The Military Overseer was in a room with five humans and a number of lop-tails. Plainly, Moffis was trying to question the lop-tails about something. But the lop-tails were arguing among themselves. Moffis left the room when he saw Horsip, first instructing his subordinates to carry on.
Moffis, wincing as if with a severe headache, said: “What a relief! I’m glad you came along.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Horsip.
“Interpreters,” said Moffis. “These lop-tails all have different languages, and interpreters never agree on what is being said.”
“Hah!” said Horsip. “You should have heard what I’ve just been through.”
“This was worse,” said Moffis.
“I doubt it,” said Horsip, and described it.
Moffis looked gloomy. “I don’t care what you call it. This pseudo-intelligence is going to be the end of us yet. Of all the planets I’ve helped capture or occupy up till now, I’ve generally had the feeling of outplaying the natives. You know what I mean. After the first clash of arms, you play a deeper game than they do. You manipulate the situation so that if they go against you they’re swimming against the current. When you have that advantage, you can use it to get other advantages, till finally you have complete control of the situation.”
“They’re integrated,” said Horsip.
“Yes,” said Moffis. “But it isn’t working that way here. Ever since the initial clash, we’ve been losing advantages. We’re spread thin. The natives act in such a way that we spread ourselves thinner. I have the feeling we’re the ones that are swimming upstream.”
“Still,” said Horsip, “we’re the conquerors.”
“I just hope they stay conquered,” said Moffis fervently.
“I have an idea,” said Horsip.
* * *
Horsip and Moffis spent the next few hours discussing Horsip’s idea.
“It’s the best thing yet,” said Moffis, as they strolled down the hall afterward. A smile of anticipation lighted his face. “It should tie them in knots.”
Horsip smiled modestly.
“We’ll need plenty of reinforcements,” said Moffis, “so I’ll send out the request right away.”
“Good idea,” said Horsip. They strolled past the office of the Planetary Integration staff. A sound of groaning came from within. Horsip spun around.
“Excuse me,” said Horsip. Scowling, he went into the room.
As he entered, he saw the whole staff sitting around in attitudes of gloom and dejection. A number of natives were in the room and one was talking earnestly to several members of the staff.
“No! No! No!” the native was saying. “You can’t do it that way! If you do, the cars will lurch or even fly off the track every time you get up past a certain speed. You’ve got to have a transition curve first, see, and then the arc of a circle.”
Horsip stopped, puzzled, and looked around.
Beside him, a staff-member with his head in his hands looked up and saw Horsip. Horsip glanced at him and demanded, “What’s going on here?”
“We got the natives in to study their language, and . . . and to worm their tribal taboos out of them.” His face twisted in pain. “And we wanted to find out the limits of their pseudo-intelligence.” Tears appeared in his eyes. “Oh, why did we do it?”
“Will you stop croaking?” snapped Horsip. “What happened? What is all this about?”
“They’re smarter than we are!” cried the staff-member. “We tested them. And they’re smarter. Oh, God!” He put his head in his hands and started to sob. Several other staff members around the room were crying.
Horsip let out a low growl, stuck his head into the corridor, and bellowed, “Guards!”
A sergeant came running, followed by a number of soldiers.
“Clear these natives out of here!” roared Horsip. “And hold them under guard till I give the word!”
The sergeant snapped, “Yes, sir!” and began to bawl orders.
The natives marched past with knives and guns in their backs.
“Listen,” said one of the natives conversationally, as he was hustled out of the room, “if you’d just put holes in the guards of those knives, you could slip them over the gun barrels, and it would make it twice as easy—” His voice faded away in the corridor.
Horsip, furious, turned to glare at his staff. With the natives’ voices taken out of the room, the sobbing and whimpering was now plainly audible.
“Stop that!” roared Horsip.
“We can’t help it,” sobbed several voices in unison, “they’re smarter than we are.”
“Gr’r’r,” said Horsip, his face contorted. He reached out, grabbed one man by the uniform top, and slapped him hard across the face. The man stiffened, his eyes flashing reflexive rage.
“Listen to me!” roared Horsip. “You limp-spined, knock-kneed boobs! Pay attention here, before I—”
Slap!
“Look up, you slack-jawed—”
Slap!
“Straighten up, before I—”
Slap!
“Look up, you—”
Slap! . . . Slap! . . . Slap!
Massaging his fingers, Horsip returned to the head of the silent room.
“Morons,” he said angrily. “You boobs, you simpletons, you sub-human—”
“That’s just it!” cried one of the men. “The things you just said are—”
“Shut up!” Horsip glared at him, then let his glare roam over each of the others in turn.
“Here you sit,” he went one, “the elect of Centra. Not the smartest by a long shot, but good enough to be in Planetary Integration. And you moan because the lop-tails are smarter. Do you make your own mind stronger by putting your heads in your hands and groaning about it? Do you make a muscle stronger by complaining that it’s weak? Do you climb a hill by lying down, putting your hands over your eyes, and rolling to the bottom—all because someone else seemed to be a little higher up? Do you?”
There was a feeble scattering of “No’s.”
” ‘No’!” said Horsip. “That’s right. Now you’re starting to think. If you want to be stronger, you use your muscles, so if you want to strengthen your grip, do you let things go loose and sloppy through your fingers? No! You grip down tight on something suited for the purpose. And if you want your mind to grip stronger, do you let it stay limp and loose with self-pity? Do you? No! You grip with it! You take hold of something small enough to work with and grip it, fasten your attention on it, and then you’ve exercised your mind and you’re stronger. Right?”
“Now,” he turned to the nearest man. “Fasten your mind on what you’ve learned from these natives. Hold it steady and think on it. Nothing else. The rest of you, do the same. What an opportunity for you! Then, when you’ve squeezed all the juice out of what you’ve learned, boil it down, and put the essence of it on a sheet of paper so I can look it over. Now I am going to be busy, so get to work.”
* * *
Horsip stalked out of the room, closed the door firmly, strode down the hall to his suite, and locked the door behind him.
“My God,” he groaned. “They are smarter than we are!”
He stripped off his wet clothes, soaked himself in a steaming hot bath, fell onto his bed in a state of exhaustion, and slept sixteen hours without a break.
He awoke feeling refreshed, till he thought of what had happened the day before. With a groan, he got up, and some time later appeared in the Planetary Integration offices, smiling confidently. A stack of papers twice as thick as his hand was waiting for him on his desk. He greeted his staff cheerfully, noted that if they were not exuberant, at least they were not sunk in despair, then picked up the stack of papers and strode out.
Back in his private suite, he plopped the papers down, looked at them uneasily, chose a comfortable seat, loosened the collar of his uniform, got up, checked the door, sat down, and began going through the papers, peeping cautiously at the titles of each report before looking further. Clearly, the natives had unburdened themselves of a vast amount of information. But most of it was very specialized. About a quarter of the way down the list, Horsip came on a thick report labeled: “Love Habits of the Lop-Tail Natives.” Firmly he passed over the paper, moved on and found one headed, “Why the Lop-Tails Do Not Have Space Travel.” He separated this from the rest, put one labeled “The Mikeril Peril” with it, set it aside, and went on.
When he was through, he had a much smaller pile of papers that he thought worth reading, the lot headed by a paper on “Topics the Lop-Tail Humanoids Avoided Discussing.” Before starting to read them, he thought he would just glance through the pile to see that he hadn’t missed any. About a quarter of the way through the heap, he came on a thick paper labeled: “Love Habits of the Lop-Tail Natives.” Hm-m-m, he thought, there might be important information in that. You never knew—