Chapter 41

"I must tell you we have great fear that what we ask you here to say will make you angry."

Igwanda and Meiersdottir had walked with Joe and Akakha across the meadow and through the surrounding woodland to the building wherein lay the entrance to the Edenites' underground nest in easy companionship. As was usual with the aliens there was no casual conversation, but neither human had detected any sign of strain. Nor was their greeting with the native mother any different from their previous experience.

But they'd scarcely completed the exchange of greetings when Gagugakhing made her announcement. The two humans could only look at each other in utter astonishment.

After a moment Igwanda broke the silence. "Why would you say this, Gagugakhing?" he asked. "I think we have shown you in the past that we do not lose our tempers easily."

"'Lose your tempers?'"

"It means to become angry," Meiersdottir explained. "And Carlos— Igwanda is right. We didn't show anger when your males attacked us in that thunderstorm when we were here before. We didn't even show anger after your people, those you had sent to the other place where you get your copper, kidnaped my baby and me—forced us to stay with them when we didn't want to."

"We know this," said the mother. "It is because of these things that we find strength in us to say to you that which we now must say. We know you have fearful weapons, far greater than we, and we do not wish to make it so that you will desire to use them on us."

When she showed no signs of going further right away, Meiersdottir pressed further. "What is it that you wish to say now that you think may be so much worse than these things, Gagugakhing? It must be something that's very important to you."

"Yes, it is important. We have thought many days on what it is that I will say to you now. We do not wish make you angry. But this is a thing that is so much important that we must make risk of your anger, of your weapons."

Igwanda and Meiersdottir simply waited, knowing that Gagugakhing would get to her point in her own time. For a moment there was silence.

"It is that we wish ask that you leave our world," said the alien in her harsh, flat voice.

Once again there was silence, as the humans tried to absorb the impact of the completely unexpected request. This was beyond anything they might have imagined.

"Why?" asked Meiersdottir in a half-whisper as her shock began to dissipate. She cleared her throat. "Gagugakhing, have we offended you in some way? Are you angry at us?"

"You do nothing to make offense, and we are not angry. You do us much good. We do not know before, but you teach us what is meaning of friendship. And we see that you are true friend to Ghotagatogulagunga. This we say to you, Amanda, and to you, Igwanda, and to Accor­da who is here before, and to others we speak above. We thank you for the friendship you have given us."

"Then why are you asking us to leave?" Meiersdottir repeated in bewilderment.

"It is to tell this that we say for you come to nest," the mother said. "Or to tell as much as we can say in your speech, though it cannot be all. We take long, long to think on this. It begin in nest-think and then go outside to all think-together, and we speak in far-think to those in other place and send new party to that place to think together there, too, because for long we cannot be sure. Now we are sure."

This time it was Igwanda who spoke. "Sure of what?" he asked.

"When you come here this time, you know that we have trouble with ourselves," Gagugakhing began. They both nodded. "It is new kind of trouble we have, a trouble we never have before. It is you, Igwanda, who make us to find an end to this trouble, but not before we do that which we think we could never do. We break trust with you. We make shame in ourselves for that."

"But is that not precisely what you intended to do when first we came here, we humans?" asked the colonel pointedly.

"Yes, but is not same. In time that we first see humans we do not think of you as like us. You are singles, we think together, to us it cannot be equal, so we try to take from you with strength, with weapons, as we might take from animal that we may kill or plant that we may grow for food. When first you are here again it is the same except that now we know you have great strength, so we make different way but purpose is same, as we think then."

That was a far colder explanation than either had heard before, to be compared to the local wildlife or even cultivated crops, but clearly the alien mother wasn't done.

"Then you defeat again, you even make it so that we cannot think together with ourselves for a time. And you make threat to mothers"—she was referring to the initial warning Igwanda had given that the humans would kill the females, too, if the aliens renewed their attack—"and we are very afraid, we wish very much that we do not attack you before."

"We withdrew that threat—" Meiersdottir began.

"Yes," Gagugakhing interrupted. "Before you do, though, you spend long day in talk with us. And we learn what we do not know before. We learn that singles are not always lower than us, that there may be more than think-together. And then you tell that you will not kill mother even when you think we may attack you again if you say this, you say only to protect mother and nothing for you. You tell us of friend, how friend may be together many way even when not think together. You tell that you will teach us as friend of things that before we try to take from you by strength, and that is a good feeling. Then you do this, and in other way you show also that you want be friend to Ghotagatogulagunga, and it comes to be that Ghotagatogu­lagunga also want be friend to you."

Igwanda and Meiersdottir simply looked at each other nonplused.

"That is why different when you come this time," the mother went on. "You are friend now, we welcome you as friend, yet very soon we treat you as we did before. We do not understand how this can be, that you are friend and at same time you are only beast, only plant, that we may use as we do those with no thought for our friend."

"In fairness, Gagugakhing, it was not you who took Amanda and her child, our child," Igwanda said. "It was another group, a separate group that was cut off from you."

"We think you know this is not so, Igwanda," corrected the mother. "You have said it before. We are one, Ghotagatogulagunga. That some among us cannot always think together with others among us does not make this other. Is that not why you tell you will bring weapons to nest now, if nest be here or be there—so that what happen in one time cannot happen again? You know we are one, and you know that what one part of us can do all can do."

"That is true," he acknowledged.

"Then say not other. We understand that you mean what you say well, that it is to help us feel good in ourselves that you say this, but it is not good help. We must feel good in ourselves for ourselves, not for things that humans, even human such as you, Igwanda, say about us."

"You are right," the colonel said.

"What I say is that we cannot understand how we can do to you in two ways so different, so fighting each other, in same time. You bring Accorda here to tell us way for us to fix what happen in this one time, and we hear and her thought is good one and we do this now. But we know also that this is only small way to fix, that it does not stop real problem. It is like ... do you have word for cloth that may be used to seal small hurt in body until body fix itself?"