Six Blind Men & an Alien by Mike Resnick Page A

joining the village, but decided his voice would carry more authority if he was not a member of any particular village.
        They met the next day, and the day after that, and after that. They built the enclosure in such a spot that it could not be seen from more than a few hundred feet away, and then they practiced running the pigs up to it. The boys who had been chosen to be the runners were drilled over and over again.
        And then came the day they had been waiting for. A squad of German soldiers visited the mountain and demanded their porcine tax. Village after village explained that a disease had wiped out all the pigs.
        The Germans entered every hut, certain that the villagers were hiding pigs-and finally one of the Germans called the others over to a spot just beyond the village.
        "Look!" he said, pointing at a pile of dung. "That is fresh ! These people are lying to us!"
        From his vantage point on the glacier B’narr saw that the Germans had reached the mountain. That didn’t surprise him. The whole plan depended on their coming sooner or later. But then he heard the rifle shots. That surprised him. There was a shot every ten minutes, from mid-morning to late afternoon.
        He decided to make sure the Germans were gone before he appeared, so he remained where he was until sunrise, when he made his way down to the Goru’s village. To his surprise he found all the leaders waiting for him.
        "How did it go?" he asked.
        "While you hid on your glacier, the Germans killed one child from every village!" snarled Goru, his face reflecting his rage and hatred.
        "We listened to you instead of to Bira," said the tall leader. "We will never make that mistake again."
        "What happened?" demanded B’narr.
        "What happened is our fault for listening to a creature that pretends to be a man. Instead, let me tell you what will happen. You will return to the snow and ice, and you will live out your life there. If any of us ever sees you below the snow after today, we will kill you, slowly and painfully."
        "But how did the Germans find out?" insisted B’narr. "Didn’t you move all the pigs?"
        "I will count to fifty," said the tall leader. "If you are still here when I am finished, I will kill you myself."
        B’narr looked from one face to another, and could find nothing but hatred and fury. He turned and began running up to the ice cap. There were no sounds of pursuit, and he slowed to a fast walk after a few minutes.
        As he reached the tree line, he found Bira waiting for him.
        "I told them you were a devil," he said. "In the end my magic was stronger than yours."
        "Magic had nothing to do with it," said B’narr wearily.
        "We will call it magic when I speak to my people," answered Bira. A nasty smile crossed his face. "Whether it was magic or something else that moved the pig’s dung to where the Germans could not help but find it, the result was the same."
        "But why?" asked B’narr, truly puzzled.
        "Because I am the mundumugu , and this mountain and this tribe do not need another."
        B’narr was about to answer when armed warriors approached at a run, and he had to retreat to the glacier.
        The next morning he was beginning to move past the tree line to go hunting for his breakfast when he found himself facing three young men armed with spears.
        "Go back, creature!" yelled one of them. "You are not allowed here!"
        He retreated to the glacier, and walked totally around it over the next five days. Whenever he thought he had gone far enough and tried to go down past the tree line he was confronted by armed warriors.
        He didn’t give up. He circled the entire glacier regularly, but every time he tried to climb down off it he found his path barred.
        Weak from hunger and exhaustion, he finally returned to his cave. This cannot be my fault , he