The lop-tails should be offered full humanoid equality, local self-government, and all the other inducements, on the condition that they were peaceful, and disciplined the rowdy elements that were causing trouble.
Horsip gave the necessary commands to set the machinery in motion.
For a full week, everything worked splendidly.
Horsip was enjoying a hot scented bath when Moffis came charging in. Moffis had a raised black-and-blue welt on his head, his uniform was torn open at the chest, and he looked furious.
Horsip put his hands over his ears.
“Stop that foul-mouthed cursing,” said Horsip. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Moffis shivered all over convulsively.
“I say, your integration program isn’t working, that’s what I say!”
“Why not?” Horsip looked stunned.
“How do I know why not? Nothing works on this stinking planet!”
Horsip clambered out of the tub into the drip pan. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong! We built the small forts and splat-gun nests just as you told us to. The crews in them have been living a horrible life. They’re harassed from morning to night. And just what is the advantage, I’d like to know, of having five hundred men strung out in two dozen little packets that have to be supplied separately, instead of all together where you can do something with them?
“And then, this stitching-gun business. We can’t find the manufacturer. Everyone says someone else made it. Or they say they used to make them, but not that model. Or they haven’t made them for years. Or we blew up their factory when we attacked. And—hairy master of sin!—by the time we get through going from one place to the other—they talk a different language in each place, you know—we don’t know whether we’re standing on our hands or our feet. Let me give you an example.
“We took this stitching-gun we captured around to find out who made it. Wouldn’t you think they could just look at it and tell us? No, sir! Not them! We showed it to the Mairicuns first. One of them said it didn’t look like one of their jobs. He thought the Rushuns made it. The Rushuns said it wasn’t one of theirs. Theirs had wheels on them. Try the Beljuns. The Beljuns said they didn’t make it. Maybe the Frentsh did. The Frentsh looked it over and said, Oh, no, that was a Nazy job. And where were the Nazies? They were wiped out years ago.”
Moffis stared at Horsip in frustration. “Now what do we do? And listen, I’m just giving you a summary of this. You don’t know what we went through. Each one of those places has bureaus, and branches, and departments, and nobody trusts anyone else.
“The Rushuns say about the Mairicuns, ‘What can you expect of those people? Pay no attention to them.’
“The Mairicuns say about the Rushuns, ‘Oh, well, that’s just what the Rushuns say. You can’t believe that.’
“Now what do we do?”
* * *
Horsip decided he had dripped long enough, wrapped a bath-blanket around him and began drying himself. Evading the issue, he asked, “How’s the casualty rate?”
“We haven’t had a man killed since we made the edict.”
“Well,” said Horsip, brightening, “that worked out, didn’t it?”
Moffis looked like he smelled something unpleasant. “I don’t know.”
“Well, man, why not? What’s wrong with that? That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Well . . . I guess so.”
“Well, then. We’re getting a grip on the thing.”
“Are we?” Moffis pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “Since we gave the edict, we have had three thousand seven hundred sixty-eight slit or punctured tires, one hundred twelve blown-up places in the road, five unoccupied cars rolled over the side of a hill, eighteen cars stuck in tarry gunk on a steep incline, and a whole procession of twenty-six cars that went off the road for no known reason at the bottom of a hilly curve. We have also had break-downs due to sand in the fuel tank, water in the fuel tank, holes in the fuel tank, and vital parts missing from the machinery. Is that an improvement or isn’t it? The tires, injured roads, and damaged machinery have to be repaired. That takes work. In this same period we have had”—he turned over the paper—”one hundred twelve men out for sprained backs, ruptures, and so on, and eight men in bad shape due to heart trouble. Also, the men are getting rebellious. You know as well as I do, Centran soldiers hate drudgery. Not only that, but you should see those roads! How do they make them like that in the first place? We can’t repair them as well as they’re made. I tell you I’m getting fed up with this!”
Horsip scrubbed himself dry, then dressed and went off to see his Planetary Integration staff, now working happily on plans for final integration of the planet into the Integral Union some twenty years in the future. Moffis went along with him. Horsip explained the situation.
A precocious-looking individual with large eye-correctors and thin hair on his hands addressed Moffis in a peevish voice.
“Why,” he demanded, “do you fail to assure proper protective precautions for these vehicles?”
“Because,” snarled Moffis, “we have all these stinking rattraps to supply, that’s why.”
“I presume your troops are in possession of all their senses? How can damage be inflicted upon the vehicles when your men maintain proper precautions?”
“What? I just told you!”
“I fail to understand how it can be possible for the natives to approach the vehicles without being apprehended.”
Horsip put in quickly, “He means, why aren’t they seen?”
Moffis, whose face was glowing red, said fiercely, “Because it’s night, that’s why! They can’t be seen!”
“A simple solution. Carry the operations out in daytime.”
Moffis gritted his teeth. “We can’t. Every time a car slows down in the daytime, some sharp-shooter half-a-drag away puts a dart through the tires.”
Moffis’ precocious-looking questioner stared at him in a daze. “Oh,” he said, suddenly looking relieved, “exaggeration-for-conversational-effect.”
“What?” demanded Moffis.
“I supposed you to be serious about the half-drag accuracy of the projectile.”
“About,” Horsip hastily interpreted, “how far the native’s gun could shoot with accuracy. He thought you meant it.”
“I did mean it,” said Moffis.
There was a sound of uneasy movement in the room.
“Theoretically impossible,” said someone.
Moffis glared at him. “Would you care to come up and lie down behind a tire?”
Horsip, noting an undesirable effect on the morale of his staff, suggested they put a team to work on the new problem, while the rest continue what they were doing. He ushered the growling Moffis out of the room.
* * *
By the time Horsip had Moffis soothed down, and finally got back to his staff, an uproar had developed over the “meaning” of the “significant datum,” that the lop-tails could shoot a gun half-a-drag and hit something with it. This fact seemed to upset a great number of calculations, in the same way that it would upset calculations to find two different lower jaws for the same prehistoric monster.
The arguments were many and fierce, but under Horsip’s skillful prompting, they seemed to boil down to a choice between two, either: (a) the lop-tails possessed supernatural powers; or (b) the lop-tails used methods of precision manufacture on their ordinary guns and munitions such as humans used only—and then with great difficulty—on their space-ships.
The possibilities resulting from the acceptance of (a) were too discouraging to think about. Those resulting from (b) led by various routes each time to the same conclusion, that the lop-tails were smarter than the humans.
This unpleasant conclusion led to one that was really ugly, namely, of two races having humanlike characteristics, which race is human, the smart race or the dull race?
At this point in the argument, an unpleasant little man in the back of the room rose up and announced that on the basis of an extension of standard comparative physique types from the humanoid to the human, the lop-tails were more advanced than the Centrans.
But that was the low point in the argument. Soon the hypothesis of “pseudo-intelligence” was introduced to explain the lop-tails’ accomplishments. Next, a previously undistinguished staff-member introduced the homely simile of passing over the brow of a hill. If, he said, one went far enough in one direction, he at last came to the very top of the hill. Any further motion in that direction carried one down the slope. True, he said, these lop-tails might go further in certain physical characteristics than the Centrans themselves. But to what point? The Centrans were at the peak, and any ostentatious exaggeration of Centran traits was merely ridiculous.
The excitement abated somewhat, and Horsip got his staff back to work on the pressing problem of supplying the road outposts without losing vehicles in the process. Then he hunted up Moffis.