“The Shield Is Down!” shouted the native, flinging its arms wide.
“The Shield Is Down!” answered his wife.
And all over the planet, among all the members, large and small, of the Brotherhood of Warmblood; the dogs, the mice; the cats and orcas, birds and
21
WITH FRIENDS IJKE THESE …
shrews; ungulates, carnivores, herbivores, and omni-vores, the great telepathic shout went up:
“THE SHIELD IS DOWN!”
And in the field Dobbin and the small brown dog began to discuss the ramifications at length.
The man turned to face his visitors, who were silent.
“You have done us a very large favor, gentlebeings, and we are oh, so grateful! How many years we labored to find the answer to the Shield, how many years, only to discover that it could only be applied, or retracted, from an outside source. Now that it is down, we will not make the error of allowing it to be put up again. Once again, gentlebeings, we are in your debt. Our agreement still holds. If you will return to your ship we will. .. commence preparations to follow in ours.” The native smiled, and it was at once a lovely and terrible thing to see. (Among the known creatures of the universe, only the Terran human bares its fangs to express friendship.)
“It has been so long,” the Jones sighed wistfully, “since we have had a decent war!”
Back on the Tpin it was a thoughtful yet jubilant Rappan who confronted a very bedraggled Communicator First.
“Commander,” panted Phrnnx, “listen! You mustn’t drop the Shield! This whole world . . . it’s a sham, sir! A fake. We’ve been fooled, and badly. These natives aren’t as primitive as they’d like us to think. I saw, sir! Machines, automatic factories, synthetic food-processing plants—the whole planet, Commander—it’s filled with their machines! I fell into it—accident—the machines down there are programmed to answer questions … I asked . . .” He paused for breath, became aware then that no one hi the happy control cabin was paying any attention to him. Most of the crew were telling jokes, patting each other contently on their back-equivalents, and preparing for a lift-off. Only