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„Do as you think best, Barl. You are on the spot; you know your world and its people better than any of us can hope to; and if you do decide to leave one with these people, even that will do some good to my friends, as you have heard.”
„Thank you, Charles.” The captain’s mind was made up in the instant the Flyer finished speaking. Fortunately the chief had listened enthralled to the conversation, making no attempt to further his own interests while it was going on; now Barle
Moving very circumspectly and never touching a radio at any time, the sailors prepared a rope sling. Then they pried the set up from a „safe” distance with spars, and poked and pushed until the sling was in* position under and around it. This accomplished, one of the sling handles was given very respectfully to Barlefm&n. He in turn gestured the chief closer, and with an air of handling something precious and fragile, handed the loop of rope to him. Then he gestured toward the counselors, and indicated that they should take the other handles. Several of them moved toward, rather gingerly; the chief hastily designated three for the honor, and the others fell back.
Very slowly and carefully the bearers moved the radio to the edge of the Bree’s outermost raft. The chiefs canoe glided up — a long, narrow vessel evidently hollowed to a paper-thin shell from the trunk of one of the forest trees. Barle
Barle
As the chief and his three co-workers entered the craft, Barle
Very carefully and respectfully he touched the radio, leaning across the half inch of open river surface between ship and canoe to do so. Then he spoke.
„Charles, I’m going to get this little ship if I have to come back and steal it. When I finish talking, please answer — it doesn’t matter what you say. I’m going to give these people the idea that the boat which carried the radio is too changed for ordinary use, and must take the radio’s place on my deck. AM right?”
„I was brought up to disapprove of racketeers — I’ll translate that word for you sometime — but I admire your nerve. Get away with it if you can, Barl, but please don’t stick the neck you don’t have out too far.” He fell silent and watched the Mesklinite turn his few sentences to good account.
As before, he employed practically no spoken language; but his actions were reasonably intelligible even to the human beings, and clear, as crystal to ‘his erstwhile captors. First he inspected the carioe thoroughly, and plainly if reluctantly found it worthy. Then he waved away another canoe which had drifted close, and gestured several members of the river tribe who were still on the Bree’s deck away to a safe distance. He picked up a spear which one of the counselors had discarded to take up his new position, and made it clear that no one was to come within its length of the canoe.
Then he measured the canoe itself in spear lengths, took the weapon over to where the radio had been, and ostentatiously cleared away a spot large enough to take the craft; at his order, several of his own crew gently rearranged the remaining radios to make room for their new property. More persuasion might have been attempted, but sunset cut the activity short. The river dwellers did not wait out the night; when the sun returned, the canoe with the radio was yards away, already drawn up on shore.
Barle
The chief and his helpers carefully unloaded their prize, the tribe maintaining its original distance. This was, incidentally, several times the spear’s length demanded by Barle
waited, eyes on the shore; and at long last a number of long black and red bodies appeared over the bank. One of these proceeded toward the canoe; but Barle
The chief brought up against the outer rafts at the point where the radio had been loaded, and immediately disembarked. Barle
„You win, Barl. I wish I had some of your ability; I’d be a good deal richer than I am now, if I were still alive by some odd chance. Are you going to wait around to get more out of them tomorrow?”
„We are leaving now!” the captain replied without hesitation.
Lackland left his dark screen and went to his quarters for his first sleep in many hours. Sixty-five minutes — rather less than four of Mesklin’s days — had passed since the village was sighted.