so as not to frighten the child, he picked himself up.
He decided not even to think about the incongruity of finding a human boy—apparently about eight years old—here on an alien world. There was no profit in it. He made himself concentrate on the language problem. Something about the sounds spoken by the boy had sounded strangely familiar, as if he had heard them somewhere before.
He tried to remember a few facts from the linguistics course he had taken in college in order to get out of the infamous Professor LaBelle’s English 7. There were a few sounds, he had learned, that were nearly universal in meaning among human beings. Anthropologists used to use them at the beginning of contact with newly discovered tribes.
He swallowed, then ventured one of them.
“Huh
?” he said.
By now the boy had caught his breath. With a sigh of exaggerated patience he repeated himself.
“You wanna see my pop, misser
?”
Dennis gulped. He did manage, at last, to make his head go up and down in a nod.
3
The pup ran around them, yapping about their feet. The boy—who said his name was Tomosh—walked earnestly beside Dennis, leading him over the hilly meadow toward his home.
As they walked, Dennis saw a pair of riders pass by on the highway. Seen through breaks in the hedge, the sources of the threatening red dots that had sent him plunging into hiding minutes before turned out to be a couple of farmers cantering past on shaggy ponies.
He was just starting to adjust to all this. Of all possible first contacts, this one had to be the most benign and the most confusing. Dennis couldn’t even begin to imagine how there had come to be humans here.
“Tomosh,” he began.
“Yessirrr?” The boy rolled his “r’s” in an accent that Dennis was only just getting used to. He looked up expectantly.
Dennis paused. Where could he even begin? There was so much to ask. “Er, will your flock be all right while you escort me to meet your folks?”
“Oh, the rickels will be fine. The dogs watch ’em. I just gotta go out an’ count ’em twice a day an’ give an alarrm if one’s missin’.”
They walked on in silence for a few more steps. Dennis didn’t have much time to prepare for his first meeting with adults. Suddenly he felt very nervous about it.
Before running into the boy he had resigned himself to standing out as an alien and taking his chances. To be slain on sight by mammal-hating antmen, for instance, would have merely been unavoidable bad luck. Nothing he could have done about that.
But small details of his own behavior could affect the way local
humans
reacted to him. A simple mistake in courtesy—a careless slip—might cost him everything. And in that case the foult would be his.
Perhaps he could ask a child questions that would only cause an adult to become suspicious.
“Tomosh, are there many other farms around here?”
“Nossirr, only a few.” The boy sounded proud. “We’re almost the farthest! The King only wants miners an’ traders to go into the mountains where the L’Toff live.
“Baron Kremer feels different, o’ course. M’pop says th’ Baron’s got no right to send in lumbermen an’ soldiers.…”
Tomosh rambled on about how tough and mean the local overlord was and how the King, who lived far away to the east, would put the Baron in his place someday. The story broke down into gossip that sounded a bit sophisticated for a small boy … how “Lord Hern” was slowly taking over all the mines in the Baron’s name and how no circuses had come to the region in more than two years because of the troubles with the King. Although it was hard to follow all the details, Dennis gathered that the local setup was a feudal aristocracy, and apparently war was not uncommon.
Unfortunately, the story didn’t tell him anything about the crucial question of the world’s technology. The boy’s clothes, though dusty, looked well made. There were no pockets, but the belt of button-down
He decided not even to think about the incongruity of finding a human boy—apparently about eight years old—here on an alien world. There was no profit in it. He made himself concentrate on the language problem. Something about the sounds spoken by the boy had sounded strangely familiar, as if he had heard them somewhere before.
He tried to remember a few facts from the linguistics course he had taken in college in order to get out of the infamous Professor LaBelle’s English 7. There were a few sounds, he had learned, that were nearly universal in meaning among human beings. Anthropologists used to use them at the beginning of contact with newly discovered tribes.
He swallowed, then ventured one of them.
“Huh
?” he said.
By now the boy had caught his breath. With a sigh of exaggerated patience he repeated himself.
“You wanna see my pop, misser
?”
Dennis gulped. He did manage, at last, to make his head go up and down in a nod.
3
The pup ran around them, yapping about their feet. The boy—who said his name was Tomosh—walked earnestly beside Dennis, leading him over the hilly meadow toward his home.
As they walked, Dennis saw a pair of riders pass by on the highway. Seen through breaks in the hedge, the sources of the threatening red dots that had sent him plunging into hiding minutes before turned out to be a couple of farmers cantering past on shaggy ponies.
He was just starting to adjust to all this. Of all possible first contacts, this one had to be the most benign and the most confusing. Dennis couldn’t even begin to imagine how there had come to be humans here.
“Tomosh,” he began.
“Yessirrr?” The boy rolled his “r’s” in an accent that Dennis was only just getting used to. He looked up expectantly.
Dennis paused. Where could he even begin? There was so much to ask. “Er, will your flock be all right while you escort me to meet your folks?”
“Oh, the rickels will be fine. The dogs watch ’em. I just gotta go out an’ count ’em twice a day an’ give an alarrm if one’s missin’.”
They walked on in silence for a few more steps. Dennis didn’t have much time to prepare for his first meeting with adults. Suddenly he felt very nervous about it.
Before running into the boy he had resigned himself to standing out as an alien and taking his chances. To be slain on sight by mammal-hating antmen, for instance, would have merely been unavoidable bad luck. Nothing he could have done about that.
But small details of his own behavior could affect the way local
humans
reacted to him. A simple mistake in courtesy—a careless slip—might cost him everything. And in that case the foult would be his.
Perhaps he could ask a child questions that would only cause an adult to become suspicious.
“Tomosh, are there many other farms around here?”
“Nossirr, only a few.” The boy sounded proud. “We’re almost the farthest! The King only wants miners an’ traders to go into the mountains where the L’Toff live.
“Baron Kremer feels different, o’ course. M’pop says th’ Baron’s got no right to send in lumbermen an’ soldiers.…”
Tomosh rambled on about how tough and mean the local overlord was and how the King, who lived far away to the east, would put the Baron in his place someday. The story broke down into gossip that sounded a bit sophisticated for a small boy … how “Lord Hern” was slowly taking over all the mines in the Baron’s name and how no circuses had come to the region in more than two years because of the troubles with the King. Although it was hard to follow all the details, Dennis gathered that the local setup was a feudal aristocracy, and apparently war was not uncommon.
Unfortunately, the story didn’t tell him anything about the crucial question of the world’s technology. The boy’s clothes, though dusty, looked well made. There were no pockets, but the belt of button-down
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