“Huh? What?” grunted the Hill Bluffer, saving them both with a practiced twist of an ankle. “What’s that? Something on your mind, Half-Pint?”
As a matter of fact, thought John, there was. The notion born out of the fumes of the beer the previous evening when he had sat in what he thought was momentary safety in the inn’s backyard—before whoever it was had come out the kitchen door to hunt him—had returned to mind this morning as not a bad idea after all. Why not, he thought again, find out an honest Dilbian point of view about the human-Hemnoid struggle to make friends with the natives of this world? It was something that might not only rate him a commendation after all this was over; but might furnish him some valuable pointers on his present situation. These first two hours of no conversation had given him a chance to turn the matter over in his mind and try to think of how to frame the question.
He had finally come to the conclusion that, considering the Dilbian character, a direct approach was probably the best.
“Yes,” he said to the Hill Bluffer now. “I’ve been trying to figure out why you Dilbians like the Hemnoids better than us Shorties.”
The Bluffer did not rise to the bait, as John had half-hoped by immediately denying that the Dilbians played favorites.
“Oh, that,” said the Hill Bluffer, as calmly as if they were talking about a law of nature. “Why, it stands to reason, Half-Pint. Take the Beer-Guts Bouncer, now; or that new little one—”
“What new little one?” asked John, sharply, remembering the Hemnoid back in the woods when they had stopped to talk to Tree Weeper.
“What’s his name—Tark-ay, I guess they call him. The one who’s supposed to have been quite a scrapper back on his own home territory. You take someone like him, for example.”
“What about him?” asked John.
“Well, now,” said the Bluffer, judiciously, “he’s nowhere near the proper size of a man, of course. But he’s not ridiculous, like you Shorties. Why, two of you wouldn’t make a half-grown pup. And if people don’t lie, he’s strong enough to stand up to a man and holler for his rights—yes and back them up, too, if he had to, win or lose.”
“That’s important?” said John. “To you Dilbians?”
“Why, of course it’s important to any man!” said the Bluffer. “A man might lose. Bound to lose sometime, to someone, of course. But if he stands up for his rights, then there can’t be anything worse happen to him but get killed. I mean, he’s got standing in the community.”
“We Shorties stand up for our rights, too,” said John.
“Sure. But—hell!” said the Bluffer. “Besides, what do you mean, you all stand up for your rights? What about the Squeaking Squirt?”
“Well…” said John, uncomfortably.
He had, for the moment, forgotten Heiner Schlaff, that blot on the human escutcheon where Dilbia was concerned. Now, here Schlaff was being thrown in his face, as he must have been to Joshua on a number of occasions. For the first time, John felt a twinge of sympathy with the dapper little ambassador. How do you go about explaining that one man’s reactions are not typical of a race’s?
Attack, thought John.
“Oh, you never knew a man from Dilbia, here, who lost his head or got scared?” he said.
“I never knew one who yelled just because he was picked up!” snorted the Bluffer.
“Who’d pick one up? Who’s big enough to?” said John.
That apparently stopped the Bluffer for a moment. He did not immediately answer.
“You just imagine something big enough to pick you up and tell me if there aren’t some men just as big as you who’d lose their head if something like that picked them up?”
“They’d be pretty poor if they did,” growled the Bluffer. He muttered to himself for a minute. “Anyway,” he said, “that’s not the point. The point is, it doesn’t matter. It’s just plain ridiculous, even if a Shorty like you’d try to stand up for his rights. Any idiot could see you wouldn’t have a chance against a real man.”
“Oh, you think so,” said John; wondering what in the galaxy was making him pretend that the Bluffer was not a hundred per cent correct. After a second’s thought, he concluded it was probably much the same human-type reaction that had sent Rudi Maltetti diving for the javelin in Brisbane, on the occasion with the Hemnoid ambassador.
The Bluffer snorted with laughter.
“Now,” he said, when he had got his humor off his chest, “one of those Fatties, there’s be some point to an argument. But someone like you, why I couldn’t take a shove at someone like you. It’d be like swatting a bird.”
He brooded for a second.
“Besides,” he said. “Some of you Shorties may not be too bad; but a real man doesn’t take kindly to critters that got to go around using all kinds of tools for things. Fighting with tools, taking advantage with tools, getting ahead of somebody else by using tools. But particularly fighting with them—that’s just plain, downright yellow; the way we see it!”
“Is that so?” said John. “Well, listen to me for a minute—”
“Hold on. Hold on.” The Bluffer held up a pacific lump of a hand. “I can’t go fighting with my own mail; besides, didn’t I say some of you Shorties weren’t too bad? Why, you know how Little Bite got his name, and—”
“Who?” said John. And then his hypno training informed him that Little Bite was the Dilbian nickname for Joshua Guy. But the hypno training was silent on how the name had been selected. “Oh, no, I don’t.”
“You don’t?” ejaculated the Bluffer.
“No,” said John, suddenly cautious and wondering what he had blundered into.
“Everybody knows that,” said the Bluffer.
There was no help for it.
“I don’t,” said John.
Slowly, the Bluffer turned his head to look back over his shoulder. The eye that met John’s was alight with sudden puzzlement and suspicion.
“You’re pretty strange, even for a Shorty,” said the postman slowly. “What’re you trying to pull? Everybody knows how Little Bite got his name. And you’re a Shorty yourself and you don’t?”
He stopped dead in the trail and stood, still staring back at John.
“What’re you trying to pull?” he said again.
CHAPTER 7
“Let me down,” said John.
“What?” said the Bluffer. “What’s that you say?”
“I said,” repeated John evenly through his teeth, even though his heart was rising into his throat, “let me down. I’ve had it.”
“Had what?” said the Bluffer; and this time there was more puzzlement than suspicion in his voice.
“I’ve sat up here,” said John, letting his voice climb on a note of anger—not much, but noticeably. “I’ve sat up here, hung up in this harness and had you insult us Shorties by saying we’re all like the Squeaking Squirt. I’ve had you call me yellow. But I’ll be roasted over a slow fire if I have to sit up here and have you imply I’m pulling something just because Little Bite didn’t have time to tell me how he got his name. Just let me down on solid ground and by my paternal grandfather—”
“Hey-hey-hey—hey!” cried the Bluffer. “I told you I couldn’t go fighting with my mail. What’re you getting so hot about?”
“I don’t have to take this!” shouted John.
“Well, don’t!” shouted the Bluffer. “I didn’t mean anything against you, personally. You asked me, didn’t you? The smaller they are, the touchier they are! I was surprised you didn’t know how Little Bite got his name, was all. I was just going to tell you.”