Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [31]
Joshumabad halted abruptly, the sand warm beneath his feet. “Now I am thoroughly confused. Which is it? Which observation do I convey to my superiors when I return to Hivehom to make my report in person? Are these bipeds dangerous or not?”
He might have expected clarification from the senior diplomat among them. Instead, Yeicurpilal only succeeded in muddying the waters further. “That’s it exactly.”
Joshumabad held firm. “That cannot be it exactly. Either these humans are a threat to us or they are not.”
Yeicurpilal was not swayed by the visiting representative’s determination to secure a straight answer. “They are warlike and peaceful, brutal and sensitive, ignorant and understanding. This planet is a big ball of raging contradictions. And the worst of it is, while they recognize these inconsistencies within themselves, they seem powerless to do anything about them.”
“You have to give me something more,” Joshumabad pleaded. “I can’t present myself to the Grand Council with conclusions like that!”
“First of all,” Nilwengerex assured him, “they are only observations, not conclusions. I can tell you that my colleagues and I who have been studying these people do not believe they pose any direct threat to the thranx.”
“Crri!kk, that’s something, anyway.” Joshumabad was visibly relieved.
“I said no ‘direct’ threat,” the attaché reminded him. “Their racial volatility makes their future actions unpredictable. We have been making progress in many areas of cooperation, most notably in the matter of commercial and scientific exchanges. The greatest difficulty we are being forced to try to overcome is the fact that in shape we so nearly resemble the small arthropods that are, numerically at least, the dominant life-form on this world, and with whom humans have been engaged in a battle for survival since the dawn of their own evolution. As you must know by now, they attach an enormous and irrational importance to physical appearance.” His tone had turned even drier than usual. “Witness their immediate and unwarranted attraction to these Pitar. Through no fault of their own, these newly contacted bipeds are inadvertently responsible for the marked setback in our developing relations with the humans.”
The council representative was silent for a while as the three resumed their stroll. Much more at home on the alien beach, Yeicurpilal and Nilwengerex reviewed every plant and animal they encountered, striving to identify them according to the taxonomy that had been supplied by human scientists.
“Then I am to inform the council that relations continue to advance successfully, but at a slower pace than previously?”
Yeicurpilal gestured concurrence. “That is what I would report.”
“And when might they be expected to accelerate again?”
Yeicurpilal looked to Nilwengerex for a considered response. The attaché was reluctant to commit himself. “It is difficult to say. My own personal opinion, based on observation and the small knowledge I have gained of these people, is that it will not happen until the novelty of the Pitars’ appearance has run its course. Unfortunately, it shows no signs of relenting. The humans are as entranced by their newfound near-duplicates today as they were when first they were brought here.”
“Is there nothing we can do to regain appropriate attention?” The unexpected situation was new and confusing, as unprecedented in Joshumabad’s experience as it was in everyone else’s. They had not had such trouble relating to the Quillp, or even to the AAnn.
“If we are too forceful in our demands,” Yeicurpilal informed him, “I fear that the humans will take umbrage at our attempts, thus rendering the situation even more awkward than it is now. It is my recommendation—and Eint Gowendormet, who is chief of our mission here, concurs—that we proceed according to our standard plan of contact while waiting for the ferment surrounding the discovery of the Pitar to run its course.”
Joshumabad brooded on this. “The council will not be pleased. The