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her and Blethro, and were wondering what it had been about. She thought it
shouldn t matter. Everyone having lunch here would have finished and left
before Blethro regained his senses. She sauntered across the terrace, went
along a passage to the parking lot, stopped at the entrance. There was no
attendant in sight at the moment. She waited until a couple who d just got out
of their car went past her. All clear now . . .
 Salgol?
She could barely hear his muffled reply from the pocket.
 Take a look around, she told him quietly.  We re there.
Salgol stuck his head out and identified Blethro s aircar as one of those
standing against the parapet on the street side of the parking lot the seventh
from the left. Then he disappeared again until Trigger had unlocked the car
door, stepped inside and locked the door behind her.
The car was of a fixed-canopy, one-way-view type. Trigger didn t take off
immediately. The box in which
Salgol s companions were confined stood on a back seat, and she wanted to make
sure they were in there. She worked the latches off it and opened the top.
They were there two tiny, charming females in costume dresses which matched
Salgol s outfit. They stared apprehensively up at her. She lifted Salgol into
the box and he spoke a few unintelligible lilting sentences to them.
Then they were beaming at Trigger, though they said nothing. Apparently they
didn t know Translingue. She smiled back, left the box open, sat down at the
controls and took the car up into the air.
2
The hotel room ComWeb chimed, and Trigger switched it on. Telzey s image
appeared on the screen.
 I came home just now and got your message, Telzey said.  I m sorry there was
a delay. Her gaze shifted around the room.  Where are you?
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 Hotel room.
 Why?
 Seems better to keep away from the apartment just now.
Telzey s eyebrows lifted.  Trouble?
 Not yet. But there s more than likely to be. I ran into something unusual,
and it s a ticklish matter. Can you come over?
 As soon as you tell me where you are.
Trigger told her, and Telzey switched off, saying she was on her way.
There was a world called Marell . . .
Trigger said,  The Old Territory people who set up the genetic miniaturization
project did it because they thought it had been proved there d be a permanent
shortage of habitable planets around. So that sets it back about eleven
hundred years, when they d begun to get range but didn t yet know where and
how to look.
They d discovered Marell, which seemed eminently habitable, and decided to
populate it with a human strain reduced in size to the point where a vast
number could be supported by the planet without crowding it. A staff of
scientists and technicians of normal size accompanied the miniature colony to
see it safely through any early problems.
On Marell, a plague put an abrupt end to the project before it could get under
way. It wiped out the supervisory staff and more than half of the small
people; and no Old Territory ship touched on the planet again. The survivors
were left to their own resources, which were slender enough. They came close
to extermination but recovered, began to develop a technology, and in the
course of the following centuries spread out until they d made a sizable part
of
Marell their own.
 Steam and electricity, said Trigger.  They d got up to that, but not beyond
it. One group knew what actually had happened on Marell, but they kept their
records a secret. Some others had legends that they were descendants of
Giants who flew through space and that kind of thing. Not many believed the
legends. Then the Hub ship came.
It had been a surveyor ship. It moved about in Marell s skies for weeks before
coming down to take samples of the surface. It also took a section of a Marell
town on board, along with about a hundred of its inhabitants. Then it left.
 When was that? Telzey asked.
 Salgol was one of the first group they picked up, and he was the equivalent
of eleven standard years old at the time, said Trigger.  That makes it
fifteen standard years ago.
 Most of the people they took with them then died, Salgol told Telzey.  They
didn t treat us badly but they gave us bad diseases. They found out what to do
about the diseases, and taught Translingue to those of us who were left, and
some of the Giants learned one of our main languages.
Telzey nodded.  And then?
 We went back to Marell. They knew we had an electrical communication system.
They used it.
The Hub ship issued orders. Geologically, Marell was a rich world, and the Hub
men wanted the choicest of its treasures. They were taking what was
immediately on hand, and thereafter the Marells would work to provide them
with more. Quotas were set. The ship would return each year to gather up what
had been collected.
 How many Marells were there now? Telzey asked.
Salgol shook his head.  That isn t definitely known. But when I was there
last, I was told there might be sixty million of the people.
 So, even with limited equipment, it adds up to a very large annual haul of
precious stones and metals.
 Yes, lady, it has, said Salgol.
 And you don t have weapons against space armor.
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 No. The people do have weapons, of course, and good ones. There are huge
animals there huge as we see them and some are still very dangerous. And the
nations have fought among themselves, though not since the ship came. But they
aren t like your weapons. One town turned its cannon on the Giants when they
came to collect. The
Giants weren t hurt, but they burned the town with everyone in it.
Trigger said,  Besides, there were threats. The Marells were told they d
better be thankful for the current arrangement and do what they could to keep
it going. If the Hub government ever learned about them, the whole planet
would be occupied, and any surviving Marells would be slaves forever.
 Did you believe that? Telzey asked Salgol. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]