The Timid Tiger
Astounding Science Fiction – February 1947
(1947)*
Eric Frank Russell
illustrated by Orban

Lord knows, the patterns of human cultures are varied enough, though all are based on human characteristics and abilities. On another planet, with an alien race of alien characteristics  ...

-

	Vast and tropical was the home of the timid tiger. There, the heat was oppressive, and moisture fell in great blobs, and only a fantastic light seeped past the mighty trees. The trunks of the trees were tremendous columns soaring up and into the ceiling of thick, ever-present mist, and between them the varicolored grasses made a rich carpet along the jungle aisles.

	In one of these aisles, as in the nave of a woody cathedral, dwarfed by vegetable immensity, Sam Gleeson knelt hip-deep in the carpet and poured a few more drops of ammoniated tincture of quinine between the lips of a prostrate Greenie. Four taller, lankier Greenies stood behind him watching gravely. The one he was ministering was female and below puberty.

	By Venusian standards, a moppet. Somebody's kid sister. He wondered whether she'd yet learned to write.

	The patter of drops sounded constantly as the mist condensed and dripped down. The prostrate one licked her lips and shivered. The watching quartet leaned on their long blowpipes, their eyes intent, and the tiny green figure shivered again. She opened her eyes, revealing great, brilliant orbs like those of a cat. Her hand smoothed her grass skirt and she struggled to sit up.

	"She'll be all right now," asserted Sam. He signed to one of the natives. "Sit down with your back to hers to give her support. Let her rest thus for the period of one cigarette-smoke. Then give her this—all of it." He handed over a small phial. "It will do her good. When she has taken it, bear her home that she may sleep."

	His knee joints creaked a little as he came erect. Closing his satchel, he hooked it on his cross-strap, swung it round behind him. Perspiration glossed his wizened face and beaded his white, goatee beard. Microscopic pearls of moisture shone in his bleached hair which had never known a hat.

	One of the Greenies said, in his swift and liquid tongue, "For this, Earthman, you shall be the little one's father's father's father. The singing reeds shall tell of you to the trees."

	"It is nothing," smiled Sam. "I become a great grandfather about once a month. Kids will be kids right across the Milky Way."

	They made no reply to that. They had sudden taciturn moments that were disconcerting. Leaving them, he tramped along the glade, on through the welter of the rain forest. He was following an almost indiscernible path which, in an hour's walking, should bring him to his solitary cabin.

	A shrill whistle sounded back in the glade now cut off from view by massive trunks. Without looking round he listened for an occasional swish of grass behind and to either side of him. Presently, it came, faint but persistent. He knew it would accompany him all the way home and he made a great pretense of being completely unaware of it. That pretense was proper. It was the polite thing for him to do—just as it was polite of them not to permit a friend to travel alone, without a bodyguard.

	From the dark interior of his cabin he looked through his window hoping to catch a glimpse of his escort. It was their habit to circle his shack until his light went up. Once only he'd seen them, vague, shadowy figures gliding swiftly between trees. But he couldn't spot them this time. Sighing, he lit his kerosene lamp. Then he dug out his report book, made an entry in clear, firm hand.

-
Again this afternoon I found one standing before my window. He was waiting with the solemn patience of a green statue. I cannot persuade them to knock on the door and come straight in—they remain convinced that that would be insolent. So they stand and wait some place where I'll see them. This one said that an hour to the north was a little girl with a curse in her belly. Of course, it was Raeder's Fever. I reached her in plenty of time and a stiff dose of quinine did the rest.
-

	He stopped writing, gazed thoughtfully at the wall, stroked his goatee while murmuring to himself:

	"No use mentioning that this is the seventh case in a child. It's not important, and it's already on the records. I still think Old Ma Nature has a remedy for everything and that somewhere on this planet is cinchona or a good Venusian substitute."

	Putting away his book, he stood at the window and looked out again. The half-light that was day slowly faded to the luminous dark that was night. A mellow warbler began to flute five hundred feet up. There was a smell of trodden grass and of slumbering trees. He turned the lamp up a little more, went to his bookshelf, studied the small row of tomes. Howard Sax's "Medicinal Flora," Professor Wentworthy's "Root Of All Good," Gunnar Hjalmsen's "Natural Drugs," Dr. Reilly's "Hahnemann's Theory" and a mere dozen more . He'd read them all, and again, and again. Finally, he selected Walter Kayser's "How To Eat A Cannibal" and settled down with it.

-
In dealing with primitive peoples it is essential to establish complete mastery from the start, to establish it firmly, without equivocation, and thereafter to maintain it by reacting sharply to anything which may be construed as a challenge. This means that while being fair, one must be firm: one must be harsh if circumstances so warrant, even brutal if necessary. The savage understands savagery if nothing else, and it is not for the club habitué in New York or London, lint the administrator on the spot, with a heavy burden of responsibility upon him, to determine precisely how and when—
-

	Sam frowned as he always did at this point. He had an intense admiration for Kayser, one of Earth's ablest men. This Kayser was now East Indies Controller of Native Peoples, an important post of high honor. It ill became one to disagree with a man of such eminence, but some of Kayser's views made him very fidgety.

-
As for missionaries, they are good men oft made injudicious by their own enthusiasms. I like to see them—but not in lawless territory. One has only to consider the list of these brave men slaughtered by Dyaks in the Fly River area of Borneo alone to realize that they should time their arrivals a little later, when the country has settled down. Wild and bloody aborigines must be taught to fear God before they're invited to love Him.
-

	Well, it was an old book, written when Kayser was young and somewhat fiery. Perhaps he'd changed now. Men usually changed with the passing years. Maybe he'd mellowed into gentler wisdom like Victor Hearn, the famous Consul of Luna, or Jabez Anderson, the equally great Consul of Mars. They were all very great men, able men, worthy pillars of the civilization which, having covered the Earth, had spread to the heavens.

	With which conceding thought, Sam Gleeson went to bed.

	All day he had plenty to occupy his mind and keep his hands busy. Besides the cooking of his own meals and various household chores there was the pressure of getting things ready in time for the next flight to Earth due in less than three weeks. When flights were timed as far apart as eight months, you just couldn't afford to miss one, and he'd a lot of stuff to consign to Terra.

	Most of it was packed in readiness, some had still to be prepared. Those eight fine samples of odontoglossum venusii would have to be color-photographed, sketched, dried out and packed before they wilted. He had seventeen samples of bark and a report on one saying that natives distilled from it a crude exhilarant similar to cocaine. In his simple cabin were no facilities for doing fractional analyses and he wasn't a qualified chemist anyway. He was merely a field explorer for the National Botanical Institute and they'd do all the laboratory work. .

	His water-color sketches of the flowers were talented, but no collector would ever go searching for genuine Gleesons. Packing his sketches along with the spectochromes, he put the flowers deep in eight little fused-quartz bowls, sprinkled fine silver sand over them until they were covered, slid the bowls into a small oven. Leaving them to dry out, he went to the door and opened it. A Greenie was standing outside. The native posed a dozen feet from the door, his long blowpipe in one hand, an expression of ineffable patience on his sharp features.

	"Well?" said Sam.

	"Earthman, the Voice of my people would talk with you."

	Sam looked around, stroked his beard worriedly. More natives waited between the trees. A bodyguard again.

	"I am sorry, but I cannot come. I am extremely busy." He looked straight into the other's great cat-eyes. His voice was gentle. "I am very sorry." He went inside and closed the door.

	The odontoglossum venusii dried out nicely and he repacked them and marked each sample box carefully. Sultriness had got him sweating again, and the beads of it collected in the myriad wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Finishing the job, he ate, pondered awhile, then opened the door. Two hours had passed but the Greenie still stood there and his fellows still lurked in the background.

	"I told you I could not come."

	"Yes, Earthman."

	Sam felt slightly confused. His mind was full of flowers and herbs and barks, not to mention the urgency of catching the coming flight.

	"Why does the Voice want me?" he asked in an effort to clarify the situation.

	"Lo, there is death over the mountains and six have died by each other's hands, three of our people and three of yours. Therefore the Voice has said that he must have word with the Gray Chanter or with you. 'Be ye fleet of foot,' he said, 'that I may speak with one.' "

	"Hmph!" He stewed it over in his mind. Four years had he lived among the Greenies, but never had he met a Voice. Now was a mighty poor time to make up the deficiency. It would cost him a week. He could ill spare a week. "Did you speak with the Gray Chanter?" he asked.

	"Earthman, we have seen him."

	"And wouldn't he go?"

	"He tried to. He came a little way. Then he struggled with his ghost and came a little further, but his feet were weary within a hundred paces."

	"What, is he, too, cursed?" Sam was alarmed at the thought of Father Rooney sick in his solitude sixty miles to the south.

	"He said, 'Alas, I am old and feeble, and my ancient bones refuse to be dragged. Seek the Wizened One and tell him that my ghost is willing but my carcass mutinies.' "

	"Wait," said Sam. He went inside, tidied up swiftly, got his satchel, saw that it held all he required. He'd no hat to put on and had never owned a gun. In all probability, he and Father Rooney were the only ones unarmed of the two thousand Terrestrials on Venus.

	Before leaving, he took up an old letter, scanned it for the hundredth time. His beard bristled as he murmured its phrases. "You are employed for botanical and not for sociological research ... expected to devote more time to flora and less to fauna ... native welfare belongs to the proper department ... last warning ... your resignation—" He tore up the letter, stuffed its pieces into the embers beneath the oven, went out. His goatee was cocked defiantly as he emerged from the cabin.

	A call good enough to arouse the aged priest was good enough to be answered by him. And besides—it was imperative that Terra should know the tiger, to walk in peace.

-

	The native with whom he'd talked glided along in the lead, and Sam followed at a steady, determined pace. The others shadowed silently behind. In single file they slipped through the half-light and the grasses while the mist swirled round the treetops and the dew dripped steadily down.

	To reach a village they marched far into the night, with luminous herbs glowing pinkly in the growth through which they trod, and an occasional beacon tree shining like a giant specter between other .darker trunks. Only one incident caused a momentary pause in their progress, this being when they found an immense constrictor lying across their path.

	The reptile had a body three feet thick and its head and tail ran far away among the trees on either side. Its hide was an even dull-gray, and in the night-time darkness that was never dark Sam could see the rise and fall of its sluggish breathing. It was asleep. They jumped it in rapid succession, then ran for a mile. So long as a man saw a constrictor before it saw him, he was safe—he could just outpace it.

	A tiny village of lattice huts gave them food and shelter for the remainder of the night. They breakfasted on baked fish, maro roots and heavy bread washed down by genuine coffee. The latter had been the first discovery on Venus, and one regarded as sensational by Terrestrial botanists. This, together with the similarity between Venusians and Terrestrials, suggested parallel development of the two planets, producing many things of mutual resemblance, perhaps some identical. Sam was alone in thinking the parallelism somewhat askew. He knew the Greenies!

	They were away before the first fishers set out to bait the roaring streams, before the first wild turkey could titter its eerie whistle to the dawn. Still in single file, they glided like phantoms through the rain forest which seemed never-ending, and late in the afternoon of the third day they slipped from a spur of immense trees and found themselves near to the mountains. One couldn't see the mountains, for they were deeply buried in the clouds, but one could see partway across a gradually rising plain which eventually met the mist at an elevation of more than a thousand feet—tree height.

	Before them stood the village of the Voice, a large conglomeration of squat, rock-built houses. Their roofs were of pale slate, their windows of laminated quartz. The place stood in amazing contrast with the flimsy lattice hamlets deep in the forest. Around lay small, cultivated fields through which two narrow and noisy mountain streams pounded in liquid ecstasy. Sam had never seen anything like this, though he'd heard of it. The Greenies went up another notch in his estimation.

	He found the Voice sitting on a stool in the main room of the central house. The chief proved to be a tall, slender native of well-preserved middle age. His green face was narrow and sharp and bore the peculiar pineapple marking of his kind. Like all Venusians, he was completely hairless and possessed great yellow eyes with slotted, catlike pupils.

	Sam gave him a precious cigarette, lit it for him, sat on the stool facing him. There were no salutations, among the Greenies. The chief stared at him imperturbably and dragged at his cigarette. After a while, he spoke.

	"I am the Voice of my people."

-

	Sam went through the polite routine of affecting dumfounded surprise. Dipping into his satchel, he produced a full pack of cigarettes, gave them to the other. The chief accepted them graciously.

	"You do not smoke?"

	"I am awaiting your permission," said Sam.

	The feline pupils widened as he studied Sam for a long time. The stare was unblinking.

	"Smoke!" said the Voice.

	Digging out a pellet, Sam lit up. No use hurrying the chief. He'd take his own time and, probably, there'd be the usual cross-examination before he got down to business.

	"You speak with my mouth, as does the Gray Chanter," the chief remarked. "Other Earthmen do not, and content themselves with childish signs and gestures. Why?"

	Sam fidgeted while he considered the matter. In the outlands, one had to be a diplomat among other things.

	"My work," he explained carefully, "keeps me among your people. It is the same with the Gray Chanter. How can we acquire friends and neighbors if we speak not with their mouths? Would you that I sat among the trees and nursed a lonely ghost?" Sam paused inquiringly, but the chief said nothing, so he went on. "Therefore I learned so to speak, as did the Gray Chanter."

	"And what of the others?" asked the chief, his great orbs still fixed and blinkless.

	"Other men have other tasks. They work together and are not alone. Many work harder and longer hours than I do, and they have not time to acquire other mouths. Some have not the ability because their virtues lie elsewhere. For me, it was easy. For the Gray Chanter it was not so easy. For others it may be hard."

	The chief made no comment. He spurted a stream of smoke from between thin lips while his eyes did not shift a fraction. It didn't worry Sam. He'd got used to cat-eyes and to cat-stares, as one did after a while. Fifty months in the rain forest, and you began to understand Greenies—but only began! While he smoked and waited for the next question, he thought idly of Burrough's description of the first Venusian seen by a Terrestrial: physically four-fifths human and one-fifth heaven-knows-what; mentally four-fifths human and one-fifth cat. There was certainly a touch of cat behind their feline eyes; moments of drowsy thoughtfulness, moments of enigmatic stares. They had all the patience of cats, and often the same quiet dignity.

	"I am what I am," said the chief suddenly, "and all my people are even thus. There are no differences, neither here, nor across the mountains, nor on the other side of our world. Yet you, an Earthman, have a countenance brown and wrinkled and moss-grown like the bark of an old radus tree, while the Gray Chanter, also an Earthman, is smooth and pale with the lightness of dawn."

	"There is Cherokee in me," said Sam uninformatively. Then added, "There are men of many colors on Earth, some white, some red, some black, brown or yellow."

	"Ah!" The chief was interested. "And any—green?"

	"No, there aren't any green ones on Earth." His tongue got ahead of his mind as he commented, with a grin, "There are some said to be green." Then he frowned, put in hastily, "But they are not."

	He wished it could have been unsaid even as the other pounced on it. He should have known the direct Venusian mind well enough not to have made such a slip.

	"If they are not green," demanded the chief with perfect logic, "why call them green?"

	The smile had vanished from Sam's face and the brilliant eyes were still upon him while his mind searched frantically for an explanation which would satisfy the literal-minded Venusian without hurting his feelings.

	Finally, he said, "They are people who're honest, straightforward, without guile. Those are thought to be the virtues of green ghosts. Therefore they are said to be green."

-

	The chief let it pass unchallenged, and still his eyes neither blinked nor shifted their steady gaze. The way they timed their silences added greatly to difficulties of conversation with Venusians, for you could never tell whether you'd convinced them or not. They had an embarrassing habit of' asking pointed questions, and their usual response to an answer was another and more awkward question. This silence was a long one and outlasted the chief's cigarette.

	In the end, the chief said, "I know many tales of you, Wizened One, for my mind does not miss the slide of a dewdrop down a leaf. I know that you are good." He paused a moment. "Some are good, some are not good. But of you and the Gray Chanter I know naught but good."

	This, uttered in a level voice and accompanied by that hypnotic stare, made Sam feel feeble. He waved a hand in futile dismissal, sought words adequate to the occasion. A halo ill-became his grizzled pate and he'd feel better without it. From his viewpoint, he'd done nothing but lend an occasional helping hand and mind his own business. Back home in Neosho they called it being neighborly, and they spoke well of you for it, but handed out no diplomas. Before he could find anything to say, the chief went on.

	"Now there is great trouble between your people and mine, and death stalks across the mountains. It is an evil thing, for it may spread as the waters spread when they break their bounds. I do not wish to see our forests sheltering only die hunters and the hunted—with no man daring to withhold death from the good lest the good prove bad."

	Sam leaned forward, his leathery features intent, the crinkles deepening at the corners of his eyes. There had been trouble, mild trouble, between men and Greenies in the first months of settlement live years ago. Wisdom on both sides had abated it and there'd been no more since. But always it was feared. As Terrestrials gradually grew in numbers so also grew the risk that somebody might start something that couldn't be stopped. He didn't want that. Nobody in full possession of his senses wanted it.

	"I am called Elran the Older," continued the chief. "Over the mountains are the people of Elran the Younger. He is my brother. And beyond his lands lie the pastures of the people of Mithra the Silent. My mate is Mithra's sister, and he is my brother-by-bond."

	"So?"

	"On Mithra's lands are Earthmen. They have been there nearly a year. They have been cutting into his land for some precious mineral, and Mithra approved because he had made a treaty with them. Now a difference has arisen. The Earthmen waxed arrogant and threatening. They brought out their fire weapons." His great eyes lidded for a fraction of a second. "They killed three of Mithra's people."

	Sam sucked in his breath, then asked, "And what did Mithra do?"

	"He took three for three. By patience and by craft he snared them. They bristled with darts as a tree bristles with leaves and they'd lost their ghosts before they hit the ground. With darts and cords he struck in the night and pulled down all the wires that stretched across the roof of the Earthmen's far-speaking house, thus preventing them from summoning a blast-ship to their aid. Now the Earthmen are sitting in their house and have made it a fort.

	Mithra has surrounded it and awaits the decision of our kind—for the cry of evil is answered by the cry of good and our mind has got to tip the balance one way or the other."

	"This," said Sam, "is bad."

	"In the beginning, when Earthmen came to us out of the mist, there was death. But Vaxtre the Ancient and the Earthman we called Tall One came together in wisdom and made peace. Now I am of a mind, Wizened One, that perhaps you and Mithra can achieve the same before it is too late. If not—as Mithra does we shall all do, here and everywhere. A stifled scream is unheard in the glades."

	"I shall see Mithra," promised Sam. "I shall go to him at once."

-

	He was off again within the hour. Three days would bring him to the seat of the trouble: one day through the Great Valley and into the land of Elran the Younger, two more days to reach Mithra. That made a total of six days from the cabin to his destination and six days back. If he got stuck too long wherever he was going, his consignment would miss the ship. It required four days to transport it from the cabin to the spaceport. The margin was small.

	His face was grim as he thought of that letter. "Native welfare belongs to the proper department." There wasn't a proper department on Venus. There wasn't even a Consul yet! There was only a spaceport still under construction and few Terrestrials outside of it; the majority clung together against the time when their numbers would be more. Those armchair warmers back on Earth ought to be exported and given a taste of forest life. They'd see things differently, after that. "Last warning ... your resignation may be required." What did they think he was—a root-grubbing automaton?

	The Greenie in front seemed to sense his urgency, for he loped along at top pace. The daylight, poor and inadequate by Terrestrial standards, didn't bother the native in the least, and neither did the fall of night. Daytime or night, it was all the same to these people. They could see equally well in either.

	Ground rose up and the mist lowered. They were barely beneath the swirling canopy as they sped through the valley. It was a nuisance, that everlasting fog and, but for radar, would have made all spaceship landings impossibly dangerous. It hung over them like a perpetual shroud, and rays from the invisible sun struggled through so diffused that they threw no shadows.

	Mid-afternoon of the second day brought them to the verge of the rain forest which encroached halfway across the lands of Elran the Younger. They plunged into it. That night they ate well, for an incautious turkey forgot to freeze in the gloom as they went past and a blown dart brought it down. The thing was featherless, reptile-skinned and bore no resemblance to a bird except that its cooked flesh was indistinguishable from that of roasted turkey.

	Mithra's village was reached a couple of hours ahead of estimated time. It, too, proved to be stone-built, a little smaller than that of Elran the Older, and it was built upon a knoll from which the eternal forest had retreated in all directions. Within a radius of three miles the ground was clear of giant timber and well-tilled.

	The Voice himself talked first with the escort, then summoned Sam. The latter found Mithra to be another middle-aged Greenie, shorter and stockier than Elran the Older, and with eyes of light amber.

	"I am the Voice of my people," he said formally. Sam offered no reply, knowing that none was expected, but put on the usual surprise act. The chief came quickly to the point, showing himself more abrupt than his distant brother-by-bond. "I know of you as all know of you. Here, you are welcome—but I know not what you can do."

	"What happened?" inquired Sam.

	"An Earthman came when the life-tide was rising in the trees and stayed until it ebbed. He talked not with our mouth and spoke only by signs and picture writing. We gave him room and nourished his belly, for he was of our shape and alone. For many days he sought among the rocks, along the earth-cracks and the chasms, until one day he came to me with his ghost a-dancing and said he'd found that which he'd been seeking. It was merely a vein of rilla metal which is of no use to man or beast."

	"It hardens and toughens steel beyond belief," Sam told him. "There is none on Earth. We can use it in constructing spaceships."

	"I made a treaty with him," the chief went on, "whereby he could dig up all the rilla metal within one hundred man-lengths of his discovery. He went away. A long time later, he came back with five others. My people helped them build a rock house. Over this house the Earthmen put a web of wires and through it they talked to a blast-ship and brought it down to them through the mist. Twenty more Earthmen came from the ship, with much machinery. The ship departed. Those left behind used the machinery to dig up and melt the rilla metal. They worked for almost a year and sent away much of it until there was no more." He hooded his eyes in thought while Sam waited for him to continue.

	"Then they came and told me that there is a lot more rilla metal within this hill. They said they must have it, village or no village, and that I must make another treaty. I refused. They grew wrath and threatened to release my ghost. One of my people raised his blowpipe and they turned their weapons on him. We buried him in the dark. The Earthmen ran back to their house with many of my young men following in their tracks. We buried two of those also! The next night we trapped three Earthmen and appeased our dead. We also tore down the web of wires above the house and surrounded the place with warriors. Since then, they have not dared to come out and we have not dared to go in."

	"May I speak with these Earthmen?" Sam asked.

	The chief didn't hesitate, and said, "You shall be conducted to them whenever you wish."

	"In the morning, then. I would first like to look around the village and the hill, also examine the place from which the rilla metal has been taken."

-

	The building that had become a fort rested alongside another knoll a mile and a half to the south of Mithra's place. It squatted dull and menacing in the poor light of morning.

	Countless Greenies prowled phantomlike in the nearest spurs, of the rain forest. Some had huge, multi-mouthed blowguns which needed the simultaneous impulse of six men but could throw heavy darts more than two hundred yards. Others bore accurate and vicious arbalests fitted with heavy metal springs and low-geared winders—a weapon Sam had never seen before. Although he did not come across any on his way to the fort, Sam knew that the Venusians also possessed flame throwers of alarming efficiency. The entire horde kept to the fringes of the forest, well out of range of the fort, and were content to wait. If you crouch by a water hole long enough, the trembling roebuck is bound to appear.

	He tramped toward the house with his hands in his pockets, his goatee bristling, and an air of confident nonchalance which might serve to stay any itchy trigger-fingers behind those walls. In the bad illumination Earth-eyes couldn't distinguish friend from foe at any range greater than a voice could carry. The Greenies knew no such handicap. Folks back on Earth who blandly assumed that on any new world one automatically fitted in just couldn't realize the toughness of little things, such as being, by comparison, half-blind. It was always the little things that proved tough. Not the big ones. A bullet in the abdomen was only a little thing. His stomach jumped at the thought.

	But no shot sounded. Within fifty yards of the house he passed a board crudely lettered: Terraloid Corporation. That wasn't so good. Terraloid were big and powerful and not in business for the sake of their health. Their reputation wasn't evil, and they'd never been known to pull a deliberate swindle, but they were go-getters, efficient, impatient, unwilling to bide their time. Commercially, they were short-cut artists and more than once they'd fallen foul of consuls by their eagerness to march too far in advance of events.

	A big, beefy man opened the door, growled, "How the blazes did you get here without masquerading as a pincushion? Don't you know there's plenty trouble hereabouts?"

	"That's what I've come to discuss with you. Mithra sent me."

	"Ho-hum, a dove of peace!" rumbled the other with a trace of sarcasm. He conducted Sam to an inner room in which were a dozen men, some cleaning and adjusting weapons, others busily completing a new web antenna. "Boys, here's a negotiator." They looked up disinterestedly. The big man sank into a chair which creaked under his weight, said to Sam, "I'm Clem Mason, manager of this outfit. Who're you, why did Mithra pick you out, what's he want to say, and what authority have you got—if any?"

	"I'm Sam Gleeson. I'm merely a fieldman for the National Botanical Institute—for as long as that job lasts, which won't be long!" replied Sam evenly. "I've got as much authority as that gives me, which is none whatever. As for the reason why Mithra called me in, I guess it was because I speak his language and know his people." As an afterthought, he added, "And probably because Father Rooney couldn't come."

	"Father Rooney!" Clem Mason scowled. "Never heard of him! But we don't want any priests interfering in this. They tell tales back home and the story loses nothing in the telling. Then boudoir warriors complain to the newscasts and the public tears its hair and the next thing you know we've got to say, 'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir,' and 'Thank you very much, sir,' to every stinking aborigine who comes our way. Why can't people leave us to do our own dickering?" He glanced across at the well-oiled guns. "We know how!"

	Sam smiled broadly and said. "Seems it's up to you and me to cool things down before Father Rooney comes along to make more trouble, eh?"

	The other thought that one over, then growled begrudgingly, "Maybe you've got something!"

	"I've heard Mithra's story about what happened," Sam pursued. "Let me hear yours. Then we'll see what we can do to straighten things out."

	"It's simple. We worked out a rilla vein which we'd got under covenant with Mithra. It was a tentacle broken off from a mother lode some place. Our instruments found the lode far down under the northward knoll. There's tons of the stuff, and it's needed badly. Then we got all balled up because none of us knows a word of Venusian. We drew pictures and played snake-arms for hours trying to explain to Mithra that we'd found Aladdin's cave way down under his cellar and that we wanted another covenant to get it out. We offered him fair terms, were willing to play square, but the more we argued the tougher he got."

	"Go on," Sam encouraged.

	"I got riled by his stubbornness and cursed him for a skinny green nitwit. I knew he couldn't understand English anyway. After that, it was a case of one durned thing leading to another."

	"In what way?"

	"A young Greenie among Mithra's crowd lifted his blowpipe. Maybe he didn't like the way I'd said what I'd said. Or maybe he lifted it with nothing in mind. But Fargher was jumpy and taking no chances and popped him on the spot. We beat it back here with a splurge of angry Greenies slinking after us through the night, and we had to blow back at them to hold them a bit. I don't know whether we hurt any more."

	"You killed two," Sam informed.

	Mason made a negligent gesture and continued, "They were mighty swift to call it quits. They caught Fargher and Meakin and Wills out in the darkness and mauled them in ten seconds flat! They blew cord-carrying darts across the roof and lugged down our web. Since then, we've stuck to the house and tried to call base on our portable, but the range is too long, and intervening mountains blot us out. So we're going to fix up a new web and they had better not try to get that down! We'll get a blast-ship here. After that, the fashionable attire for well-dressed Greenies will be sackcloth and ashes!"

	"Trouble begets trouble," opined Sam. "I fear me that this is no petty skirmish with a local tribe. It isn't as simple as that. I've been getting the hang of some queer things about these Venusians. They've no tribes, no nations. They've no local patriotisms—but they're Venus-conscious! They've only one color, one language, and one something-else I've not yet been able to identify. But the divide and rule principle just won't work on this planet, for the woes of one are the woes of all."

	"Never mind the lectures," put in Mason sourly. "Say what you've got to say and let's go digging."

	"The point I'm trying to drive home is that, you can't indulge in purely local shenanigans. Even Elran the Older, three days march away across the mountains, knows all that's going on and is ready to do exactly what Mithra does. The alternative to peace is an Earth-Venus war. For all our superior weapons, there are only a couple of thousand of us on the planet. There are umpteen millions of Greenies, and we've got to seek them out, one at a time, every man jack of them, in the biggest jungle in the solar system. Fat lot of use our blast-ships and atomizers will prove in circumstances like that!" He mused a moment. "What's the use of the mightiest power if it can't be applied?"

	"We can apply it all right," Mason asserted. "You've sat on your buttocks too tong—you've forgotten the planet behind the two thousand!"

	"Behind them for three weeks every eight months!" Sam retorted. "You know we're planet-raking before our time. We've not yet developed spaceships good enough to chase a world around its orbit. In another fifty years, maybe—but not yet. That shaves us down somewhat, doesn't it? Earth's in a poor position to conquer Venus by force."

	"That's your—" Mason began, but Sam interrupted him.

	"Let me go on. You want rilla metal. That's all you're here for. If you can't get it by cajoling Mithra, it'll come a lot cheaper than by fighting him for it. If you're a shareholder, you should appreciate that. If you're not holding any of their stock, why should you do Terraloid's bloodletting?"

	"He's dead to rights there, Clem," put in one of the listening men. "I came here to get on with a job of work and land home with a whole skin and plenty of moola. If there's any pushing around to be done, let 'em call in the marines!" Several others murmured agreement.

	"O.K.," said Mason. He hooked big thumbs in the armholes of his vest, tilted backward in his chair. "So we soothe Mithra—how?"

	"Can you get out that rilla without wrecking his village?"

	"Sure we can. It's down deep. We can run side shafts from the base of the knoll. It's dead easy!"

	''Did you explain that to Mithra?"

	"Goldarn it! That's what we tried to do," complained Mason, .his voice rising, "but without his lingo we couldn't make him understand. He's seen what a mess we've made of the surface-vein here and thought there'd be the same upheaval there."

	"Naturally?" prompted Sam.

-

	Mason was reluctant, but after a while he gave in with, "Well, I guess so. It was natural. He's no miner or metallurgical engineer."

	Sam leaned forward in his seat. "Now can I tell Mithra that the metal will be taken without disturbing one stone or slate within his village, and that after it is done you will leave him fine passages and underground rooms which his people can use for storage?"

	"You bet!" The other became amiable suddenly. "We'd even trim up the walls for them."

	"Good. I'll go and tell him. I think it'll satisfy him—in fact I'm sure of it."

	"Let's hope so." Mason's chair came forward as he sat up. "But there's still one snag."

	"What's that?"

	"Three of my men died, and don't you forget it! What is Mithra going to do about that?"

	Sam rose to his feet in readiness to leave. Now that his mission seemed to be getting some place, he felt tired, thoroughly tired and weary. Too much long distance marching and too little sleep. Six days to get back at the same hurried pace and the spaceship still to catch. This life was punishing to one's dogs.

	"Mithra will send you the culprits and you may punish them as you wish."

	"Like heck he will," said Mason. "Unless he's nuts."

	"Oh, yes, he will—on one condition."

	"What condition?"

	"That you send him the three who killed his men and leave him to punish them."

	"You've got me there. It's even-Steven. They're dead, anyway."

	"So are Mithra's men," said Sam.

-

	Mithra made the peace, the prowling shadows vanished from the fringes near the fort, the arbalests and flame throwers were put away. No messenger went forth to bear the tidings, a fact Sam noted thoughtfully.

	"I can't see what else we can call it but a miserable misunderstanding," said Sam to Mason as he made ready to leave the village. "It's not for me to place the blame, but I reckon it'd be wiser if you gave one of your guys time off to learn the language. When people on Earth can't always make themselves understood, what hopes have you got semaphoring at a Greenie?"

	"I'll see what can be done," promised Mason. "And thanks a lot!" He frowned suddenly, and added, "If you meet that Father Rooney, stall him off for me, will you?"

	"I will," agreed Sam, smiling, he hiked his satchel and left.

	The same native who'd brought him was his guide on the way back, but the remainder of his bodyguard had increased in number from three to twelve. He was greatly honored, for this was the escort of a Voice. Politeness still demanded that he follow his guide and pretend not to notice the others.

	Twelve protecting shadows stayed with him the full length of his journey home and duly circled his cabin before fading away into the heat-haze and the half-light. They'd been phantoms throughout the trip and like phantoms they disappeared.

	It was good to be back in the shack, to see the old, familiar fragment of glade through the window, to hear the regular put-put-put of moisture falling onto the roof, to have books biding his perusal, a bed waiting for his body.

	Morning found him frantically energetic. From Mithra's land he'd plucked a new herb which looked like heather but smelled and tasted like mint. It hadn't wilted during the journey. He sand-dried it, sketched it, photographed it, packed it in a box which he tagged: erica mithrii. There were four new roots with which to deal, in addition to the other roots and samples of bark still waiting attention. And a report to write about every one of them. He was still busy in the middle of it when a heavy metallic rattle and the deep roar of a Diesel engine brought him outside. He was just in time to see the caterpillar from Base rumble into the glade. There were four men aboard. The machine was two days early and much of his stuff wasn't ready for it; he stood and watched its approach with mixed feelings.

-

	With a final burst of power that sent curls of thick blue smoke through the grasses and the herbs, the huge machine stopped before his door and its passengers climbed out. The treads had left two enormous weals across the glade to between the farther trees.

	He recognized none of the four. The first of these, making no remark, handed him a bunch of mail and strolled into the cabin, the others following. Sam entered last, shuffling his mail and feeling ireful.

	Inside, he found the first entrant squatting on the edge of his bed; a beefy personage with a thick neck, a florid complexion, and an elusive touch of humor playing around his heavy jowls.

	Without preamble, this one said. "Brother Gleeson, you're fired."

	Sam tossed the mail unopened onto his bed, seated himself carefully on a sample box. "I've been expecting it."

	"So have I," informed the other cheerfully. "I've been trying for months to persuade the Institute to shake you off."

	"Indeed?" Sam wrinkled his eyes as he studied the speaker. "Why? What have I done to you?"

	"You got me bothered by making me realize how much I've yet to learn." He jerked a brawny thumb to indicate the spectacled, apprehensive young man at his side. "Same with him. he's Jud Hancock, your successor, and he feels apologetic about it."

	"All right," said Sam, listlessly. "Guess this is where I pack up and go home."

	"Oh, no, you don't!" He leaned forward, rested thick arms on thicker knees. "Earth's decided that now's the time to appoint a Venusian Consul and get things better organized. I have been honored with the task, and I think it's a tough one. What I'm going to need, real bad, will be an adviser on native affairs. That's where you come in."

	Sam said, quickly, "What makes you think that?"

	"Your reports. I've read 'em all."

	"Who are you?"

	"Walt Kayser," answered the other.

	A wave of embarrassment came over Sam, and he murmured, "You expect me to advise you?"

	"Most certainly! Where the devil can I get advice except from the right people? Who understands Venusians better than you?" He looked up questioningly, his eyes keen and sharp. "For instance, what's all this stuff you've got about what you call 'Venusian auto-rapport'?"

	"I don't quite know even now," Sam replied. His hair was standing up and his goatee lying down, and his mind was in a confused whirl. "All I've found out is that as long as things go smoothly for them the Greenies are individuals exactly as we are. But when involved in difficulties great enough to cause mental stress they appear to become part of a communal mind. Immediately a Greenie is in trouble the whole world of Greenies knows about it, discusses it, analyzes it, advises him what to do in some queer mental way, and, if necessary, comes to his aid." 

	"Telepathy?"

	"No, it's definitely not that. It isn't deliberate. It's quite involuntary and automatic and operates only under strain. It's just a peculiar faculty unknown on Earth or Mars." Enthusiasm for his subject crept into his voice. "You know, it means we've got to be almighty careful in our dealings with them. Here, one sucker means a whole world warned. Venus is the wrong place for pulling fast ones. The only way in which we can let them know we're good is by being good all the time. We've got to maintain a code of ethics out of stern necessity."

	"Or else?"

	"Else they're likely to be tough—maybe too tough for us to handle. It's going to be a long, long time before we get the full measure of their capabilities!" His features grew reminiscent, thoughtful. "Sometimes I find myself quite unable to decide whether the Greenies are genuine individuals or merely independent fragments of some huge, incomprehensible, planet-covering Greenie entity. There are times when they show strange aspects of both. Occasionally I think of them not as a race, but as a being, a sort of timid tiger.

	It's polite and retiring—and it's wisest to let it stay that way."

	"You see!" said Walter Kayser.

	"See what?"

	Kayser turned to his three companions and said, humorously, "He says, 'See what?' He can't hear himself talk!" He turned back to Sam. "The man who's playmate of a timid tiger is the man I need. What, in your opinion, is our most urgent requirement in creating wider and better contact with the Greenies?"

	"Linguists," Sam told him emphatically. He stood up. "That's the only way in which I've gotten to know them."

	"The only way?" queried Kayser, lifting an eyebrow.

	"Sure!" Sam moved restlessly across the room, the others watching. The swift march of events was still a little too much for his orderly mind. What to do for the best? Wasn't Kayser weighing his friendship with natives a little too heavily? Darn it, all he'd done was learn to talk their own lingo. Any fool could do that if he took the trouble. His preoccupied gaze went through the window, saw a Greenie waiting patiently outside.

	"Pardon me," he said to the quartet, opened the door, and went out.

-

	The native leaned on his blowpipe, looked at Sam with great yellow eyes that were grave and brooding. "The Gray Chanter," he said.

	"What of him? Is he sick?"

	The other nodded. "They say he forbids us to summon you, but it is not good for him to struggle alone. He has spoken gently, saying that we are company enough. Alas, he cannot grasp the mind of his people."

	Sam blinked and said, "Wait!"

	Returning to the cabin, he snatched up his satchel, slung it over his shoulder. "Father Rooney is ill," he told his surprised visitors. "Unfortunately, you could never cross the ravines and rope bridges in that caterpillar. So this is where I go." With that, he was gone.

	The dumfounded four crowded the cabin door and watched him vanish through the trees behind his swiftly loping guide. The last branches rustled behind him, the leaves dripped down and all was silence. Then, suddenly, a dozen stealthy shapes, blowguns in hand, flitted from the trees and entered the invisible path Sam had taken.

	"Hey, look at that!" breathed Hancock, grabbing Kayser's arm.

	"His escort," murmured Kayser. He shrugged broad shoulders. "And I don't rate one better! Sixty miles—just like that!" He mused a lot, "There was a remark in one of his reports that caused effervescence in my thinkery. He said, 'They've been kind to me.' "

	"Humph!" contributed Hancock, looking comforted.

	"He didn't take up your offer," one of the others pointed out.

	"He will, he will," asserted Kayser positively. "He's constitutionally incapable of refusing."

The End