Free Spacepaw by Gordon R. Dickson Page B

spite of its design, creaked alarmingly underneath him as his weight settled upon it. He sighed heavily. “You wouldn’t think it to look at me now, would you, Pick-and-Shovel? But I wasn’t always the decrepit shell of a man you see before you. Once—years ago—I was the champion Lowland wrestler.”
    “Long ago?” echoed Bill, somewhat suspiciously. He was waking up, automatically, remembering Dilbian verbal ploys. The unkind suspicion began to kindle in his mind that More Jam was protesting his weakness and age a bit too much to be truthful. He remembered the lightness and quickness with which the rotund Dilbian had spun about on his toes as Bill entered the room. If More Jam could still move that mass of flesh he called a body with that much speed and agility, he could hardly be quite as decrepit and ancient as he claimed.
    Not only that, thought Bill, watching the native now through narrowed eyes, but Bill’s experiences on Dilbia so far had begun to breed in him a healthy tendency to take a large grain of salt with anything one of them claimed about himself.
    “Tell me,” Bill said now, becoming once more uncomfortably conscious of the iciness of the boards under his bare feet, “what did you want to see me about?”
    More Jam sighed again—if possible, even more sadly than he had managed to sigh before.
    “It’s about that daughter of mine, Sweet Thing,” he answered heavily. “The apple of my eye, and the burden of my declining years. But why don’t you pull up a bench, Pick-and-Shovel, and we can go into this matter in detail?”
    “Well—all right,” said Bill. “But if you wait a moment or two, I’d like to get some clothes on.”
    “Clothes?” said More Jam, looking genuinely surprised. “Oh, those contraptions you Shorties cover yourselves up with. You and the Fatties. Never could understand that—but go ahead, don’t mind me. I’ll just wait here until you’re ready.”
    “Thanks. Won’t be a minute,” said Bill gratefully.
    He ducked back through the door and down the hall back into his bedroom, where he proceeded to get the rest of his clothing on. Now at least dressed and shod—he returned to the reception room where More Jam was waiting.
    Before he had fully traversed the hall, and long before he had opened the door to the reception room, a booming of Dilbian voices informed him that More Jam was no longer alone. Even with this warning, however, he was not prepared for the sight that greeted his eyes as he stepped back into that room. Two more Dilbians had appeared. One of them was the Hill Bluffer. Another was a Dilbian with grayish-black, rather singed-looking hair on his forearms, who was fully as large as Bone Breaker. It was not, thought Bill as he stepped into the room without being noticed at all by the three natives, that any of them were larger than he might have expected. It was just that all three of them together seemed to fill the reception room well past the overcrowding point. Not only this, but the sound of their three voices, all talking at once, was deafening.
    “There he is!” said the Hill Bluffer proudly, being the first to notice him. “Pick-and-Shovel, meet Flat Fingers—the blacksmith in the village here. The one I was telling you about.”
    “That him, hey?” boomed the blacksmith in a decidedly hoarse voice. He squinted down at Bill. “Why if I was to make him a regular blade, it’d be bigger than he was! And a shield—why if I was to make him a shield and it fell over on top of him, he’d plumb disappear!”
    “You too, huh?” roared the Bluffer, making Bill’s ears ring. “Didn’t you ever hear about the Shorty that took the Streamside Terror? Didn’t I tell you about him?”
    “I heard. And you told me several times.” Flat Fingers rubbed his bearlike nose thoughtfully. “Still and all, it stands to reason. I say a regulation sword and shield’s too big for him. Who’s the expert here, you or me? I’ve been shoeing horses and