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Rolla leaped to her feet in amazement, bunking painfully in the unaccustomed glare. "What is this?" she demanded, all the more furiously to hide her fear. "Ye would not trick me with magic; ye, who call yourselves friends!" Somat interpreted this to the others. Some laughed; others looked pityingly at her. Somat explained: "It is nothing, stranger. Be not afraid.
Fortunately the band was so worn that both edges were nearly sharp, thus corresponding with the knifelike ridge over which she had crawled. "Now," Somat went on, "ye and your people live on the inner face of the world," indicating the surface next his skin, "while I and my kind live on the outer face. Were it not for the difficulties of making the trip, we should have found you out ere this."
"We'd have to take our chances, replied Somat energetically, "like good sports! If we can't demonstrate our worth to them, enough to hold their respect, we'd deserve to be snowed under!" "Not while I'm alive!" snarled Sorplee. "If they come here, they've got to give up their wilderness ways, right off! We can't stand savagery!
The ancient city in which Rolla found herself had been, only a generation before, a flourishing metropolis, the capital of a powerful nation. There had been two such nations on that side of the planet, and the most violent rivalry had existed between them. "However," Somat told Rolla, "'twas not this rivalry which wrought their downfall, except indirectly.
There was infinite respect in the way Rolla used his name; had she known a word to indicate human infallibility, such as "your majesty," she would have used it. "There is a saying among our people that the world be round. How can this be so?" "Yet it is true," answered Somat, "although ye must know that it be not round like a fruit or a pebble.
If we can handle her people rightly the future of the race is assured." Somat thought it was simple enough. "All we need to do is send this woman back with a supply of matches, and implicit instructions as to how best to proceed against the bees. Once released, their friends can make their way over the edge and settle among us. Let the bees keep their country."
All told, there were a couple of hundred of the villagers, and all were armed with tools they knew how to use very well. "Who shall do the honors?" asked Sorplee. "Wish Somat was here, to explain for us." "Don't need him," reminded Deltos. "All we've got to do is to show these two fellows we dug up."
The twelve were all very tired, apparently, and went right to bed; a procedure which was straightway seconded by the four watchers on the earth. Which brings us in the most ordinary manner to the events of the next day. After breakfast all but Somat left the place and disappeared in various directions; and Rolla noted that the robes were, evidently, worn only at meal time.
In the end he was made to agree not to tell her. "We aren't going to let you and your idealism spoil our only chance to save the race!" Sorplee told him pugnaciously; and Somat gave his word.
"Nay," answered Rolla, and proceeded to explain, in the wrong order, as a child might, by relating first the crossing of the ridge, the flight from the bees, the "masters'" cruel method of dealing with Corrus and Dulnop, and finally the matter of the fire itself, the real cause of the whole affair. Somat was intelligent enough to fill in such details as Rolla omitted.
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