Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

between his vulnerable shoulderblades. He kept walking.

Thus, by the time Ailiss and her party arrived, all ten of them were

trooping docilly after Jorn. Ailiss’ party, managing to look wise,

belligerent and baffled all at the same time, bad no choice but to fall in

around them as a sort of inadvertent honor-guard.

That they were intelligent was established almost instantly. Ailiss was

able to ask them a question and get a significant answer before either

party had learned a word of the other’s language. After inspecting their

hands quickly and finding them essentially just like hers, she included

them all in a quick gesture and held up ten fingers. To this, the

leader-the unpainted man who had spoken to Jorn-responded at once by

pointing to Ailiss and holding up one finger, to Jorn and Ailiss and

holding up two fingers, and to Ailiss~ party and holding up five. Although

her expression showed that she was a little stunned, Ailiss

122 fames Blish

promptly included the whole of the forest behind them with a sweep of both

hands, and then simply looked at the leader; to this he made a movement of

his head which might have been either negative or positive, and then, seeing

that she did not know how to interpret this, he held up one hand with all

the fingers closed.

Ailiss turned to jorn. “If he understands me, he means that there’s nobody

in the forest behind him,” she said, frowning, “and damned if I don’t think

he does.”

“I think so too,” jorn said. “Let me try it once.”

At her nod, forn pointed to the horizon across the lake and then did a slow