On the Phaeacia, Matthew looked unseeingly at the instrument panel for a long moment after Chandra broke transmission.

“Huh! Whatever those people are, they’ve made a rotten impression on Chan and Anne. What do you make of it?”

“Well,” Nikko answered, “when he said that about ‘feeding them babies,’ I remembered what orcs were. Orcs in ancient literature, that is.”

“Oh? What?”

“An army of subhuman monsters.”

Matthew looked at her, perplexed.

“It was in a fantasy I read when I was about fourteen or fifteen-a trilogy, The Lord Of The Rings. In the story there was an evil sorcerer, a super sorcerer, who’d lived for centuries. Millennia, in fact. And he’d bred an army of sadistic subhuman monsters called orcs, and tried to conquer the world with them. He even had a black tower, like the city down there.”

“Isn’t that a little-improbable? Ancient literature-fantasy literature, anyway-is unlikely to have survived down there. They must have gotten the word from something else. Don’t you think?”

Nikko shrugged. “All the computer had to say about ‘orc’ was, a fish-like marine mammal of Earth. And there are an awful lot of parallels between what’s down there and what’s in the book. What I’m concerned about is the kind of society it would be that tried to emulate the land of Mordor.”

Matthew leaned back and pulled briefly on his chin. “I think I’ll call a team meeting for oh-eight hundred tomorrow,” he said reflectively. “Maybe we need a different contact, for a little perspective.”

“A different contact? With whom?”

“How about some simple straightforward savages this time? The barbarians. It ought to be interesting and even informative. And there shouldn’t be any danger in it. We can just sit in the pinnace with the force shield on and talk to them from there.”

IX

Sags d’ forste a en pojke da d’ svavte uppi himlen jussom orn or lunna vannen nar d’ stirra ned p a jedden simne upp t’ jamna ytan.

Ropte hod a pekte uppe.

«Da jussom kjampnar talte om, som dojtsa haxen sejte barar gamlarna fra sjaanor.»

[It was first a child that saw it, saw it hovering in the morning like an eagle over water watching ready for the salmon rising to the quiet surface.

Called aloud and pointed upward.

“ ’tis the thing the warriors spoke of, that the German seeress told us carries ancients from the stars.”]

From THE JARNHANN SAGA, Kumalo translation

It settled slowly like a polished silver bowl, oblong, inverted, and with stubby legs, while children of all sizes ran toward it through the meadow, looking upward. The audio pickup brought calling voices and the barking of a few dogs. Three meters from the ground, Matthew had to stop descent; there wasn’t enough room to set down and activate the shield without trapping children inside.

“How about that!” Mikhail said. “They’re not a bit afraid. You’d think space craft landed here every week and passed out candy.”

Matthew picked up the microphone and, with the volume turned high, ordered them to clear room for landing. The only effect was to increase the volume of shrill voices.

A number of men and women were approaching now on foot and horseback, most of them moving casually, neither hurrying nor hanging back. As they reached the vicinity they formed small groups behind the children, watching with apparent interest and talking easily among themselves.

“Should I transvise?” Mikhail asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” said Matthew, and the hubbub swelled as the mob of children could suddenly see through the hull.

More adults and children were arriving. A very large man on horseback picked his way through the children, who opened a path for him. When he reached the center he raised both arms overhead and the tumult subsided a bit.

“T’baka Du!” he called. “Go klar for skybaten!”

“I understood that!” Nikko said excitedly. “He told them to move back and give us room. It’s something like Swedish; I’ll bet I can talk to them!”

The children were backing away, with some of the older boys taking charge, giving orders and gesturing. When the loose throng had become a circle, Matthew put the Alpha down and instantly activated the shield. Then they sat without speaking, watching the children discover the shield and test it with curious hands.

“All right,” Matthew said at last. “Try your Swedish on them and see how it goes. Say we wish them no harm and do not like to use our great weapons which can kill large numbers from a distance.”

Nikko pressed the microphone switch and an “Ah-h-h” ran through the crowd as she began speaking slowly in a tonal cadence. When she had finished, the man who’d moved the children signalled the crowd to quiet once more. He hadn’t taken time to saddle his mount, but sat it bareback, sideways now. His left foot dangled; his right leg was cocked up on the animal’s back. It would have been hard to look more nonchalant.

“We are pleased you speak our language,” he said, speaking it himself for the crowd. “It is very rare to find a foreigner who does. But it will be better if I talk in Anglic; then we need not wait while the woman translates for you. I will tell my people afterward what was said. They are glad you have come. We want to be friends with the star people.”

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd while Nikko translated.

“Ask him how he knows we are star people,” Matthew instructed. Nikko spoke, still in Swedish, and many of the children looked back toward the nearby huts, pointing and calling out.

“I’m not getting all that,” Nikko told the others.

“Something about a witch, apparently, a dojtsa witch, whatever that is.”

Again the big man spoke, in Anglic this time. “Who but the star people would come out of the sky? Besides, my wife foretold your coming; it is she the children called a witch. And also, your force shield does not stop thoughts.”

“Let me have the microphone,” Matthew said. Nikko handed it to him and he thumbed the switch. “What do you know about force shields?” he demanded.

“Only the little your thoughts have told me, and what I observe in the children.”

“Damn it, Matt!” Mikhail said. “Don’t you see what he’s saying? The man’s a telepath! He even knew that Nikko is the only one of us that speaks Swedish!”

Matthew digested that for a few seconds, then set it aside for the time. “Who is your ruler?” he asked. “We want to talk to him.”

“The Council of Chiefs has been sent for and should be here after a while. But I am the only one of them who speaks Anglic. My name is Nils Jarnhann.”

The man sat his horse no more than six meters away, just outside the shield, and Matthew looked him over carefully. He’d stand at least 195 centimeters and mass 110 kilos. Even relaxed he gave an impression of great strength and virility, like a jungle cat. He wore soft leather breeches wrapped around his calves with strips. Short blond braids reached his burly shoulders. The thinness of his mustache and beard suggested youth, despite his physique and presence and apparent rank.

“How did you come to learn Anglic when your people don’t speak it?” Matthew asked.

“When we still lived in the north I was cast out for a killing, and wandered in countries where Anglic was spoken between those of different tongues.”

“How did you live in exile?”

“As a soldier and assassin.”

“And why did your people take you back again?”

“When they left our homeland they had need of an Yngling.”

Matthew turned to Nikko. “What’s an Ingling?”

She shrugged. “It used to mean a youth, a youngling, but that doesn’t fit the context here. It must have picked up a different meaning along the line, or a special connotation.”

Matthew switched on the microphone again. “What brings your people to this land which is claimed by the orcs?”