Stockton watched him eat, friendly as ever, arms folded and relaxed. “Gomulka and Gazho did a recon in our pinnace at dawn,” he said, sucking a tooth. “Seems your apemen are already rebuilding at another site; a terrace at this end of the lake. A lot closer to us.”
“I wish you could think of them as people,” Locklear said. “They’re not terribly bright, but they don’t swing on vines.”
Chuckling: “Bright enough to be nuisances, perhaps try and burn us out if they find the ship here,” Stockton said. “Maybe bright enough to know what it is the tabbies found here. You said they can talk a little. Well, you can help us interrogate ’em.”
“They aren’t too happy with me,” Locklear admitted as Gomulka sat down with steaming coffee. “But I’ll try on one condition.”
Gomulka’s voice carried a rumble of barely hidden threat. “Conditions? You’re talking to your commander, Locklear.”
“It’s a very simple one,” Locklear said softly. “No more killing or threatening these people. They call themselves ‘gentles,’ and they are. The New Smithson, or half the Interworld University branches, would give a year’s budget to study them alive.”
Grace Agostinho had been working at a map terminal, but evidently with an ear open to their negotiations. As Stockton and Gomulka gazed at each other in silent surmise, she took the few steps to sit beside Locklear, her hip warm against his. “You’re an ethologist. Tell me, what could the kzinti do with these gentles?”
Locklear nodded, sipped coffee, and finally said, “I’m not sure. Study them hoping for insights into the underlying psychology of modern humans, maybe.”
Stockton said, “But you said the tabbies don’t know about them.”
“True; at least I don’t see how they could. But you asked. I can’t believe the gentles would know what you’re after, but if you have to ask them, of course I’ll help.”
Stockton said it was necessary, and appointed Lee acting corporal at the cabin as he filled most of the pinnace’s jumpseats with himself, Locklear, Agostinho, Gomulka, and the lank Parker. The little craft sat on downsloping delta wings that ordinarily nested against the Wayne’s hull, and had intakes for gas-reactor jets. “Newest piece of hardware we have,” Stockton said, patting the pilot’s console. It was Gomulka, however, who took the controls.
Locklear suggested that they approach very slowly, with hands visibly up and empty, as they settled the pinnace near the beginnings of a new gentles campsite. The gentles, including their women, all rushed for primitive lances but did not flee, and Anse Parker was the only one carrying an obvious weapon as the pinnace’s canopy swung back. Locklear stepped forward, talking and smiling, with Parker at their backs. He saw Ruth waiting for old Gimp, and said he was much happy to see her, which was an understatement. Minuteman, too, had survived the firing on their village.
Cloud had not. Ruth told him so immediately. “Locklear make many deaths to gentles,” she accused. Behind her, some of the gentles stared with faces that were anything but gentle. “Gentles not like talk to Locklear, he says. Go now. Please,” she added, one of the last words he’d taught her, and she said it with urgency. Her glance toward Grace Agostinho was interested, not hostile but perhaps pitying.
Locklear moved away from the others, farther from the glaring Gimp. “More new people come,” he called from a distance, pleading. “Think gentles big, bad animals. Stop when they see gentles; much much sorry. Locklear say not hurt gentles more.”
With her head cocked sideways, Ruth seemed to be testing his mind for lies. She spoke with Gimp, whose face registered a deep sadness and, perhaps, some confusion as well. Locklear could hear a buzz of low conversation between Stockton nearby and Gomulka, who still sat at the pinnace controls.
“Locklear think good, but bad things happen,” Ruth said at last. “Kill Cloud, many more. Gentles not like fight. Locklear know this,” she said, almost crying now. “Please go!”
Gomulka came out of the pinnace with his sidearm drawn, and Locklear turned toward him, aghast. “No shooting! You promised,” he reminded Stockton.
But: “We’ll have to bring the ape-woman with the old man,” Stockton said grimly, not liking it but determined. Gomulka stood quietly, the big sloping shoulders hunched.
Stockton said, “This is an explosive situation, Locklear. We must take those two for interrogation. Have the woman tell them we won’t hurt them unless their people try to hunt us.”
Then, as Locklear froze in horrified anger, Gomulka bellowed, “Tell ’em!”
Locklear did it and Ruth began to call in their language to the assembled throng. Then, at Gomulka’s command, Parker ran forward to grasp the pathetic old Gimp by the arm, standing more than a head taller than the Neanderthal. That was the moment when Minuteman, who must have understood only a little of their parley, leaped weaponless at the big belter.
Parker swept a contemptuous arm at the little fellow’s reach, but let out a howl as Minuteman, with those blacksmith arms of his, wrenched that arm as one would wave a stick.
The report was shattering, with echoes slapping off the lake, and Locklear whirled to see Gomulka’s two-handed aim with the projectile sidearm. “No! Goddammit, these are human beings,” he screamed, rushing toward the fallen Minuteman, falling on his knees, placing one hand over the little fellow’s breast as if to stop the blood that was pumping from it. The gentles panicked at the thunder from Gomulka’s weapon, and began to run.
Minuteman’s throat pulse still throbbed, but he was in deep shock from the heavy projectile and his pulse died as Locklear watched helpless. Parker was already clubbing old Gimp with his rifle-butt and Gomulka, his sidearm out of sight, grabbed Ruth as she tried to interfere. The big man might as well have walked into a train wreck while the train was still moving.
Grace Agostinho seemed to know she was no fighter, retreating into the pinnace. Stockton, whipping the ornamental braid from his epaulets, began to fashion nooses as he moved to help Parker, whose left arm was half-useless. Locklear came to his feet, saw Gomulka’s big fist smash at Ruth’s temple, and dived into the fray with one arm locked around Gomulka’s bull neck, trying to haul him off-balance. Both of Ruth’s hands grappled with Gomulka’s now, and Locklear saw that she was slowly overpowering him while her big teeth sought his throat, only the whites of her eyes showing. It was the last thing Locklear would see for awhile, as someone raced up behind him.
* * *
He awoke to a gentle touch and the chill of antiseptic spray behind his right ear, and focused on the real concern mirrored on Stockton’s face. He lay in the room he had built for Loli, Soichiro Lee kneeling beside him, while Ruth and Gimp huddled as far as they could get into a corner. Stockton held a standard issue parabellum, arms folded, not pointing the weapon but keeping it in evidence. “Only a mild concussion,” Lee murmured to the commander.
“You with us again, Locklear?” Stockton got a nod in response, motioned for Lee to leave, and sighed. “I’m truly sorry about all this, but you were interfering with a military operation. Gomulka is—he has a lot of experience, and a good commander would be stupid to ignore his suggestions.”
Locklear was barely wise enough to avoid saying that Gomulka did more commanding than Stockton did. Pushing himself up, blinking from the headache that split his skull like an axe, he said, “I need some air.”
“You’ll have to get it right here,” Stockton said, “because I can’t—won’t let you out. Consider yourself under arrest. Behave yourself and that could change.” With that, he shouldered the woven mat aside and his slow footsteps echoed down the connecting corridor to the other room.
Without a door directly to the outside, he would have to run down that corridor where armed yahoos waited. Digging out would make noise and might take hours. Locklear slid down against the cabin wall, head in hands. When he opened them again he saw that poor old Gimp seemed comatose, but Ruth was looking at him intently. “I wanted to be friend of all gentles,” he sighed.
“Yes. Gentles know,” she replied softly. “New people with gentles not good. Stok-Tun not want hurt, but others not care about gentles. Ruth hear in head,” she added, with a palm against the top of her head.
“Ruth must not tell,” Locklear insisted. “New people maybe kill if they know gentles hear that way.”
She gave him a very modern nod, and even in that hopelessly homely face, her shy smile held a certain beauty. “Locklear help Ruth fight. Ruth like Locklear much, much; even if Locklear is—new.”
“Ruth, ‘new’ means ‘ugly,’ doesn’t it? New, new,” he repeated, screwing his face into a hideous caricature, making claws of his hands, snarling in exaggerated mimicry.