West of the Sun. Edgar Pangborn
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and came forward steadily until she was only a few feet from the woman of the twenty-first century; mask-faced, she met Dorothy’s smile with a long scrutiny. Now and then the green eyes shifted to study the clearing, the lifeboat, the quiet shapes of Paul and Wright. And Mijok. Perhaps she stared longest at Mijok, but by some heavy discipline her face refused to tell of anything but dignity and caution.
She spoke at last. It was complex, in a tone like the piping of a tree frog. There were pauses, studied inflections, no gestures: her seven-fingered hands hung limp against the blue grass skirt. The closing words seemed to have a note of questioning and of sternness; she waited.
Dorothy’s contralto was startlingly deep in contrast: “Darling, I would like to know where you picked up that perfectly adorable wrap-around, only I don’t think it would suit me. I’m, to put it frankly, a shade too hippy for such. In case you’re wondering, I’m a female sample of man”—she touched herself and pointed to the pygmy lady—”man—”
“Oh!” Wright whispered. “Good girl, good—”
“—and it does seem to me us girls ought to stick together, because”—she held out the locket—”well, just because. And anyway look: I have only ten toes, fastened on to the ends of my feet, and if I had more, Heaven knows (just count ’em and see how each grows!) I’d have trouble in keeping them neat. Pome. There now, sweetie pie, please take it, huh?” And she opened the locket—Paul remembering in lessening panic how much the unknown portrait did resemble her—and held it face out to the woman of Lucifer. A tiny palm came up dubiously; Dorothy placed the locket in it. “It won’t bite, baby.” The pygmy woman turned it about, puzzling at the hinge. Dorothy stooped to demonstrate the mechanism a few times. “I’m Dorothy, by the way, more widely known as the Dope, which is a title of uncommon distinction among my people, achieved only after long study of the art of saying the right thing at the wrong time, burning the bacon, and preserving at all times an air of sweet and addled dignity—Dorothy.…” She indicated herself plainly and pointed, with questioning eyebrows.
The tree-frog voice, with no sternness, but a hint of friendliness: “Tor-o-thee…?” She imitated Dorothy’s motions. “Abro Pakriaa—”
“Pakriaa.”
“Abro Pakriaa.” There was sternness again in that correction.
“Abro Pakriaa.…”
Wright muttered, “Royalty, I believe. Don’t dare do any coaching. Trust Dot’s instinct. Ah, here we go—”
The pygmy woman had taken off her shell necklace. She crushed the dainty blue and yellow against her upper right breast; she set it for a moment on her shining hairless skull, and then offered it. Wright sighed, shaken, “It had to work—exchange of gifts—a universal—”
When Dorothy dropped on one knee to take it, the mask relaxed for the first time in a wintry smile. Over the proud bald head went the chain of the locket, and Abro Pakriaa watched Dorothy put the necklace on—fortunately it was long, even drooping a little below Dorothy’s throat. A flutter of red hands seemed to mean that Dorothy was to stand back; another motion brought forward the woman who carried the hide, her face a chip of red stone. The hide was unrolled, and the bones placed on it. There was more intricate speech, with touching of the locket and graceful, apparently kindly waving of thin arms. Dorothy responded: “Four score and seven years ago.…” She went on to the end without mirth or hesitation, fondling the shell necklace, giving the words the power of music that belongs to them even apart from knowledge of their meaning. When she was silent, Abro Pakriaa motioned the woman with the hide to go and held up her two hands clasped together, the Chinese salutation. She waited till Dorothy had done the same and strode away, recovering her spear without a backward look, vanishing under the trees.
Dorothy collapsed in the shadow of the barrier. Tentatively she groaned: “How’m I doing?”
Wright snarled; “Suppose you know that damn bowman had an arrow trained on you the whole time?”
She glanced at him, lips quivering. “I was kind of aware of it.”
“Can I,” said Paul, “touch the hand that touched the hand—”
“Oh no. I ain’ gonna ’sociate with no common scum no mo’.”
Mijok stared in wonder at their sudden paroxysms of hysterical laughter. He rumbled in doubt. Then the contagion caught him. Whatever his own interpretation might be, he was bellowing, hammering his chest, rolling over on the moss and scattering handfuls of it while he roared.
He did not sober until he saw Wright drawing pictures on the earth—three stylized but obvious human figures, one small, one medium-sized, one large. Only the middle one had five fingers. Wright gouged a circle around all three. He said, “C’m’on, Mijok—language lesson.”
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