"Besides," Neil Faraday said, standing and holding his vast and filthy sombrero in front of him, "they never steal all our children." He spoke in a frightened let's-be-reasonable tone that set Tian's teeth on edge. It was this counsel he feared above all others. Its deadly-false call to reason.
One of the Manni, this one younger and beardless, uttered a sharp and contemptuous laugh. "Ah, one saved out of every two! And that make it all right, does it? God bless thee!" He might have said more, but Henchick clamped a gnarled hand on the young man's arm. The young one said no more, but he didn't lower his head submissively, either. His eyes were hot, his lips a thin white line.
"I don't mean it's right," Neil said. He had begun to spin his sombrero in a way that made Tian feel a litde dizzy. "But we have to face the realities, don't we? Aye. And they don't take em all. Why my daughter, Georgina, she's just as apt and canny - "
Tar, and yer son George is a great empty-headed galoot," Ben Slightman said. Slightman was Eisenhart's foreman, and he did not suffer fools lightly. He took off his spectacles, wiped them with a bandanna, and set them back on his face. "I seen him settin on the steps in front of Tooky's when I rode down-street. Seen him very well. Him and some others equally empty-brained."
"But - "
"I know," Slightman said. "It's a hard decision. Some empty-brained's maybe better than all dead." He paused. "Or all taken instead of just half."
Cries of Hear him and Say thankee as Ben Slightman sat down.
"They always leave us enough to go on with, don't they?" asked a smallhold farmer whose place was just west of Tian's, near the edge of the Calla. His name was Louis Haycox, and he spoke in a musing, bitter tone of voice. Below his mustache, his lips curved in a smile that didn't have much humor in it. "We won't kill our children," he said, looking at the Manni. "All God's grace to ye, gentlemen, but I don't believe even you could do so, came it right down to the killin-floor. Or not all of ye. We can't pull up bag and baggage and go west - or in any other direction - because we leave our farms behind. They'd burn us out, all right, and come after the children just the same. They need em, gods know why.
"It always comes back to the same thing: we're farmers, most of us. Strong when our hands are in the soil, weak when they ain't. I got two kiddies of my own, four years old, and I love em both well. Should hate to lose either. But I'd give one to keep the other. And my farm." Murmurs of agreement met this. "What other choice do we have? I say this: it would be the world's worst mistake to anger the Wolves. Unless, of course, we can stand against them. If 'twere possible, I'd stand. But I just don't see how it is."
Tian felt his heart shrivel with each of Haycox's words. How much of his thunder had the man stolen? Gods and the Man Jesus!
Wayne Overholser got to his feet. He was Calla Bryn Sturgis's most successful farmer, and had a vast sloping belly to prove it. "Hear me, I beg."
"We say thankee-sai," they murmured.
"Tell you what we're going to do," he said, looking around. "What we always done, that's what. Do any of you want to talk about standing against the Wolves? Are any of you that mad? With what? Spears and rocks, a few bows and bahs? Maybe four rusty old sof calibers like that?" He jerked a thumb toward Eisenhart's rifle.
"Don't be making fun of my shooting-iron, son," Eisenhart said, but he was smiling ruefully.
"They'll come and they'll take the children," Overholser said, looking around. "Some of em. Then they'll leave us alone again for a generation or even longer. So it is, so it has been, and I say leave it alone."
Disapproving rumbles rose at this, but Overholser waited them out.
"Twenty-three years or twenty-four, it don't matter," he said when they were quiet again. "Either way it's a long time. A long time of peace . Could be you've forgotten a few things, folks. One is that children are like any other crop. God always sends more. I know that sounds hard. But it's how we've lived and how we have to go on."
Tian didn't wait for any of the stock responses. If they went any further down this road, any chance he might have to turn them would be lost. He raised the opopanax feather and said, "Hear what I say! Would ye hear, I beg!"
"Thankee-sai," they responded. Overholser was looking at Tian distrustfully.
And you're right to look at me so , the farmer thought. For I've had enough of such cowardly common sense, so I have .
"Wayne Overholser is a smart man and a successful man, Tian said, "and I hate to speak against his position for those reasons. And for another, as well: he's old enough to be my Da'."
" 'Ware he ain't your Da'," Garrett Strong's only farmhand -
Rossiter, his name was - called out, and there was general laughter. Even Overholser smiled at this jest.
"Son, if ye truly hate to speak agin me, don't ye do it," Overholser said. He continued to smile, but only with his mouth.