others in the room, "but not by inclination, or belief."
"You're losing me."
"We don't want to do that," said the man, unclasping his hands. "We want you to
join us."
"Join you? In what? I haven't got time to join anything else. I'm already into
something vitally important to your whole world." He started to recite
Clothahump's warning about the coming cataclysm.
"The Plated Folk are readying their greatest invasion of these lands in their
history, and they have--"
"We know all that," said one of the other guards impatiently.
Jon-Tom gaped at the woman who'd spoken. She was one of the trio blocking the
doorway. "You know?" Nods of assent came from several of the others.
"But I thought... Clothahump said he was the only one perceptive enough to...
but how do you know?"
"Patience," the blond urged him. "All will be explained.
"You asked if we were not citizens of the city, and what we wanted you to join
us for. We are citizens of this city, yes, and we are something more, we
believe. As for what we want you to join, I have already told you. We want you
to join us."
"What the hell do you mean by 'us'? Some kind of political organization?"
The man shook his head. "Not really. Us. Us... we humans." He spoke patiently,
as though explaining to a child.
"I still don't follow you."
The man looked in exasperation at his companions, then once more back at
Jon-Tom. "Listen to me carefully, spellsinger. For tens of thousands of years
mankind has been compelled to exist as a lowly equal with the animals. With the
hordes of stinking, smelly, hairy beasts who are obviously our inferiors." This
was said with casual disregard for his own unkempt mat of fur. "With those who
are destined to be damned together with the rats and mice they so readily
discriminate against themselves."
Jon-Tom didn't reply. The man almost pleaded with him. "Surely you have felt the
inequality, the unnaturalness of this situation?" He paced in front of Jon-Tom's
cot, occasionally shaking clenched fists at him.
"We are more than animals, are we not? Clearly nature has intended us to be
superior, yet some unnatural force or circumstance has held us back from
achieving our birthright. The time to change that is near. Soon mankind shall
inherit this world, as nature intended him to!"
"You're talking, then," said Jon-Tom slowly, "about a race war?"
"No!" The stocky leader turned angrily on him. "This is to be a war for the
race, for the human race, to place it in its rightful position as leader of
civilization." He leaned near, stared searchingly into Jon-Tom's face. "Tell me
then, spellsinger: do the humans of your other-world exist equally with the
animals?"
My God, Jon-Tom thought in panic. What do I say? How perceptive are they? Can
they detect, through magic or otherwise, if I lie? And if so, and they learn the
truth, will they use that to gather support among the humans here for their own
hateful plans?
But are they after all so hateful? Do you hate what this man is saying, Jon-Tom,
or do you hate the thought that you might agree with him?
"Well?" the man prompted.
No reply was worse than anything he might say, he decided. "The humans I've met
are no more than the equal of the other animals here in size and intelligence.
Some have shown themselves to be a damnsight less so. What makes you think
you're so superior?"
"Belief, and inner knowledge," came the instant reply. "This cannot be the way
nature meant things to be. Something is wrong here. And you have not yet
answered my question about the relationship between humans and animals in your
world."
"We're all animals together. Intelligence is the determining factor, and the
other persons I've met here have been pretty much equal in intelligence."
"Ah... the other animals you've met here. What about your own world's
'animals'?"
Jon-Tom's voice rose in frustration. "God damn you, shape and size has nothing
to do with it!"
"It confirms what the dream raiders told us," murmured someone in the back of
the room. There were other unintelligible whispers, smug and self-satisfied.
Jon-Tom found them unsettling.
"Anyway, I won't join you." He folded his arms. "I doubt that many will. I know
plenty of humans already who can tell the difference between civilized and
uncivilized, between intelligent and ignorant, without having to think about it,
and it hasn't a fucking thing to do with body odor. So you can take your
'belief' and 'inner knowledge' and stuff it! Those are the kinds of groundless,
half-assed reasons dictators have used throughout history for discriminating
against others, and I don't want anything to do with it.
"Besides, humans are just another mammalian minority here. Even if they all went
nuts and joined you, you're far too outnumbered to even think the kind of
genocide you're contemplating has a chance of success."
"You're right on all counts," agreed the leader, "except one."
"I don't think I overlooked anything."
"Perhaps it would be better if I explained." The voice had a hoarseness to it
that suggested a severe cold or laryngitis. The man who'd spoken stepped out
into the light. He was as thickset as the leader and even more hirsute. Long
black hair flowed below his shoulders, and his beard almost obscured his face.
Brown and blue leathers were draped tentlike on his body.
Jon-Tom was by now almost too furious to think straight. "Who the hell are you,
jack?" He was thinking of Mudge and Clothahump, of the aristocratic but friendly
Caz, and the acerbic Pog. The idea that this motley mob of near barbarians
considered themselves good enough to lord it over his new-won furry friends was
almost more than he could stomach.
"My identity is perhaps better shown than stated," said the black-haired shape
as he reached up and carefully removed his head.
The skull thus revealed was smaller than a human head, but occupied almost as
much volume because of the bulging, bright green compound eyes. The chitin was
bright blue spotted with yellow patches. A slash of maroon decorated the
mandibles. Antennae drooped toward Jon-Tom. They were constantly in motion,
alternating like a swimmer's arms.
It spoke again, the same harsh, rasping tone. The mouth did not move. Jon-Tom
realized the insect was generating a crude approximation of normal speech by
controlling the flow of air through its breathing spicules.
"I am Hanniwuz," said the apparition huskily. "This suit I wear is necessary
lest the locals kill me on sight. They bear an unreasoning hatred for my people
and have persecuted us for thousands of years."
Jon-Tom had recovered from the initial shock of the revelation. "The way I hear
it, it's your people who have been doing the hating, trying to invade and
enslave the locals for millennia."
"I will not deny that we seek control, but we do not seek conquest. It is for
our protection. We require security of some kind. The warm-landers grow
constantly stronger. One day their hatred will overwhelm their lethargy and they
will arise en masse to massacre the Plated Folk. Do we not have the right to
self-defense?"
Oh boy, Jon-Tom thought: history and legalisms. He felt suddenly at home. "Don't
try and bullshit me. Whenever one nation claims it requires 'secure borders'
with another, that border is usually the far border of the neighboring country
and not the common one. That 'border' country gets swallowed up, and the secure
borders have to be moved outward again, and then again. It's a never ending
process. Security may never be satisfied that way, but greed usually is."