"Why is it?" Woodthorpe asked. "Why this hostility? If only your people
would understand that we're trying to help them."
"They understand that perfectly," Derech said. "What they can't
understand is why, when they have thanked you politely and explained
that they neither need nor want your help, you still refuse to leave
them alone."
"Because we know what we can do for them! They're destitute now. We
can make them rich, in water, in arable land, in power--we can change
their whole way of life. Primitive people are notoriously resistant to
change, but in time they'll realize...."
"Primitive?" said Derech.
"Oh, not the Low-Canallers," said Woodthorpe quickly. "Your
civilization was flourishing, I know, when Proconsul was still
wondering whether or not to climb down out of his tree. For that very
reason I cannot understand why you side with the Drylanders."
Derech said, "Mars is an old, cranky, dried-up world, but we understand
her. We've made a bargain with her. We don't ask too much of her, and
she gives us sufficient for our needs. We can depend on her. We do not
want to be made dependent on other men."
"But this is a new age," said Woodthorpe. "Advanced technology makes
anything possible. The old prejudices, the parochial viewpoints, are no
longer...."
"You were saying something about primitives."
"I was thinking of the Dryland tribes. We had counted on Dr. Carey,
because of his unique knowledge, to help them understand us. Instead,
he seems bent on stirring them up to war. Our survey parties have been
set upon with the most shocking violence. If Carey succeeds in reaching
the Drylands there's no telling what he may do. Surely you don't
want...."
"Primitive," Derech said, with a ring of cruel impatience in his voice.
"Parochial. The gods send me a wicked man before a well-meaning fool.
Mr. Woodthorpe, the Drylanders do not need Dr. Carey to stir them up
to war. Neither do we. We do not want our wells and our water-courses
rearranged. We do not want to be resettled. We do not want our
population expanded. We do not want the resources that will last us
for thousands of years yet, if they're not tampered with, pumped out
and used up in a few centuries. We are in balance with our environment,
we want to stay that way. And we will fight, Mr. Woodthorpe. You're not
dealing with theories now. You're dealing with our lives. We are not
going to place them in your hands."
He turned to Wales and the Martians. "Search the house. If you want to
search the town, that's up to you. But I wouldn't be too long about any
of it."
* * * * *
Looking pained and hurt, Woodthorpe stood for a moment and then went
out, shaking his head. The Martians began to go through the house.
Carey heard Derech's voice say, "Why don't you join them, Mr. Wales?"
Wales answered pleasantly, "I don't like wasting my time." He bade
Derech good night and left, and Carey was thankful.
After a while the Martians left too. Derech bolted the door and sat
down again to drink his interrupted glass of wine. He made no move to
let Carey out, and Carey conquered a very strong desire to yell at him.
He was getting just a touch claustrophobic now. Derech sipped his wine
slowly, emptied the cup and filled it again. When it was half empty for
the second time a girl came in from the back.
She wore the traditional dress of the Low-Canals, which Carey was glad
to see because some of the women were changing it for the cosmopolitan
and featureless styles that made all women look alike, and he thought
the old style was charming. Her skirt was a length of heavy orange silk
caught at the waist with a broad girdle. Above that she wore nothing
but a necklace and her body was slim and graceful as a bending reed.
Twisted around her ankles and braided in her dark hair were strings of
tiny bells, so that she chimed as she walked with a faint elfin music,
very sweet and wicked.
"They're all gone now," she told Derech, and Derech rose and came
quickly toward Carey's hiding place.
"Someone was watching through the chinks in the shutters," he said as
he helped Carey out. "Hoping I'd betray myself when I thought they were
gone." He asked the girl, "It wasn't the Earthman, was it?"
"No." She had poured herself some wine and curled up with it in the
silks and warm furs that covered the guest-bench on the west wall.
Carey saw that her eyes were green as emerald, slightly tilted, bright,
curious and without mercy. He became suddenly very conscious of his
unshaven chin and the gray that was beginning to be noticeable at his
temples, and his general soiled and weary condition.
"I don't like that man Wales," Derech was saying. "He's almost as good
as I am. We'll have him to reckon with yet."
"We," said Carey. "You've weighed your yard of sand?"
Derech shrugged ruefully. "You must have heard me talking myself into
it. Well, I've been getting a little bored with the peaceful life."
He smiled, the smile Carey remembered from the times they had gone
robbing tombs together in places where murder would have been a safer
occupation. "And it's always irked me that we were stopped that time.
I'd like to try again. By the way, this is Arrin. She'll be going with
us as far as Barrakesh."
"Oh." Carey bowed, and she smiled at him from her nest in the soft
furs. Then she looked at Derech. "What is there beyond Barrakesh?"
"Kesh," said Derech. "And Shun."
"But you don't trade in the Drylands," she said impatiently. "And if
you did, why should I be left behind?"
"We're going to Sinharat," Derech said. "The Ever-living."
"Sinharat?" Arrin whispered. There was a long silence, and then she
turned her gaze on Carey. "If I had known that, I would have told them
where you were. I would have let them take you." She shivered and bent
her head.
"That would have been foolish," Derech said, fondling her. "You'd have
thrown away your chance to be the lady of one of the two saviors of
Mars."
"If you live," she said.
"But my dear child," said Derech, "can you, sitting there, guarantee to
me that you will be alive tomorrow?"
"You will have to admit," said Carey slowly, "that her odds are
somewhat better than ours."