The Venom Trees of Sunga

V – The Stump-Tailed Kusi

Salazar and Choku pitched their tent in a bay or recess on the outer or lower edge of the nanshin forest, a kilometer west of the Kashanite community. At mealtime Salazar invited Choku to eat with him. The Kook politely declined, saying that his rules of caste forbade that. He also preferred his native Kukulcanian porridge, which Terrans found as appetizing as library paste.

Salazar, now usually wearing his pistol, went about his scientific work in an orderly, systematic way, a contrast with the shyness and gaucherie that he often showed in his relations with people. First, he had to get the local kusis used to his presence. When he and Choku had arrived, the animals in the neighboring trees had scampered away with barks and whistles.

Salazar settled down and for a while ignored the local fauna, save for the constant battle against biting arthropods, analogues of Terran mosquitos and biting flies. He swatted and sprayed and coated his exposed skin with oily repellents.

Some species of Kukulcanian arthropods, hunting by smell, left Terrans alone; but many others, hunting by heat radiation, attacked them as energetically as did their Terran analogues. Salazar had learned from xenobiology that these small biters, after a meal, usually curled up and died of acute indigestion, since their systems were not adapted to Terran blood. But this was small comfort to the suffering Terran.

He assisted Choku with the chores, collected firewood, and read his books: O'Sullivan's The Trees of Sunga, Kaufmann's Fauna of the Eastern Littoral, and Yorimoto's The Pithecoidea of Kukulcan. All, he knew, were mere preliminary surveys. Enormous amounts of work had to be done before the cataloging of Kukulcanian species began to approach that prevailing on Terra. There, the known number of species ran to over two million, including tens of thousands driven to extinction by human expansion. In addition, Terran biologists estimated that there were perhaps another million not yet identified and classified.

For three days Salazar saw no sign of kusis. On the fourth, while he sat on his folding chair, his eye caught a flash of brown amid the green of the nanshins. He continued reading, pretending not to notice, but the kusi scout did not reappear.

The next day he sighted glimpses of brown among the branches. Still Salazar sat over his books as if unaware.

The day after that a couple of kusis came into plain sight in the nearest female nanshin. They moved about deliberately, plucking and eating the scarlet berries. The noisy creatures uttered barks, howls, grunts, growls, hoots, screams, and whistles.

From Terran analogies, Salazar suspected that the nanshin and the stump-tailed kusi were symbiotic. The trees furnished the kusis with food. The kusis cultivated the trees by eating the berries and defecating the undigested seeds far and wide so that the seedlings would not be overshadowed by the parent tree. Once a zuta fluttered close to the tree as if to snatch a berry; the two kusis leapt at it, barking, and it flew away.

Moving slowly, Salazar picked up his binoculars and focused. Gripping the glasses in one hand, he held his recorder close to his mouth in the other and spoke into it in a bated voice, telling the time and describing the kusis' movements.

The animals seemed monkeylike in a reptilian way. They had grasping feet on all four limbs, little round external ears, and, as the name implied, stumpy tails between one centimeter and two centimeters long. They used their handlike forefeet, each with three fingers and an opposable thumb, in quite a human way for plucking berries.

Salazar knew of other species of the Pithecoidea. Some had long tails, in some cases prehensile. Taxonomists were not yet agreed on dividing those species into families and genera. Progress was slow because Terran scientific resources on Kukulcan were minuscule compared to those back on Terra.

Then Salazar sat up and reached for his camera. A smaller kusi approached one of the two larger ones that he had been watching. Coming close, it extended a fore-limb and pulled it back in what looked like a beckoning gesture.

At first the adult ignored the gestures, but at last it took a berry, bit it in half, swallowed one half, and handed the other to the juvenile mendicant. With subdued but rising excitement, Salazar described the scene. He dropped the recorder on its lanyard and put the camera to his eye.

Like some Terran anthropoid apes, the kusis had evolved food-sharing behavior! Some xenanthropologists deemed this instinct a necessary precondition for the evolution of an intelligent, civilized species.

Just as Salazar was getting his long-distance lens adjusted, the kusis burst into barks. Instantly all three, with a chorus of hoots and whistles, leapt into other trees and disappeared.

Damn! thought Salazar. He knew that, to many Terran wild animals, a staring eye was viewed as a threat or a challenge. To such a beast, the lenses of cameras and other optical instruments presented an especially menacing threat. Salazar had hoped that he was far enough from the trees for the animals not to notice the camera, but their eyesight must have been keener than he thought.

It must have been pure luck that they had not noticed his binoculars aimed toward them; when he had dropped the glasses and picked up the camera, the motion had attracted their attention.

The next day there was no sign of kusis, but Salazar had other troubles to occupy him. He awoke to find the tent swarming with a Kukulcanian arthropod somewhat like a Terran cricket, but non-jumping. They were attacking the bag in which the food supply was tied up, purposefully gnawing at the rope securing it.

Salazar yelled for Choku, who had been standing watch outside. They hunted frantically through their baggage, swatting insectoids that crawled up their legs. Choku found the spray can. Salazar sprayed until the tent was littered with dead and dying arthropods, some feebly kicking on their backs.

"Did you pack not a broom with your supplies, honorable boss?" asked Choku.

"Nay; meseemed one would not be needed." Salazar squatted and began picking up insectoid corpses, which in death emitted a horrible smell. There were hundreds.

"Permit me to expedite matters, sir," said Choku. "Take your ease whilst I obtain the needed instrument."

The Kook left the tent and soon returned with a tree branch trimmed to a broomlike shape. He began sweeping corpses out. In a few minutes the tent was clear save for a few in odd corners. Salazar collected those by hand.

On the second day after the camera incident, Salazar caught sight of more kusis in the nanshin trees. Soon the animals became bolder, showing themselves openly and ignoring Salazar's camera and binoculars. Sometimes a couple of young would come down and chase each other round and round the grassoid between Salazar's camp and the nanshins.

Between swats at biting arthropods, Salazar continued dictating notes on the beasts' behavior. He observed the begging of the young and the pair-bonding of the older kusis. One day the nearest pair appeared with the female in heat, betokened by a conspicuous genital swelling. After the pair had for some time nuzzled each other and squeaked, the female climbed down to the ground and crouched with her rump raised.

The male of the pair, whom Salazar identified by a patch of darker scales on his neck, climbed down after her. So did three other males, who appeared out of nowhere. One moved towards the female, but the male— Salazar thought of him as her mate, though he knew that assessment was premature—bared his teeth and chattered at the interloper. The strange male retreated to a prudent distance. Another of the trio made a similar approach and was likewise driven back.

The "mate" then went up to the female from behind, grasped her hips, and mounted. After a dozen thrusts he gave a shriek and withdrew. The female remained in her crouch.

One of three other males approached not the female but the dominant male. The newcomer made the same begging gesture that Salazar had seen the young do for food. The mate gave a chirp, and the newcomer hopped over to the female and copulated as the mate had done.

Another of the trio then repeated the whole performance. But when the third, who up to then had not even approached the female, tried the same begging gesture, the mate barked and rushed at him with bared teeth. The lorn lover fled away into the trees.

Poor little bastard, thought Salazar. I know just how he feels, always odd man out with the other sex. When I get back to Henderson, I must make up my mind about Calpurnia. Maybe we should get engaged.

The kusis' pair-bonding, he thought, must have been less exclusive than that which he had read about among Terran gibbons, though developed beyond that of the Terran gorilla and chimpanzee. The relationship he had witnessed had parallels in some primitive Terran tribes—at least, it had before all the erstwhile primitives had donned pants and shirts and taken up computers and golf. With some, monogamy had been the rule, but a husband might grant a highly esteemed friend or kinsman the privilege of copulation with his wife. What the wives thought of it was not reported by any of the anthropologists whose works Salazar had read.

Salazar dug a mitta nut out of its bag. He laid the nut on the grassoid, halfway from his tent to the nearest nanshin trees, and waited.

An hour after Salazar had set out his bait, a young male kusi appeared at the base of the nearest nanshin. Attracted by the smell, it made little tentative rushes this way and that. Then it zeroed in on the nut. It hopped across the grassoid for several meters but halted short of its goal, looking warily at Salazar on his camp chair. Its courage failed, and it ran back to the tree and climbed out of sight.

Several more kusis made similar approaches during the day. Toward dusk, as Salazar was helping Choku prepare dinner and not watching the kusis, one bold fellow raced out, grabbed the nut, and ran back into the trees. Salazar looked around in time to see the animal disappear.

After two more days the kusis, drawn by the smell of mitta nuts, became tame enough for Salazar to walk within a couple of meters of them before they fled. Now he could attack the serious question: How did the kusis neutralize the poison of the venom trees? He had heard that the best antidote, if one got a drop on one's skin, was sodium acid carbonate, but the kusis certainly had no baking soda.

The animals' growing tolerance of Salazar allowed him to approach their trees within two or three meters to watch. When they moved about, barking, hooting, and whistling, the needles of the nanshins curled away from them. Salazar suspected that the whistling, one of the kusis' wide repertory of sounds, caused this reaction.

But the true explanation might still be a chemical one. To make sure of his doctorate, he ought to eliminate possibilities other than the correct one.

He did not take seriously Alexis's belief that the kusis were in telepathic communication with the trees. If all other explanations failed, he might have to investigate that one. It would be a daunting task.

Salazar's apparatus included a phonometer and an odorometer. The phonometer measured and recorded the pitch and intensity of sounds all the way from the subaudible frequencies used by elephants in communicating, to the ultrasound frequencies used in surgery and dentistry, and to even higher than the clicks and squeaks employed by bats for echolocation. Thus it recorded sounds both above and below the frequencies audible to the human ear. The odorometer analyzed the smellable compounds in the air and recorded them.

Salazar waited until nightfall, when the kusis huddled in clumps on branches and slept. Then he carried the phonometer to a nearby tree and set it down at the base. He likewise set the odorometer at the base of another. He had to crawl to reach the base without touching the venom-spraying needles. Remembering what he had read of the destructiveness of Terran monkeys, he laid a couple of dead branches over each instrument.

The next day, as the kusis began to move about, one uttered a shriek, staring down at the base of the tree where Salazar had laid the odorometer. In a flash, all the kusis in sight, a dozen or so, bounded away. No more appeared for the rest of the day or for two days following. Salazar knew that he had not sufficiently hidden the instrument.

Then, as before, the kusis began returning to the site-first a bold young male as point man, jittering about and scuttling out of sight at Salazar's slightest movement, only to reappear an hour later.

In three more days, the kusis were as thick as ever in the neighboring trees. Salazar noted that they kept away from the tree at the base of which he had laid the odorometer. But the next day a couple gingerly returned to that tree, keeping well up from the ground.

Salazar determined to collect his instruments and read their records the next day. But when, the following morning, he neared the tree of the odorometer, he was appalled to see a glitter of little metal and plastic parts spread over several square meters. He dashed forward to find the casing broken open and the contents—gears, spools, levers, filmstrips, and all the rest—spread around.

He bitterly reproached himself for letting the kusis make free with this costly piece of machinery. They were made on Terra, and it would take a couple of dozen years to get another from mankind's distant home planet. Nobody on Kukulcan could produce so complex an instrument.

If the answer was chemical, like the pheromones produced by moths and many other Terran organisms to lure the opposite sex, he would have no way to prove it. If the answer was phonic, his phonometer might settle the question if he could get enough significant recordings with it, though this would not be enough if the correct answer was a combination of sound and chemicals. If the answer were something other than either of those, he would have to cross that bridge when he came to it.

He bore the phonometer back to his tent, since there was no sense in letting the little devils ruin that one, too. Apprised of the catastrophe, Choku said:

"Honorable boss, surely you will wish to salvage the parts of that machine. If nobody on this world can create one, it might still be possible to reassemble it from the separated parts and to repair or replace any parts broken or missing."

"You are right," said Salazar. "Back in Henderson I have an instruction book on the machine, showing where every little widget goes. Where is a bag to collect the pieces? We shall also need your broom to sweep the parts beneath the tree out to where we can reach them."

An hour later, with Choku's help, Salazar had gathered and bagged every piece of the odorometer that either could find. Salazar spent the morning studying records on the phonometer. He thought he could identify the seismographic wriggles on the filmstrips with some of the kusis' repertory of sounds. In particular, the piercing whistles registered at about twenty thousand hertz, or cycles per second. This, Salazar thought, would put them up in the ninth octave of the diatonic scale, close to the upper limits of audibility to the normal human ear.

What he needed to do was to make a sound film of kusis going about their business and synchronize that film with the phonometer. But for a good phonometric record he needed to put the apparatus near them. When they saw it, they would flee in terror. When they got used to it, they would tear it to pieces. Their claws and efficient Kukulcanian muscles would make short work of even a strong metal casing.

"Choku," he grumped, "if I could only make the kind of squeals that the kusis do, I should soon discover whether their sounds stop the nanshins from giving them a bath in venom. On Terra, people make high-pitched whistles to control their pets." He paused. "Why could I not make a whistle right here? Know you of a patch of canes nearby?"

"Aye, honorable boss. The last time I went out for firewood, I saw a large growth of them west of here, around the curve of the mountain. I estimate that you could walk the distance in one of your hours, sir."

"Good! If you will put me up a bite to eat, I will set out forthwith."

Salazar was on his way back from the patch with a bundle of canes when he saw the sky, which had been fair in the morning, now fast clouding over. As he quickened his pace, the skies darkened further. Thunder rumbled. Then lightning flashed, followed at shorter and shorter intervals by thunder.

As the flashes came closer, Salazar noted that the initial pitch of the thunder rose in frequency. In theory one could make a fair guess at the distance of a flash not only by measuring the interval between flash and thunder but also from the frequency of the sound at the beginning of the thunder roll. If he only had the phonometer along ...

A vivid flash lit up the landscape as it came to earth somewhere in the nanshin forest on his left. Less than a second later there came a sharp, high-pitched crack, then a deafening crash of slightly lower frequency and a long roll, running down the scale to a bass rumble. Then came a drop of rain, followed by a downpour.

Salazar had become so interested in natural phenomena and in planning a possible scientific paper on thunder frequencies that he had forgotten to haul his yellow slicker out of his pack. Dropping the canes, he repaired the omission, though not without getting fairly wet.

He looked around. The nanshin forest on his left offered shelter, but of a dangerous sort. To the right the slope was fairly open, with stretches of grassoid, herbs, and scattered trees. Salazar knew better than to stand near an isolated tree in a thunderstorm. Farther down the mountain, the trees merged into the solid forest of the lower altitudes, but distance made it impractical to seek shelter thither.

There was nothing to do but to slog ahead through the rain. After a quarter hour the downpour subsided to a light rain. In half an hour the rain let up, and patches of sky appeared through the breaking clouds. When Salazar stopped to shed and fold his slicker, he heard a human yell.

The sound was repeated from ahead. He thought he heard: "Help! Au secours! Pomogitye! Help!" There seemed also to be an animal noise.

Dropping the slicker, Salazar pulled out the skeleton stock for his pistol and broke into a jog. Soon, around the curve of the mountain, he discerned a knot of figures. As he came closer, he saw that two Terrans were ringed by three poöshos, the continent's principal pack-hunting predators. They could be called reptilian wolves: quadrupeds of about wolf size with ears and fangs somewhat like those of a Terran canid. But their hides were hairless and scaly, and their bodies tapered smoothly aft into serpentine tails. They galloped round and round the people, snarling and wailing, now and then darting in to snap.

As he ran, Salazar unfolded the skeleton stock and fitted the butt of the pistol into it. If he tried to shoot at this range, he would as likely hit one of the Terrans as their attackers. As for shooting without the stock, forget it!

Another score of paces, and he thought he would have a chance. He recognized the two attacked as members of Ritter's zuta-watching party, Jomo Mpanza and Shakeh Dikranian. Mpanza, a stout, black-skinned man with a head of close-cut gray wool, was holding them off with his knobby walking stick, while Miss Dikranian, the sultry-looking, black-haired beauty, threw stones.

Salazar halted and put the stock to his shoulder. It would not be so accurate as the rifle, but it was all he had. He sighted on a poösho and squeezed. Bang! No change; he must have missed.

Salazar ran forward a few paces more, knelt, and tried again. Bang! A poösho leapt into the air, fell on its side, and lay writhing. The other two ran off down slope and disappeared. Salazar came forward and fired another round into the wounded animal, whose writhings ceased.

"Oh, Kirk!" cried Shakeh Dikranian, dropping her stone. She dashed forward and seized Salazar in a crushing embrace, pressing her full breasts against his damp bush jacket and making him even wetter. She kissed him rapturously. "I thought we were done for!"

She sneezed. Both rescuees' wet clothes clung to their skins.

"What are you two doing out here by yourselves?" asked Salazar. "We got lost," said Shakeh.

Mpanza, speaking educated British English, said: "We thought we saw a Nicterophis melas, a rare species. We took a few steps towards it to confirm our identification, and when we turned around, the rest of them had vanished. We hurried after them, or at least in the direction we thought they had gone; but we must have got turned about.

"After an hour of wandering and yelling, we came out on this grassy place. Then the poöshos came after us. They remind me of the wild hunting dogs of my native continent." He held up the blackthorn stick and kissed it. "Souvenir of Ireland. God bless the Irish!"

"I'd better get you to my camp," said Salazar, "where you can dry out. I dropped some pieces of gear; please wait while I go back for them."

Soon Salazar returned with his pack, properly filled again. He had just rejoined the Patelians when he realized that he had absentmindedly forgotten to retrieve the bundle of canes, which lay scattered where he had dropped the pack. Nevertheless he set out for his camp.

They had been walking only briefly when more Terrans issued from the trees and came towards them. Hilbert Ritter, in the lead, called: "What in Metasu's name are you doing here? We've been hunting all over for you!"

Shakeh Dikranian repeated the explanation. Ritter burst out: "Damn it, I've warned you and warned you not to straggle! The next one who does will be sent back to Sungecho on the next train."

"We're all going back tomorrow, anyway," said Shakeh.

Ritter grumped. On the way to Salazar's camp, Mpanza and Miss Dikranian apologized for the trouble they had caused. Salazar asked:

"How are you making out otherwise, Hilbert?"

Ritter shrugged. "It goes. One piece of good news: A trainkook on the way freight saw Mrs. Eagleton's suitcase on the embankment and picked it up. She got it back."

"Where on Terra would a workman turn in lost property like that?"

"That's Kooks for you. Of course it hasn't stopped her bitching."

"What about?" Glancing about, Salazar saw that Mrs. Eagleton was not with the party that day.

"The case arrived somewhat beat up, which is hardly surprising." Ritter sighed. "Most of the zuta watchers are good people, but in a group like this there's always one pain in the podex." He paused. "Kirk, today's field trip is our last. We have a car reserved back to Sungecho tomorrow on the express. Coming with us?"

Salazar scowled. "Damn it, I think I know the answer to my problem; but I need more days to nail down my proof. I figure that the next ship to Oõi after yours will take me back to Henderson in time to get my next term's class lessons ready. On the other hand, by the time I pay off Choku, I shall be just about broke."

"So you'd better come with us, or you'll lose the low rates on the trains and the ship. Oh, I almost forgot. Here's a letter I picked up at the Amoen post office."

Salazar took the letter. "How much do I owe you for postage due?"

"Fourteen and a half of the local unit. If you're pressed, you can pay me back in Henderson."

Salazar saw the tiny logo of the university museum. As he opened the letter, a grin overspread his features. The letter read:

Dear Kirk:

You know that old bore, the financier Maximus Flamand? The other day he practically hauled me into a bar by force to have a drink. Soon he was weeping into his liquor and telling me what a wonderful thing the museum was and what a great director I was and so on.

Then he said he had long wanted to do something nice for us, and without warning hauled out a check for fifteen hundred that you will—if the Kooks haven't burned down the Sungecho bank as a plot to steal their property—find deposited in your name in that bank. Only a few Kooks here understand commercial paper, and I doubt if any on Sunga do. As some Terran writer once said, the strongest human emotion is fear, and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

Flamand said he was giving it to me as director of the museum with no strings attached. I could use it in any way I liked. So I thought, How better to use it than in support of a small biological research expedition in the hands of a conscientious young scientist?

Kara sends love. Affectionately,

Keith Adams Salazar

PS: I am doing what I can about the other matter mentioned in your last letter.

Kirk Salazar said: "It's okay, Hilbert. My old man has deposited money for me in the Sungecho bank, so I shall stay on until the job is done."

Shakeh Dikranian asked: "Kirk, what's the latest on George Cantemir's lumbering project? Is he going to scalp the mountain like he said?"

"I suppose so," said Salazar.

"Can't you get the Kashanites to help? If George's project goes through, it'll spoil their little paradise."

"They won't do a thing. For one thing, their pacifistic cult doesn't approve of violence, and nothing short of violence is going to stop the Adriana Company. For another, there's a rumor that Cantemir has promised the Supreme Choraga—"

"My daughter," growled Ritter.

"—a whopping bribe not to oppose him. And the cult members will do whatever she says."

"Couldn't you lurk around the lumber camp with your rifle, knocking off lumberjacks one by one? They'd either go out on strike again or quit the job."

"No. For one thing, I'm not a murderer. These lumberjacks aren't scoundrels, just workmen doing what they're hired to do. For another, they're a tough lot, probably better at bushwhacking than I. They'd be more likely to pick me off."

After a pause Shakeh said: "Well, then, all I can think of is for you to start a rival cult. You could do it; I saw your performance on the Ijumo."

Half an hour later Choku had welcomed his employer back to the camp and rigged a frame of branches near the camp fire on which to dry Shakeh's and Mpanza's clothes. The other Patelians had been under a clump of broad-leaved trees when the storm passed and so got only slightly wet.

Salazar was taken aback when Shakeh Dikranian emerged from the tent, naked but for a towel around her middle and holding her clothes in a bundle. Catching Salazar's eye, she said:

"What are you goggling at, Kirk? Haven't you ever seen a woman before?"

While Salazar mentally compared Shakeh's form with that of Alexis, she hung her clothes on the frame. Jomo Mpanza entered the tent and presently thrust out an arm bearing sodden garments, calling:

"I say, will someone kindly hang these up for me?"

"Aren't you coming out?" asked Salazar, taking the clothes.

"I can't. I am not decent."

Salazar chuckled at the relativity of human customs.

Hilbert Ritter's reunited zuta watchers had vanished along the trail to Amoen. The sun was low in a western sky barred by intermittent clouds. Then Choku, preparing dinner, said:

"Sir! Look around! I do believe we have more company!"

Along the trail from the east came George Cantemir with a big-game rifle slung across his back. His beard shone gold in the setting sun. After him came a Kook, a female from its lack of crest, bearing a couple of bulky bundles. Cantemir called: "Hey, Kirk!"

"Hello, George," said Salazar. "Isn't your helper the one who acted as guide when we saw the makutos?"

"The same one. When I told Tootsie how good she was, she switched her allegiance from Chief Yaamo's government to me."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, even among Kooks," said Salazar. "But what brings you here?"

"You do, kid."

"What do you mean?"

"I got word from Henderson that you've put your old man up to interfering in my business. I won't stand for that, get me?"

"I merely told my father what had happened. How's your strike going?"

"Settled, though it cost us a bag of frick and put us a sixtnight behind schedule. The boys are ready to start cutting, and I won't let any loony idealist like you interfere! By God, I mean that! You academics are all alike. Never having had to meet a payroll, you think you're somehow above such shitty considerations as money. You'd let this useless wilderness—" He made a sweeping gesture, "—go to waste just so you can sit around admiring it and writing books about it that nobody reads. Well, we practical businessmen will have something to say about that\"

Keeping a hand near his pistol, Salazar shrugged. "Don't see how I could interfere with anybody out here in the boonies with nobody but Choku yonder."

"Well, I'm not underestimating you. You're too damned smart under that wimpy manner. So I'm giving you an order."

"Who the hell are you to order me—"

"Shut up! I'm talking. You're to fold up your tent and get the fuck out of here inside of twenty-four hours or face the consequences. Understand?"

Choku quietly emerged from the tent, carrying Salazar's rifle. The Kook did not raise the gun, and Cantemir ignored him.

"I hear you," said Salazar. "I shall have to think about it. I need at least a few days to finish my work here."

"I said twenty-four hours, and that's what I mean. Consider yourself lucky I don't order you out right this minute. I'm doing you a favor by giving you a day's notice, because you helped me through that fence when the makutos chased us. But after that you're on your own. You dreamers think you've got a right to step in and ruin a man's lawful, legitimate business just because it don't fit some woolly-minded theory, like you was a bunch of those spirits the Kooks here believe in." He paused for breath. "Okay, then, you'll be out of here and off the goddamn mountain tomorrow, or else. That's what I came to say, and I've said it. Winnow me?"

"I understand," said Salazar. "Is there anything else?"

"Hell, no." Cantemir looked around. "Haven't you killed anything yet?"

"I'm not here to hunt but to solve a scientific problem."

Cantemir snorted. "A real man would rather hunt any day. You ought to see the heads of game on the walls of my house. Don't forget, now!"

Cantemir turned and walked back down the trail. The Kook Fetutsi followed him out of sight.

Salazar gazed after the departing lumberman. "Choku, what would you do in my situation?"

"Sir, I could never be in your situation. Our institutions, at least in the civilized human nations, have arrangements for resolving such conflicts before they threaten the peace."

"I know, I know. Your governments are all bureaucratic dictatorships, under an overgrown civil service promoted by competitive examination. We tried that on Terra several times, but the system always broke down."

"Perhaps, sir, human beings are more inherently suited to our forms of government than you aliens."

"Maybe so." After a silence Salazar said: "I certainly am not fain to let that bravo chase me out with my work half-done. I suppose a 'real man,' as he is always saying, would have shot him in the back as he turned away to go down the trail, buried the body, and said nothing about the visit. I fear I am not up to that sort of—well, there is an English word, 'swashbuckling,' that fits.

"I must remember to wear this pistol; I keep forgetting. I have heard of a retired Kukulcanian philosopher who lives up on the mountain. Maybe he could make useful suggestions. He was called—damn, the name slips my mind."

"Doctor Seisen, sir?"

"That is it. Know you where on the mountain he is? Sungara is virtually a range in itself."

"Nay, sir. But if you will wait a few hours, methinks I can learn from some of Miss Ritters human attendants."

After dark, Choku returned with a crude map. "Luckily I found Juugats, who keeps up with every tiling. You see, sir, if we go west another itikron and a half, we shall come upon another passage through the nanshins. Then, if we go up slope for another half itikron, Doctor Seisen's abode should be in sight."

"Fine! I shall set out the first thing tomorrow morning. That will still give us time to pack up if we decide to cut and run. Please pack supplies for a one-day, one-man hike, with enough to eat for lunch, and supper, too, in case I am delayed in returning."

"But sir! Surely you do not wish to go to this philosopher alone! I should be with you."

"No, I shall go alone. Someone must guard the camp; if we left it vacant, the kusis would rip it to shreds and the insectoids would clean up anything left."

Choku's neck spines rippled in the equivalent of a sigh.

"If you are determined, sir. If you carry the rifle, pray leave the pistol with me."

"I will make do with the pistol."

Remembering that Seisen demanded a book as a consultation fee, Salazar looked over his library. He chose O'Sullivan's The Trees of Sunga as the volume he would miss least and sat up rereading it to get the most he could from it before giving it up.