Only then had he spoken to her of getting back-to have her suggest that he remain permanently as "mother" for his people. (The root word translated as "mother" is used for every position of authority in the Venerian speech; the modifiers and the context give the word its current meaning-)
The proposal left Oscar temporarily speechless. "I didn't know what to say next," he confessed later. "From her point of view she was honoring me. If I turned it down, it might offend her and crab the whole deal." ';
"Well, how did you talk your way out of it?" Tex wanted j to know. "Or did you?" |
"I think so. I explained as diplomatically as possible that I was too young for the honor and that I was acting as 'mother only because Thurlow was laid up and that, in any case, my 'great mother of many had other work which I was obliged, by custom, to carry out."
"I guess that held her."
"I think she just filed it away as a point to negotiate. The Little People are great negotiators; you'll have to come to New Auckland some time and listen to the proceedings of a mixed court."
"Keep to the point," suggested Matt
"That is to the point-they don't fight; they just argue until somebody gives in. Anyhow, I told her that we had to get Thurlow back where he could get surgical attention. She understood that all right and expressed regret for the tenth time that her own little girls couldn't do the trick. But she had a suggestion for curing the boss."
"Yes?" demanded Matt. "What was it?" Matt had appointed himself Thurlow's caretaker, working with the amphibian healers who now had him as a professional responsibility. He had taught them to take his pulse and to watch his respiration; now there was always one of the gentle creatures x squatting on the end of Thurlow's couch, watching him with grave eyes. They seemed genuinely distressed at not being able to help him; the lieutenant had remained in a semi-coma, coming out of it enough occasionally that it had been possible to feed him and give him water, but never saying anything that the cadets could understand. Matt found that the little nurses were quite unsqueamish about feeding a helpless person; they accepted offensive necessities with the same gallantry as a human nurse.
But Thurlow, while he did not die, did not get any better.