Footfall

The man was very black and very tall and nearly naked of clothing and hair. The hair of his head formed a huge puffball. There was paint on his face and patterns and ridges in his skin, carefully applied scars. Of the prisoners he was the only one unwounded. He had stood up from the bush with a spear in his hand, too close to the column. A soldier in the rear had knocked him flat with a swipe of a gun butt, rolled him over, and taken his surrender.

He wore strange harness. Ancient fur pieces encircled his ankles and wrists. Once splendid but now bedraggled feathers hung about his neck. His head was circled by a green furred band. All of his harness was old and brittle, stained with earth and sweat.

They had seen many dressed that way.

The man listened to his orders. He looked about at his audience of a hundred fithp warriors. Then, without answering not so much as nodding, he strode to the spear and picked it up, holding it in the middle.

Chintithpit-mang felt he would never get used to the sight. It made his belly queasy, as while a spacecraft was involved in a finicky docking. Why didn’t the man fall over? He was tall and narrow even by the standards of men, and if he fell he ought to break his neck. But he didn’t fall. He stood almost motionless, weaving slightly, as Pheegorun pointed to the target.

“Put it as close to the dot as possible,” he called. He was standing a safe eight srupkithp away. Would this work as he expected? Pheegorun must know how closely his Eight-cubed Leader was watching.

The man raised the spear, level with the ground, aimed at the target. He raised himself-on his toes, and still didn’t fall. He slapped the spear haft with his free hand; the spear turned ninety degrees, and so did the man, and Pheegorun was looking straight down the halt.

Pheegorun turned to run. Eight srupkithp distant or not, he turned to run, and half his soldiers were raising their weapons. The spear flew.

It thudded deep into Pheegorun’s side. Pheegorun froze. Chintithpit-mang glimpsed the black man standing calmly, arms at his sides, in the instant before the guns tore him apart.

Pheegorun took his surrender. They don’t think like us… never mind. It flew straight. I saw it.

The medic studied Pheegorun without touching him. “I want him to lie down,” he said. “Some of you help. First, brace him while I pull the stick-blade out.”

Two soldiers held him with their mass while the doctor pulled. Pheegorun screamed at the pain. It was deep inside him, tearing its way out-it was out, held bleeding before his face. Chintithpitmang, watching horrified, felt the tearing inside when Pheegorun tried to breath.

“Good. Now brace him. Pheegorun, can you hear me? Lean to the left. You should be lying down.”

Pheegorun couldn’t make himself move. The doctor pushed, and he leaned anyway, and was lowered to his left side. His own weight was forcing his lungs shut. Exhaling was a matter of letting it happen, despite the agony, but inhaling was like lifting a mountain. The doctor said, “This will end the pain. I believe the stickblade punctured a lung. I must cut him open and sew up the wound.”

“Save him if you can,” said Chintithpit-mang.

Pheegorun was dying. He must have known it. He had to speak now or die silent. His eyes found and locked on Chintithpit-mang. “Did you see? The danger—” and he was reduced to gasping. His eyes filmed over. The doctor’s knife was cutting into him. He tried to make his mouth work.

Not loud enough. Chintithpit-mang bent his ear next to Pheegorun’s mouth. Pheegorun gathered his will, forced his rib cage to move, gathered breath like a thousand daggers, and spoke.

“Thumbs,” he said, and died.

“His village.” Chintithpit-mang screamed the demand. “Coordinates!”

Someone answered. Chintithpit-mang shouted into the communications box.

Five eights of makasrupkithp away, green lines laced down tight spirals. When they were done, Chintithpit-mang turned the prisoners.

“Who from his tribe?”

They all were. When the work was finished, Chintithpit-mar sent two captives away to tell others.

“I can guess what he was thinking. Their thumbs are more dexterous than our digits. We were the supreme tool users until we came here. We were ready for the wrong things. We guessed some of the prey’s advantages: his greater numbers, his knowledge his own territory, his grasp of an inferior technology that he ha at least built himself, with no thuktunthp for guidance.

“Pheegorun was dying, and he thought to warn me. I had heard such talk from others since. But it is wrong! What if the thumbs let them make their machines smaller? We have the thultunthp to give us more powerful tools, and they have-only then selves.”

“You violated orders,” Fookerteh remarked. “You destroyed a entire fithp—”

“I did. I did it in rage, and I did it to correct my own mistake Shape your own lessons. We have lost only two more fithp in this region,” Chintithpit-mang said. “The others bring us cattle an milk.”

“Have you done it since?”