He turned his back, then, and bowed.
Wace did not see just what happened. There were guards and captains between. He heard a screech, a bellow from Van Rijn, and then there was a hurricane of wings before him.
Something — He threw himself into the press of bodies. A tail crashed against his ribs. He hardly felt it; his fist jolted, merely to get a warrior out of the way and see -
Nicholas van Rijn stood with both hands in the air as a score of spears menaced him. “The admiral bit me!” he wailed. “I am here like an embassy, and the pig bites me! What kind of relations between countries is that, when heads of state bite foreign ambassadors, ha? Does an Earth president bite diplomats? This is uncivilized!”
T’heonax backed off, spitting, scrubbing the blood from his jaws. “Get out,” he said in a strangled voice. “Go at once.”
Van Rijn nodded. “Come, friends,” he said. “We find us places with better manners.”
“Freeman… Freeman, where did he—” Wace crowded close.
“Never mind where,” said Van Rijn huffily.
Trolwen and Tolk joined them. The Lannacha escort fell into step behind. They walked at a measured pace across the deck, away from the confusion of Drak’honai under the castle wall.
“You might have known it,” said Wace. He felt exhausted, drained of everything except a weak anger at his chief’s unbelievable folly. “This race is carnivorous. Haven’t you seen them snap when they get angry? It’s… a reflex — You might have known!”
“Well,” said Van Rijn in a most virtuous tone, holding both hands to his injury, “he did not have to bite. I am not responsible for his lack of control or any consequences of it, me. All good lawyer saints witness I am not.”
“But the ruckus — we could all have been killed!”
Van Rijn didn’t bother to argue about that.
Delp met them at the rail. His crest drooped. “I am sorry it must end thus,” he said. “We could have been friends.”
“Perhaps it does not end just so soon,” said Van Rijn.
“What do you mean?” Tired eyes regarded him without hope.
“Maybe you see pretty quick. Delp” — Van Rijn laid a paternal hand on the Drak’ho’s shoulder — “you are a good young chap. I could use a one like you, as a part-time agent for some tradings in these parts. On fat commissions, natural. But for now, remember you are the one they all like and respect. If anything happens to the admiral, there will be panic and uncertainty… they will turn to you for advice. If you act fast at such a moment, you can be admiral yourself! Then maybe we do business, ha?”
He left Delp gaping and swung himself with apish speed down into the canoe. “Now, boys,” he said, “row like hell.”
They were almost back to their own fleet when Wace saw clotted wings whirl up from the royal raft. He gulped. “Has the attack… has it begun already?” He cursed himself that his voice should be an idiotic squeak.
“Well, I am glad we are not close to them.” Van Rijn, standing up as he had done the whole trip, nodded complacently. “But I think not this is the war. I think they are just disturbed. Soon Delp will take charge and calms them down.”
“But — Delp?”
Van Rijn shrugged. “If Diomedean proteins is deadly to us,” he said, “ours should not be so good for them, ha? And our late friend T’heonax took a big mouthful of me. It all goes to show, these foul tempers only lead to trouble. Best you follow my example. When I am attacked, I turn the other cheek.”
XXII
Thursday Landing had little in the way of hospital facilities: an autodiagnostician, a few surgical and therapeutical robots, the standard drugs, and the post xenobiologist to double as medical officer. But a six weeks’ fast did not have serious consequences, if you were strong to begin with and had been waited on hand, foot, wing, and tail by two anxious nations, on a planet none of whose diseases could affect you. Treatment progressed rapidly with the help of bioaccelerine, from intravenous glucose to thick rare steaks. By the sixth Diomedean day, Wace had put on a noticeable amount of flesh and was weakly but fumingly aprowl in his room.
“Smoke, sir?” asked young Senegal. He had been out on trading circuit when the rescue party arrived; only now was he getting the full account. He offered cigarettes with a most respectful air.
Wace halted, the bathrobe swirling about his knees. He reached, hesitated, then grinned and said: “In all that time without tobacco, I seem to’ve lost the addiction. Question is, should I go to the trouble and expense of building it up again?”
“Well, no, sir—”
“Hey! Gimme that!” Wace sat down on his bed and took a cautious puff. “I certainly am going to pick up all my vices where I left off, and doubtless add some new ones.”
“You, uh, you were going to tell me, sir… how the station here was informed—”
“Oh, yes. That. It was childishly simple. I figured it out in ten minutes, once we got a breathing spell. Send a fair-size Diomedean party with a written message, plus of course one of Tolk’s professional interpreters to help them inquire their way on this side of The Ocean. Devise a big life raft, just a framework of light poles which could be dovetailed together. Each Diomedean carried a single piece; they assembled it in the air and rested on it whenever necessary. Also fished from it: a number of Fleet experts went along to take charge of that angle. There was enough rain for them to catch in small buckets to drink — I knew there would be, since the Drak’honai stay at sea for indefinite periods, and also this is such a rainy planet anyhow.
“Incidentally, for reasons which are now obvious to you, the party had to include some Lannacha females. Which means that the messengers of both nationalities have had to give up some hoary prejudices. In the long run, that’s going to change their history more than whatever impression we Terrestrials might have made, by such stunts as flying them home across The Ocean in a single day. From now on, willy-nilly, the beings who went on that trip will be a subversive element in both cultures; they’ll be the seedbed of Diomedean internationalism. But that’s for the League to gloat about, not me.”
Wace shrugged. “Having seen them off,” he finished, “we could only crawl into bed and wait. After the first few days, it wasn’t so bad. Appetite disappears.”
He stubbed out the cigarette with a grimace. It was making him dizzy.
“When do I get to see the others?” he demanded. “I’m strong enough now to feel bored. I want company, dammit.”
“As a matter of fact, sir,” said Senegal, “I believe Freeman van Rijn said something about” — a thunderous “Skulls and smallpox!” bounced in the corridor outside — “visiting you today.”
“Run along then,” said Wace sardonically. “You’re too young to hear this. We blood brothers, who have defied death together, we sworn comrades, and so on and so forth, are about to have a reunion.”
He got to his feet as the boy slipped out the back door. Van Rijn rolled in the front entrance.
His Jovian girth was shrunken flat, he had only one chin, and he leaned on a gold-headed cane. But his hair was curled into oily black ringlets, his mustaches and goatee waxed to needle points, his lace-trimmed shirt and cloth-of-gold vest were already smeared with snuff, his legs were hairy tree trunks beneath a batik sarong, he wore a diamond mine on each hand and a silver chain about his neck which could have anchored a battleship. He waved a ripe Trichinopoly cigar above a four-decker sandwich and roared: