Quofum by Alan Dean Foster Page B

head. “It missed me. They have short swings. The only damage is to my dignity.”
    The thranx responded with a whistle of sympathy. “What scientist in the field holds on to that for more than a day?”
    “Well, this is just great.” Having seen off the intruders, Haviti returned to the center of the craft and slumped down onto the top of a half-full storage purifier that was busily rendering river water safe for humanx consumption. “Less than a week we’ve been here and not only have we managed to bungle contact with all four native sentient species, but we may have made outright enemies of at least one.”
    “We don’t know that.” Valnadireb preferred to view the circumstances, as well as the corpse of the dead hardshell, in a more positive light. “Our initial contacts were brief and inconclusive, it is true, but except for that which occurred between myself, Tiare, and the fuzzies, nothing resembling open hostility ensued.” Both truhands indicated the alien body lying in the center of the boat. “Until now, of course. While regrettable, this incident may have no lasting effects. Even if the two hardshells who returned to the river survive the attentions of patrolling fuzzies and stick-jellies, by the time they return to their own people they may remember very little of this particular encounter. Even if they do, it is very likely that their story will not be believed. Such generalized aggression may be unexceptional among their kind and in no wise a clarion call to wider hostilities. We know nothing of their culture.”
    “We know that they like to fight stick-jellies and fuzzies,” N’kosi countered. He gestured at the lumpy form lying motionless on the deck. “If nothing else, we have acquired our first specimen of a second of the four dominant social species.”
    Having recovered fully from his embarrassing fall, Tellenberg had moved to the starboard gunwale and was studying the efforts of the surviving fuzzies and stick-jellies to put out the raging fires that had been set by their assailants. Despite the fragmented nature of the attempt, sheer determination and persistence found them having some success.
    You had to admire them, he mused. You also had to admire the ruthlessness and fighting abilities of the spikers and the hardshells.
    “What makes you think there are four?” He put the question to the thranx without taking his gaze from the dying conflagration on shore.
    Pivoting on all six legs, Valnadireb came close. “We have encountered four. We have documented four. Do you have some reason, Esra, to dispute these findings?”
    “No, no.” Turning, he looked down into the thranx’s jewel-like, gold-hued, crimson-banded compound eyes. “What I meant was, how do we know there aren’t more?” Raising his gaze, he met the curious stares of his other colleagues.
    Haviti wrinkled her nose. “How could there be more than four separate and distinct sentient species on one world?”
    Tellenberg shrugged. “Eight is no more improbable a number to encounter than four. Or ten. Or twenty. From an evolutionary standpoint, my friends, and aside from its astronomical peculiarities, this world is seriously out of whack. I’ll find a way to render that in proper biological terminology once we’re back in camp.”
    No one argued with him. It was possible, even likely, that similar thoughts had occurred to them independently. Tellenberg was just the first to give voice to the scientifically tantalizing. That did not stop them, nor mitigate their eagerness, as they set about dissecting the dead hardshell on the way downriver—it having been mutually agreed that for the immediate future formal second contact with the fuzzies and the stick-jellies would best be deferred.
    Among the many characteristics of sentient culture that the history of xenology had determined to be universal was the axiom that irrespective of species, a people who had just suffered massive death and destruction was rarely in the