"From all we have seen of Terrans, we conclude that whilst you have pretensions to an advanced civilization, based upon your precocious technological progress, you are actually primitive organisms, evolved but little beyond the kusi stage. You are still driven by the sort of instincts that adapted you to a life of wandering about the wilderness in little bands and foraging for anything edible.
"You are not, however, at all suited to a civilized life of order and reason. You require an elaborate apparatus of law, government, and supernatural belief to keep you in a barely tolerable state of order. Remove these restraints, as by letting you roam at large in human lands, and you run wild, assaulting, robbing, and slaying one another and sometimes even molesting real human beings."
It sounded to Salazar much like what the hermit Seisen had said. Yaamo continued: "To tolerate many of you in our midst were like giving a band of kusis the run of one's house. Kusis make amusing and even affectionate pets. But they also go on rampages, destroying everything breakable and biting you if you try to stop them.
"That is all we have to say for the present, save that, we repeat, at the next outbreak of Terranism, off to the mainland the lot of you go! What our fellow authorities on the mainland choose to do with your turbulent, irrational species is their affair. May your health remain good!"
The next day Salazar drew his money out of the bank, got a haircut, and returned the book on Asian religions to the library. He visited Doctor Deyssel to see if he needed treatment for any of the cuts, scrapes, sprains, and bruises that he had lately suffered, and he took care of other needful chores. From the physician he learned that George Cantemir was still undergoing treatment for the repair of his member and would not be ready to return to the mainland on the Ijumo's next voyage.
.At seventeen by Terran clocks, trailed by Choku, Salazar walked to Mao Dai's with the record case beneath his arm. At the retsuraan, he counted notes out of his wallet. When he handed the wad to Choku, the Kook riffled through them, detached three, and handed them back, saying:
"Honorable boss, you miscounted. You owe me these not."
"That is a gift for taking such good care of me. Without you, I would have been dead several times over."
"Thank you, sir, but I cannot accept. We had an agreement as to how much a day you should pay me, and I have served you for precisely forty days. I should be most unhappy to receive either more or less than my exact due."
"Oh, all right," said Salazar. "Would you like to continue as my assistant back to Henderson? I find you invaluable."
In the dimming light, while Choku's turtle-beaked face remained impassive, his neck spines rippled. "Thank you, sir, but I will not now leave Sunga."
"Why not? Are you not fain to see more of the world?"
"Nay, sir. I was born on the mainland and have traveled about the continent. For another thing, I have not seen my wife in forty days, and I begin to feel somewhat as those lumberjacks did when the Kashanite females flaunted their persons at them."
"I knew not that you even had a wife!"
"You never asked me, sir. A wife, named Dzucho, and three small human beings. Now, if you wish, I will carry your bag aboard the ship whilst you and your Terran friends consume your dinners."
Later, accompanied by Choku, Salazar approached the pier to which the Ijumo was moored. Under his arm he tightly gripped his case of records, which now included the confessions of the three gangsters in Dumfries's pay. As the men had disappeared without giving their testimony in open court, the confessions were of flimsy legal value, since they might have been extorted by torture. Still, Salazar was glad to have them in case someone should raise questions back in Henderson.
Suzette and Hilbert Ritter followed Salazar and Choku. As they neared the pier, Salazar said:
"Choku, I see what I think is one of Yaamo's policemen at the foot of the gangplank. I suspect that he is there to make sure that I stay in Sungecho, as the High Chief commanded."
"Then must you remain on shore, sir?"
"Belike you could approach him and tell him that there has been a disturbance, with shooting, at Mao Dai's retsuraan."
"Very well, sir," said Choku doubtfully. He walked out on the pier and spoke to the sentry. The Kook slung his rifle over his shoulder and set off at a run, passing Salazar and the Ritters without pause.
Choku came back. "It is fortunate, sir, that in the darkness the officer could not clearly see my neck bristles or he would have known that I lied. You aliens!"
Salazar mused: "I am sorry to run out on the High Chief, leaving the Takao case in the air, but I have my own work to do. Besides, Yaamo might decide, from the loftiest motives, that I was next in line for Shikawa. Or Alexis might hire another gang from the local underworld, as Dumfries did, to do me in."
Walking up the gangplank, Hilbert Ritter said: "Kirk, I agree that Alexis deserves to 'go to Shiiko' herself. But one can't take quite so cold-blooded an attitude with a daughter. She'll doubtless go on and on, pulling one outrage after another, until someone equally ruthless does the same to her. As some ancient Greek said, the best equipment for life is effrontery."
"She and Abdallah will fight it out," said Salazar. "He's a tough customer."
Hilbert Ritter said: "There's a rumor that Dumfries is dead."
"So I hear," said Salazar. "Some say his heart just stopped, not surprising in one so overweight. Others say he tripped over a lava rock and fell into Shikawa. At least that's one threat to the local environment eliminated."
"For the present," said Ritter. "But don't be surprised if someone else, hoping to profit from that conquer-the-universe message, picks up Dumfries's torch and runs with it. It's not a war you can win by overrunning the enemy's lands but a battle for people's minds, which never ends."
"I think I know the true story of Dumfries's death," said Suzette quietly.
"What?" cried Hilbert. "Why didn't you tell me, darling?"
"I didn't think it safe until we were aboard the ship."
"What is it?"
Suzette narrated the successive confrontations at the crater much as Salazar remembered them. He said: "How did you hear that?"
"Kooks are great gossips. Some were at the crater, and one passed the word to one of my phonetic informants. I also heard about that meeting called by Sri Something, which started the anti-Adriana movement. Mr. Something sounded remarkably like Kirk Salazar doing his burlesque swami act on the Ijumo."
"Well?" said Salazar.
"You could be a hero to the environmentalists if you let it all come out."
"Thanks; I'd rather be a live scientist than a dead hero. Some fanatical cultist would probably bump me off. I told your daughter that if she didn't blow the gaff on Sri Khushvant Sen, I'd keep quiet about her sending the reverend to his Gnostic heaven. And that's what I shall do."
On the fantail Salazar said to Choku: "Good-bye, and may your health remain good."
"May your health be better than ever," replied the Kook.
"May your ancestral spirits adroitly guide you."
"And may your ancestral spirits protect you from all contingencies."
Feeling that this time he ought to show his best Kukulcanian manners, Salazar continued the formulas as long as he could remember them. When he ran out of well-wishes, Choku said:
"Farewell, honorable boss."
The Kook walked down the gangplank and disappeared. Captain Oyodo bawled:
"Aw passengers on board, prease!"
Then he shouted in Sungao. Deckhands seized the gangplank to haul it aboard. Others cast off mooring lines. Forward, the engine puffed and the paddle wheels began slowly to turn.
With a quick thud of feet, Matthew Peters, Alexis's local bed partner, dashed up the plank. Salazar had been facing forward and was unprepared when the case of his research materials was snatched out from beneath his arm. Peters whirled and sprinted aft. The gangplank was dropped to the deck with a bang, but the pier was still within easy jump. The captain shouted.