* * * * *
The edge of the ramp was getting uncomfortably close. I was here to
see the head man, but I would prefer to see him out in the open. The
thought of walking into that black hole left me as cold as a barefoot
Eskimo.
The ramp. It was a good six feet wide, made of what seemed to be some
form of an aluminum alloy, and was waiting to be walked on. I started
up its shallow slope, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes
soundless on the smooth surface.
He appeared suddenly, without warning, in the doorway. He was quite
tall, slim in the hips, and his naked shoulders seemed almost as wide
as the opening. Elaborate beadwork designs had been worked into the
buckskin breeches, and his headdress resembled a Sioux warbonnet, its
twin rows of red-tipped feathers hanging almost to his moccasins. A
hunting knife hung in a snake-skin sheath at his right hip. He was as
gauntly handsome as a Blackfoot--and they don't come any
better-looking than that.
He stood there, arms folded across his chest, looking as immovable as
Pike's Peak. This time I stopped. My back was as stiff as his, my head
as erect, my shoulders as square if not as wide. For a long time we
stood that way staring straight into each other's eyes, our
expressions blank, our tongues locked.
When enough time had passed for me to open the conversation without
being accused of impetuousness, I said, "I am Long Rock, of the
Potawatomi. I have come in peace, to hold counsel with you."
My words, in the language of the Delaware because of Wetzel's earlier
remark, had no immediate effect, which was par for the course with any
Indian. Not even his eyelids moved. The silence went on, building into
tension. Anyone unfamiliar with the ways of the Indian would have
taken another stab at it. I knew better. I had made my pitch; now it
was strictly up to him.
Finally his strong lips came unstuck. "I am Lo-as-ro, War Chief of the
Kornesh." It was the Delaware tongue, all right, but with inflexions
and nuances strange to me. "How is it that your skin is white but you
speak in the way of the Orbiwah?"
That last word, I judged, was what the Indian in general was called
wherever this specimen had come from. I said, "In my blood is the
blood of the Orbiwah. That is why I am here, sent by the Great Chief
of all white men."
We squatted down facing each other on the ramp. At once a young brave
brought out a long, elaborately carved peace-pipe. Lo-as-ro put the
bit to his mouth and puffed smoke toward the four cardinal points of
the compass, then passed the pipe to me. The tobacco was far more
aromatic than any I had come across before.
With the amenities out of the way, the Chief said, "Why has the White
Chief sent you to me?"
"To welcome you to the land of the white man."
"I come not to the land of the white man in peace."
My eyes were as cold as his own. "This we do not understand. The white
man has no quarrel with the tribe of Kornesh."
"The white man," Lo-as-ro said sonorously, "has taken from the Orbiwah
his land and his home. He has driven the Orbiwah into small areas. He
has killed buffalo and the bison and the deer, leaving the Orbiwah to
eat the meat of the horse or to starve. The Orbiwah has been made foul
with the diseases of the white man."
"All this," I said, "was long, long ago. Perhaps it was not right, but
it is the way of life that the strong prevail and the weak perish."
His expression darkened. "You say this--you with the blood of the
Orbiwah in your veins?"
"I speak only true words, noble Lo-as-ro. The white men are in number
as the leaves of the forest, the Orbiwah few and helpless."
One of his hands made a graceful motion. "I have come to return the
land to the Orbiwah, to restore him to the greatness of his fathers.
Once more the land shall be alive with game, the rivers filled with
fish. Once more shall the Orbiwah hunt with the weapons of his
fathers. I have spoken."
"From whence do you come?" I asked.
He pointed dramatically toward the sky. "From a great distance. Up
there are many worlds."
"Tell me of your world," I said.
The telling took a long time but not a word of it was dull. According
to Lo-as-ro, his world was a planet revolving about one of the stars
in the Big Dipper. It was slightly smaller than Earth, with about the
same climates and development of life. It was peopled with only one
race, the Orbiwah, who lived much as the Indians in America did before
the arrival of the white man. Recently spaceships from another planet
in the same solar system had landed on the Orbiwah world. These
newcomers were friendly, had no thought of conquest, and possessed a
science and culture of amazing proportions.
* * * * *
From them the Orbiwah learned of a planet on which were men of their
own kind. Lo-as-ro, fired by the thought of establishing contact with
people like himself, had borrowed spaceships manned by robots and
crossed the void to Earth. For weeks they had hovered in our
atmosphere, at first saddened, then angered, by the fate meted out to
the Indians.
Since the spaceships were able to move through Time into the past,
Lo-as-ro hit on the idea of going back to the days when the Indian was
still in control of most of America. With the power at his control he
could force the white man from the continent and restore the land to
those who owned it.
Arriving near the close of the Eighteenth Century, he found a sizeable
encampment of Indians, brought the ship down among them, and summoned
the chiefs to a Council of War, where he outlined to them his plan. To
his astonishment he found the chiefs suspicious of outside help and
confident that they could defeat the white man alone. In vain did
Lo-as-ro explain that they were doomed; they could not, or would not,
believe that he had visited the future. He offered to take them ahead
and let them see for themselves--an offer that was quickly refused.
Whereupon Lo-as-ro decided to return to the Present and wrest the land
from the white man and hand it over to the downtrodden remnants of a
once-powerful race. It was on that return trip that Wetzel had arrived
in the present century.
When Lo-as-ro finished, I leaned back against the side of the ship and
lit a cigarette, bringing a startled grunt from the chief. I said,
"You cannot defeat the white man, Lo-as-ro. He has weapons such as you
have never dreamed: machines that can throw things that explode and
kill hundreds of braves at one time, machines that travel through the
air as does the one you came in, things that can wipe out all life
within a circle as wide as a brave can ride around in one day on a
fast horse.
"No, noble Lo-as-ro. Return to your world and leave this one to the
white man. He took it long ago and he will never give it up. I have
spoken."
The chief of the Orbiwah smiled grimly. "In the ship in which I
arrived on your world is a small machine. It is working for me now.
Within its reach no weapon is useful, no explosion can take place, no
signal can be sent. Only Man is not touched by this machine, but when
it works he has no weapons with which to fight. Each hour the
influence of this machine widens. Soon all this land will be helpless.
Then the robots will take charge and those who oppose them will be
slain."
I thought of the "dead spot" I had first heard about on the newscast
the night before, and how it was steadily growing. I remembered the
slain farmer with the missing scalp, the two companies of soldiers
helpless without radio, guns and transportation. I thought of a
mechanized America helpless before a few score of these spaceships ...
and I knew that counter-violence would be useless.
* * * * *
"Give the country back to the Indians!" The cry of the over-burdened
citizen. It seemed it was about to come to that!
For a long time I sat there, thinking, trying to hit on an answer that
would save my country. And when the answer finally stirred at the back
of my mind, it was so completely bizarre that I almost missed it
entirely....
"Noble Lo-as-ro," I said, "I must return to the Great White Father and
tell him what I have learned. I will tell him that there is nothing to
be done to oppose the Chief of the Kornesh. Within a few hours I will
return with his reply."