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special friends to them. To them you made the promise that you would keep the podars.”
    â€œToo long to keep the podars . The podars rot away.”
    â€œYou had the barn to store them in.”
    â€œOne podar rots. Soon there are two podars rotten. And then a hundred podars rotten. The barn is no good to keep them. No place is any good to keep them.”
    â€œBut we—those others showed you what to do. You go through the podars and throw away the rotten ones. That way you keep the other podars good.”
    The native shrugged. “Too hard to do. Takes too long.”
    â€œBut not all the podars rotted. Surely you have some left.”
    The creature spread his hands. “We have bad seasons, friend. Too little rain, too much. It never comes out right. Our crop is always bad.”
    â€œBut we have brought things to trade you for the podars . Many things you need. We had great trouble bringing them. We came from far away. It took us long to come.”
    â€œToo bad,” the native said. “No podars . As you can see, we are very poor.”
    â€œBut where have all the podars gone?”
    â€œWe,” the man said stubbornly, “don’t grow podars any more. We changed the podars into another crop. Too much bad luck with podars.”
    â€œBut those plants out in the fields?”
    â€œWe do not call them podars.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what you call them. Are they podars or are they not?”
    â€œWe do not grow the podars.”
    Sheridan turned on his heel and walked back to the robots. “No soap,” he said. “Something’s happened here. They gave me a poor-mouth story and finally, as a clincher, said they don’t grow podars any more.”
    â€œBut there are fields of podars,” declared Abraham. “If the data’s right, they’ve actually increased their acreage. I checked as I was coming in. They’re growing more right now than they ever grew before.”
    â€œI know,” said Sheridan. “It makes no sense at all. Hezekiah, maybe you should give base a call and find what’s going on.”
    â€œOne thing,” Abraham pointed out. “What about this trade agreement that we have with them? Has it any force?”
    Sheridan shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe we can wave it in their faces, just to see what happens. It might serve as a sort of psychological wedge a little later on, once we get them softened up a bit.”
    â€œ If we get them softened up.”
    â€œThis is our first day and this is only one village.”
    â€œYou don’t think we could use the agreement as a club?”
    â€œLook, Abe, I’m not a lawyer, and we don’t have a lawyer transmog along with us for a damned good reason—there isn’t any legal setup whatever on this planet. But let’s say we could haul them into a galactic court. Who signed for the planet? Some natives we picked as its representatives, not the natives themselves; their signing couldn’t bind anything or anybody. The whole business of drawing up a contract was nothing but an impressive ceremony without any legal basis—it was just meant to awe the natives into doing business with us.”
    â€œBut the second expedition must have figured it would work.”
    â€œWell, sure. The Garsonians have a considerable sense of morality—individually and as families. Can we make that sense of morality extend to bigger groups? That’s our problem.”
    â€œThat means we have to figure out an angle,” said Abraham. “At least for this one village.”
    â€œIf it’s just this village,” declared Sheridan, “we can let them sit and wait. We can get along without it.”
    But it wasn’t just one village. It was all the rest of them, as well.
    Hezekiah brought the news.
    â€œNapoleon says everyone is having trouble,” he announced. “No one sold a thing. From what he said,