His lunch consumed, Salazar took his camera from Choku, rose, and scouted around the crater, shooting. He said: "Alexis, will you stand up so I can get a shot at you?"
"No, I won't!" she snapped.
He thought: Jeepers, what a termagant! And to think I once found her attractive—even irresistible! Then she said:
"I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Kirk. It's just that I don't like pictures of me floating around where my enemies, like the Reverend Dumfries, might get hold of them and use them against me."
He took more pictures, wondering to what extent these enemies were real and to what extent paranoid delusions. At last he said:
"Alexis, you called Dumfries an enemy. But I thought you had reached a modus vivendi with the Adriana people."
"I have, but they'll double-cross me the minute they think it's to their advantage. Dumfries has gotten so filthy rich from his church that most big shots, Terran or Kook, sit up and beg or roll over when he tells them to."
"Doesn't say much for the integrity of either species," mused Salazar. "I wouldn't sit up and beg, or roll over either."
"Maybe not, but you're an unworldly scientist. In the struggle for power you don't count. Actually, I think Kooks have more of what you call 'integrity' than we do. People like Dumfries call it 'blind obstinacy' when they resist Terrans' attempts to diddle them out of their ancestral lands. In this regard, Yaamo is more like a Terran than most of his—what do you call somebody of the same species?"
"A conspecific."
"Than most of his conspecifics."
He asked: "How has Dumfries worked up such a huge, fanatical following on Terra in a few years? He's not much to look at."
"They tell me he's a marvelous speaker, potbelly and all, practically hypnotic. And his Holy Gnostic Church is the first major religion to face up to the fact that there are other civilized planets."
"But the Neognostics were just a small sect."
"Were, but their growth has put them right up there with the biggies. The others—Christianity, Judaism, Islam—all assume Terra to be the center of the universe and the only inhabited world. Dumfries gets away from that with his multiple Demiurges, one for each planet."
"How about the Hindus and Buddhists?"
"The Neognostics haven't made much progress in countries like India and Sri Lanka, because they are not so firmly tied to Terra. Their mythology, like that of the Theosophists, is full of other worlds already."
Salazar sneezed again. "Shouldn't we start back now?"
"You go on; Choku can guide you. I'll follow later. I'm going to commune with Shiiko."
"Are you sure? I don't like to leave you alone."
"Of course I'm sure! Run along; I know the way as well as I know my own house."
"But—"
"Go!" she shouted, pointing.
"Very well, your Holiness," grated Salazar. "Don't blame me if you break a leg or meet a hungry porondu. Come, Choku."
Salazar turned away with a shrug. One so willful as Alexis could probably not be persuaded once she had made up her mind. Anyway, he wanted to question Choku out of her hearing.
Salazar and the Kook marched off. When they got beyond the mountaintop area of tumbled lava rock and did not have to watch their steps so vigilantly, Salazar asked:
"Choku, what did you save me from?"
"Honorable Sarasara," said the Kook, "I know that you Terrans have powers, from your science, beyond those of us human beings. But can you walk on molten lava?"
Salazar looked narrowly at his assistant. "I have never tried but am sure I cannot. Do you mean that she ..."
"Aye, sir; I mean that I arrived in time to save you from being pushed off the cliff. Miss Ritter was bracing herself to shove you into the crater when I called."
"Tell me more!" said Salazar.
"Sir, pray understand that this has been difficult. I worked for her after Mr. Kashani met his death, and a condition of my employment was that I must never tell what I saw her do or heard her say. We human beings take such promises more seriously than, I fear, do you aliens.
"I also promised you, as a condition of employment, to succor you and ward you from peril. Now, I foresaw that these promises would conflict. I could not adhere to one without violating the other."
Salazar had a flash of insight. "You mean you had seen her shove Kashani into the crater and thought she might try the same thing on me?"
"Precisely, sir. After long thought I concluded that whereas revealing her secrets would have only a suppositious effect on the Supreme Choraga, failure to warn you would likely give you a fatal bath in lava. So the latter promise, meseemed, took precedence over the former."
It was like a Kukulcanian, thought Salazar, to work such a dilemma out by laborious logicization and then to give a blow-by-blow account of the process. Still, Salazar realized that he owed his life to it.
"I most gratefully thank you," he said.
"And I thank my ancestral spirits that I was able to carry out my agreement with you, sir. I trust that I have done so to your satisfaction."
"Eminently so. Had you not, I should not be here to complain. But why in the name of Metasu should she want to kill me? I have not wronged her; in fact, she once seemed to like me well, at least in bed. I can understand her killing Kashani to seize his place as head of Kashania, but why me?"
"Are you familiar with the history of Sunga, sir?"
"In a general way. I understand the Sungarin used to practice the sacrifice of some of their own folk but gave that up on the urging of Terran missionaries."
"That is not quite my understanding, sir."
"What, then?"
"I believe that the Sungarin sacrificed to Shiiko chosen ones from their own number by casting them into Shikawa. They sought to choose the wickedest criminals for the purpose, thus, as you would put it, slaying two zutas with one projectile.
"But sir, crime amongst us human beings is but a tiny fraction of that which, I am told, obtains amongst you aliens. So when no egregiously wicked criminals could be found, the high chief had to devote to the spirit some person who had committed only a trivial offense. It was feared that soon some wholly innocent being, chosen by lot, must needs be sacrificed.
"Mr. Kashani proposed to the Sungarin that in return for a lease on the land now occupied by the community, he should sacrifice one alien of his own species each year to Shiiko by the traditional method. The then high chief doubted whether Shiiko would accept the sacrifice of aliens, but he gave Mr. Kashani's scheme a trial. When, after the first such sacrifice, the land enjoyed beneficent weather and bountiful crops, this was taken to signify Shiiko's assent. You can perceive why mainlanders like me tend to look down upon the Sungarin as a backward, superstitious folk, only partly civilized."
"How does the leader of the community get his—or her—victims?" asked Salazar.
"This may be a visitor like yourself, or perhaps a Terran can be lured from Sungecho by curiosity or promises."
"It figures. At dinner last night a child asked if I was Shiiko's next husband; that must be what he meant. I was stupid not to catch on sooner. I guess it is premature to say that Homo sapiens has altogether given up the sacrifice of its conspecifics. Is that what happened to my old classmate Latour?"
"I believe so, sir, albeit I did not witness the actual immolation. This occurred last year, after Miss Ritter had devoted Mr. Kashani to the volcano spirit. I believe that she beguiled Mr. Ratoo to her village by a promise of sexual pleasure, and her followers did the rest."
"Know you if she upheld her end of the bargain?"