"Excuse me, Postman," said One Punch. "But I'm telling this, not you. The point is, Law-Twister, he was worried like I say about keeping the clan orderly. So he took a stone he was working on one day—the stone there, that no one but him could come near lifting—and hammered an iron rod through it to make a handhold on each side, like you see. Then he picked the stone up, carried it here, and set it down; and he made a law. The rules he'd made earlier for Clan Water Gappers were to stand as laws, themselves—as long as that stone stayed where it was. But if anyone ever came along who could pick it up all by himself and carry it as much as ten steps, then that was a sign it was time the laws should change."
Mal stared at the boulder. His hypnotraining had informed him that while Dilbians would go to any lengths to twist the truth to their own advantage, the one thing they would not stand for, in themselves or others, was an out-and-out lie. Accordingly, One Punch would probably be telling the truth about this Mighty Grappler ancestor of his. On the other hand, a chunk of granite that size must weigh at least a ton—maybe a ton and a half. Not even an outsize Dilbian could be imagined carrying something like that for ten paces. There were natural flesh-and-blood limits, even for these giant natives—or were there?
"Did anybody ever try lifting it, after that?" Mal asked.
"Hor!" snorted the Bluffer.
"Now, Law-Twister," said One Punch, almost reproachfully, "any Clan Water Gapper's got too much sense to make a fool of himself trying to do something only the Mighty Grappler had a chance of doing. That stone's never been touched from that day to this—and that's the way it should be."
"I suppose so," said Mal.
The Bluffer snorted again, in surprise. One Punch stared.
"You giving up—just like that, Law-Twister?" demanded the Bluffer.
"What? I don't understand," said Mal, confused. "We were just talking about the stone—"
"But you said you supposed that's the way it should be," said the Bluffer, outraged. "The stone there, and the laws just the way Mighty Grappler laid them down. What kind of a law-twister are you, anyway?"
"But . . ." Mal was still confused. "What's the Mighty Grappler and his stone got to do with my getting back these three Shorties that Gentle Maiden says she adopted?"
"Why, that's one of Mighty Grappler's laws—one of the ones he made and backed up with that stone!" said One Punch. "It was Mighty Grappler said that any orphans running around loose could be adopted by any single woman of the Clan, who could then name herself a protector to take care of them and her! Now, that's Clan law."
"But—" began Mal again. He had not expected to have to start arguing his case this soon. But it seemed there was no choice. "It's Clan law if you say so; and I don't have any quarrel with it. But these people Gentle Maiden's adopted aren't orphans. They're Shorties. That's why she's going to have to let them go."
"So that's the way you twist it," said One Punch, almost in a tone of satisfaction. "Figured you'd come up with something like that. So, you say they're not orphans?"
"Of course, that's what I say!" said Mal.
"Figured as much. Naturally, Gentle says they are."
"Well, I'll just have to make her understand—"
"Not her," interrupted the Bluffer.
"Naturally not her," said One Punch. "If she says they're orphans, then it's her protector you've got to straighten things out with. Gentle says `orphans,' so Iron Bender's going to be saying `orphans,' too. You and Iron Bender got to get together."
"And none of that sissy lowland stuff with swords and shields," put in the Hill Bluffer. "Just honest, man-to-man, teeth, claws, and muscle. You don't have to worry about Iron Bender going in for any of that modern stuff, Law-Twister."
"Oh?" said Mal, staring.
"Thought I'd tell you right now," said the Bluffer. "Ease your mind, in case you were wondering."
"I wasn't, actually," said Mal, numbly, still trying to make his mind believe what his ears seemed to be hearing.
"Well," said One Punch, "how about it, Postman? Law-Twister? Shall we get on down to the harness shop and you and Iron Bender can set up the details? Quite a few folks been dropping in the last few hours to see the two of you tangle. Don't think any of them ever saw a Shorty in action before. Know I never did myself. Should be real interesting."
He and the Hill Bluffer had already turned and begun to stroll down the village.
"Interesting's not the word for it," the Bluffer responded. "Seen it twice, myself, and I can tell you it's a sight to behold . . ."
He continued along, chatting cheerfully while Mal rode along helplessly on Dilbian-back, his head spinning. The log buildings got closer and closer.
"Wait—" Mal said desperately, as they entered the street running down the center of the cluster of log structures. The Bluffer and One Punch both stopped. One Punch turned to gaze up at him.
"Wait?" One Punch said. "What for?"
"I—I can't," stammered Mal, frantically searching for an excuse, and going on talking meanwhile with the first words that came to his lips. "That is, I've got my own laws to think of. Shorty laws. Responsibilities. I can't just go representing these other Shorty orphans just like that. I have to be . . . uh, briefed."
"Briefed?" The Bluffer's tongue struggled with pronunciation of the human word Mal had used.
"Yes—uh, that means I have to be given authority—like Gentle Maiden had to choose Iron Bender as her protector," said Mal. "These Shorty orphans have to agree to choose me as their law-twister. It's one of the Shorty freedoms—freedom to not be defended by a law-twister without your consent. With so much at stake here—I mean, not just what might happen to me, or Iron Bender, but what might happen to Clan Water Gap laws or Shorty laws—I need to consult with my clients, I mean those other Shorties I'm working for, before I enter into any—er—discussion with Gentle Maiden's protector."
Mal stopped speaking and waited, his heart hammering away. There was a moment of deep silence from both the Bluffer and One Punch. Then One Punch spoke to the taller Dilbian.
"Have to admit you're right, Postman," One Punch said, admiringly. "He sure can twist. You understand all that he was talking about, there?"
"Why, of course," said the Bluffer. "After all, I've had a lot to do with these Shorties. He was saying that this isn't just any little old hole-and-corner tangle between him and Iron Bender—this is a high-class hassle to decide the law; and it's got to be done right. No offense, One Punch, but you, having been in the habit of getting right down to business on the spur of the moment all those years, might not have stopped to think just how important it is not to rush matters in an important case like this."
"No offense taken, Postman," said One Punch, easily. "Though I must say maybe it's lucky you didn't know me in my younger, less full-of-wisdom days. Because it seems to me we were both maybe about to rush the Law-Twister a mite."
"Well, now," said the Bluffer. "Leaving aside that business of my luck and all that about not knowing you when you were younger, I guess I had to admit perhaps I was a little on the rushing side, myself. Anyway, Law-Twister's straightened us both out. So, what's the next thing you want to do, Law-Twister?"
"Well . . ." said Mal. He was still thinking desperately. "This being a matter that concerns the laws governing the whole Water Gap Clan, as well as Shorty laws and the stone of Mighty Grappler, we probably ought to get everyone together. I mean we ought to talk it over. It might well turn out to be this is something that ought to be settled not by a fight but in—"
Mal had not expected the Dilbians to have a word for it; but he was wrong. His hypnotraining threw the proper Dilbian sounds up for his tongue to utter.
"—court," he wound up.
"Court? Can't have a court, Law-Twister," put in the Bluffer, reprovingly. "Can't have a Clan court without a Grandfather to decide things."
"Too bad, in a way," said One Punch with a sigh. "We'd all like to see a real Law-Twister Shorty at work in a real court situation, twisting a
nd slickering around from one argument to the next. But, just as the Bluffer says, Twister, we've got no Grandfather yet. Won't have until the next Clan meeting."
"When's that?" asked Mal, hastily.
"Couple of weeks," said One Punch. "Be glad to wait around a couple of weeks far as all of us here're concerned; but those Shorty orphans of Gentle Maiden's are getting pretty hungry and even a mite thirsty. Seems they won't eat anything she gives them; and they even don't seem to like to drink the well water, much. Gentle figures they won't settle down until they get it straight that they're adopted and not going home again. So she wants you and Iron Bender to settle it right now—and, of course, since she's a member of the Clan, the Clan backs her up on that."
"Won't eat or drink? Where are they?" asked Mal.
"At Gentle's house," said One Punch. "She's got them locked up there so they can't run back to that box they came down in and fly away back into the sky. Real motherly instincts in that girl, if I do say so myself who's her real grandpa. That, and looks, too. Can't understand why no young buck's snapped her up before this—"
"You understand, all right, One Punch," interrupted an incredibly deep bass voice; and there shouldered through the crowd a darkly brown-haired Dilbian, taller than any of the crowd around him. The speaker was shorter by half a head than the Hill Bluffer—the postman seemed to have the advantage in height on every other native Mal had seen—but this newcomer towered over everyone else and he was a walking mass of muscle, easily outweighing the Bluffer.
"You understand, all right," he repeated, stopping before the Bluffer and Mal. "Folks'd laugh their heads off at any man who'd offer to take a girl as tough-minded as Gentle, to wife—that is, unless he had to. Then, maybe he'd find it was worth it. But do it on his own? Pride's pride . . . Hello there, Postman. This is the Law-Twister Shorty?"
"It's him," said the Bluffer.
"Why he's no bigger'n those other little Shorties," said the deep-voiced Dilbian, peering over the Bluffer's shoulder at Mal.
"You go thinking size is all there is to a Shorty, you're going to be surprised," said the Bluffer. "Along with the Streamside Terror and Bone Breaker, as I recollect. Twister, this here's Gentle's protector and the Clan Water Gap harnessmaker, Iron Bender."
"Uh—pleased to meet you," said Mal.
"Pleased to meet you, Law-Twister," rumbled Iron Bender. "That is, I'm pleased now; and I hope I go on being pleased. I'm a plain, simple man, Law-Twister. A good day's work, a good night's sleep, four good meals a day, and I'm satisfied. You wouldn't find me mixed up in fancy doings like this by choice. I'd have nothing to do with this if Gentle hadn't named me her protector. But right's right. She did; and I am, like it or not."
"I know how you feel," said Mal, hastily. "I was actually going someplace else when the Shorties here had me come see about this situation. I hadn't planned on it at all."
"Well, well," said Iron Bender, deeply, "you, too, eh?"
He sighed heavily.
"That's the way things go, nowdays, though," he said. "A plain simple man can't hardly do a day's work in peace without some maiden or someone coming to him for protection. So they got you, too, eh? Well, well—life's life, and a man can't do much about it. You're not a bad little Shorty at all. I'm going to be real sorry to tear your head off—which of course I'm going to do, since I figure I probably could have done the same to Bone Breaker or the Streamside Terror, if it'd ever happened to come to that. Not that I'm a boastful man; but true's true."
He sighed again.
"So," he said, flexing his huge arms, "if you'll light down from your perch on the postman, there, I'll get to it. I've got a long day's work back at the harness shop, anyway; and daylight's daylight—"
"But fair's fair," broke in Mal, hastily. The Iron Bender lowered his massive, brown-furred hands, looking puzzled.
"Fair's fair?" he echoed.
"You heard him, harnessmaker!" snapped the Bluffer, bristling. "No offense, but there's more to something like this than punching holes in leather. Nothing I'd like to see more than for you to try—just try—to tear the head off a Shorty like Law-Twister here, since I've seen what a Shorty can do when he really gets his dander up. But like the Twister himself pointed out, this is not just a happy hassle—this is serious business involving Clan laws and Shorty laws and lots of other things. We were just discussing it when you came up. Law-Twister was saying maybe something like this should be held up until the next Clan meeting when you elect a Grandfather, so's it could be decided by a legal Clan Water Gap court in full session."
"Court—" Iron Bender was beginning when he was interrupted.
"We will not wait for any court to settle who gets my orphans!" cried a new voice and the black-furred form of Gentle Maiden shoved through the crowd to join them. "When there's no Clan Grandfather to rule, the Clan goes by law and custom. Law and custom says my protector's got to take care of me, and I've got to take care of the little ones I adopted. And I'm not letting them suffer for two weeks before they realize they're settling down with me. The law says I don't have to and no man's going to make me try—"
"Now, hold on there just a minute, Gentle," rumbled Iron Bender. "Guess maybe I'm the one man in this Clan, or between here and Humrog Peak for that matter, who could make you try and do something whether you wanted it or not, if he wanted to. Not that I'm saying I'm going to, now. But you just remember that while I'm your named protector, it doesn't mean I'm going to let you order me around like you do other folk—any more than I ever did."
He turned back to the Bluffer, Mal and One Punch.
"Right's right," he said. "Now, what's all this about a court?"
Neither the Bluffer nor One Punch answered immediately—and, abruptly, Mal realized it was up to him to do the explaining.
"Well, as I was pointing out to the postman and One Punch," he began, rapidly, "there's a lot at stake, here. I mean, we Shorties have laws, too; and one of them is that you don't have to be represented by a law-twister not your choice. I haven't talked to these Shorties you and Gentle claim are orphans, so I don't have their word on going ahead with anything on their behalf. I can't do anything important until I have that word of theirs. What if we—er—tangled, and it turned out they didn't mean to name me to do anything for them, after all? Here you, a regular named protector of a maiden according to your Clan laws, as laid down by Mighty Grappler, would have been hassling with someone who didn't have a shred of right to fight you. And here, too, I'd have been tangling without a shred of lawful reason for it, to back me up. What we need to do is study the situation. I need to talk to the Shorties you say are orphans—"
"No!" cried Gentle Maiden. "He's not to come near my little orphans and get them all upset, even more than they are now—"
"Hold on, now, Granddaughter," interposed One Punch. "We all can see how the Twister here's twisting and slipping around like the clever little Shorty he is, trying to get things his way. But he's got a point there when he talks about Clan Water Gap putting up a named protector, and then that protector turns out to have gotten into a hassle with someone with no authority at all. Why they'd be laughing at our Clan all up and down the mountains. Worse yet, what if that protector should lose—"
"Lose?" snorted Iron Bender, with all the geniality of a grizzly abruptly wakened from his long winter's nap.
"That's right, harnessmaker. Lose!" snarled the Hill Bluffer. "Guess there just might be a real man not too far away from you at this moment who's pretty sure you would lose—and handily!"
Suddenly, the two of them were standing nose to nose. Mal became abruptly aware that he was still seated in the saddle arrangement on the Bluffer's back and that, in case of trouble between the two big Dilbians, it would not be easy for him to get down in a hurry.
"I'll tell you what, Postman," Iron Bender was growling. "Why don't you and I just step out beyond the houses, here, where there's a little more open space—"
"Stop it!" snapped Gentle Maiden. "Stop it right
now, Iron Bender! You've got no right to go fighting anybody for your own private pleasure when you're still my protector. What if something happened, and you weren't able to protect me and mine the way you should after that?"
"Maiden's right," said One Punch, sharply. "It's Clan honor and decency at stake here, not just your feelings, Bender. Now, as I was saying, Law-Twister here's been doing some fine talking and twisting, and he's come up with a real point. It's as much a matter to us if he's a real Shorty-type protector to those orphans Maiden adopted, as it is to him and the other Shorties—"
His voice became mild. He turned to the crowd and spread his hands, modestly.
"Of course, I'm no real Grandfather," he said. "Some might think I wouldn't stand a chance to be the one you'll pick at the next Clan meeting. Of course, some might think I would, too—but it's hardly for me to say. Only, speaking as a man who might be named a Grandfather someday, I'd say Gentle Maiden really ought to let Law-Twister check with those three orphans to see if they want him to talk or hassle, for them."
A bass-voiced murmur of agreement rose from the surrounding crowd, which by this time had grown to a respectable size. For the first time since he had said farewell to Ambassador Joshua Guy, Mal felt his spirits begin to rise. For the first time, he seemed to be getting some control over the events which had been hurrying him along like a chip swirling downstream in the current of a fast river. Maybe, if he had a little luck, now—
"Duty's duty, I guess," rumbled Iron Bender at just this moment. "All right, then, Law-Twister—now, stop your arguing, Gentle, it's no use—you can see your fellow Shorties. They're at Gentle's place, last but one on the left-hand side of the street, here."
"Show you the way, myself, Postman," said One Punch.
The Clan elder led off, limping, and the crowd broke up as the Hill Bluffer followed him. Iron Bender went off in the opposite direction, but Gentle Maiden tagged along with the postman, Mal, and her grandfather, muttering to herself.