The excavation showed that the fossilized plesiosaur had been holding a placard which read, "End Nuclear Testing Now". That was nothing unusual.
But then came a discovery of something which did intrigue Kin Arad: a flat earth.
Jago Jalo, a man who should have died a thousand years ago, lures the human Kin, the kung Marco Farfarer and the fifty-six-syllable-named shand better known as Silver, to undertake a voyage of discovery with him.
The rewards must be beyond their dreams ... or nightmares.
He didn't look mad, but they never did.
* * *
The design was simple, but then there were more than two hundred other tests for the authenticity of Company scrip. Nobody forged it. it was widely advertised that any hypothetical forgers would spend all the years that had been fraudulently manufactured in the Company vaults, passing them in novel and unpleasant ways.
* * *
"We did not want them to die," she said at last. "We told them about weather patterns."
"You didn't tell them that the universe is unfair. They were too young to be properly paranoid."
* * *
Death was Nature's way of telling you to slow down.
* * *
"Doesn't anyone ever mention species these days?"
* * *
It was true, but what did it prove? That men were slightly stupid and very egocentric? Aliens already knew that.
* * *
Kin lay in her bunk, thinking. She thought of how attitudes to aliens got stereotypes. Kung were paranoid, bloodthirsty and superstitious. Shandi were calm, bloodthirsty and sometimes ate people. Shandi and kung thought humans were bloodthirsty, foolhardy and proud. Everyone thought Ehfts were funny, and no one knew what Ehfts thought about anyone.
* * *
"Some humans used to believe the world was flat and rested on the backs of four elephants," said Silver.
"Yeah?" said Kin. "What did the elephants stand on?"
"A giant turtle, swimming endlessly through space."
Kin tasted the idea. "Stupid," she said. "What did the turtle breathe?"
"Search me. It's your racial myth."
* * *
"Planet?" asked Marco. "A planet landed on the ship?"
"I know it's usually the other way around..."
* * *
He was smaller than most of the crew. She wondered how he exerted his authority -- until she saw the shrewd glint in his eye, even now, that said here was the master of the unsporting kick and the kidney punch.
* * *
Marco: "I triumph!"
Kin: "Yes, Marco."
Marco: "They declare war on us! They sent dragons! But They reckoned without me!"
Kin: "Yes, Marco."
Marco: "Together They conspire against me yet I overcome! ... You just think I'm a paranoid kung, don't you."
Kin: "Since you mention it..."
* * *
"Marco should be the one to go on, of course. I am big enough to scare predators, and you can survive by engaging any male humans in sexual congress if necessary."
* * *
The two Christos priests were standing apart from the crowd, chanting in Latin.
"What're they saying?" said Kin.
Silver listened for a moment. "It's an invitation to Christos to allow us to repair his planets and sun or alternately to strike us down if, as they suspect, we're servants of Saitan."
"Nice of them."
* * *
"This is Silver again. Do not despair."
"I am not despairing," said Kin. "I am just getting good and mad."
* * *
"Silver," said Kin, "how do you say 'I'm nearly freezing to death'?"
Silver translated. Kin tapped Lothar on the shoulder and repeated the phrase, as best she could. ... There was a comment, almost inaudible, from the senior priest.
"He said, 'Soon you will both be warmed by the fires of Hell,'" murmured Silver helpfully.
"Great, I've only been here a few hours and already I've made friends."
* * *
"Saitan has a lot of relatives in these parts," said Kin.
"It is a strange religion. Everyone is evil until proven holy."
* * *
"I'll say this for these Christers, they're brave. This one hit out at Marco. Picture the result."
"Dead?"
"I persuaded Marco that the man was more useful alive. He just broke both his arms."
* * *
"What's plan C, then?"
There was a sigh. "Marco intends to land and hack and slash at everyone."
"That's a good plan," said Kin.
"He is mad. The Norsemen have a term, berserker. It was designed for Marco."
* * *
Silver: "There is no doubt among the populace that this is either the return of the Christ or the end of the disc or both. ... The town is divided between travelers hastening to the advent and those fleeing from it."
Kin: "What are they fleeing for?"
Silver: "He's a very choosy god."
* * *
"How did you find out about this?"
There was a pause. At last Silver said, "Promise me that if we get back home you won't reveal the information-gathering system we, uh, evolved. I could be subject to severe disciplinary action from the all-planet committee on anthroprological research procedures."
"My lips are sealed," promised Kin.
"Marco slugs a likely-looking subject, flies him over here and knocks the shit out of him until I've heard enough."
Kin grinned. "It's not like drawing circles in the sand, is it?"
"Much more efficient, though."
* * *
"I GATHER YOU HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE EXPLOSION THAT KNOCKED ME OUT OF THE AIR THREE DAYS AGO?"
"Uh. Yes." Kin thought quickly. "There was a flying chariot, you see--"
"A THREE-THOUSAND-TONNE STARSHIP," Sphandor agreed.
* * *
"I AM SPHANDOR! I SPREAD ARTHRITIS, THE BONEACHE, AND AGUE OF THE NECK. I BLIGHT CROPS AND CAUSE ABORTION IN CATTLE. THEY SAY I FOUL STREAMS AND HURL THE LIGHTNING STONE."
"And do you do all that?"
"I SUPPOSE SO. I CERTAINLY ALWAYS INTEND TO."
* * *
"This one is a mobile disaster area," said Kin.
"Is it wise to let him loose, then?"
"We might learn a lot from him. If you've got any scruples, remember Marco's just killed half a dozen men and you've been involved in the molestation of research subjects."
Silver considered this. "True," she said, and splintered the bars with a backhand swipe. "If we're baddies, let's be bad."
* * *
Sphandor regarded them sullenly.
"YOU MEAN TO KILL ME," he whimpered.
"Not unless you intend to do us harm," said Kin.
"THE SKINNY ONE, THE KALI-ARMED, HE WISHES TO KILL ME."
"That's just his general wish to the universe in general, not specific to you," said Kin.
* * *
When the carpet was finally flying level again there was silence. Finally Marco said flatly: "Tell the lunatic if he attempts that again I will kill him."
Kin released her numb fingers from their grip on the patterend pile.
"Be diplomatic," she added. "Be tactful. Say that if he does it again I will maim him."
* * *
"My Master Abu Ibn Infra Presents His Compliments And Welcomes You to His Humble Abode and a Lot of Stuff Like That. If You Want to Eat, Just Tell the Table. Your Wish Is Its Command. There's a Lot of That Sort of Thing Goes On Around Here."
* * *
"Let's face it," she told herself, "how are you going to make the big heroic rescue in any case?"
On the other hand, she answered, it'll be expected of you. The races of the galaxy look toward mankind as the essential lunatic element.
* * *
"I Am Azrifel, Slave of the Lamp," said the demon in a singsong voice. "Your Wish Is My Command."
"Fetch me a doctor," said Kin thickly. The demon disappeared. There was a tiny thunderclap.
An agony later he reappeared. In his arms, kicking faintly and whimpering, was a small white-faced man in a black robe.
"Wass that?" said Kin.
"Johannes Angeleo of the University of Toleto."
* * *
She rubbed the lamp. Azrifel appeared beside her.
"Well?" he said. "What?"
"What happened to all that O Mistress stuff?" said Kin, surprised.
Marco snorted impatiently.
"All Right, Don't Get Stuffy, That Sort of Stuff Was All Right for Him -- I Gathered You Were More Democratic."
* * *
[Marco] sighed. "We have been around humans too long, you and I," he said. "We have been tainted by their madness."
"I thought you were brought up on Earth. Are you not legally human?"
"My race papers are up there in the rest of the ship. Big deal."
* * *
"You will give me a ship, but if I choose to leave the disc you won't tell me any more about it?"
YES.
"But you said I could give the orders."
YES. HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE WE WILL SHORTLY EXPERIENCE A SLIGHT MALFUNCTION IN OUR AUDITORY CIRCUITORY. IT MAY PREVENT US FROM HEARING ANY SUBSEQUENT ORDERS.
* * *
"People had always dreamed of a unified world. We thought it would be a richer one. It wasn't. It meant that the Eskimo got educated and learned cost accountancy, but it didn't mean that the German learned to hunt whales with a spear. It meant everyone learned how to press buttons, and no one remembered how to dive for pearls."
* * *
HUMANS ARE INQUISITIVE. THAT IS A FUNCTION OF THEIR HUMANITY. THE BEINGS THAT BUILT THIS UNIVERSE DID SO BECAUSE IT WAS UNTHINKABLE THAT THEY SHOULD NOT. CREATION IS NOT A THING THAT GODS DO. IT IS SOMETHING THAT THEY ARE.