The Word for World is Forest

Lyubov has a headache. He tries to daydream the headache away, as Selver taught him. He can’t concentrate; he is too preoccupied with the burning of Camp Smith because “[h]e had believed the Athsheans to be incapable of killing men, his kind or their kind” (63). He goes to a meeting at HQ. Davidson is already there. The room is filled with people from the ship Shackleton. Several of them are new to him, “non-Terran humans” (65), including a hairy Cetian named Mr. Or and a Hainishman named Mr. Lepennon.

Commander Yung gives a debrief of the destruction of Smith Camp and opens the floor up for those present to question Davidson, who returned to the camp the day after the attacks and set fires to drive creechies out of hiding. Mr. Lepennon asks him if the camp staff—the creechies—were content. And if so, why would they revolt? Davidson says they were well treated and were never required to perform unusual work.

Lyubov asks Davidson if he is aware that Selver—who they know as Sam—had a grudge against him. Davidson says he did not know. This audacity surprises Lyubov, who says, “‘Since his wife died immediately subsequent to sexual intercourse with you, he holds you responsible for her death. You didn’t know that?’” (70). He asks how Davidson landed when Selver knocked him down and the four Athsheans were standing over him. He asks if Selver sang a song while they were holding him down. Davidson again says he does not know. Lyubov tells the group that the Athsheans “use a kind of ritualized singing to replace physical combat” (72). The males will often hold aggressive singing matches in which they try to outbellow one another, but in addition to releasing aggression, the vocal battles are treated as an art form. If Selver sang over Davidson, Lyubov believes it is because he preferred “the bloodless victory” (73). Lyubov attributes the lack of rape and murder among the Athsheans to their singing methods.

Lyubov also describes the Athsheans as a “static, stable, uniform society. They have no history. Perfectly integrated, and wholly progressive. You might say that like the forest they live in, they’ve attained a climax state. But I don’t mean to imply that they’ve incapable of adaptation” (74). Initially, the Athsheans recognized that the yumens were men like them but larger. Now he believes that the Athsheans have adapted to their mistreatment by the yumens by deciding that they are not from the same species. Once they classify them as animals, they are able to kill them.

Colonel Dongh says that he does not consider the creechies to be human, despite scientific evidence that they all, as Or says, “come from the same, original Hainish stock” (76). Davidson says he does not know whether to consider the planet’s natives human or not. Or then asks him why he would have sex with Selver’s wife if he thought her to be only an animal.

The Commander interrupts to say that their purpose is not just to deliver to the girls, but also to “give the government an ansible. That is, an ICD transmitter” (77). He asks Mr. Or to explain the ansible’s purpose, since his people invented it. Or says that the ansible allows for immediate transmission of messages, with no lag for space time, and that “‘[t]his is as important to us as an interstellar species, as speech itself was to us earlier in our evolution. It’ll have the same effect: to make a society possible’” (79).

Lepennon says that he and Or left Earth twenty-seven years ago as representatives of the governments of Tau II and Hain. While they were en route, a League of Worlds was established and has now existed for eighteen years. He claims that he and Or are Emissaries of the Council of the League, “‘and so have certain powers and responsibilities we did not have when we left Earth’” (79).

Lyubov wonders if they are lying. But Or says that with the ansible, they will now be able to communicate with the Terran Administration to verify what he has said and that “[t]here is no longer any excuse for acting on outdated orders; for ignorance; for irresponsible autonomy” (80). Lyubov is nervous. It is not clear who is in charge now or what position an Emissary of the Council of the League of Worlds occupies in the ranking hierarchy. Lepennon says that they are there to observe. They do not have the power to command but will only report. Lyubov worries that after they leave, the natives will be targeted by Davidson, who will want revenge for the massacre. The Shackleton will return in three years, and Lyubov believes that by then the Athsheans will be extinct. As the conference ends, Lyubov whispers to Lepennon: “‘You must tell the League to do something to save the forests, the forest people’” (87). Lepennon says nothing.