This generous provision came about because the enemy considered the San Francisco compound something of a showplace, an experimental laboratory for improving relations with the conquered. A steady stream of tourists, sociologists, politicians and religious leaders poured into the San Francisco skyport from the mechanized home world of the Almost-men. They came to satisfy their curiosity, to purchase tourist relics, to examine and sometimes criticize the occupation policy.
Frequently, when Lanny was hunting in the forest, he saw Almost-men who were recent arrivals in the skyport. Usually they floated above the trees in their individual, degravitized, force-field capsules, watching the hunt and eagerly recording the activity with their expensive cameras. Sometimes they whipped up enough courage to descend to the forest trails and talk to their captives.
Several times Lanny was interviewed by the enemy, and slowly he began to flesh out a more realistic definition of the Almost-men. They were no longer a clear-cut symbol for something he hated, but suddenly more human and more understandable. They were physically weak, just like the older survivors in the treaty settlements. They were timid and unsure of themselves. They were hopelessly caught in a mire of pretty words, which they seemed to believe themselves. And without their machines they were helpless.
After Lanny and his brother had been in the San Francisco area for nearly two weeks, they were invited to a formal session of the local resistance council, where they were accepted as new citizens of the community. The delegates met at night in the rubble of the old city. A narrow passage tunneled through the ruins to an underground room which had once been the vault of a bank and had, therefore, survived the bombing and the slashing fire of the energy guns.
Gill did not stay with his brother in the rear of the vault. Instead he joined the young hotheads who formed the war party in the local council. At home Gill had dominated the same element.
The men in every treaty area were split between two points of view. One group wanted to organize an immediate attack upon the invader, in spite of the inequality in arms. The others counciled caution, until they had the strength to strike a real blow to free the Earth.
Since men had no weapons and no metals from which to make them, the obvious basis for any successful attack had to be a scheme for seizing arms from the enemy. "We can only destroy the Almost-men if we use their own machines." Again and again the San Francisco war party repeated that fact; it seemed an argument so self-evident that it was beyond any rational challenge. "The machines have no intelligence, no sense of values; they will obey us just as readily as they obey the enemy."
"More so." Gill spoke clear and loud, in crisp self-confidence. "I do not believe the enemy knows how to feel the structure of matter."
This statement created a minor sensation. The heads of the delegates turned slowly toward Gill. Gill was smiling, his mane of blond hair shimmering like gold in the flickering light. Lanny felt, as always, a tremendous admiration for his brother. Gill was so sure of himself, so certain that he was right. Gill's mind would never have been plagued by shadowy fears he couldn't understand.