Whom could he trust? Isobel, of course—he had trusted her and it had paid off. Her father? Isobel and her father were two different people and Isobel didn’t know anything about what her father was doing. He looked at her; she stared back with big, serious eyes. He looked at her father. He didn’t know, he just didn’t know.
Malath? A voice out of a tank! Phipps? Phipps might be kind to children and have a heart of gold, but Don had no reason to trust him.
To be sure, all these people knew about Dr. Jefferson, knew about the ring, seemed to know about his parents—but so had Bankfield. He needed proof, not words. He knew enough now, enough had happened now, to prove to him that what he carried was of utmost importance. He must not make a mistake.
It occurred to him that there was one possible way of checking: Phipps had told him that Malath carried the other half of the same message—that the ring carried only one half. If it turned out that his half fitted the part that Malath carried, it would pretty well prove that these people had a right to the message.
But, confound it all!—that test required him to break the egg to discover that it was bad. He had to know before he turned it over to them. He had met the two-piece message system before; it was a standard military dodge but used and used only when it was so terribly, terribly important not to let a message be compromised that you would rather not have it delivered than take any risk at all of having it fall into the wrong hands.
He looked up at the dragon. “Sir Isaac?”
“Yes, Donald?”
“What would happen if I refused to give up the ring?”
Sir Isaac answered at once but with grave deliberation. “You are my own egg, no matter what. This is your house, where you may dwell in peace—or leave in peace—as is your will.”
“Thank you, Sir Isaac.” Don trilled it in dragon symbols—and used “Sir Isaac’s” true name.
Costello said urgently, “Mr. Harvey—”
“Yes?”
“Do you know why the speech of the dragon people is? called ‘true speech’?”
“Uh, why, no, not exactly.”
“Because it is true speech. See here—I’ve studied comparative semantics—the whistling talk does not even contain a symbol for the concept of falsehood. And what a person does not have symbols for he can’t think about! Ask him, Mr. Harvey! Ask him in his own speech. If he answers at all, you can believe him.”
Donald looked at the old dragon. The thought went racing through his mind that Costello was right—there was no symbol in dragon speech for “lie,” the dragons apparently never had arrived at the idea—or the need. Could Sir Isaac tell a lie? Or was he so far humanized that he could behave and think like a man? He stared at Sir Isaac and eight blank, oscillating eyes looked back at him. How could a man know what a dragon was thinking?
“Ask him!” insisted Costello.
He didn’t trust Phipps; he couldn’t logically trust Costello—he had no reason to. And Isobel didn’t figure into it. But a man had to trust somebody, some time! A man couldn’t go it alone—all right, let it be this dragon who had “shared mud” with him. “It isn’t necessary,” Don said suddenly. “Here.” He reached into his pocket, took out the ring and slipped it over one of Sir Isaac’s tentacles.
The tentacle curled through it and withdrew it into the slowly writhing mass. “I thank you, Mist-on-the-Waters.”
XVI – Multum in Parvo
DONALD looked at Isobel and found her still solemn, unsmiling, but she seemed to show approval. Her father sat down heavily in the other chair. “Phew!” he sighed “Mr. Harvey, you are a hard nut. You had me worried.”
“I’m sorry. I had to think.”
“No matter now.” He turned to Sir Isaac. “I guess I had better dig up Phipps. Yes?”
“It won’t be necessary.” The voice came from behind them; they all turned all but Sir Isaac who did not need to turn his body. Phipps stood just inside the door. “I came in on the tail end of your remark, Jim. If you want me, I’m here.”