He thought she had an exit for him. He sprang to her side.
"I-I didn"t want you to come," she wept.
There was a singular pause in the clangings and clashings of weapons on the floor. Then one man popped up and hurled a knife. The clang of its fall was a very lonely one. Don Loris fairly howled at him.
"Idiot! Think of the Lady Fani!"
The Lady Fani suddenly smiled tremulously.
"Wonderful!" she said. "They don"t dare do anything while you"re as close to me as this!"
"Do you suppose," asked Hoddan, "I could count on that?"
"I"m certain of it!" said Fani. "And I think you"d better."
"Then, excuse me," said Hoddan with great politeness. He swung her up and over his shoulder. With a stunpistol in his free hand he headed down the hall.
"Outside," she said zestfully, "get out the side door and turn left, and n.o.body can jump down on your neck. Then left again to the gate."
He obeyed. Now and again he got in a pot-shot with his pistol. Don Loris had turned the castle into a very pretty trap. The Lady Fain said plaintively: "This is terribly undignified, and I can"t see where we"re going. Where are we now?"
"Almost at the gate," panted Hoddan. "At it, now." He swung out of the ma.s.sive entrance to Don Loris"
stronghold. "I"ll put you down now."
"I wouldn"t," said the Lady Fani. "I think you"d better make for the s.p.a.ceboat exactly as we are."
Again Hoddan obeyed, racing across the open ground. Howls of fury followed him. It was evidently the opinion of the castle that the Lady Fani was to be abducted in the place of the seven returned spearmen.
Hoddan, breathing hard, reached the s.p.a.ceboat. He put Fani down and said anxiously: "You"re all right? I"m very much in your debt! I was in a spot!" Then he nodded toward the castle.
"They"re upset, aren"t they? They must think I mean to kidnap you."
The Lady Fani beamed.
"It would be terrible if you did," she said hopefully. "I couldn"t do a thing to stop you! And a successful public abduction"s a legal marriage, on Darth! Wouldn"t it be terrible?"
Hoddan mopped his face and patted her rea.s.suringly on the shoulder.
"Don"t worry!" he said warmly. "You just got me out of an awful fix! You"re my friend! And anyhow I"m going to marry a girl on Walden, named Nedda. Goodbye, Fani! Keep clear of the rocket blast."
He went into the boat"s port, turned to smile paternally back at her, and shut the port behind him.
Seconds later the s.p.a.ceboat took off. It left behind clouds of rocket smoke.
And, though Hoddan hadn"t the faintest idea of it, he had left behind the maddest girl in several solar systems.
Chapter 10.
It is the custom of all men, everywhere, to be obtuse where women are concerned: Hoddan went skyward in the s.p.a.ceboat with feelings of warm grat.i.tude toward the Lady Fani. He had not the slightest inkling that she had anything but the friendliest of feelings toward him.
As Hoddan drove on up and up, the sky became deep purple and then black velvet set with flecks of fire. He was relieved by the welcome he"d received earlier today from the emigrants, but he remained slightly puzzled by a very faint impression of desperation remaining. He felt very virtuous on the whole, however, and his plans for the future were specific. He"d already composed a letter to his grandfather, which he"d ask the emigrant fleet to deliver. He had another letter in mind, a form letter-practically a public-relations circular-which he hoped to whip into shape before the emigrants got too anxious to be on their way. He considered that he needed to earn a little more of their grat.i.tude so he could make everything come out even; everybody being satisfied and happy but himself.
For himself he antic.i.p.ated only the deep satisfaction of accomplishment. He"d wanted to do great things since he was a small boy. He"d gone to Walden in the hope of achievement. There, of course, he failed because in a free economy, industrialists consider that freedom is the privilege of being stupid without penalty. But Hoddan now believed himself in the fascinating situation of having knowledge and abilities which were needed by other people.
It was only when he"d made contact with the fleet, and was in the act of maneuvering toward a boat-blister on the liner he"d brought back, that doubts again a.s.sailed him. He had done a few things-accomplished little. He"d devised a broadcast-power receptor and a microwave projector and he"d turned a Lawlor drive into a ball-lightning projector and worked out a few little things like that. But the first had been invented before by somebody in the Cetis cl.u.s.ter, and the second could have been made by anybody and the third was standard practice on Zan. He still had to do something significant.
When he made fast to the liner and crawled through the tube to its hull, he was in a state of doubt which pa.s.sed very well for modesty.
The bearded old man received him in the skipper"s quarters, which Hoddan himself had occupied for a few days. He looked very weary. He seemed to have aged, in hours.
"We grow more astounded by the minute," he told Hoddan heavily, "by what you have brought us. Ten shiploads like this and we would be better equipped than we believed ourselves in the beginning. It looks as if some thousands of us will now be able to survive our colonization of the planet Thetis."
Hoddan gaped at him. The old man put his hand on Hoddan"s shoulder.
"We are grateful," he said with a pathetic attempt at warmth. "Please do not doubt that! It is only that . . .
that . . . I cannot help wishing very desperately that . . . that instead of unfamiliar tools for metal-working and machines with tapes which show pictures-I wish that even one more jungle plow had been included!"
Hoddan"s jaw dropped. The people of Colin wanted planet-subduing machinery. They wanted it so badly that they did not want anything else. They could not even see that anything else had any value at all.
Most of them could only look forward to starvation when the ships" supplies were exhausted, because not enough ground could be broken and cultivated early enough to grow food enough in time.
"Would it," asked the old man desperately, "would it be possible to exchange these useless machines for others that will be useful?"
"Let me talk to your mechanics, sir," said Hoddan unhappily. "Maybe something can be done."
He restrained himself from tearing his hair as he went to where the mechanics of the fleet looked over their new equipment. He"d come up to the fleet again to gloat and do great things for people who needed him and knew it. But he faced the hopelessness of people to whom his utmost effort seemed mockery because it was so far from being enough.
He gathered together the men who"d tried to keep the fleet"s ships in working order during their flight.
They were competent men, of course. They were resolute. But now they had given up hope. Hoddan began to lecture them. They needed machines. He hadn"t brought the machines they wanted, perhaps, but he"d brought the machines to make them with. Here were automatic shapers, turret lathes, dicers. He"d brought these because they already had the raw material-the ships themselves! Even some of the junk they carried in crates was good metal, merely worn out in its present form. They could make anything they needed with what he"d brought them. For example, he"d show them how to make a lumber saw.
He showed them how to make the slender, rapier-like revolving tool with which a man stabbed a tree and cut outward with the speed of a hot knife cutting b.u.t.ter. And one could mount it so, and cut out planks and beams for temporary bridges and such constructions.
They watched, baffled. They gave no sign of hope. They did not want lumber saws. They wanted jungle-breaking machinery.
"I"ve brought you everything!" he insisted. "You"ve got a civilization, compact, on this ship! You"ve got life instead of starvation! Look at this. I"ll make a water pump to irrigate your fields!"
Before their eyes he turned out an irrigation pump on an automatic shaper. He showed them that the shaper went on, by itself, making other pumps without further instructions.
The mechanics stirred uneasily. They had watched without comprehension. Now they listened without enthusiasm. Their eyes were like those of children who watch marvels without comprehension.
He made a sledge whose runners slid on the air between themselves and whatever object would otherwise have touched them. It was practically frictionless. He made a machine to make nails. He made a power-hammer which hummed and pushed nails into any object that needed to be nailed. He made- He stopped abruptly, and sat down with his head in his hands. The people of the fleet faced so overwhelming a catastrophe that they could not see through it. They could only experience it. As their leader would have been unable to answer questions about the fleet"s predicament before he"d poured out the tale in the form it had taken in his mind, now these mechanics were unable to see ahead. They were paralyzed by the completeness of the disaster before them. They could live until the supplies of the fleet gave out. They could not grow fresh supplies without jungle-breaking machinery. They had to have jungle-breaking machinery. They could not imagine wanting anything more or less than jungle-breaking machinery.
Hoddan raised his head. The mechanics looked dully at him.
"You men do maintenance?" he asked. "You repair things when they wear out on the ship? Have you run out of some of the materials you need for repairs?"
After a long time a tired-looking man said slowly: "On the ship I come from, we"re having trouble. Our hydroponic garden keeps the air fresh, o"course.
But the water-circulation pipes are gone. Rusted through. We haven"t got any pipe to fix them with. We have to keep the water moving with buckets."
Hoddan got up. He looked about him. He hadn"t brought hydroponic piping. And there was no raw material. He took a pair of power-snips and cut away a section of wall lining. He cut it into strips. He asked the diameter of the pipe. Before their eyes he made pipe-spirally wound around a mandrel and line-welded to solidity.
"I need some of that on my ship," said another man. The bearded man said heavily: "We"ll make some and send it to the ships that need it."
"No," said Hoddan. "We"ll send the tools to make it. We can make the tools here. There must be other kinds of repairs, too. With the machines I"ve brought, we"ll make the tools to make repairs. Picture-tape machines have reels that show exactly how to do it."
It was a new idea. The mechanics had other and immediate problems beside the over-all disaster of the fleet. Pumps that did not work. Motors that heated up. They could envision the meeting of those problems, and they could envision the obtaining of jungle plows. But they couldn"t imagine anything in between. They were capable of learning how to make tools for repairs.
Hoddan taught them. In one day there were five ships being brought into better operating condition-for ultimate futility-because of what he"d brought. Two days. Three. Mechanics began to come to the liner.
Those who"d learned first, pompously pa.s.sed on what they knew. On the fourth day somebody began to use a vision-tape machine to get information on a fine point in welding. On the fifth day there were lines of men waiting to use them.
On the sixth day a mechanic on what had been a luxury pa.s.senger liner scores of years ago, asked to talk to Hoddan by s.p.a.ce-phone. He"d been working feverishly at the minor repairs he"d been unable to make for so long. To get material he pulled a crate off one of the junk machines supplied the fleet. He looked it over. He believed that if this piece were made new, and that replaced with sound metal, the machine might be usable!
Hoddan had him come to the liner which was now the flagship of the fleet. Discussion began and Hoddan began to draw diagrams. They were not clear. He drew more. Abruptly, he stared at what he"d outlined. He saw something remarkable. If one applied a perfectly well-known bit of pure-science information that n.o.body bothered with . . . He finished the diagram and a vast, soothing satisfaction came over him.
"We"ve got to get out of here!" he said. "Not enough room!"
He looked about him. Insensibly, as he talked to the first man on the fleet to show imagination, other men had gathered around. They were now absorbed.
"I think," said Hoddan, "that we can make an electronic field that"ll soften the cement.i.te between the crystals of steel, without heating up anything else. If it works, we can use plastic dies! And then that useless junk you"ve got can be rebuilt."
They listened gravely, nodding as he talked. They did not quite understand everything, but they had the habit of believing him now.
Soon Hoddan had a cold-metal die-stamper in operation. It was very large. It drew on the big ship"s drive-unit for power. One put a rough ma.s.s of steel in place between plastic dies. One turned on the power. In a tenth of a second the steel was soft as putty. Then it stiffened and was warm. But in that tenth of a second it had been shaped with precision.
It took two days to duplicate the jungle plow Hoddan had first been shown, in new, sound metal. But after the first one worked triumphantly, they made forty of each part at a time and turned out enough jungle plows for the subjugation of all Thetis" forests.
One day Hoddan waked from a cat nap with a diagram in his head. He drew it, half-asleep, and later looked and found that his unconscious mind had designed a power-supply system which made Walden"s look rather primitive.
During the first six days Hoddan did not sleep to speak of, and after that he merely cat-napped when he could. But he finally agreed with the emigrants" leader-now no longer fierce, but fiercely triumphant-that he thought theycould go on. And he would ask a favor. He propped his eyelids open with his fingers and wrote the letter to his grandfather that he"d composed in his mind in the liner on Krim.
He managed to make one copy, unaddressed, of the public-relations letter that he"d worked out at the same time. He put it through a facsimile machine and managed to address each of fifty copies. Then he yawned uncontrollably.
He still yawned when he went to take leave of the leader of the people of Colin. That person regarded him with warm eyes.
"I think everything"s all right," said Hoddan exhaustedly. "You"ve got a dozen machine-shops and they"re multiplying themselves, and you"ve got some enthusiastic mechanics, now, who"re drinking in the vision-tape stuff and finding out more than they guessed there ever was. And they"re thinking, now and then, for themselves. I think you"ll make out."
The bearded man said humbly: "I have waited until you said all was well. Will you come with us?"
"No-o-o," said Hoddan. He yawned again. "I"ve got to work here. There"s an obligation I have to meet."
"It must be very admirable work," said the old man wistfully. "I wish we had some young men like you among us."
"You have," said Hoddan. "They"ll be giving you trouble presently."
The old man shook his head, looking at Hoddan very affectionately.
"We will deliver your letters," he said warmly. "First to Krim, and then to Walden. Then we will go on and let down your letter and gift to your grandfather on Zan. Then we will go on toward Thetis. Our mechanics will work at building machines while we are in overdrive. But also they will build new tool shops and train new mechanics, so that every so often we will need to come out of overdrive to transfer the tools and the men to new ships."
Hoddan nodded exhaustedly. This was right.
"So," said the old man contentedly, "we will simply make those transfers in orbit about the planets for which we have your letters. You will pardon us if we only let down your letters, and do not visit those planets? We have prejudices."
"Perfectly satisfactory," said Hoddan.
"The mechanics you have trained," said the old man proudly, "have made a little ship ready for you. It is not much larger than your s.p.a.ceboat, but it is fit for travel between suns, which will be convenient for your work. I hope you will accept it. There is even a tiny tool shop on it!"
Hoddan would have been more touched if he hadn"t known about it. But one of the men entrusted with the job had needed his advice. He knew what he was getting. It was the s.p.a.ceyacht he"d used before, refurbished and fitted with everything the emigrants could provide.
He affected great surprise and expressed unfeigned appreciation. Barely an hour later he transferred to it with the s.p.a.ceboat in tow. He watched the emigrant fleet swing out to emptiness and resume its valiant journey. But it was not a hopeless journey, now. In fact, the colony on Thetis ought to start out better equipped than most settled planets.
And he went to sleep. He"d nothing urgent to do, except allow a certain amount of time pa.s.s before he did anything. He was exhausted. He slept the clock round, and waked and ate sluggishly, and went back to sleep again. On the whole, the cosmos did not notice the difference. Stars flamed in emptiness, and planets rotated sedately. Comets flung out gossamer veils or retracted them, and s.p.a.celiners went about upon their lawful occasions.
When he waked again he was rested, and he reviewed all his actions and his situation. It appeared that matters promised fairly well on the emigrant fleet now gone forever. They would remember Hoddan with affection for a year or so, and dimly after that. But settling a new world would be enthralling and important work. n.o.body"d think of him at all, after a certain length of time. But he had to think of an obligation he"d a.s.sumed on their account.
He considered his own affairs. He"d told Fani he was going to marry Nedda. The way things looked, that was no longer so probable. Of course, in a year or two, or a few years, he might be out from under the obligations he now considered due. In time even the Waldenian government would realize that death rays didn"t exist, and a lawyer might be able to clear things for his return to Walden. But Nedda was a nice girl . . .
He frowned. That was it. She was a remarkably nice girl. But Hoddan suddenly doubted if she were a delightful one. He found himself questioning that she was exactly and perfectly what his long-cherished ambitions described. He tried to imagine spending his declining years with Nedda. He couldn"t quite picture it as exciting. She did tend to be a little insipid.
Presently, gloomy and a trifle dogged about it, he brought the s.p.a.ceboat around to the modernized boat-port of the yacht. He got into it, leaving the yacht in orbit. He headed down toward Darth. Now that he"d rested, he had work to do which could not be neglected. To carry out that work, he needed a crew able and willing to pa.s.s for pirates for a pirate"s pay. And there were innumerable castles on Darth, with quite as many shifty n.o.blemen, and certainly no fewer plunder-hungry Darthian gentlemen hanging around them. But Don Loris" castle had one real advantage and one which existed only in Hoddan"s mind.
Don Loris" retainers knew that Hoddan had led their companions to loot. Large loot. He"d have less trouble and more enthusiastic support from Don Loris" retainers than any other. This was true.
The illusion was that the Lady Fani was his firm personal friend with no nonsense about her. This was a very great mistake.
He landed for the fourth time outside Don Loris" castle. This time he had no booty-laden men to march to the castle and act as heralds of his presence. The s.p.a.ceboat"s vision screens showed Don Loris"
stronghold as squat, immense, dark and menacing. Banners flew from its turrets, their colors bright in the ruddy light of near-sunset. The gate remained closed. For a long time there was no sign that his landing had been noted. Then there was movement on the battlements, and a figure began to descend outside the wall. It was lowered to the ground by a long rope.
It reached the ground and shook itself. It marched toward the s.p.a.ceboat through the red and nearly level rays of the dying sun. Hoddan watched with a frown on his face. This wasn"t a retainer of Don Loris". It a.s.suredly wasn"t Fani. He couldn"t even make out its gender until the figure was very near.
Then he looked astonished. It was his old friend Derec, arrived on Darth a long while since in the s.p.a.ceboat Hoddan had been using ever since. Derec had been his boon companion in the days when he expected to become rich by splendid exploits in electronics. Derec was also the character who"d conscientiously told the cops on Hoddan, when they found his power-receptor sneaked into a Mid-Continent station and a stray corpse coincidentally outside.