are rapidly making more."
George was aghast; "You are making _more_ weapons?"
"Certainly." The reply was grimly cold. "The invaders arrived armed
only with crude stone knives and spears, and fire poles -- long staffs with a
ball of blazing pitch at the end to sear an eyeball. Our history plates tell
us how to make poison gas to flood the invader's tunnel and kill all those
there, machines that throw flame to a great distance to singe the carpets of
an invading army coming over the surface, and flash bombs to blind the foe.
When blinded, the enemy are even more vulnerable, and we shall overwhelm them
utterly. I must go to search out more of the advance party." Pink-Orb glided
away without another word.
"We must stop them! We must get them to talk, negotiate, use reason!"
Katrina was incoherent with dismay.
"I can't believe such civilized creatures really mean to destroy each
other so totally," said George. "Pink-Orb must have been exaggerating. Let's
go further along this way. But until we know more, we'd best stay out of the
way as well as we can."
Richard spoke quietly: "I didn't hear, in anything Pink-Orb said, the
slightest desire for peace."
Deirdre nodded. "It's most careful observation we must be making, just
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now. And most scientific detachment, Katrina. This is no time to interfere!"
The little group raced as silently as possible towards the sounds ahead, and
climbed up on a convenient ice wall to survey the action below.
It was another battle of the carpeted icerugs with a group of
carpetless invaders, not a large one, but of such ferocity the humans could
only watch in horror. Pink-Orb had rejoined its associates, and the three were
part of an uneven line advancing, with small, flashing bombs exploding before
them. The invading icerugs, which were undistinguishable from the defenders to
a human eye except for their lack of carpet, resisted bitterly.
Two opposing nodes fell upon each other's upraised whirling blades, and
then separated, desperately wounded. With a final burst of energy, one hurled
another flash bomb at its opponent, and got it full in the eye. The screams of
both were ghastly, and the advancing victor, whom the humans recognized as
Silver-Rim, closed brutally with its victim, slashing and stabbing. Katrina
whimpered as the blinded icerug retaliated wildly, attacking still, until the
ruthless blows of Silver-Rim killed it and chopped it into quivering chunks.
Deirdre fought to remain calm.
"You'll be noticing, Richard, there is no call for mercy, and none
given?" she said.
Richard spoke with some difficulty. "Yes, I see that. The blinded
icerug made no motion of surrender." The battle continued, and George was
shocked to observe that it was all aggression; there was no move to assist a
fallen comrade, rather a total commitment to destroying the enemy. And the
enemy, at least in this particular savage encounter, was annihilated to the
last specimen. The victorious defenders stood, absolutely alone, upon the
field, and then began slowly to collect their dead and wounded in silence. The
gentle snow continued to fall upon the slaughtered, and the humans roused
themselves, deeply disturbed by what they had witnessed.
George was especially bothered. "When humans fight wars, they hate the
enemy soldier and all he stands for, but once he's injured and no longer a
threat, it's international law that he be treated well. He is, after all, a
fellow human."
"But these are not humans," Deirdre reminded him. "And they should not
be judged according to humans standards. Besides, although we may not ken what
it be, there is probably a reason for their behavior."
"Besides," objected George. "What's going on doesn't make sense from
either a political or military point of view."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Richard.
"As we have seen from the air," replied George. "There is plenty of
room around Manannan geyser for more icerugs. Windward City occupies the best
location, on the downwind side, but the vacant parts of the shore aren't that
bad. From a political point of view, it would have been wiser for the Presider
of Windward City to let the Northward City icerugs occupy part of the unused
lake shore, than to let things escalate into a total war with heavy
casualties. From the military point of view, the invader's tactics are wrong.
What they want is the fallout from the geyser, so they need territory --
territory under the geyser. They should have crept onto the unused lakefront
territory, set up a perimeter defense, and waited, growing stronger all the
time, daring the Windward City icerugs to attack. Instead, they launched a
full-scale attack at the center of the city, complete with the icerug
equivalent of berserkers, with the primary intention of killing as many of the
Windward City icerugs as possible, no matter what the cost in casualties. It
is almost as though both sides were unable to comprehend the concept of
sharing."
"Perhaps that concept is alien to them," said Deirdre coolly. "Humans
are highly social, with cultures designed around sharing. Although the icerug
communities may look like social organizations, they are not human, and you
should not expect them to function similarly."
George began relating, for Josephine's benefit, his impressions of the
battle they had witnessed, to go along with the video images that their helmet [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]