“I could hazard a guess, your excellency. I think he is suggesting that since we’ve left them without contact for more than three hundred years, there’s no particular urgency about making it today.” He looked at the sunflower for confirmation.
That worthy rallied to his support by remarking, “You’re doing pretty well for a half-wit.”
Regardless of Shelton’s own reaction, this was too much for Bidworthy purpling nearby. His chest came up and his eyes caught fire. His voice was an authoritative rasp.
“Be more respectful while addressing high-ranking officers!”
The prisoner’s mild blue eyes turned upon him in childish amaze-meat, examined him slowly from feet to head and all the way down again. The eyes drifted back to the ambassador.
“Who is this preposterous person?”
Dismissing the question with an impatient wave of his hand, the ambassador said, “See here, it is not our purpose to bother you from sheer perversity, as you seem to think. Neither do we wish to detain you any longer than is necessary. All we—”
Pulling at his face-fringe as if to accentuate its offensiveness, the other interjected, “It being you, of course, who determines the length of the necessity?”
“On the contrary, you may decide that yourself,” said the ambassador, displaying admirable self-control. “All you need do is tell—”
“Then I’ve decided it right now,” the prisoner chipped in. He tried to heave himself free of his escort. “Let me go talk to Zeke.”
“All you need do,” the ambassador persisted, “is to tell us where we can find a local official who can put us in touch with your central government.” His gaze was stern, commanding, as he added, “For instance, where is the nearest police post?”
“Myob!” said the other.
“The same to you,” retorted the ambassador, his patience starting to evaporate.
“That’s precisely what I’m trying to do,” assured the prisoner, enigmatically. “Only you won’t let me.”
“If I may make a suggestion, your excellency,” put in Colonel Shelton, “let me—”
“I require no suggestions and I won’t let you,” said the ambassador, rapidly becoming brusque. “I have had enough of all this tomfoolery. I think we’ve landed at random in an area reserved for imbeciles and it would be as well to recognize the fact and get out of it with no more delay.”
“Now you’re talking,” approved Ginger Whiskers. “And the farther the better.”
“I’m not thinking of leaving this planet if that’s what is in your incomprehensible mind,” asserted the ambassador, with much sarcasm. He stamped a proprietary foot on the turf. “This is part of the Earth Empire. As such, it is going to be recognized, charted and organized.”
“Heah, heah!” put in the senior civil servant, who aspired to honors in elocution.
His Excellency threw a frown behind, went on, “We’ll move the ship to some other section where brains are brighter.” He signed to the escort. “Let him go. Doubtless he is in a hurry to borrow a razor.” They released their grips. Ginger Whiskers at once turned toward the still-plowing farmer, much as if he were a magnetized needle irresistibly drawn Zekeward. Without a word he set off at his original mooching pace. Disappointment and disgust showed on the faces of Gleed and Bidworthy as they watched him go.
“Have the vessel shifted at once,” the ambassador instructed Captain Grayder. “Plant it near a suitable town—not out in the wilds where every hayseed views strangers as a bunch of gyps.”
He marched importantly up the gangway. Captain Grayder followed, then Colonel Shelton, then the elocutionist. Next, their successors in due order of precedence. Lastly, Gleed and his men.
The gangway rolled inward. The lock closed. Despite its immense bulk, the ship shivered briefly from end to end and soared without deafening uproar or spectacular display of flame.
Indeed, there was silence save for the plow going chuff-chuff and the murmurings of the two men walking behind it. Neither bothered to turn his head to observe what was happening.
“Seven pounds of prime tobacco is a heck of a lot to give for one case of brandy,” Ginger Whiskers was protesting.
“Not for my brandy,” said Zeke. “It’s stronger than a thousand Gands and smoother than an Earthman’s downfall.”
The great battleship’s second touchdown was made on a wide flat one mile north of a town estimated to hold twelve to fifteen thousand people. Captain Grayder would have preferred to survey the place from low altitude before making his landing, but one cannot maneuver an immense space-going job as if it were an atmospheric tug. Only two things can be done so close to a planetary surface—the ship is taken up or brought down with no room for fiddling between times.
So Grayder bumped his ship in the best spot he could find when finding is a matter of split-second decisions. It made a rut only twelve feet deep, the ground being harder and on a rock bed. The gangway was shoved out; the procession descended in the same order as before.
His Excellency cast an anticipatory look toward the town, registered disappointment and remarked, “Something’s badly out of kilter here. There’s the town. Here’s us in plain view, with a ship like a metal mountain. A thousand people at least must have seen us even if the rest are holding seances behind drawn curtains or playing pinochle in the cellars. Are they excited?”
“It doesn’t seem so,” admitted Colonel Shelton, pulling an eyelid for the sake of feeling it spring back.
“I wasn’t asking you. I was telling you. They are not excited. They are not surprised. In fact, they are not even interested. One would. almost think they’ve had a ship here before and it was full of smallpox, or sold them a load of gold bricks, or something like that. What is wrong with them?”
“Possibly they lack curiosity,” Shelton offered.
“Either that or they’re afraid. Or maybe the entire gang of them are crackers. A good many worlds were appropriated by woozy groups who wanted some place where their eccentricities could run loose. Nutty notions become conventional after three hundred years of undisturbed continuity. It’s then considered normal and proper to nurse the bats out of your grandfather’s attic. That, and generations of inbreeding, can create some queer types. But we’ll cure ’em!”
“Yes, your excellency, most certainly we will.”
“You don’t look so balanced yourself, chasing that eye around your pan,” reproved the ambassador. He pointed southeast as Shelton stuck the fidgety hand firmly into a pocket. “There’s a road over there. Wide and well-built by the looks of it. Get that patrol across it. If they don’t bring in a willing talker within reasonable time, we’ll send a battalion into the town itself.”
“A patrol,” repeated Colonel Shelton to Major Hame.
“Call out the patrol,” Hame ordered Lieutenant Deacon.
“That patrol again, sergeant major,” said Deacon.
Bidwbrthy raked out Gleed and his men, indicated the road, barked a bit, shooed them on their way.
They marched, Gleed in the lead. Their objective was half a mile and angled slightly nearer the town. The left-hand file, who had a dear view of the nearest suburbs, eyed them wistfully, wished Gleed in warmer regions with Bidworthy stoking beneath him.
