Chapter 25

In what remained of the day it was apparent that the collaborative effort of erecting the shelter had made its impact on the dynamics of the group. Most of the natives involved in the construction retreated once the work was done, but a few now evidently felt free to come and go at will. The natives' cautious focus on numerical equality was no longer scrupulously observed; there were never enough present at any one time to make Igwanda seriously uncomfortable, but their numbers varied with a lack of the previous ceremony.

For their part the humans likewise relaxed their precautions. In time van Damm and Shaw left the group to return to the lander, but only after exchanging greetings with several of the natives. Van Damm glanced apprehensively at Igwanda as she participated in the process but found no disapproval in his demeanor. In the foreshortened daylight that remained both Komosaki and Smith briefly joined the party, but the natives did not appear to assign particular companions for either; and when Heisinger retreated to the lander pleading concern for his health in the damp weather, Oglura, his nominal native partner, stayed.

Conversations, too, were less formalized, as few on both sides showed an inclination to take seated positions—to do so was to invite a muddy soaking of one's derriere for either species—and shuffled positions to avoid in-blowing gusts of rain-sodden wind. Generally the original group of Meiersdottir and Lee on the human side, Joe and Gus among the aliens, remained in fairly close proximity as they continued their linguistic sessions, but others on both sides drifted more casually to interact with one another on an apparently unstructured basis.

The exception to this looser, cocktail-party-like shifting of position was the pairing of Igwanda and Akakha. The colonel found that wherever he went, his burly native companion was invariably to be found at his elbow. Quite clearly Akakha had an assignment; equally clearly, no amount of cooperative endeavor by others was going to persuade it to abandon that assignment.

Rather than being disturbed by this relentless tracking, Igwanda took some ease from it. A complete relaxation of structure was clearly not in order, in his view; there remained in the two species' history that dreadful first encounter a century earlier which he had so often reviewed in all its graphically displayed detail. No matter how wholehearted the cooperation now seemed, he could not dismiss the terrible images from his mind. The aliens had already given plain sign that they, too, remembered; at least until some explanation was given and accepted he was likewise not prepared to forget, and would have regarded it as suspect dissimulation had they seemed to do so. There might indeed be true friendship in the species' future, but to Igwanda that future had not yet arrived; and it was oddly reassuring to him that the aliens clearly felt something of the same.

Considerably less reassuring was his discovery on returning to the lander that those of his own species shared no such concerns. Among the civilians there was unanimous agreement that this act of interspecies collaboration provided concrete proof of their long-harbored belief that the Argo attack was an aberration provoked somehow by the "clumsy" manner of that crew's approach, and that the aliens' "true" attitude was wholly peaceful.

That Igwanda knew better was beside the point, as was the fact that he alone could support his view with hard evidence that all aboard had seen. To the rest of the lander's crew—including, to his consternation, even his own troops to some extent—what Shaw portentously dubbed the "pavilion of peace" stood as irrefutable contradiction to his interpretation of the century-old Argo record.

There would be no point, the colonel quickly saw, in attempting to dampen the high-spirited mood with hard rationality. He was well aware of the low esteem in which he was held, not only among the civilians of the landing party but aboard the Gardener as well; any arguments he could offer would only reduce his standing yet further and render him still less able to lead a defensive action effectively should one be required. As Meiersdottir began mapping out the next day's plans without even a show of consulting him, neither could he effectively challenge her tacit assumption of command; he was only grateful that she had not insisted on a formal transition of authority, in which Ziang aboard the mothership would likely have supported her.