quite knowledgeable enough to have defrosted them. The Giyts gnawed politely around the edges as best they could, but not for long. As soon as Giyt saw a chance they stole away, found their cart, and headed for home, where they dumped the remains of the cheeseburgers into the disposer.

By then Giyt’s ears had stopped ringing, and enough of his hearing had returned to let him put in a little preparatory work at his station before heading for the weekly commission meeting. All the same, he resolved to do his best to avoid running up any more Kalkaboo expiation bills, however unfairly accrued. One of those monster firecrackers had been enough to last him. It was the sort of thing, he thought, that was better employed in blowing up tree stumps, or maybe demolishing small houses.

But all in all, Giyt was fairly well pleased with himself. He had met the obligations of the situation with reasonable credit, and when he arrived at the Hexagon he was prepared to present his very first original proposal to the group.

He was early, but not as early as the Responsible One of the Petty-Primes or the Principal Slug, who were whispering to each other at the Slug podium. Mrs. Brownbenttalon arrived a moment later and greeted Giyt. “Hey, Large Male Giyt, you make good bang, eh?”

“Oh, were you there? I didn’t see you.”

“No,” she agreed good-naturedly, “you much too occupied with hellish big bang. How you like dopey Kalkaboo funeral? After disgusting little snakes eat meat they burn decedent’s bones, you know? And then lucky Kalkaboos each get one disgusting snake to keep for pet.” She paused to listen as her husband muttered in her ear. “Oh, right. Listen. Tonight we do Miss Whitenose First Fuck party. You need to cheering up now, so you and mate come, okay? Now got to chair dumb meeting. Not to take long because we probably got to have dumb Kalkaboo ritual real fast.”

“What ritual?” Giyt asked, staring after her, but she had already scuttled to her post at the Centaurian point of the Hexagon as the Delt General Manager arrived.

That was, evidently, as full a quorum as they were going to get. There was no one at the Kalkaboo podium, only a glass fishbowl that, Giyt saw incredulously, contained one of the eel-like things, torpidly swimming as befit a creature with a very full belly. Mrs. Brownbenttalon clicked one of her claws against the lectern and said, “Okay, meeting called to order. You all got all reports, read when you feel like, nothing special, so move to accept, okay? Good. Now, since there no other business—”

Giyt hadn’t expected her to move so fast, but he was ready. “Madam Divinely Elected Savior Brownbenttalon,” he called, “I do have some other business.”

That stopped her for a moment. She peered silently at him over the fur on her long nose, beady little eyes blinking. “Mayor Large Male Giyt, have not available time at present time for necessary time for unknown other business.”

“I’ll just be a moment,’’ he reassured her, and went right on. “What I want to talk about is a proposal for a joint six-peoples effort to make better use of the resources of Tu—of our planet. We could start with the possibility of finding useful new pharmaceuticals to return to our home planets. I am sure most of you have already surveyed the, ah, biota of this island and the ones nearby, and no doubt you’ve long since found many valuable substances. Unfortunately, my own planet has not been so enterprising, and we have a lot to do to catch up. But, unless I am mistaken—and I’ve discussed this with Mr. Hoak Hagbarth—none of you have actually conducted a similar investigation of the biota of the other island chains on this planet. Yet they may have things of great value. I understand that, because of the great distances, there has been little or no contact between the different island arcs since the time of the planet’s K-T incident, and so their biota may be quite different from our own here.” He glanced at his notes, taken from his time with the data file earlier. When he looked up they were all staring at him. “It is a matter of relict populations and mutations,” he explained. “The relict populations may be quite similar to our own;—though there might be considerable differences because of differences in climate—but the mutations, which are quite random, will surely have produced many new species and varieties, perhaps even quite new genera.” He paused, gazing at Mrs. Brownbenttalon uncertainly. “Am I going too fast for you?”

She made a noise that might have been a snicker. “Actually too slow, Mayor Large Male Giyt. Making great demands on patience of new Kalkaboo High Champion, who waiting for meeting end. Look, he entering now for ritual combat.”

It was the first Giyt had heard of the ritual combat. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but as the new High Champion came grimly in, followed by a dozen sullen-looking dignitaries of his community, it was all quickly explained. “Earth Human Mayor Giyt,” the Kalkaboo announced, “you have caused the death of our beloved former High Champion, and as successor of same I must wipe out unendurable stain on Kalkaboo honor. Prepare self for combat!”

And he sprang at Giyt over the audience seats, floppy ears flopping, scrawny arms outstretched to claw at him.

Giyt had never thought of himself as a warrior, didn’t like fighting at all, and had done very little of it in his life. Nevertheless, in high school he and every other student had had to take the compulsory martial-arts courses just to give them a fighting chance of making it home after class.

In any case, the Kalkaboos were not a large race; Giyt was twice the size of the new High Champion-elect. He ducked those grasping arms, bent, caught the eetie around the waist—his scrawny body was much hotter than Giyt’s—and threw him two meters across the room.

The Kalkaboo yelped in astonishment, tried to get up, yelped again, and lay there, clutching one shoulder and glaring up at Giyt. “Are Earth humans insane?” he whimpered. “What you did that for?”

“Jesus, Giyt,” Hagbarth complained, “what did you do that for?”

Giyt protested, “He jumped me. Anyway, it was a fair fight.”

“Asshole! It wasn’t any kind of fight at all. It was just one of those damn Kalkaboo customs, for God’s sake. All you were supposed to do was take a fall and let him claim victory—you know, to avenge what you did to the guy before him, so he could confirm his claim to the job—and then everything would’ve been fine.”