"Damn pint-size Napoleon with four teats and a grass skirt."
"Lookee: that settlement south of Lake Argo is thirty miles long. Equivalent of two hundred villages, to Pakriaa's six. Say twenty thousand warriors who got their pride hurt a year ago when the crash of Argo swamped their fleet and scared the pants off 'em. They'll have replaced the fleet. They'll come overland too. Lantis, Queen of the World."
"If they do"—Sears' heavy voice had the tremor that he himself hated—"the firearms should be at least one ace in the hole."
"Ye—es. Ed's pistol helped in our one bad scrape with Pakriaa herself. But it was his smashing the idol that stalled 'em, not the gun."
"Poor little Abro Pakriaa!" Sears spoke with tenderness. "If ever a lady was pulled seven ways from Sunday! Wants our way of life, doesn't want it. Wants to grasp Chris' ethics, doesn't want to. Afraid of Ed's strength and aggressiveness, admires 'em too, oh my, yes. Tries to believe the god Ismar died or never lived—but can't, quite."
"And can't understand why our women are gentle—Dorothy anyway——"
"Nan's toughening up is conscious effort, Paul. Superficial. She's made herself hunt, shoot well, act hard, because her brain tells her she should. If we could only find something to restring her violin! I think she's given up hope of it: nothing I've found so far has been any good. She doesn't see that Dorothy does more for us by remaining the person she always was.... You know, when I go alone to Pak's village, I just set. Even the witches have got used to me, not that they wouldn't gut me if they could."
"Jocko"—Paul looked away—"you told me once you were scared all the time. When you go there alone—or when you tame the olifants for that matter—are you sort of grasping the nettle? And does it work?"
"Don't ask me, friend. Because I don't exactly know. I was never a brave man." Brown eyes misted in what was partly laughter. "Oy, the witches! There's the big enemy in the battle for Pakriaa's mind. Chris may claim they aren't real witch doctors, just advisers, low-grade magicians. I'm not so sure. Priests of Ismar, and when Ed clobbered the idol Pakriaa did consider having 'em all burned alive. Point is, she didn't do it. They gnaw away in the dark at all we try to teach her. That proposed bonfire, by the way, is gossip passed on to me in confidence by Abara."
"There's a dear little man."