"It's light enough to their eyes," Oscar answered. f
"Natch," agreed Tex, "but a fat lot of good that does me. My eyes don't see infra-red." ;
"Then pick up your big feet."
They were taken to another large room, not the entrance hall, for it contained no pool of water. An amphibian, the same who had viewed them and ordered them taken away on their arrival, sat on a raised platform at the far end of the room. Only Oscar recognized her as such; to the others she looked like the rest.
Oscar quickened his pace and drew ahead of his escort "Greetings, thou old and wise mother of many."
She sat up and looked at him steadily. The room was very quiet. On every side the little folk waited, looking first from the earthlings to their chief executive, then back again. Matt felt that somehow the nature of her answer would show them their fate.
"Greetings." She had chucked the ball back to Oscar by refusing to assign him any title at all, good or bad. "Thou sought speech with me. Thou may speak."
"What manner of city is thine? Have I, perhaps, journeyed so far that manners are no longer observed?" The Venerian word meant much more than "manners"; it referred to the entire obligatory code of custom by which the older and stronger looked out for the weaker and younger.
The entire audience stirred. Matt wondered if Oscar had overplayed his hand. The expression of the leader changed but Matt had no way of reading it. "My city and my daughters live ever by custom-" She used a more inclusive term, embracing tabus and other required acts, as well as the law of assistance, "-and I have never before heard it suggested that we fail in performance."
"I hear thee, gracious mother of many, but thy words confuse me. We come, my 'sisters' and I, seeking shelter and help for ourselves and our 'mother' who is gravely ill. I myself am injured and am unable to protect my younger 'sisters.' What have we received in thy house? Thou hast deprived us of our freedom; our 'mother' lies unattended and failing. Indeed we have not even been granted the common decency of personal rooms in which to eat."