“The human race,” Donno said.
“Very well then, the human race is laying claim to this territory and doesn’t wish people like us—descendants of the Seven Eves—to be here at all.”
“Not without our remit. That is correct.”
“What is the territory you are laying exclusive claim to?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“This valley? This mountain range? All of Beringia?”
“The entire land surface of the planet Earth,” Donno said, shaking his head and uttering the words very clearly and slowly. “Your people abandoned it. It’s ours.”
That was a bit of a conversation stopper, at least where Ty was concerned. Einstein, however, blurted out the inevitable adolescent-Ivyn question: “What about the oceans?”
“You will have to take that up with the Pingers,” Donno said.
“Pingers?”
Donno looked at Einstein as if he were some kind of imbecile.
“The sea people,” said the Cyc. “They live—” but Donno raised his hand again and she went silent.
So did everyone else. Which was how Donno seemed to prefer it. He now had a few moments’ leisure to look about. He nodded toward Kath Two. “Is she sick?”
“No,” Ty said. “Her kind sometimes sleep for long periods.”
“Moiran, judging from her coloration?”
Ty was dying to know how the Diggers had come by their knowledge, rudimentary as it was, of the Spacers. But this was no time to ask. “Yes,” he said.
Donno was now literally counting on his fingers. He got as far as five. “The two fighters?”
Ty nodded. “The big one is Teklan.”
“And the ape-man?”
“A subrace of the A?dans, called a Neoander.”
Donno nodded. “We have seen his like in the west.” He extended two more fingers. “So in your group was one of each race—and?” He nodded at Einstein. “A spare Ivyn, for when the old one died?”
“A local guide,” Ty corrected him. “We were a Seven, yes. That is a grouping that we create on special occasions, when we need a formal delegation.” What he said next was guesswork, but he needn’t worry about being contradicted at this point. “The old Ivyn who is now dead—Doc, we called him—suspected that you were down here. He came down to investigate, and he did so as part of a Seven. Befitting its importance.”
This seemed to throw Donno off balance. Clearly he was not the sort of man who much cared what other people thought. But it had now entered his mind for the first time that the events of some hours ago could be seen in another light: one that was hardly flattering to the Diggers. He could see this but he was hardly receptive to it. “No doubt you see us as a bunch of savages. You do not even view your incursion on our lands as the aggressive act that it was. Coming here with your armed warriors, your glider, your Thor.”
“Donno, how many Spacers do you imagine are on the surface of Earth right now?”
“We are not ignorant. We know they are all over what you call Beringia.”
“They are all over the world,” Ty said.
“This, if it is true, does not change our position,” Donno said.
“Your positions are strong and firmly stated,” Ty said, after a longish interval during which he simply could not think of anything to say. “May I ask then why it is you have come here to parley with me?”
“Your warriors are taking ours,” Donno complained.
“As one who knows something of warriors,” Ty said, “you can well imagine how this all looks to them.” He closed his hand around the chain and gave it a little shake.
Again, it was the wrong thing to say. The mere suggestion that it might be possible to look at a thing from more than one point of view was infuriating to these people. Ty needed to get that fact through his head.
“I understand that we are in a state of war,” Donno said, “and that there are prisoners of war on both sides.”
“How would you like to proceed, then?”
“Nonviolently,” Donno said, “which is more than I can say of some of the others.” He nodded across to the other campfire.
“I await your proposal, then,” Ty said.
“We await yours,” Donno spat back, and turned to stalk away so abruptly that the Cyc had to scamper out of his path. The big galoot with the spear likewise turned to go. The Cyc was a little slower to disengage, however. She stayed where she was, maintaining visual lock on Einstein’s epicanthic folds.
“What’s your name?” Einstein asked her.
“Sonar Taxlaw!” shouted Donno. “Come!”
“Now you know it,” she said. She turned away with some reluctance and scurried down toward the glider. But even after she had rejoined her kin around their campfire, they could see her face, a pale moon aimed in their direction.
“Where to start?” Ty asked.
He was really talking to himself. But it seemed to jar Einstein out of a reverie. Einstein sighed and somehow pulled himself together. “‘We have seen his like in the west.’ Donno said that. About Bard.”