Maybe she thought that her demands would be much more powerful if they were delivered personally. Issuing from a scarylooking creature with its ratcage-body, its . brutal face, and its lack of brainpan, the demands would have an impact that could not be matched by messages relayed via Garth.

But then the Gaol probably did not think of themselves as frighteningly alien and horrible. On the other hand, they must have observed that their appearance did nauseate the bipedal species they had encountered. See a Gaol; feel like throwing up.

It was an anthropocentric reaction, but it was natural.

The Gaol would not wish to destroy the Imago's host except as a last resort. Did the Gaol believe that this situation demanded that Tappy be killed? He did not think so. It had not developed to the point where they would say, "Screw it!" and then kill her.

Not yet, anyway, though it could lead to that.

It was not likely that the negotiator's boat was armed or equipped with an atom bomb. The Gaol would not have to depend upon that to kill Tappy if the commander decided that that was the only solution to their problem. Missiles launched from the orbiting ships could do that work much more effectively and with no warning at all.

He told Candy and Tappy what he had been thinking.

"The Gaol boat might be equipped with remote-controlled machinery," he said. "Controlled either by the negotiator or, more likely, from the spaceship by the commander. She might have ideas about abducting you, Tappy. I don't know how, but I'm thinking of something like paralyzing gas sprayed from it, then the boat opening up and scooping you into it and taking off. The negotiator would be sacrificed, but they wouldn't care."

They agreed, and so did the Integrator when they explained what they had been talking about. Jack told Candy to send a messa e through Garth.

"The boat must land at least half a mile from us," Jack said.

"The negotiator will walk to us. Just after he leaves the boat, it will ascend. When it's at least a hundred miles above the surface, the negotiator can start walking toward us. Tell the commander that you have radar capabilities and can ascertain that the boat rises to the agreed-upon altitude. And you'll know immediately if it starts to go below that height."

Garth whistled. Candy said, "He says he doesn't have longrange radar."

"The commander probably doesn't know that. Even if she checks up on the specs for Garth's type of cyborg and they don't indicate he has radar, she can't be sure we haven't installed the equipment in him."

The airboat had returned. It was as packed with passengers as during the first haul. They spilled out, the number of males being the same as the number of females. Now that he thought of it, the first load had been an equal division of the sexes. That was strange because the warriors who had attacked the ship had been mostly male.

The women and men were covered with war paint, black, white, and red stripes. Interspersed among these were stars and triple crosses. The women bore crimson six-pointed stars, and the men bore blue five-pointed stars. The triple crosses were all purple edged with yellow. The foreheads of both sexes were marked with three concentric circles. The outer circle was white; the next circle, black; the inner circle, blue. Around the women's navels were three similarly colored concentric circles. The navels were painted a bright rosy red.

The men's penises were decorated with three red wavy lines radiating from the longitudinal axis. The same number of wavy lines, colored blue, spread out from each side of the women's vaginas and across the upper thighs.

The second boatload had brought brushes and paint pots with them. They proceeded at once, in the midst of much honking and gesticulating, to paint the first boatload.

What were they up to? Jack thought. They certainly were not going to attack the Gaol negotiator. Probably, they were getting ready for some sort of magical ceremony. Though they were far advanced in biological science and technology, they were otherwise primitives. They believed in magic. That, at least, was the impression he had gotten during his brief but intense experiences with them.

But he could be mistaken.

Garth whistled. When he was done, Candy said, "The commander agrees to your terms. Everything will be done as you wish.

The boat will land in approximately an hour."

"Ask the commander if we can get a preview of the offers that'll be made by the negotiator," Jack said. "We can think them over while we're waiting for him."

In less than a minute, the commander's reply was relayed by Candy.

"She prefers that the negotiator deliver the terms in person."

"Okay," Jack said. "We can't force her."

He wondered what the Gaol were planning. It would be nothing good for anybody in this camp and especially not for Tappy.

During the hour allotted, five more boatloads of honkers came.

The sixth was jammed with cooking utens18is and food. Jack asked Tappy to ask the Integrator about the reason for bringing in all these people. Also, she should ask him why they were all painted.

By then, the shaman had also been decorated.

Tappy, after a brief exchange with the shaman, said, "He'll only say that this is all for, uh . . ."

She cocked her head as she did so often when thinking hard.

"Uh, the best translation would be, 'for the big showdown."

"Showdown?" Jack said.

"Yes. And that's all he'll say."

"How the hell could this be a showdown? And how would he know it is?"

"He won't say anything more about it. Don't press him, Jack.

It's not the honker way. He'd be offended."

"He knows or thinks he knows much more than I do. More than you, too, right, Tappy?"

"Yes, I think so. I hope so."

Jack strode back and forth, turning and muttering to himself.

Sometimes, he believed that he was the leader, the captain, the man with the ultimate authority. The Integrator had let him make decisions and so deluded him into believing that he was the leader. But when the shaman wanted to do certain things, he just ignored Jack.

Tappy was looking even more distraught than when they had first come to this place. In fact, she seemed to be coiling in on herself. She needed consolation, moral support, assurance, and love. He started toward her to give her what she needed. Garth's whistles halted him.

He stopped and went back to Candy. By the time he got there, the cyborg had quit speaking.

The android said, "The commander says that the spaceboat will soon be in sight."

Jack went to tell Tappy and the Integrator. But the shaman was busy marshaling his people into three still-ragged concentric circles which had the rose-red throne as its center. He was honking away, and his aides were pushing and pulling their charges into their places. Everybody had a short stick with a gourd at its end.

These had come with the food and cooking utensils but had not been unloaded until a few minutes ago.

The commander, viewing this scene from her spaceship, must be as uncertain about this activity as he was, Jack thought.

Then the entire group of Latest blasted out a sustained sound.

While doing this, they looked upward and lifted their sticks and rattled the gourds with a mighty noise. Jack also gazed upward.

The spaceboat was a black dot in the blue sky. It swelled quickly and became a small needle-shaped vessel. The honkers went back to their preparations for whatever they were going to do.

JUST to make sure that the vessel would land at the distance indicated, a cross of stones had been laid out. Jack had not sent a message to this effect; he had assumed that the Gaol would figure it out. But the spaceboat settled down at a spot one hundred and eighty degrees north of the cross.