Chapter 17

"Jesus Christ, Carlos! Is the whole universe inhabited only by imbeciles and lunatics?"

Meiersdottir had been carefully silent the entire walk back through the entry passageway, and had even mustered pleasant smiles for Joe and Akakha back in the building. But she'd soon excused herself and Igwanda from their company on the walk back to the pavilion, pleading that the two of them needed time for a private talk about the matter Gagugakhing had put before them. Rather than rejoining the group on the meadow she and her husband had, by unspoken mutual agreement, turned obliquely through the undergrowth until they were at last by themselves. Only then did she give vent to her feelings.

"A familiar tale, is it not?" he said dourly.

"On Earth, sure, I used to wade through this crap all the time. 'They're wrong, we aren't, they're bastards, we're the good guys, we gotta fight, fight, fight for what's right, right, right, ' and on and on. I listened a lot, I said 'I see your point, ' all that shit, it's what mediation is. But here? I mean, they can think together but they just won't?"

"You seemed to accept that rather rapidly," he pointed out.

"I wasn't getting anywhere, and I wasn't going to," she said. "All I was doing was getting her even more worked up. That's another one I've seen before, lots. People get emotionally caught up in their ideas, trying to be reasonable scares them. Didn't you see how upset she was getting? Her arms were going like windmills."

"I did notice that."

"Actually I think I went at it wrong. They've always seemed so rational, so logical, and I tried to ride that. Bad move. I guess I should have figured, back when they were attacking us that wasn't the most rational approach either, now, was it?"

He laughed. "Not exactly."

"I guess reason goes only so far with them. Give them something they can relate to out of experience, something they can sink their teeth into, they'll keep nibbling at it logically until they've got it. Get them too far out of their comfort zone, though, reason goes out the window and gut reaction—emotion—takes over. And this is light-years beyond anything they've ever dealt with before. Fuck! Fuck every last one of them and the horses they rode in on!"

"Are you done, my love?" he asked with a tolerant smile.

"Hell no, not even close. My God, the arrogance!"

"On both sides, it appears," he agreed. "At least from what was said."

She gave a gusty sigh. "Yeah. Pretty typical, really, back home. Group A, and it's usually a little group the way it is here, sets itself up as special. Group B takes one look at that and gets pissed off, says 'no you're not, or if you are then we're special too.' It goes on that way for a while, a stupid kids' playground fight: 'Are not!' 'Am too!' Then one of them decides they're going to prove it, and the other gets aggressive about defense, and there you go—one fucking mess."