"My honoraber emproyer tess ze truce," said Choku. "Awr us human beings know about zis."
"Don't believe that Kook, either!" cried Alexis. "He would of course stand up for his employer!"
"Then," said Salazar, "ask Miss Ritter's Kooks. If you don't know, Kooks are the cosmos's worst liars; they hardly know how."
"Well, you two?" said Dumfries.
Hagii and Hatsa put their heads together; then Hagii spoke: "Prease, we wir not answer, because it would be disroyar to our emproyer."
"There you are," said Salazar.
"Anyway," Alexis burst out, approaching Dumfries, "neither Kook nor Terran law touches what we do in the outback. And where's that money Cantemir promised for keeping my people from interfering with the lumbering?"
"What did George promise?" asked Dumfries.
"Twenty thousand in gold. When I took it up with Mahasingh, he refused to honor the promise and referred me to the higher officers of the company. Well, since you're board chairman, I couldn't go any higher."
"Is that promise in writing?"
"No; I trusted Cantemir's word."
"It seems to me that by setting your people on the lumbermen to disrupt their schedule, you haven't done anything to be paid for."
"When Mahasingh welshed on Cantemir's promise, I had to show I wasn't to be trifled with. But if you'll make an agreement now, I'll tell my people to lay off."
"No!" said Dumfries. "We do not pay people for letting us do what we have a perfect right to do. George was foolish to make the promise in the first place, assuming of course that you are telling the truth about it."
"I'll settle for half."
"No again. Anyone who pays an extortionist is merely asking for more of the same."
"I can throw in a night of pleasure if you wouldn't mind being on the bottom."
"Great Demiurge, what an idea! Look, young woman. Get it through your pretty red head that I am not interested in fornication, and that I would never pay a penny to anyone who would make a deal with a slimy reptile-sacrificing a human being to the mythical spooks of a race of vile, slithering beasts. You are a traitor to your species!"
During this talk Alexis had quietly moved past her two Kooks and towards Dumfries, who stood near the rim with his back to the crater. Now she gave a scream of:
"Then go to Shiiko yourself, you fat monster!"
She threw herself upon Dumfries, giving a fierce push to his bulbous belly. The push sent him back a step, but when he put his foot down, it was upon the thin air inside the crater.
The sect leader gave a roar for help, and for an eye-wink his arms windmilled. Then down he went. Salazar was not close enough to see Dumfries strike the lava below, but he heard the piercing scream and the smack of the body hitting the scum.
A bright yellow flare from below lit up the rosy, misty murk, then swiftly subsided as the combustible parts of Dumfries and his garments were consumed. Salazar would have liked, as a scientist, to watch this instant cremation, but that would have meant leaning over the edge, and with so many unfriendly presences around, he did not care to risk following Dumfries into Shikawa.
"Oh!" said Alexis, as if talking to herself. "I didn't really mean ..."
One of Dumfries's litter bearers cried: "This Terran has slain our livelihood! We can sue her for loss of income! Seize her to hale before a magistrate!"
The speaker started toward Alexis, whose two Kooks stepped forward as if to protect her.
"Enough!" shouted Salazar in Sungao, covering the Kooks with his rifle. "That will do! All of you, return whence you came, forthwith!"
"You are being as foolish as a Terran, in any case," added Choku, also covering the group with his rifle. "It is a well-established law that a human being who works for a Terran does so at his own risk!"
The four other Kooks put their reptilian heads together, argued briefly with much flicking of forked tongues, then turned away from the crater. Their backs faded into the ruby mist. The two who had borne Dumfries carried the litter; the lantern had gone into Shikawa with Dumfries.
"Kirk," said Alexis, "since you've won, how about calling off the war? Come back to Kashania with me and I'll give you another night to remember!"
Salazar grinned. "No thanks! Do you offer free cunt to everybody you have an argument with? Anyway, I've had enough to remember all my life already.
"And by the way, doesn't your cult believe in reincarnation?"
"Yes, but what of that?"
"I know what you must have been in your last life. There's a voracious Terran freshwater fish called a piranha, which—"
"Oh, go to hell!" she snarled, and stamped off into the darkness after her Kooks.
"Let us go, Choku," said Salazar, stooping to pick up Alexis's bowie knife.
"Are you all right, sir? I see that you limp."
"Not entirely. I have been run almost to death and put through enough—how would you say, 'melodrama'?—put through enough crises to last three lifetimes."
Choku slung the Kookish rifle over one shoulder by its sling. "You have been physically harmed as well, sir. You bleed. Do you wish to return to the camp?"
"Certainly! How got you up here without my neutralizing whistle?"
"Through a gap in the forest, sir."
"Show me the way, please."
Salazar started limping around the rim of the crater, in which the fountains continued their play. He declined an offer by Choku to carry him, fearing that with a Kook's poor night vision, his carrier might stumble into Shikawa. Choku asked:
"What befell your beard, sir?"
"Mahasingh seized it to try to cut off my head. When it came off, he was too surprised to strike again before I got away."
"You aliens!" muttered Choku. Salazar could imagine the Kook's neck bristles fluttering in wonder and disdain. "This evening, sir, after you left in disguise for the meeting, a human being came asking for you. He said he was a scientist who wished to learn of your investigations, but I knew better. He bore upper-caste professional symbols, but under those I could faintly see an earlier set identifying him as a member of the high chief's police."
"Hm. Perhaps I had better get back into my Sri Sen outfit and clear out. Does the Unriu Express run tomorrow or the day after?"
"The day after, I believe. Tomorrow is already today."
"I lost my robe and turban on the flight up the mountain."
"Perhaps we can improvise substitutes, sir. Not wearing those coverings, we human beings are easily deceived by those alien disguises."
Emerging from the nanshins, Salazar said: "If my reckoning be right, we should be near the place where my juten was slain."
Choku flicked out his tongue. "I am sure you are right, sir. I detect the odor of juten."
As they neared the place where Salazar had begun his flight afoot, Salazar heard animal sounds. He said:
"Choku, pray hand me the lantern."
Limping, Salazar led the Kook towards the source of the sounds. When they came within range of the spotlight, Salazar saw a pair of poöshos tearing at the carcass of his juten. There was no sign of the other riding animal, which must have fled when the nocturnal predators had approached.
Salazar raised his rifle, sighted as best he could in the dark, and fired. At the bang, the poöshos fled with ghostly wails. One snatched up something from the ground and vanished into the darkness.
"Damn it, it's got my beard!" cried Salazar. "I can't chase it with my bum knee."
"Get on my back, sir," said Choku.
Mounted piggyback, Salazar endured the Kook's jouncing run. The poöshos fled along the open strip below the nanshin belt. As Choku began to overhaul them, Salazar said: