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Moldaug agreed to, or even knew about, this plan by the Old Worlds to deliver
volunteer hostages to them?"
Cully sat down on the couch, motioning Will to take the chair opposite him. As
Will sat down in turn, Cully answered him.
"I can't see hostages being delivered to the aliens without some sort of prior
consultation," said Cully, "probably with Ruhn and his Brothers back on Earth.
So, what I want you to tell me, Will, is how the aliens would be likely to go
about accepting the hostages?"
Will thought for a moment.
"Well, the closest thing to taking hostages I know of," he said, "as far as my
knowledge of myth and legend among the Moldaug goes, would be a case like the
legend of The Nine Sisters of Ogh. The Nine Sisters surrendered to an enemy
clan because all the effective adult males of their generation in their clan
were dead, and the heirs to the positions of the dead warriors were all too
young to take over leadership of the family. Alive and not captive, the Nine
Sisters would have been forced to continue war with the enemy clan as regents
for the young heirs. Dead, they would have left the children as wards of the
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sept, whether anyone wanted it or not which meant that the children could be
legitimately slaughtered by the enemy clan. By surrendering themselves to the
enemy clan, the sisters avoided both these possibilities. Since they were
females, and not warriors, the opposing clan could not Respectably kill them,
even though they had surrendered. And with the sisters themselves neither
alive nor dead, the children could appeal for aid to a neutral clan. In
Moldaug legend it was a clever trick a solution to an impossible cultural
situation."
"Well," asked Cully, "how does this apply to the present hostages?"
"I'd guess," answered Will, "in that the Moldaug are almost certain to assume
that the surrender of these people, their giving themselves up voluntarily
like this, can also only be some sort of brave, human trick." He looked
quizzically at Cully.
"Trick " Cully echoed, and broke off thoughtfully. His eyes met Will's. "Do
you suppose that they'll think the surrender of these hostages is somehow
connected with what I've been doing what we've been doing the last few weeks
and months in raiding their shipping lanes and worlds?"
Will nodded slowly.
"Yes, I'd think so," said Will. "Remember, the Moldaug can't believe that
you've been doing all this without the approval of your Elders and superiors.
That's why the Tri-Worlds Council is obviously having trouble disavowing their
responsibility for what you do."
"So," said Cully, "that means the Moldaug will think this surrender of
hostages is another slap in the face, like my playing Demon of Dark?"
Will looked at Cully, suddenly startled.
"I hadn't thought about that," the older man said. "Yes, that means they'll
come up with a reason in their own terms for the hostages and what you suggest
is the most likely Moldaug viewpoint."
"But," said Cully, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "you think they'll
definitely accept the hostages to begin with?"
"That's right. They'd have to " Will broke off. "I see what you mean, Cully.
Undoubtedly, the Moldaug will have made arrangements to accept the hostages.
And if that's the case, you want to know how they'd go about accepting them?"
"That's it," said Cully. "How would they?"
Will got up from his chair and began to wander thoughtfully about the room.
Cully sat watching him, and Doak, perched on an arm of the chair, also
watched. After a couple of silent moments, Will came back to sit down opposite
Cully again.
"There's a long history of conversations between clans or septs or families at
odds with each other," Will said. "And almost invariably, these conversations
have taken place at the border itself, so probably we can take it that this
procedure's going to be an invariable. In other words, if the hostages are
going to be accepted by the Moldaug, the Moldaug ship would want to meet the
human ship at what the Moldaug consider their frontier, and have the hostages
transshipped there to an alien vessel."
"Their real border line, wherever that is or the frontier they're claiming
from us?" Cully shot out. Will looked oddly for a moment at Cully. "Let me
see& " he said. He thought for a moment. "No, now that I stop to think about
it, the meeting would have to take place at wherever the earliest frontier
line was. In short, by meeting at the original boundary line, in effect,
they're declaring a truce without actually saying so."
"Then we ought to be able to figure out about where they'd meet," said Cully
thoughtfully. "It'd be the point at which the first Moldaug ran into the first
human right?"
"That's a good guess," said Will. "But it's not quite right. It would be the
point at which the first Moldaug military vessel first contacted either a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]