A World of Difference (30 page)

“Yes, I suppose so—the meat is vile,” Fralk answered. “Long
ago there was a bounty on their claws, but since none has been seen this near town in a good many years, I suppose that offer has melted.” He did not want to talk about the krong. He wanted to talk about Tolmasov’s rifle. “From how far away can it kill?”

“Farther than you can throw a stone,” the pilot answered. He did not want to tell Fralk the Kalashnikov was accurate out to three or four hundred meters and could kill from a kilometer away if a round happened to hit.

What he did say was plenty. “Wonderful!” Fralk exclaimed. “Wonderful!” Tolmasov had never heard a Minervan burbling before. “Hogram will be as excited as I am at the prospect of doing away with the wretched Omalo while at the same time keeping our males safe.”

“Remember what I say,” Tolmasov warned him. “My domain-masters may not let us sell you rifle. They say no, we not sell.” He started walking away from the dead krong, back toward Hogram’s town. Maybe if Fralk could not see the beast anymore, he would stop being so heated—not really the right word to apply to a Minervan, the pilot thought—about what the Kalashnikov could do.

No such luck. The Minervan went right on babbling until Tolmasov rudely left him outside the humans’ tent and went in alone. Oleg Lopatin looked up from the radio handset he was checking. “I’ve seen you looking happier, Sergei Konstantinovich,” he said.

Tolmasov was so frazzled, he did not even mind unburdening himself to the KGB man. “I almost wish I’d let the miserable creature eat us,” he finished. “That might have ended up doing the mission less harm than letting the locals find out about firearms.”

“Possibly not, Comrade Colonel,” Lopatin said. Tolmasov grew alert; Lopatin only used formal address when he had something on his mind. “Would it not accord well with Marxist-Leninist principles to render fraternal assistance to this advanced society in its struggle against the oppressive feudal aristocrats on the eastern side of Jötun Canyon? The dialectic of history supports the Skarmer; how can we not do the same?”

“Two good reasons: This is Minerva, not Earth; and there are people on the other side of the canyon. I have more loyalty to my own kind than I do to dialectical materialism.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Tolmasov knew he had said too much. And words were never unsayable, not to a
chekist
.

But Lopatin’s response was mild. “Marxist-Leninist principles
hold universally, Sergei Konstantinovich. You know that as well as I. Tell me, what had you planned to do about Fralk’s request?”

“Nothing,” Tolmasov answered honestly. “Or rather, say I had consulted with Moscow and they told me he could not have his rifle. A little discreet checking with Bragg will let me make sure he isn’t giving the Omalo firearms.”

“Yes, by all means check with Bragg,” Lopatin said. “But perhaps you also really should ask Moscow about this question. Then there can be no room for misunderstanding. This is only a suggestion, of course.”

But it wasn’t only a suggestion, as Tolmasov knew. That was what he got for leaving himself open to the KGB man. “Let me talk with Bragg first,” the pilot said, dickering now. “If I have his clear assurance that he is not giving guns to the locals, a decision from Moscow is unnecessary. Otherwise—”

“Good enough,” Lopatin said, to Tolmasov’s surprise and relief. “Call now, why don’t you? Even I will admit, Sergei Konstantinovich, that our colleagues back on Earth are not always as timely as they might be. The longer the opportunity we give them, the better.”

He said that with the air of a man making a great concession, perhaps so he could act as if he were repaying Tolmasov for his slip of a few minutes before. But the pilot, like most men on the frontier, already had a low opinion of the alleged experts back home. Not only were they slow in making up their minds, they were sadly disconnected from the reality he was living. That scheme for peace talks between Hogram and the eastern chieftain, for instance … Tolmasov could have told them—did tell them—it was a waste of time. They had forced him to go ahead with it anyway and proven him right.

So who knew what Moscow would instruct now? They might well order him to let the Minervans have an AK-74. That would leave the whole expedition vulnerable in a way it had not been before. As a soldier, he hated the idea of making himself more vulnerable.

Well, odds were Bragg would bail him out, he thought as he went over to the radio. The American mission commander was an enemy, but never a stupid one. He had to have better sense than to go arming the natives. Tolmasov turned a dial to get the frequency he needed. “Soviet Minerva base calling
Athena,
” he said in English.

The answer came promptly enough, in Russian. “
Athena
here,
Sergei Konstantinovich.” A woman’s voice, more heavily accented than his when speaking her language. “Pat Marquard here.”

“Hello, Patricia Grigorovna. I need to ask a question of Brigadier Bragg, if I may.”

“Wait, please,” she said. He did, but not long. Bragg came on the other end of the hookup.

“Hello, Sergei Konstantinovich. Not your usual time for a call. What’s up?”

The shrill American flavor he gave his words and the lazy way he drawled them out should have made him sound like a fool when he spoke Russian. Tolmasov wished they did. Unfortunately, he could not imagine Bragg sounding like a fool no matter what language he used.

Swallowing a sigh, the colonel got on with it. “I was, ah, wondering, Brigadier, whether you’ve traded any firearms to the Minervans on your side of Jötun Canyon.” Only the faint pop of static came from the circuit. “Brigadier Bragg?” Tolmasov said at last.

“I’m here,” Bragg answered at once. “Why do you want to know?” Hard suspicion filled his voice.

Because if you haven’t gone and done something idiotic, then there’s no chance I’ll have to, either, Tolmasov wanted to say. He could not, not with a Soviet tape recorder and an American one preserving his every word. “I was curious about how they’ve adapted to them,” he replied instead. “Not what the natives are used to at all, don’t you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Bragg said flatly. “I don’t believe you, either, Sergei Konstantinovich. You sound more like someone sniffing around to find out what his little friends will be up against if they manage to get across the canyon. And that, Comrade Colonel”—the contempt with which he loaded Tolmasov’s rank was stinging—“is exactly none of your damned business.
Athena
out.”

Tolmasov found himself staring in numb dismay at a silent microphone. He made himself look up from it and saw Oleg Lopatin aiming his best I-told-you-so smirk at him. “Moscow,” the KGB man said.

“Moscow,” Tolmasov echoed dully.

“You should have seen it, clanfather!” Fralk exulted. “The krong was nearly on me, but then the
rifle”—he
pronounced the human word with care—“roared louder than half an eighteen of
krongii and put holes in it. It turned on Sergei, but he made the rifle roar again and again, till the krong fell over, dead.”

“A krong, so close to town?” Hogram’s fingers opened and closed in distress. “I’ll send out some males, to make sure none of its mates can drop her buds anywhere near here. I thought we’d hunted them out long ago. I’m glad you weren’t hurt, eldest of eldest.”

Not an eighteenth so glad as I am, Fralk thought. But it was not like Hogram to miss the main point so completely. “Aye, send out the hunters, clanfather,” Fralk said, “but get one of those rifles for us, no matter what it costs. If it fills a krong full of holes, think what it would do to the Omalo.”

“Hmm. I suppose so, yes. The humans
are
careful with them, aren’t they? They never left one lying around so we could, ah, borrow it to see how it works. That always made me think the things were valuable.”

“Valuable?” The younger male was still so excited, he could hardly contain himself. “Clanfather, listen to me: Sergei said that if his own domain-masters refused his permission, he could not yield one to us no matter what we paid for it.”

“
Did
he?”

That piqued Hogram’s interest, Fralk thought. “He did. He also said the humans on the other side of Ervis Gorge may have these firearms for the Omalo.”

“Did he?” Now Hogram was roused all right, Fralk thought. “And these humans—our humans—would refuse them to us?”

“No matter what we paid,” Fralk agreed.

“The humans take our goods, aye, but I have not seen them go wild over anything, nor use it as we use the tools and trinkets we get from them,” Hogram said. “That says to me they are what they claim, explorers seeing the kinds of things we have rather than merchants in the same sense as ourselves.”

Fralk had not worked that through for himself, but it made sense. Hogram’s gift for pointing an eyestalk toward such subtle points had helped lift his clan to the status it enjoyed among the Skarmer these days. “If they do not truly need anything we have, it weakens us,” Fralk remarked. “How can we make them reach out with the arm that is turned in the direction best for us?”

“They have only two arms apiece, but they turn them every which way,” Hogram said. “Were they not so strange in seeming, I would take them for spies. If I were to order them to stay in their own tent and their sky-boat until they do as we desire,
I think that might persuade them to obey. After all, eldest of eldest, what good are explorers who are not allowed to explore?”

“None.” Quite without calculation, Fralk widened himself before Hogram. The domain-master’s gift for subterfuge had not diminished as his years grew long. It grew with them instead, until even creatures as weird as the humans held few mysteries for him. Fralk was used to believing his own machinations hidden from Hogram. Suddenly he suspected that what he had imagined to be a wall of solid earth was in fact but a thin pane of clear ice.

A motion of Hogram’s arms recalled the younger male to himself. “You said our humans will be talking with those on the other side of Ervis Gorge, and with their own domain-masters?”

“Yes, clanfather.” Fralk slowly resumed his usual height.

“That will take some time. Let’s give them, oh, half an eighteen of days. If after that time they still refuse to sell us one of these whatever-they-call-thems, we will find out how they enjoy exploring the hot, muddy inside of that gaudy orange tent—the cursed thing reminds me of the color a presap mate takes on when it’s ripe for budding.”

“It
is
ugly, isn’t it?” Fralk’s eyestalks quivered a little.

“Hideous is a better word.” Hogram changed the subject. “The boats are now ready, I take it?”

“Yes, clanfather.” Fralk never would have come where Hogram’s eyestalks could spy him were that not so. “We have the boats, we have the males to fill them. Now we are only waiting for the waters to grow calmer. As you yourself said, we do not want accidents while we are crossing the gorge.” He knew there would be accidents anyway; if they waited for the waters in Ervis Gorge to be completely calm, they would wait until the flood had drained away.

The odor of resignation Hogram exuded said he knew the same thing. The domain-master asked a different question. “How will our males react to being in these boats on the water? They will never have done anything like that before. If they are all blue with fright when they get across, they will prove nothing but prey for the Omalo.”

“Clanfather, I think I am more afraid of Juksal than I could be of any water,” Fralk blurted. This time Hogram’s eyestalks wiggled, and not a little. “Laugh all you like,” the younger male went on, “but I don’t think I’m the only male who feels that way.”

“Good.” Hogram
was
still laughing. “It’s good to know our veteran warriors can inspire fright. If they do the same to Reatur’s males as to our own, we will surely triumph.” The domain-master paused; his eyestalks stopped moving. “Reatur … he worries me.”

“He is able, clanfather,” Fralk said, remembering that Reatur had scared him a good deal more than Juksal ever managed to do. “But he is not as able as you.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe.” Hogram’s skin turned a deeper green; Fralk’s flattery had pleased him. Flattered or not, though, he was still Hogram. “Let me point out to you, eldest of eldest, that I will not be east of Ervis Gorge meeting Reatur. You will.”

Fralk knew that was true. He would just as soon not have been reminded of it, though.

“They did what?” Reatur shouted. All the males who could hear him—which meant a lot of males—turned a couple of extra eyestalks in his direction. That shout meant trouble. What kind they would find out later, but the trouble was already here.

“They ran a whole herd of massi back into Dordal’s domain, clanfather,” the male named Garro repeated.

The domain-master did not need to look down at himself to know he was turning yellow. “Dordal has gone mad if he thinks he can get away with that,” he said furiously. “He knows we outweigh him two to one. And he’s a lazy piece of runnerpest voiding to begin with. What stirred his eyestalks up all of a sudden, to let him think he can go raiding without our tying them in knots for him? I’ll take a band of warriors that will—”

Garro interrupted to answer Reatur’s rhetorical question. “A couple of his males were wiggling their eyestalks and jeering that we couldn’t do anything about it because we were too busy worrying about imaginary dangers from across Ervis Gorge.”

“Ervis—” Reatur felt his breathing-pores tightening up, as if they were trying to keep out a bad smell. Unfortunately, he knew the threat from west of the gorge was not imaginary. That limited what he could do. His first angry vision of arming all the males in the domain and leading them up to smash Dordal’s castle melted like ice in a hot summer.

His skin went back to its usual green as calculation ousted rage. “I can’t let him keep those massi,” he said slowly. “If I do, his males will steal more. Not only that, Grebur will think he can nibble at my domain, too. Between them, curse it, they could prove more trouble than the Skarmer.”

“Could and probably will, clanfather,” Garro agreed. “I still don’t see how anyone can cross Ervis Gorge when it’s full of water.”