Hidden behind her tree, Benita shuddered. The world had been repeatedly swept by war and famine and plague when the population had been a quarter of what it was now! Less than a hundred years ago. Sparse population didn’t equal peace. It never had. All it meant were fewer casualties.
The agitated net spoke again: “I will quote our Pistach friend who said, on Earthian TV, that it had read in a gardening book that one saved much labor by learning to love weeds. . . .”
“Out of context,” cried Vess. “We said allow people to kill themselves if they will. We said nothing about doing the killing for them! We find no fault with suicide! People who risk their own lives or who do not want to live should not be rescued or required to live. We find great fault with murder!”
Three of the Inkleozese put their heads together, their antennas touching. One of them turned to the predators, saying, “You have legitimate points of argument. However, once planetary assistance has begun, points of procedure must be argued before the Council, not on the planet in question. Research into the history of this planet must be done. We will do so, and we will notify you of the hearing. In the meantime, you will return to your ships. You will enter into no further agreements with humans on this planet. The Pistach will continue their efforts for the time being, though those efforts may be set aside if your appeal is granted.”
There were howls, chitterings, yips and stinks of annoyance, but within a short time the predators had departed, along with their dead comrades. Then the Inkleozese set about lowering the captives from the trees and stripping off the membrane wrappers. At this point, Chiddy came to Benita.
“Are you all right, dearest Benita?” He morphed into his favorite male human form, one she had become accustomed to, a rather professorial or perhaps wizardly form with graying hair and far-seeing eyes. “Oh, we so deeply regret not being there when these . . . naughty people took you away. There is your friend, Chad. The Inkleozese are helping him, now. It is necessary they work on him a little, wiping out the mind picture put in his head by the Fluiquosm.”
“My son ought to be among those prisoners,” she murmured. “And the girl who was taken at the same time. And Bert.”
“What is best to do with them?” Chiddy asked. “We can return them near the place they were taken from. Perhaps that would save much trouble?”
“It would save trouble. I think. Only . . . didn’t the cabal ask that they be kidnapped? This has all happened in such a rush. It’s hard to think. It’s still night, but it’s Monday, isn’t it? I’m supposed to appear before a committee this morning? And . . . Morse? He believes he still has Bert and Carlos and Angelica, even though it wasn’t really Angelica? Maybe we shouldn’t let him know what’s happened here tonight. Maybe we should let him think he still has them.”
“For what reason?”
“I don’t know. Just that telling the truth to men like that never does any good. They always deal from a stacked deck.”
“Which is cheating?”
“Yes. And the only way to beat a cheater is to cheat better,” she said.
The nearest Inkleozese said, “We will take these people, your son and his father and the female, and we will keep them for a time, while you decide what should be done with them. The others, we will return to the places they were taken from.”
“Perhaps that’s best,” agreed Chiddy. “What is important now is to get you and Chad back to your homes. It is almost dawn.”
One thing about Inkleozese, Benita soon understood, was their extreme efficiency. Everything happened with such dispatch that she found it difficult to remember how, exactly, she’d gotten home. She’d come in a ship, a very small one, and it had landed outside the back door, and they had let her in even though she hadn’t had her keys with her. It was just as she had left it, except that the broken glass had been swept up, the broken windows had been boarded up, and Sasquatch was missing. A howl that came up the firewell from the stockroom told Benita he wasn’t far away. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. A mess. She took off her trousers and looked at her legs. Her knees and lower legs were blistered where they’d been in contact with Stinky as she crawled out.