A girl linguist's voice joined the muted hive that was buzzing anew in Derron's helmet.  She provided him with a rather halting translation of part of the debate among The People, though she was ordered away after only a couple of minutes to work with another operator.  From Operations voices in the background, Derron overheard that so far two berserkers had been destroyed, but ten slave-units had been lost.  And the appearance of the slave-units tended to terrify and scatter the people they were supposed to be protecting.

"Tell them to try pretending they're crippled," Derron advised the Section.  "All right,  I'll do without a linguist if I have to.  That may be better than getting a word or two wrong somewhere.  But how about dropping me some of those self-defense weapons to hand out to these people?  It'll be too late for that when the berserker comes back."  The machine he had fought must have gotten side-tracked following some old trail or pursuing some other band, but he had to assume that it would be back.  "And drop me grenades, not arrows.  There's only one man in this band who has a bow."  Inside the slave's big torso was a chamber into which small items could be sent from the future as required.

"The self-defense weapons are being prepared," someone assured him.  "It's dangerous to hand 'em out until they're absolutely needed, though.  Suppose they decide to use 'em on the slave?  Or blow each other up by mistake?"

"I think it'll be more dangerous to wait too long. You can at least drop them now."

"They're being prepared."

The way things were going today, Derron didn't know whether he could believe that or not.  The People seemed still to be discussing the slave-unit, while he kept it sitting in what he hoped was a patient and trustworthy attitude.  According to the brief translation Derron had heard, the tall young man with the bow slung over his shoulder was the one arguing in favor of helping the "stone-man."

At last this man with the bow, who seemed to be the nearest thing to a chief that these people had, succeeded in talking one of the other men into helping him.  Together they approached one of the saplings that had been splintered in the fight and twisted it loose from its stump, hacking through the tough strings of bark with a hand ax.  Then the two bold men brought the sapling right up to the edge of the poison-digger's trap.  Gripping it by the branches, they pushed the splintered end down to where the slave could grasp it.  Derron caught hold with both hands.

The two menpulled, then grunted with surprise at the weight they felt.  The boy who had been up in the tree came to help.