A silence ensued. Pepper, trying to move noiselessly, altered his position to be on his side and draw his knees up into his stomach. Winnie the Pooh was wrong. Let them talk about people as much as ever possible. Apparently they had a very poor knowledge of them and it was therefore interesting to hear what they had to say. From out of the mouths of babes and sucklings... When people talked of themselves, they either shoot their mouths off or made you confessions. Sick of it...
"You are pretty silly in your judgments," said the Astrologer. "The gardener, for instance. I hope you realize I'm being reasonably objective so as to share the satisfaction of my friends. You enjoy planting gardens and destroying parks. Splendid. I'm with you. But be so good as to tell me what people have to do with it? What connection have those who lift their legs up against trees or those who do it another way? I sense here a certain unhealthy aestheticism. It's as if I were to operate on glands and demand for my fuller satisfaction that the patient be wrapped in a floral gown..."
"You're just cold by nature," the Gardener put in, but the Astrologer was unheeding.
"Or take yourselves," he went on. "You're forever slinging your bombs and rockets about, calculating corrections and playing about with range-finders. Aren't you indifferent whether there's people in there or not? It might be thought that you could spare a thought for your friends, me, for instance, sewing up wounds!" he spoke dreamily. "You can't imagine what that is - sewing up a really good jagged stomach wound."
"People again, people again," Winnie the Pooh said in a crushed voice. "This is the seventh night we've talked only about people. It's queer for me to talk about this but clearly some sort of link, vague as yet, but powerful, has sprung up between you and people. The nature of this link is totally obscure to me, if I don't count you, Doctor, for whom people are an essential source of satisfaction... All around, it all seems absurd to me, and in my opinion the time has come to ..."
"Dismissed!" roared Tank. "The time has not yet come." "Wh-a-at?" inquired Winnie the Pooh, at a loss. "I say the time has not come," Tank repeated. "Some, of course, are incapable of knowing whether the time has come or not, some - I don't name them - don't even know what time it is that's coming, but someone knows absolutely for certain that the time will inevitably come when it will not only be permissible but necessary to open fire on the people in the buildings! He who does not fire is an enemy! A criminal! Annihilate! That clear? Repeat!"
"I can guess at something like that," put in the Astrologer in an unexpectedly soft tone. "Jagged wounds. Gas gangrene... Third degree radiation burns."
"They're all ghosts," sighed doll Jeanne. "What a bore! How miserable!"
"Since there's no stopping your talk of people," said Winnie the Pooh, "let us try to elucidate the nature of this bond. Let us attempt to reason logically..." "One of the two," said a new voice, measured and dull. "If the bond mentioned exists, then either they or we are the dominant."
"Stupidity," said the Astrologer. "What's this 'or'? Of course we are."
"What's 'dominant'?" asked doll Jeanne, crestfallen.
"In the present context, 'dominant' means prevailing," the lackluster voice elucidated. "As far as the actual phrasing of the question goes, it's not stupid, it's the only true phrasing, if we intend to argue logically."
A pause. Everybody, seemingly, expected a continuation. At last Winnie the Pooh could stand it no longer and asked: "Well?"
"I am not clear if you intend to argue logically." "Yes, yes, we do," a general murmur. "In that case, accepting the existence of a bond as axiomatic, either they are for us, or you are for them. If they are for us and they hinder your work according to the laws of your nature, they should be eliminated, like any other interference. If you are for them, but that situation does not please you, they must similarly be eliminated like any other reason for an unsatisfactory situation. That is all I can say on the subject of your conversation."
Nobody said a word; from inside the containers came noises of scraping and clicking, just as if enormous toys were settling down to sleep, weary of talking. A general uneasiness hung in the air, as when a group of people who have let themselves go in conversation, not sparing anyone in their urge for eloquence, suddenly realize they've gone too far. "Humidity's rising a bit," creaked the Astrologer in a subdued voice. "I've noticed that for ages," squeaked doll Jeanne. "Its verv nice: new figures..."
"Don't know why, my input's acting up," mumbled Winnie the Pooh. "Gardener, you haven't got a spare twenty-two volt accumulator, have you?"
