them!”
“That’s right,” said Anita. “They complain about how the outlaws take things from them, but when they’re telling you about it, you can see they’re halfway proud of having been robbed. It’s been a sort of romantic interlude, a holiday in their lives—”
“Yes,” said Bill, suddenly thoughtful. He remembered Tin Ear’s drunken but happy grin as he had sat at the table, being forced to swallow his own beer.
“The point is,” wound up Anita, “agriculture isn’t going to be improved around Muddy Nose as long as this nest of outlaws continues to exist. We’ve got a stalemate here— outlaws balanced off against villagers, the Hemnoid influence balanced off against ours. Well, I’ve had some success with bringing the local females around to a human point of view. Lafe told me our superiors think maybe someone—er, mechanically oriented—like you, could have some success with the village males. So—as I say, you go back and try to organize them into a civil defense force—”
“I see,” said Bill. “Just like that, I suppose?”
“You don’t have to sneer at the very notion,” she retorted. In fact, a note of enthusiasm was beginning to kindle in her own voice as she talked—almost as if, Bill thought, she was falling in love with her own idea. “All the village males really need is a leader. You can be that—only, of course, you’ll need to operate from behind the scenes. But why don’t you talk to the village blacksmith to begin with? His name’s Flat Fingers. He’s big enough and strong enough to be a match for Bone Breaker himself, if they went at it without weapons. You get him on your side—”
“All right. Hold on a minute!” interrupted Bill. “I don’t know what this business of raising a civil defense force has to do with the situation, but it’s not the reason I came here. For your information, I was drafted while I was en route to a terraforming project on Deneb Seventeen, and what I was drafted for was to instruct the Muddy Nose villagers in the use of farming tools. In short, those were my orders and no one in authority has changed them. Until someone does—”
“So!”
It was the first time Bill had ever actually heard the word hissed. He stopped his own flow of words out of sheer surprise.
“So—you’re one of those, are you!” Anita’s voice was bitterly accusing. “You don’t really care a thing about your work out between the stars! All you want to do is put in your two years and get your credit so that you can enter a university back home and get a general instead of a restricted professional license when you graduate! You don’t care what happens to the project you work on, or the job it’s trying to do—”
“Now hold on—” began Bill.
“—You don’t care about anything but putting in your time the easiest way possible—”
“If you want to know,” began Bill, “the way I feel about the terraforming of a whole world, with—”
“—and to blazes with anyone else concerned, human or native! Well, it happens I do care about the Dilbians—I care too much to let the Hemnoids stand in the way of their developing into an expanding, technological society and joining us and the Hemnoids not just as poor country cousins, but as an independent, self-sufficient, space-going race—”
“If you’ll listen a minute, I didn’t mean to say:—”
“So nobody’s given you any orders, have they?” furiously whispered a spot in the by-now pitch-darkness, twelve inches in front of and eight inches below Bill’s nose. “Well, we’ll just fix that! You’re a trainee-assistant, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he said, when he was able to get the words out.
“And I’m a trainee-assistant. Right? But which one of us was here first?”
“You, of course,” said Bill. “But—”
“Then who’s senior at this post? Me. You go back to the village tonight—”
“You know I can’t get back tonight!” said Bill
“That’s right,” said Anita. “They complain about how the outlaws take things from them, but when they’re telling you about it, you can see they’re halfway proud of having been robbed. It’s been a sort of romantic interlude, a holiday in their lives—”
“Yes,” said Bill, suddenly thoughtful. He remembered Tin Ear’s drunken but happy grin as he had sat at the table, being forced to swallow his own beer.
“The point is,” wound up Anita, “agriculture isn’t going to be improved around Muddy Nose as long as this nest of outlaws continues to exist. We’ve got a stalemate here— outlaws balanced off against villagers, the Hemnoid influence balanced off against ours. Well, I’ve had some success with bringing the local females around to a human point of view. Lafe told me our superiors think maybe someone—er, mechanically oriented—like you, could have some success with the village males. So—as I say, you go back and try to organize them into a civil defense force—”
“I see,” said Bill. “Just like that, I suppose?”
“You don’t have to sneer at the very notion,” she retorted. In fact, a note of enthusiasm was beginning to kindle in her own voice as she talked—almost as if, Bill thought, she was falling in love with her own idea. “All the village males really need is a leader. You can be that—only, of course, you’ll need to operate from behind the scenes. But why don’t you talk to the village blacksmith to begin with? His name’s Flat Fingers. He’s big enough and strong enough to be a match for Bone Breaker himself, if they went at it without weapons. You get him on your side—”
“All right. Hold on a minute!” interrupted Bill. “I don’t know what this business of raising a civil defense force has to do with the situation, but it’s not the reason I came here. For your information, I was drafted while I was en route to a terraforming project on Deneb Seventeen, and what I was drafted for was to instruct the Muddy Nose villagers in the use of farming tools. In short, those were my orders and no one in authority has changed them. Until someone does—”
“So!”
It was the first time Bill had ever actually heard the word hissed. He stopped his own flow of words out of sheer surprise.
“So—you’re one of those, are you!” Anita’s voice was bitterly accusing. “You don’t really care a thing about your work out between the stars! All you want to do is put in your two years and get your credit so that you can enter a university back home and get a general instead of a restricted professional license when you graduate! You don’t care what happens to the project you work on, or the job it’s trying to do—”
“Now hold on—” began Bill.
“—You don’t care about anything but putting in your time the easiest way possible—”
“If you want to know,” began Bill, “the way I feel about the terraforming of a whole world, with—”
“—and to blazes with anyone else concerned, human or native! Well, it happens I do care about the Dilbians—I care too much to let the Hemnoids stand in the way of their developing into an expanding, technological society and joining us and the Hemnoids not just as poor country cousins, but as an independent, self-sufficient, space-going race—”
“If you’ll listen a minute, I didn’t mean to say:—”
“So nobody’s given you any orders, have they?” furiously whispered a spot in the by-now pitch-darkness, twelve inches in front of and eight inches below Bill’s nose. “Well, we’ll just fix that! You’re a trainee-assistant, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he said, when he was able to get the words out.
“And I’m a trainee-assistant. Right? But which one of us was here first?”
“You, of course,” said Bill. “But—”
“Then who’s senior at this post? Me. You go back to the village tonight—”
“You know I can’t get back tonight!” said Bill
Similar Books
