Departures

The shot was blind, but it hit. Silence slammed down in the square. From far off, Carver heard a flying hunter screech as it swooped down on something in the not-quite-grass. The old males waited for Nadab’s lead. Nadab did not seem inclined to do much leading.

At last the greenskin said, “Come wander with me. We will, I suppose we must, discuss this further.” One of the old males spoke in harsh protest, almost too fast for Carver to follow. Nadab said, “Be still, Ithamar. The need is here. This has been spoken of among us, as you know.”

“The time is not yet ripe,” Ithamar insisted.

“And I say it is. Who has the broader perspective, you or I? “

Ithamar lowered his head and bent his forelegs in respect. “May you be right,” he said. He still did not sound as though he thought Nadab was. The rest of the old males left the square.

The building nearest the statue of Peleg was larger than the rest in the greenskin village, and did not look like a home. Carver guessed it might have the same sort of importance in the village that the local governor’s hall did in Shkenaz. Pointing at it, he asked, “Is that where your people keep the books you do not show the blues?”

“I have never said there are such books,” Nadab said. The trader felt his shoulders sag. Whatever Nadab was contemplating, it was not simply opening up to him. Too bad.

“Will you show me what is in there?” Carver persisted.

“Presently, presently.” Was that amusement in Nadab’s voice? Greenskins seldom seemed amused; they seldom, Carver thought, had much to be amused about. Nadab went on.”Now, as I said, we will wander.”

Having no choice, the trader wandered. The village did indeed remind him of a moderately poor chunk of Shkenaz, set outside the city walls. It seemed quieter than such a chunk, but that, the trader thought, could just have been because Shkenaz’s big central marketplace went a long way toward making the whole town raucous.

“You see,” Nadab said, “that we are no threat to outbid Baasa for your goods.”

“You might well be, could you compete fairly with his kind.” “What is fair?” Nadab said, sounding surprisingly like a six-limbed Pilate. Unlike the Roman procurator, he undertook to answer the question, at least metaphorically: “Fair is that all advantages have corresponding disadvantages to make up for them.”

“The reverse also has to be true,” Carver said harshly.”Your disadvantages are all around me. Where are the offsetting advantages? Those I do not see.”

“Well, we are still just walking about,” Nadab said. He dipped his head to a male coming by. “Good day to you, Kohath. How does it fare in the city?”

“Much as always, Nadab. Compound interest is such a painful mystery to those caught in its toils.” Kohath turned the corner; Carver heard him open a door. On few worlds, the trader thought, would a banker live so modestly. He wondered if that was one of the mysterious advantages of which Nadab had spoken. He doubted it. No one on Ephar made a virtue of abstaining from worldly goods.

More males were coming back from Shkenaz now. Carver glanced at the sky. The sun had slid a long way down toward the west. The trader was surprised when Nadab led him out past the boundary stone and into the fields again. By the look of things, so were the blues who made up the guard squad. They muttered among themselves as the greenskin and Carver walked by.

“Is this safe?” Carver asked. He wished he had his stunner. He hadn’t thought he’d need k. Michaels, he knew, would have something sharp to say about showing that kind of confidence on an alien world.

But Nadab seemed unconcerned. “Safe enough, so long as I am back within the village by sunset. Being busy so much, either here or within the walls of Shkenaz, I have too few chances simply to amble this way. When one comes, I make the most of it.”

Traveling as he often did for weeks at a time cooped up inside a metal shell, Carver understood that sentiment down to the ground. He said quietly, “Thank you for sharing the moment with me.”

“Not to do so would be unjust to the one who made it possible,” Nadab said. He looked from Carver to the Enrico Dandolo a few hundred meters away. “And, of course, would be inappropriate, as your people have posed the problem now facing me on behalf of mine.”

The trader grew alert. Now we come down to it, he thought. He said, “We have never intended anything but good for greenskins, Nadab. We want to end your oppression, if we can.”

“That is why, then, you offered Baasa the volumes you did?”

“Certainly. Why else?”

“Who could say, judging beings so strange?” A nice way to remind me, Carver thought, that I’m as alien to Nadab as he is to me, and a point worth getting across. Nadab went on, “I thought perhaps your purpose was to destroy my entire people.”