The Right to Arm Bears by Gordon R. Dickson

felt like standing on tiptoe and shouting to make himself heard.
    One Man overflowed the massive chair in which he sat; and the greying hair on the top of his head almost brushed against a polished, six-foot staff of hardwood laid crosswise on pegs driven into the wall six feet above the floor, behind him. His massive forearms and great pawlike hands were laid out on the small table in front of him, like swollen clubs of bone and muscle. Attendant Dilbians stood respectfully about him. He looked like some overstuffed, barbaric potentate. Yet his large, grey eyes, meeting John's suddenly and sharply as John and the Bluffer came to stand before him, were alight with an unusual quality of penetrating intelligence.
    It was the look John had noticed back home on earth, in the eyes of human politicians of statesman level.
    "This here's the Half-Pint Posted, One Man," said the Hill Bluffer, as the Dilbians around passed forth a bench for him and John to sit on. The Bluffer sat down. John climbed up to sit beside him.
    "Welcome, Half-Pint," rumbled One Man. His voice was so deep with its chest tones that it sounded like a great drum sounding somewhere off in the forest. "This is the moment we've all been waiting for."
     

CHAPTER 10
    "You've been waiting for me?" John stared at the big Dilbian.
    "To be sure," said One Man. "No Shorty has ever been a guest under this roof before." He bent his head with solemn dignity in John's direction. It was all very pompous and empty-sounding; but John got the sudden clear conviction that One Man's first words had been plainly intended to give a double meaning. What was it? A warning? John flicked his eyes about as much as he could without actually turning his head away to look; but he saw nothing but unusually well-mannered Dilbian faces. Tark- ay and Boy Is She Built were still not in evidence.
    "It's a pleasure to be here," John was saying, meanwhile, automatically.
    "You're my guest under this roof," said One Man. "For now and at any time in the future, if you come back."
    Again, there was that impression of a double meaning. John was completely baffled as to what there was in what One Man said, or possibly in the way he said it, that was giving him the hint of some undercover message. Also, why would the giant Dilbian be doing such a thing? He undoubtedly did not know John from Adam, or any other Shorty.
    "Has the Bluffer told you about me?" One Man was asking.
    "Well, not much—"
    It's probably just as well." The enormous head nodded mildly. "The past is the past; and I'm an old man dreaming in my chair, here . . ."
    John just bet he was. From what he had seen of Dilbians, they did not accord the sort of respect he was witnessing to any ancient hulk, no matter how venerable.
    "They call him One Man, Half-Pint," put in the Bluffer, "because he once held blood feud all alone—being an orphan—with a whole clan. And won!"
    "Ah, yes. The old days," rumbled One Man, with a faraway look in his eyes.
    "One time," said the Bluffer, "five of them caught him on a trail where there wasn't any chance to get away. He killed them all."
    "Luck was with me, of course," said One Man modestly. "Well, well, I don't want to bring up past exploits. It'll be more polite to talk about my guest. Tell me, Half-Pint," the grey eyes suddenly became penetrating, zeroing in on John, "what are you Shorties doing here, anyway?"
    John blinked.
    "Well," he said, "I'm here looking for—er—Greasy Face, myself."
    "Of course." One Man nodded benignly. "But what brought her, and the others?" His eyes went dreamily away from John out over the room. "There must be some plan, you'd think." He looked quizzically back at John. "Nobody asked you all to come here, you know."
    "Well, no," said John. He felt definitely at a loss. The Diplomatic Service had people like Joshua Guy trained to explain the reasons for human expansion into space. He summoned up what he could remember of his high school civics; and tried to present this