Saiko showed up half an hour later. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
"At ease, Saiko, and have a seat."
He did so. "Sir, I must apologize for my part in the fight-"
"Forget it. He deserved what he got. But I wanted to ask you-what the blazes you were using on him?"
"It's called Aikido, sir. It's an ancient Japanese martial art which uses an opponent's strength and movements against him."
"Like jujitsu?" I knew that Enforcer training included a smattering of that.
"In some ways. Aikido is-" he hesitated-"gentler, I suppose. We don't attempt to block an attack with our own strength, but to evade the blow, allowing it to continue and then joining with the movement and redirecting it. An Aikidoka, you see, seeks to subdue his opponent without harming him. Most other martial arts, including jujitsu, strive to defeat the opponent with more forceful and potentially damaging methods."
A memory clicked. "Is Aikido what you meant when you talked about defense without injury?"
He nodded. "As you pointed out, sir, the philosophy of peace and oneness would quickly die out if its followers could not protect themselves. It is said that a master of Aikido is untouchable, no matter how many men attack him."
"Are you a master?"
Saiko dropped his gaze to the floor and smiled faintly. "I have studied the art for seventeen years. The founder of Aikido, Morihei Uyeshiba, spent over forty years in practice and always considered himself merely a student."
The legendary Oriental patience, I thought wryly-something modern man could use a lot more of. A little less hurried impatience might save us a lot of fighting on worlds like Falkwade. "I understand."
"Will that be all, sir?"
"Yes. You can go now."
I saw Saiko off and on during the rest of the trip, though he never came to my quarters again to talk. He still seemed to have no real friends among the other Enforcers, but their general attitude was considerably more respectful toward him than it had been earlier. Enforcer nicknames, once given, tend to stick. So I noted with some amusement that "Love-and-kisses" Saiko was tacitly changed to the less obviously insulting "L.K." Saiko. It was a small step, but Saiko seemed satisfied.
more respectful toward him than it had been earlier. Enforcer nicknames, once given, tend to stick. So I noted with some amusement that "Love-and-kisses" Saiko was tacitly changed to the less obviously insulting "L.K." Saiko. It was a small step, but Saiko seemed satisfied.
Major Eldjarn and I were in the first shuttle down and were driven immediately to the contact team's prefab, looking out of place among the interwoven-branch huts of the village's four hundred-odd Falkren and the seventy humans who now resided here. Several of the natives-each one the size of Moose Cabral and reasonably human-looking-could be seen working at various tasks.
"I'm glad to have you here," Colonel David Sherwood, the contact team's commander, said when the military formalities were out of the way. "We've lost four men in the past two days alone, all but one from villagers down the coast. Fresh Enforcers should help morale a bit."
"I thought the villages were safe," Eldjarn said, frowning.
"The villages are, yes. But we can't sit around all day doing nothing. We send out an average of three survey teams a day via aircar. Almost the minute they land anywhere there are neuters running at them with those long knives of theirs and shooting those damn crossbows. It doesn't matter how far we are from here, either-the word seems to have gotten out to the whole planet. Even clans that usually fight each other are willing to join forces against us." Sherwood shook his head. "We use scatterguns, exploders, and even heavy lasers on them, kill them by the dozens-and they still keep coming. Don't they understand that they can't beat us, that we have the whip hand on this planet?"
Saiko's words about dominance and conflict flashed briefly through my mind. "Perhaps they refuse to be dominated by us."
Eldjarn snorted. "How do you 'refuse' to be dominated?"
"By fighting back," I told him. "The neuters must know that you can't kill too many of them without losing whatever good will you have among the females."
"Lieutenant Hillary is right," Sherwood admitted. "Killing neuters is eventually equivalent to killing males, and the females won't put up with too much of that. We don't dare kill except in self-defense, and even that's dangerous. The neuters have both time and numbers on their side."
"Have you tried to find out why the neuters don't want us around?" I asked.
"They shoot at anyone who tries to go out and talk to them. About all we can do is talk to the males, try to get them to take truce offers out there when they change to neuter. So far it hasn't worked; we don't know why. Dr. Ariyoshi, our alien psychologist, suggested the memory of what we said to them might not survive the change. So we've been trying to catch one of them right after the change, before he can leave the village, and drum in some instructions. So far they've gotten out too quickly for us. All of Ariyoshi's notes will be available to you-I hope you can make something out of them. The doctor himself chose this time to come down with some viral infection. He was flown off-planet last week for treatment."
Sherwood seemed to consider it a personal insult that Ariyoshi had gotten sick. "Corporal Snyder outside will take you to Ariyoshi's hut; you might as well bunk there for now. Study the stuff he's done and work out some kind of plan to stop the neuter harassment of us. This has been going on for almost two years, and I'm getting tired of it. Results, Lieutenant-I want results." outside will take you to Ariyoshi's hut; you might as well bunk there for now. Study the stuff he's done and work out some kind of plan to stop the neuter harassment of us. This has been going on for almost two years, and I'm getting tired of it. Results, Lieutenant-I want results."
It took me nearly a week to go through the material Ariyoshi had collected-he hadn't organized it for someone else to use, and I had to do a lot of digging-and while it was interesting, I didn't get any brilliant ideas from it. For obvious reasons most of his studies covered only the males and females and their interrelationship. It was fascinating reading; humanity has few martriarchal cultures left, and none where the females so completely dominate the males. But little if any of it gave me any clues about even the basics of neuter psychology, let alone what sort of threats or inducements might stop their attacks. While Ariyoshi had been convinced that a thread of consciousness ran through the male/neuter change, he'd been unable to determine how much memory or personality was transferred along this thread.
I was mulling over the problem one evening as I sat outside Ariyoshi's hut sipping a native drink that was reminiscent of strong limeade. In front of me was a small open area on the edge of the village where some of the male Falkren liked to relax after their day's labors. Fifty or so were here this particular evening, and the still air was full of both their scent and their quiet conversation. Only one other human was visible.
Saiko, sitting cross-legged on the far side of the open space, was talking earnestly to a large male.
I watched with only mild interest. Saiko, I'd heard, was spending much of his off-duty time trying to sell his philosophy to as many of the Falkren males as he could corner. To me it was obvious that he was trying to implant the teachings in the hope that they would survive through the change; to the rest of the Enforcers the whole idea of preaching peace to the peaceful was both amusing and demeaning, and once again Saiko was the butt of jokes and scorn. After what had looked like the first steps back toward peer acceptance on the transport, I was discouraged by this return to pariah status, especially since I saw little hope for his project. Most of the Falkren of this village understood English by now, though they were not properly equipped to speak it, but Ariyoshi's notes made it clear that they were totally uninterested in anything human except for the gifts we gave them.