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Shegnif snuffed the stuff up his trunk and squirted it into his mouth while tears of pleasure, or pain, ran down his cheeks. The stone container before him held more than two gallons of the liquor, but he did not drink much. He just tried to give the impression that he did.
While listening to Ulysses' speech, he dipped the trunk frequently into the stone vessel. But he was probably just stirring the liquid with the tip of his trunk.
Finally, he held up a hand for Ulysses to stop talking, and he rumbled, "So you think that The Tree is not an intelligent entity?"
"No, I do not think it is," Ulysses said. "I think the Dhulhulikh would like everybody to believe that it is."
"You are probably sincere in your belief," the Grand Vizier thundered. "But I know that you are wrong. I know that The Tree is a single sentient being!"
Ulysses sat even more upright, and said, "How do you know?"
"The Book of Tiznak has told us that," Shegnif said. "Rather, it has told some of us that. I ca
"I do not know what you mean."
"Nor do I expect you to know. But you will know. I'll see to that."
"Whether or not The Tree is sentient, it grows," Ulysses said. "It will cover this land in about fifty years at its present rate of growth. And where will you Neshgai go then?"
"The Tree seems to be limited in its growth near the seacoast," the Grand Vizier said. "Otherwise it would have covered us up long ago. It is growing northward and will eventually shadow all the land to the north. Except near the coast. It is not the growth of The Tree itself that we fear. We fear the peoples of The Tree. The Tree has been sending them against us, and it will not stop until it has exterminated us or forced us to go live with it."
"You really believe that?" Ulysses said.
"I know that!"
"What about the Dhulhulikh?"
"I did not know, until you told me, that they lived in The Tree. They had always claimed they came from the north. If your story is true, then they are our enemy. They are, you might say, the eyes of The Tree. Just as the other peoples, the Vignoom and so forth, are the hands of The Tree."
Ulysses said, "If The Tree is an entity with intelligence, then it should have a central brain. And this brain, once located, could be destroyed. If The Tree is just a mindless vegetable entity which the Dhulhulikh control, then the Dhulhulikh can be located and destroyed."
Shegnif pondered this for a few minutes. Ulysses watched him over the top of his tall glass and took a sip of the strong stuff. How strange, he thought, to be sitting in a
Brobdingnagian chair and talking to a being descended from elephants, talking about little winged men and a plant that might have a brain or many brains.
Shegnif curled his trunk up and back and rubbed his forehead with its double-tendriled tip. He said, "How would killing the central brain of The Tree or killing all the Dhulhulikh stop The Tree from growing?"
"If you kill the brain of an animal, you kill the entire animal," Ulysses said. "This may hold true for a complex vegetable entity, in which case The Tree will die. And the Neshgai will have enough firewood to last them a thousand years," he added.
Shegnif did not smile. Perhaps the Neshgai sense of humour was not that of humans.
"If the brain is dead but The Tree still lives, The Tree is at least not organising its people to attack you. They are primitives, relatively few in number, who would be warring against each other if The Tree, or the batpeople, did not prevent it.
"If The Tree is only a means for the Dhulhulikh to control this land, then killing the Dhulhulikh will disorganise the other peoples who live on it. And then we may attack the problem of killing The Tree itself. I would suggest poisoning it."
"That would take much poison," Shegnif said.
"I have much knowledge of poisons."
Shegnif ridged his skin where his eyebrows would have been if he had them. "Indeed? Well, poisons aside, how could you possibly locate the Dhulhulikh? Or attack them? They have all the advantages."
Ulysses told him how he thought it could be done. He talked for more than an hour. Shegnif finally said that he had heard enough. He would have rejected his ideas at once if anyone else had submitted them. But Ulysses had said that the devices he would build had once been commonplace, and he saw no reason to doubt him. He would have to think about the proposal.
Slightly tipsy, Ulysses left the Grand Vizier. He was optimistic, but he knew that Shegnif would be talking again to the bat-men, and there was no telling how they might influence him.
The officer who conducted him led him to a suite of rooms instead of the barracks. Ulysses asked him why he was separated from his people.
"I do not know," the officer said. "I have my orders, and they are to house you here."
"I would prefer to be with my people."
"No doubt," the officer said, looking down at him along his rigid trunk, extended at a fortyfive- degree angle to the plane of his face. "But my orders say otherwise. However, I will convey your request to my superiors."
The suite had been constructed for Neshgai, not for humans. The furniture was enormous and, for him, inconvenient. However, he would not be alone. He had two human women as his attendants.
"I do not need these slaves," Ulysses said. "lean take care of myself."
"No doubt," the officer said. "I will pass on your request to be alone."
And that will be the end of that. Ulysses thought. The slaves are provided for more than my comfort. They are also spies.
The Neshgai stopped at the door, his hand on the knob, and said, "If you need anything that the women can't provide, speak into that box on the table. The guards outside will answer."
He opened the door, saluted by touching his right index finger to the tip of his upraised proboscis, and closed the door. The bolt shot home loudly.
Ulysses asked the two women for their names. One was Lusha; the other, Thebi. Both were young and attractive, if he overlooked the half-baldness and the too-prominent chins. Lusha was thin and small-breasted but graceful and swaying-hipped. Thebi was full- breasted, just on the verge of being fat. Her eyes were a bright green and she smiled a lot. She reminded him very much of his wife. It was possible, he told himself, that she might even be descended from his wife, and, of course, from him, since he had three children. But the resemblance to Clara could only be coincidental, because she would not be carrying any genes from ancestors that remote.
Lusha and Thebi had thick, dark, almost kinky hair which started halfway on top of their heads. It fell down to their waists and was decorated with little wooden figurines, rings and several tiny brightly coloured ribbons. They wore earrings, their everted lips were rouged and their eyes ringed with a bluish kohl. They wore strings of coloured stones around their necks, and their stomachs bore painted symbols. These, they explained, were the marks of their owner, Shegnif.
Their kilts were scarlet with green pentangles. A thin black stripe ran down both sides of their legs and ended in circles around the anklebones. Their sandals were painted golden.
They led him to the bathroom, where it was necessary for all three to climb up a portable wooden staircase provided by the majordomo. He sat down in the washbasin which the Neshgai used to wash their hands, and the two women stood on the edge of the basin and gave him a bath.
Later, Thebi ordered food and the dark liquor—amusa in the Ayrata tongue—brought in. He climbed into bed on the portable staircase, and he slept at the top of the bed while they curled together on the floor on a blanket.