He was deliberately insulting, trying to infuriate Hogram as he had been infuriated. The Skarmer domain master, though, seemed armored against insult. “In your obstinacy, Omalo, you have made me become more generous. Cherish that; not many may boast of it.”
“Imagine my delight.” Reatur made his voice as hot with scorn as the meltwater that brawled through Ervis Gorge. “Save such praise for dealings with your fellow Skarmer, who can properly appreciate it.” He shortened his eyestalks in surprise as he thought of something new. “Why even think of crossing the gorge, Hogram? Why not seize the domains of your neighbors, if you need land so badly? Surely that would be simpler for you.”
“I wish you had been budded a fool; my life would be easier.” This time Hogram sounded as though he really was giving a compliment, not sardonic as he had been before. “In truth, though, all the Skarmer domains hereabouts find themselves in the same straits as do I: too many folk, not enough food. My domain might be bigger were I to conquer them, but no better off.”
That made sense to Reatur. He almost wished it had not; he had not expected to be able to see out of Hogram’s eyestalks. Thinking of the Skarmer domain master as a male with problems of his own was less comfortable than simply thinking of him as the enemy. It could be useful, though, if it gave him clues about how Hogram would plot.
As if changing the subject, Reatur asked, “Do your humans come in two kinds, one with a deep rumbling voice and the other that sounds like a person?”
Hogram, Reatur thought, was sharp or at least suspicious. The Skarmer domain master’s voice turned cautious at once as he answered, “Yes, they do. What of it?”
The reply was innocuous enough, but Reatur felt like hooting with glee. Instead, as casually as before, he asked, “Have they told you that the ones who sound like people are mates, and the others males?”
By Hogram’s response, he already knew that the humans on the Skarmer side of the gorge had not. And if Hogram suddenly learned something as unsettling as that, it might help drive him apart from his humans. Reatur was convinced that such a rift would prove useful; he still wasn’t sure what powers humans had, but keeping those powers estranged from the Skarmer had to be a good idea.
“I know what you are thinking: you want to make me fear the-“ Hogram used his own word for humans. Yes, he was sharp. “But who ever heard of an old mate?” So the Skarmer had that cliche, too, did they? “I waggle my eyestalks at you and your deception both,” Hogram finished.
Reatur would have thought it funny, too, had he not known the truth. He thought of Lamra for a moment, but made himself dismiss her from his mind; Hogram demanded all his attention. “If you think! am lying, ask your humans for yourself.”
“Bluff all you like, Reatur. I will ask them, and afterward know you for the liar you are. That will be remembered, when we cross to the east side of the gorge.”
“Do you think your boasts make me blue with fright? If you are foolish enough to come, we will be ready for you. But”-Reatur remembered-“the humans asked us to talk so we would not fight, not so we would quarrel more with words. Can we find a way to keep you on your side of the gorge where you belong, and to keep our domains at peace?”
“There is no way to keep us on this side of the gorge alone,” Hogram declared. “As for peace, I have offered to let males of yours survive. If you do not resist us, obviously, more will live. We would not be deliberately harsh.”
“You offer less than I and mine have already. You know I will not accept.” As he sparred, Reatur had been thinking of what he could propose to Hogram. Now he set it forth. “If we knew you were not planning to invade, we might rebuild the bridge across the gorge. Then, in years when we had good crops, we could trade our surplus to you rather than to one of our Omalo neighbors who was less lucky. That would let you support more people on your domain.”
“How many more? How often do you have that kind of good year?. If it were more than one year in three, I would be surprised and try to buy your secret from you. Is it?”
“No,” Reatur said after thinking over and rejecting a lie. Melting the truth a little might save him trouble now but would earn more later.
“You bargain strangely, Omalo, but I accept your word. Well, then: if in one of those rare good years you do sell us food, how much do you suppose we could haul over the bridge? Enough for a few eighteens of males, perhaps, but not much more. That does not suffice.”
Reatur let the air hiss out through his breathing pores. “Which leaves us where we began.”
“So it does.” Hogram also sighed. “For a moment there I had hope, but you are right. I could wish you sprang from a Skarmer bud, Reatur, but that is not so. As is, since you will not give us what we need, we shall take it from you.”
“You may try, Hogram, but you will fail.”
“If a Skarmer wants a thing, Omalo, be assured he will have it, and pay less than the former owner would like. Reatur, I want your domain, and I tell you will not keep it. The day your eyestalks turn away from our direction, we will come.”
“You lie. Past that, I have nothing more to say to you.”
“Nor I to you,” Hogram said. “Our actions will speak.”
Reatur sighed again. For the first time since he and Hogram had confronted each other with their voices, he paid attention to the human who had made the confrontation possible. “Take your box away, Irv,” he said, suddenly so weary his arms and eyestalks felt like drooping. “We are finished.”
The human touched a button; the box, which had been letting out a quiet hiss, became completely silent. “You, Hogram make peace?” Irv asked. “Not follow all words-you, Hogram not use same words you, me use.”
“Trade talk has Omalo words, Skarmer words, and words from other great clans all mixed together; males from different great clans use it when neither speaks the other’s language,” Reatur explained. He was glad to blather on about trade talk. While he was doing that, he would not have to think about everything Hogram had said.
“Lingua franca,” Irv muttered. Then, as if noticing that meant nothing to Reatur, he did some explaining himself. “Humans with words not same do same thing sometimes.”
“Ah,” Reatur said politely. Interesting how, every once in a while, humans acted very much like people.
But no male of his domain would have been so rude as to ask again, as Irv did, “You, Hogram make peace?”
“No,” Reatur said. “I didn’t think we would, I told you we wouldn’t, and yet, curse it, you kept at me, making me waste time I could have spent helping my domain get ready for whatever the miserable Skarmer have in their sneaking minds.”
Irv spread his hands in the human gesture that meant it wasn’t his fault. “My domain masters tell me what to do. I must go in direction they point. Your males do that for you.” Then Irv bent at the middle and stayed bent. Had he been a person, Reatur realized, he would have been widening himself in apology.
The domain master gestured for him to resume his usual height. Irv did-yes, apology was what he had meant. “You are right-you should obey your domain masters,” Reatur conceded, although the plural puzzled him. “This time, though, they were wrong. Hogram and I had nothing to say to each other, not about peace.”
Irv spread his hands once more. Reatur hardly noticed. He was thinking about Hogram now, like it or not, and about how confident the Skarmer had sounded. If Hogram’s males could not cross Ervis Gorge, he had no business sounding like that. But how could they, with the yearly flood rising day by day? Reatur could hear the waters booming and could feel their pounding through his feet. He turned his mental eyestalks in all directions but could not see how the Skarmer might best the flood.