CHAPTER 17

The words barely had time to pass John's lips before things began happening. He felt himself snatched from the ground and the whole scene whirled wildly about him as he found himself being carried like a sack of grain away from the amphitheater and the meeting, and toward the forest beyond the valley.

The Hill Bluffer had grabbed him in two large hands and was running with him toward the forest the way a football player runs with a football. A roar of voices surged up and beat behind them. Looking back over the Bluffer's boulder-like shoulder, John saw that the whole mass of people involved in the meeting of Clan Hollows was now at their heels.

The free air whistled past John's face. He was being jolted about with every jarring footfall of the Bluffer; but the landscape was reeling past them both at a rate that must be close to thirty miles an hour; and the crowd behind was not gaining on them. In fact, John hesitated to believe it, considering that the Bluffer was carrying John's extra one hundred and eighty-five pounds in such an awkward fashion, but as the forest wall drew near he was forced to, they were actually running away from their pursuers. Their lead got bigger with each stride of the Bluffer. John felt the glow of competition as he had felt it on the sports field many times before. For the first time, a spark of kinship glowed to life inside him for the Bluffer.

They might be worlds apart, biologically, thought John, but by heaven they both had what it took to outdo the next man when the chips were stacked and wagered.

Abruptly, the shadow of the forest closed about them. The Bluffer ran on a carpet of tree needles, easing back his pace to a steady lope. He lifted John, pushing him back around to the saddle. John climbed into the saddle and hung on. With John's weight properly distributed, the Bluffer ran more easily.

The surf-sound of pursuit behind them began to be muffled by the forest. Moreover it was dropping further behind yet, and fading. The Bluffer ran down the side of one small hollow, and coming up the other, dropped for the first time back into his usual stalking stride of a walking pace. When he reached the crest of the further side, he ran again down the slope to the next hollow. And so he continued, alternately running and walking as the slope permitted.

"How far to the Terror?" asked John, during one of these spells of walking.

"Glen Hollow," said the Bluffer, economically. "Half a—" he gave the answer in terms of Dilbian units. John worked it out in his head to come to just about three miles more.

A little more than ten minutes later, they broke through a small fringe of the birchlike trees to emerge over the lip of a small, cuplike valley containing a nearly treeless, grassy meadow split by a stream, which in the valley's center spread out into a pool some forty feet across at its widest and showing enough dark blueness to its waters to indicate something more than ordinary depth.

By the side of those waters, waited the Streamside Terror.

John leaned forward and spoke quietly into that same ear of the Bluffer's that he had bitten an hour or so earlier, as the Bluffer started down the slope toward the meadow.

"Put me down," said John, "beside the deepest part of that pond."

The Bluffer grunted agreeably and continued his descent. He came down to a point by the wider part of the pool and stopped while he was still about thirty feet from the waiting Dilbian.

"Hello, postman," said the Terror.

"Hello, Streamside," grunted the Bluffer. "Mail for you here."

The Streamside Terror looked curiously past the Hill Bluffer's shoulders and met John's eye.

"That's the Half-Pint Posted, is it?" he said. "I thought he'd be bigger. So the old ones let you come?"

"Nope," said the Bluffer. "We just came on our own."

While the Terror had been peering at John, John had been closely examining the Terror. John had gotten a fair look at the Dilbian scrapper back while he was escaping from Tark-ay, but from some little distance. And for most of that time, the Terror had been in pretty constant motion. Now John had a chance to make sure of the picture he had carried away from the Hemnoid camp before.

Once more, John was struck by the fact that the Terror did not seem particularly large, for a Dilbian. The Bluffer was nearly a good head taller. And the impressive mass of One Man would have made two of the younger battler. Streamside was good sized for a male, but nothing more than that. John noted, however, the unusually thick and bulky forearms, the short neck and—more revealing perhaps than anything else—the particularly poised stance and balance of the Dilbian.

It was as if the whole weight of the Terror's body was so easily and lightly carried that the whole effort of moving it into action could be ignored.

John threw one quick glance at the water alongside. The bank seemed to drop directly off into deep water. He slid down from the saddle and stepped around the Dilbian postman, kicking off his boots and shrugging out of his jacket as he did so. His hands went to his belt buckle; and in the same moment, with no further pause for amenities, the Streamside Terror charged.

John turned and dived deep into the pool.

He had expected the Terror to attack immediately. He had even counted on it, reasoning that the Dilbian was too much the professional fighter to take chances with any opponent—even one as insignificant as a red-headed Shorty. John had planned that the Terror should follow him into the water.

But not that the Terror should follow so quickly.

Even as John shot for the dark depths of the pool, he heard and felt the water-shock of the big body plunging in after him, so close that it felt as if the Terror's great nailed hands were clawing at John's heels.

John stroked desperately for depth and distance. He had a strategy of battle; but it all depended on a certain amount of time and elbow room. He changed direction underwater, shot off at an angle up to the surface; and, flinging water from his eyes with a backward jerk of his head, looked around him.

The Terror, looking in the other direction, broke the surface fifteen feet away.

Rapidly, John dived again. Well underwater, he reached for his belt buckle, unsnapped it and pulled the belt from the loops of his trousers. In the process, he had come to the surface again. He broke water almost under the nose of the Terror; and was forced to dive again immediately with half a lungful of air and his bulky enemy close behind him.

Once more, in the space and dimness of underwater, he evaded the Dilbian; and this time he came up cleanly, a good ten feet from where the back of the Terror's big head broke the water. Turning, John stroked for distance and breathing room, the length of his belt still trailing from one fist like a dark stem of water-weed.

Confidence was beginning to warm in John as he dove again. He had had time, now, to prove an earlier guess that, effective as the Terror might be against other Dilbians in the water, his very size made him more slow and clumsy than a human in possibly anything but straight-away swimming. John had gambled on this being true—just as he had gambled on the fact that, true to his reputation, the Terror would pick a battleground alongside some stream or other. Now, John told himself, it was time to switch to the attack, choose the proper opening and make his move.

Turning about, John saw the Terror had spotted him and was churning the water in his direction. John filled his lungs and dived, as if to hide again. But underneath the surface he changed direction and swam directly toward his opponent. He saw the heavy legs and arms churning toward him overhead; and, as they passed in the water, he reached up, grabbed one flailing foot and pulled.

The Terror reacted with powerful suddenness. He checked; and dived. John, flung surfacewards by the heel he had caught, released it and dived also, so that he shot downwards, behind and above the back of the Dilbian. He saw the wide shoulders, the churning arms; and then, as the Terror—finding no quarry—turned upwards again toward the surface, John closed in.

He passed the thin length of his belt around the Terror's thick neck, wrapped it also around his own wrists and twisted the large loop tight.

At this the Terror, choking, should have headed toward the surface, giving John a chance to breathe. The Dilbian did. But there and then the combat departed from John's plan, entirely. John got the breath of air he had been expecting at this moment—the one breath he had counted on to give him an advantage over the strangling Terror. But then Streamside plunged down again, turning and twisting to get at the human who was riding his back and choking him. And finally, and after all, John came at last to understand what sort of an opponent he had volunteered to deal with.

It is always easy to be optimistic; and even easier to underrate an enemy. John, in spite of all the evidence, in spite of all his experiences of the last three days, had simply failed to realize how much greater the Terror's strength could be than his own. Physically, the Terror in sheer weight and muscle was a match for any two full-grown male Earthly gorillas. And, in addition to this, he had human intelligence and courage.

John clung like a fresh-water leech, streaming out in the wake of the Terror, as the Terror thrashed and twisted, trying to get a grip with his big fingers on the thin belt, sunk in the fur of his neck. While with the other nineteen-inch hand he beat backwards through the water, trying to knock John from his hold.

John was all but out of reach, stretched at arms-length by his grip on the belt. But now and again, the blind blows of the Terror's flailing hand brushed him. Only brushed him—awkwardly, and slowly, slowed by the water—but each impact tossed John about like a chip in a river current. He felt like a man rolling down a cliff side and being beaten all over by baseball bats at the same time.

His head rang. The water roared in his ear. He gulped for air and got half a mouthful of foam and water. His shoulder numbed to one blow and his ribs gave to another. His senses began to leave him; he thought—through what last bit of semiconsciousness that remained as the fog closed about his mind—that it was no longer a matter of proving his courage in facing the Terror. His very life now lay in the grip of his hands on the twisted belt. It was, in the end, kill or be killed. For it was very clear that if he did not manage to strangle the Terror before he, himself, was drowned or killed, the Terror would most surely do for him.

Choking and gasping, he swam back to blurred consciousness. His mouth and nose were bitter with the taste of water and he was no longer holding the belt. The edge of the bank loomed like a raft to the survivor of a sunken ship, before him. Instinctively, no longer thinking of the Terror, or anything but light and air, he scrabbled like a half-drowned animal at the muddy edge of earth. His arms were leaden and weak, too weak to lift him ashore. He felt hands helping him. He helped to pull himself onto slippery grass. The hands urged him a little farther. His knees felt ground beneath him.

He coughed water. He retched. The hands urged him a little farther; and finally, at last completely out on solid land, he collapsed.

He came around after a minute or two to find his head in someone's lap. He blinked upwards and a watery blur of color slowly resolved itself into the face of Ty Lamorc, taut and white above him. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"What—?" he croaked. He tried again. "What're you doing here?"

"Oh, shut up!" she said, crying harder than ever.

She began wiping his face with a piece of cloth nearly as wet as he was.

"No," he said. "I mean—what're you doing here?" He tried to sit up.

"Lie down," she said.

"No. I'm all right." He struggled up into a sitting position. He was still in Glen Hollow, he saw, groggily. And the place was aswarm with Dilbians. A short way down the bank a knot of them were clustered around something.

"What—?" he said, looking in that direction.

"Yep, it's the Terror, Half-Pint," said a familiar voice above him. He looked up to see the enormously looming figure of the Hill Bluffer. "He's still out and here you're kicking your heels and sitting up already. That makes it your fight. I'll go tell them." And he strode off toward the other group, where John could hear him announcing the winner in a loud and self-justified voice.

John blinked and looked over at Ty.

"What happened?" he asked her.

"They had to pull him out. You made it to shore on your own." She produced a disposable tissue from somewhere—John had almost forgotten such things existed during the last three days—wiped her eyes and blew her nose vigorously. "You were wonderful."

"Wonderful!" said John, still too groggy for subtlety. "I was out of my head to even think of it. Next time I'll try tangling with a commuter rocket, instead!" He felt his ribs, gently. "I better get back to the embassy in Humrog and have a picture taken of this side."

"Oh! Are your ribs—"

"Maybe just bruised. Wow!" said John, coming on an especially tender spot.

"Oh!" Ty choked up again. "You might have been killed. And it's all my fault!"

"All your fault—" began John. The dapper, small figure of Joshua Guy loomed suddenly over him.

"How are you, my boy?" inquired Joshua. "Congratulation, by the way. Oh, you must let me explain—"

"Not now," said John. He clutched at the small man's wrist. "Help me up. Now," he said, turning to face Ty, who had also risen. "What do you mean, it was all your fault?"

"Well, it was!" she wailed, miserably, twisting the tissue to shreds. "It was my off-official recommendation. The Contacts Department sent me out here to survey the situation and recommend means for beating the Hemnoids to the establishment of primary relations with the Dilbians."

"What's that got to do with me?"

"Well, I—I recommended they send out a man who conformed as nearly as possible to the Dilbian psychological profile and we worked out a Dilbian emotional situation so as to convince them we weren't the absolute little toylike creatures they thought we were—but people just like themselves. We needed to prove to them we're as good men as they are, aside from our technology, which they thought was sissy."

"Me?" said John. "Dilbian emotional profile?"

"But you are, you know. Extroverted, l-lusty—. They've got a very unusual culture here, they really have. They're really much more similar to us humans when we were in the pioneering stages of culture than they are to the Hemnoids. We had to prove it to them that we could be the kind of people they could treat with on a level. The truth is, they've got chips on their shoulders because we and the Hemnoids are more advanced. But they can't admit to themselves they're more primitive than we are because their culture—anyway," wound up Ty, seeing John was getting red in the face, "it would have been fine except for Boy Is She Built trying to throw you over that cliff. She was only supposed to take your wrist phone. And that altered the emotional constants of the sociological equations involved. And Gulark-ay almost got it all twisted to go his own way, and—"

"I see," interrupted John. "And why," he asked, very slowly and patiently, "wasn't I briefed on the fact that this was all a sort of sociological power politics bit?"

"Because," wept Ty, "we wanted you to react like the Dilbians in a natural, extroverted, un—unthinking way!"

"I see," said John, again. They were still standing beside the pool. He picked her up—she was really quite light and slender—and threw her in. There was a shriek and a satisfying splash. The Dilbians nearby looked around interestedly. John turned and walked off.

"Of course, she didn't know you then," said Joshua, thoughtfully.

John snorted, Dilbian fashion. He walked on. But after half a dozen steps more he slowed down, turned, and went back.

"Here," he said, gruffly, extending his hand as she clung to the bank.

"Thag you," Ty said humbly, with her nose full of water. He hauled her out.