The five … they didn't really look allke. They differed in height. All were thin, but one was almost a skeleton, and one almost had muscles. Four wore shapeless, almost colorless brown robes, a fifth wore a robe, of similar cut — cut from a similar blanket? — but in a faded pink pattern.
The one who spoke was the thinnest of them. A blue tattooed bird adorned the back of his hand.
Louis answered.
The tattooed one made a short speech. That was luck. The autopilot would need data before it could begin a translation.
Louis replied.
The tattooed man spoke again. His four companions maintained their dignified silence. So, incredibly, did their audience.
Presently the discs were filling in words and phrases …
He thought later that the silence should have Upped him off It was their stance that fooled him. There was the wide ring of the crowd, and the four hairy men in robes, all standing in a row; and the man with the tattooed hand, talking.
"We call the mountain Fist-of-God." He was pointing directly starboard. "Why? Why not, if it please you, engineer?" He must have meant the big mountain, the one they had left behind with the ship. By now it was entirely concealed by haze and distance.
Louis listened and learned. The autopilot made a dandy translator. Gradually a picture built up, a picture of a farming village living in the ruins of what had once been a mighty city…
"True, Zignamuclickclick is no longer as great as it once was. Yet our dwellings are far superior to what we could make for ourselves. Where a roof is open to the sky, still the lower floor will remain dry during a short rainstorm. The buildings of the city are easy to keep warm. In time of war, they are easily defended and difficult to burn down.
"So it is, engineer, that though we go in the morning to work our fields, at night we return to our dwellings along the edge of Zignamuclickclick. Why should we strain to make now homes when the old ones serve better?"
Two terrifying aliens and two almost-humans, unbearded and unnaturally tall; all four riding wingless metal birds, speaking gibberish from their mouths and sense from metal discs … small wonder if the natives had taken them for the Ringworld builders. Louis did nothing to correct the impression. An explanation of their origin would have taken days, and the team was here to learn, not to teach.
"This tower, engineer, is our seat of government. We rule more than a thousand people here. Could we raise a better palace than this tower? We have blocked off the upper stories so that the sections we use will retain heat. Once we defended the tower by dropping rubble from upper floors. I remember that our worst problem was the fear of high places …
"Yet we long for the return of the days of wonder, when our city held a thousand thousand people, and buildings floated in the air. We hope that you will choose to bring back those days. It is said that in the days of wonder, even this very world was bent to its present shape. Perhaps you will deign to say if it is true?"
"It's true enough," said Louis.
"And shall those days return?"
Louis made an answer he hoped was noncommittal. He sensed the other's disappointment, or guessed it.
Reading the hairy man's expression was not easy. Gestures are a kind of code; and the spokesman's gestures were not those of any terrestrial culture. Tightly-curled platinum hair hid his entire face, except for the eyes, which were brown and soft. But eyes hold little expression, contrary to public opinion.
His voice was almost a chant, almost a recital of poetry. The autopilot was translating Louis's words into a similar chant, though it spoke to Louis in a conversational tone. Louis could hear the other translator discs whistling softly in Puppeteer, snarling quietly in the Hero's Tongue.
Louis put questions …
"No, engineer, we are not a bloodthirsty people. We make war rarely. The skulls? They lie underfoot wherever one walks in Zignamuclickclick. They have been there since the fall of the city, it is said. We use them for decoration and for their symbolic significance." The spokesman solemnly raised his hand with its back to Louis, presenting the bird tattoo.
Amd everyone in sight shouted, "-!"
The word was not translated.
It was the first time anyone but the spokesman had said anything at all.
Louis had missed something, and he knew it. Unfortunately there wasn't time to worry about it.
"Show us a wonder," the spokesman was saying. "We doubt not your power. But you may not pass this way again. We would have a memory to pass to our children."
Louis considered. They'd already flown like birds; that trick would not impress twice. What about manna from the kitchen slots? But even Earthborn humans varied in their tolerance of certain food. The difference between food and garbage was mostly cultural. Some ate locusts with honey, others broiled snails; one man's cheese was another's rotted milk. Best not chance it. What about the flashlight-laser?
As Louis reached into his 'cyclies cargo slot, the first edge of a shadow square touched the rim of the sun. Darkness would make his demonstration all the more impressive.
With aperture wide and power low, he turned the light first on the spokesman, then on his four co-rulers, last on the faces of the crowd. If they were impressed, they hid it well. Hiding his disappointment, Louis aimed the implement high.
The figurine which was his target jutted from the tower's roof. It was like a modernized, surrealistic gargoyle. Loulies thumb moved, and the gargoyle glowed yellow-white. His index finger shifted, and the beam narrowed to a pencil of green light. The gargoyle sprouted a white-hot navel.
Louis waited for the applause.
"Yon fight with light," said the man with the tattooed hand. "Surely this is forbidden."
The crowd shouted, and was as suddenly silent.
"We did not know it," said Louis. "We apologize."
"Did not know it? How could you not know it? Did you not raise the Arch in sign of the Covenant with Man?"
"What arch is that?"
The hairy man's face was hidden, but his astonishment was evident. "The Arch over the world, O Builder!"
Louis understood then. He started to laugh.
The hairy man punched him unskillfully in the nose.
The blow was light, for the hairy man was slight and his hands were fragile. But it hurt.
Louis was not used to pain. Most people of his century had never felt pain more severe than that of a stubbed toe. Anaesthetics were too prevalent, medical help was too easily available. The pain of a skiier's broken leg usually lasted seconds, not minutes, and the memory was often suppressed as an intolerable trauma. Knowledge of the fighting disciplines, karate, judo, jujitsu, and boxing, had been illegal since long before Louis Wu was born. Louis Wu was a lousy warrior. He could face death, but not pain.
The blow hurt. Louis screamed and dropped his flashlight-laser.
The audience converged. Two hundred infuriated hairy men became a thousand demons; and things weren't nearly as funny as they had been a minute ago.
The reed-thin spokesman had wrapped both arms around Louis Wu, pinioning him with hysterical strength. Louis, equally hysterical, broke free with one frantic lunge. He was on his 'cycle, his hand was on the lift lever, when reason prevailed.
The other 'cycles were slaved to his. If he took off they would take off, with or without their passengers.
Louis looked about him.
Teela Brown was already in the air. From overhead she watched the fight, her eyebrows puckered in concern. She had not thought of trying to help.
Speaker was in furious motion. He'd already felled half a dozen enemies. As Louis watched, the kzin swung his flashlight-laser and smashed a man's skull.
The hairy men milled about him in an indecisive circle.